On Sunday the 7th of October 2018, I had what I guess you would call a life changing event.

While I was in our downstairs toilet my body decided I should have a seizure, after lots of tests and MRI scans I was told on December the 20th 2018 I had a brain tumour and I’d need to have surgery in the New Year.

I waited for three months then had an MRI scan, brain surgery followed in early April 2019 and at the end of April the Consultants told me I have Glioblastoma Multiforme Grade 4 or Stage 4 Brain Cancer, to those of you who like me aren’t medical professionals. My brain cancer is Stage 4, this means it’s a Terminal condition, so I now have a finite time left on our beautiful, if fragile planet, which means life is more precious to my family and I than it’s ever been before.

This book is a collection of things I wrote and posted online. I started writing it in mid-December 2018. Most of it is about dealing with the ups and downs of having brain cancer; there are also shorter more random bits of my thoughts as things have gone on.

I started writing in the hope it could help me come to terms with what has happened, which as you will hopefully see reading this book, it has thankfully been very successful at achieving for both my family and I.

To start with this was the main reason I wrote it, as time has gone on and more people read and contacted me, I realised I was helping others out, either coming to terms with their own issues or helping them understand things from someone in my situation. But regardless of why, it quickly became the only reason I wrote it all down and so this book was born.

I’ve had over a year now to process, understand and come to terms with what’s happening to me, in a strange way it has been far easier for me to do this than you would expect.

Don’t get me wrong, if I had the choice I’d certainly not want what I have, I’m a husband to a wonderful wife and father to two beautiful daughters, until last October I had a pretty happy life. It wasn’t perfect, we had the same dramas as every other family, we weren’t wealthy by any stretch of the imagination, but we had enough food in the fridge and our bills were always paid on time.

I would never have believed how quickly our lives would suddenly change, from happy and normal, to upside down and a catastrophic disaster in the blink of an eye. It really makes you realise what you have and how much we all should appreciate it, sadly far more than most of us do.