March Misery Makes Maggie's Monster More Meaningful

Back in November I convinced (perhaps even cajoled) 2 of my oldest friends into joining me in the Maggie's Monster Bike & Hike. An altogether excellent sounding adventure up the Great Glen starting with a 31 mile mountain bike trail from Fort William to Fort Augustus, then a hike to Inverness. My angle was that this would be a nice way to mark the 25th anniversary of our leaving school. As a Fair-Trade evangelist, Ewan possibly leaves Finlay & I somewhat in the shade for his efforts to make the planet a better place than when he found it, but Finlay and I haven't exactly been barbecuing baby seals either, so supporting the Maggies centres fits nicely with all our philosophies.

To be honest, the appeal of our entry lay more in the challenge and the opportunity to take on a trip which we know will be rewarding in itself, but the month of March has given me plenty to think about.
I've been sick. Not terminally sick, not even uncomfortably sick 24 hours a day. Just a low level discomfort caused by a chest infection that didn't clear on it's own, then didn't respond to anti-biotics, and is now probably responding to a 2nd set of seemingly more powerful anti-biotics, which are in turn making me feel pretty average. I'm not the only person in this boat - apparently there's a lot of it going about. Certainly I know a few folk my age who have had viruses and bugs this year which have seemed to take an age (4-6 weeks generally) to clear. The thing is though, it only takes about 3 days of low level crappiness to make me forget what it was ever like to feel well - I know, I'm a whinger!

After a week of bleugh, I just want to feel better, but life is going on around me. My children need my attention, my wife needs my attention, my work needs my attention, the bills need paid, the house needs tidied, the garden needs tidied, the washing needs done, the ironing needs done. All I want to do is lie on the couch in peace, feeling sorry for myself and all I've got is a bit of a chest infection, not pneumonia, not pleurisy, not ... dare I say it and tempt fate... cancer. The scariest of words! I can't begin to imagine the difficulties someone faced with such a prognosis goes through and that's just the start of their woes, for as I say. Life doesn't stop when you're not well. Things carry on and they start to get on top of you. That's the issue that the Maggie's centres were created to address.

I hope you'll feel able to help me help those who definitely need a wee helping hand at a most horribly difficult time.

Visit our Just Giving page and spare what you can.