I first started blogging last February. Before then I didn’t even know what a blog was. Having being diagnosed with lung cancer, and with my future looking pretty bleak, someone suggested I should write a blog. My wife Barbara being something of a computer techy, set me up and I have been blogging away ever since. To date almost 17,000 people have logged onto my blog and I have made friends and established contacts with people from all over the world. Indeed the articles in Manx Tails have only come about as a result of my daily internet blog.

At first I didn’t see the point in writing down my thoughts each day. I was dying of cancer and probably didn’t have enough time left to write much of a blog. So what was the point? None-the-less I began the blog whilst feeling sorry for myself and there didn’t seem very much else I could do from a positive point of view at that time. I simply wrote each day on how I felt, and through my blogging I began to learn how to cope with lung cancer. I received emails from every part of the world from other people, some of whom had cancer themselves, some had survived it and others were in the throws of it. Whatever, we were all in the same boat so to speak. Almost one year on, I have received chemotherapy and radiotherapy and I feel like I have been to Hell and back. I have been incredibly lucky to have received such wonderful medical attention. My friends and family have given me amazing support during my ordeal and of course my wife Barbara has been a rock. Alongside all these things there has been my blog.

My blog was without doubt one of the best things I did after being diagnosed. I would put the blog right up there with chemotherapy inasmuch as the blog was largely responsible for getting my mind right. Speaking to other people in the same position and receiving all their emails wishing and praying for me, just made me want to overcome my predicament even more so. I began to feel as if I was not just fighting cancer for myself, but for everyone else as well. The chemotherapy and radiation treatment available today is fantastic. However, it is absolutely vital that you get your mind right as well. Only you yourself, and your friends and family can do this. So, here I am, having risen from the depths of despair where I languished last February, to a much brighter and more optimistic future. I didn’t have a future last February. In the beginning, my blog was mostly about cancer and how ill I was. Through the weeks and months it changed and reflected my progress. Today, I hardly ever mention cancer.

I don’t blog every day these days, just two or three times a week. At one point I thought the blog had probably served its purpose and should be brought to an end. However, when push came to shove, I couldn’t shoot the friend that had stood by me through my darkest days; The blog and the folk who read it had been an ear to bend, an eye that sobbed, a hand to hold and most of all, a friend that smiles and laughs during these much brighter days. I am of course extremely grateful for all my medical support. However, I am in no doubt at all that writing my blog and sharing my fate with people from every walk of life around the globe, has played a major part in my recovery.