Keeping Well & Feeling Well

There is something about these words isn't there? Like "take care" - a funny thing to say to someone as you part - "take care" - what do you think I'm going to do, leap under a train?

Keeping Well and Feeling Well are somehow wrapped up in the language of cancer. A lot of people say that having a positive outlook is a good thing and that I am going to agree with as I am definitely trying to have that positive outlook and yet, the nearer the operation comes the more frightened and concerned I am becoming - only natural you may say but it may be three weeks away but already I am beginning to get quite nervous and touchy about it.

Keeping well and feeling well are intertwined in a way. I've said often enough that I've changed the way I eat and I've started to exercise regularly - albeit last week was just wiped out with half term and doing other stuff. I want to get better and I want to be fit again and I want to be rid of this and so changing my diet, changing my habits and living differently are all part of "My side of the bargain" I believe. The Doctors do their bit and the surgeons and the specialists can repair the damage, set a course of treatment and put in place the best possible plan for your recovery - that's what they do. It would be churlish of me to go off and do something stupid like eating the wrong things, getting on contact with potential carcinogens and to have a lifestyle that would do everything to defeat the treatment I was under.

So - I'm doing everything I can on that front.

What disturbed me the other day was those who diagnosed with cancer that CAN be treated continued to smoke, eat rubbish food, drink too much and just continue as if it didn't matter. I can't believe that you could not think - given the prognosis - to change to give yourself the best possible chance. It's a bit like that footballer who given the opportunity of a new life with a Liver transplant carried on drinking and died anyway. I really hope that I never get to feel that way about things and betray all the work and hundreds of hours of NHS time that has spared me so far.