It's back

I quite suddenly and unexpectedly find a new chapter of my life and my family’s life opening up before me. 

I am posting this on my blog partly because it seemed worthy of a little bit more than a facebook status update. However, I pondered a long while trying to decide whether to post anything. The biggest reason for that is because my kids see what I put on facebook, and they will be affected by whatever I write to update everyone else. 

The fact is, to put it bluntly, I am having a relapse of the non-hodgkins lymphoma that laid me low in 2010. This will require retreatment, more intensive this time. It's disappointing, to say the least, as the majority of people with variety of non-Hodgkins lymphoma that I had ("Diffuse Large B Cell") are cured first time around. I have some more tests to go through first, but chemotherapy treatment is currently planned to start on Monday 10th September.

On the more positive side, they seem to have picked it up earlier this time. I am functioning normally at the moment, whereas at the start of 2010 I spent almost 6 weeks in hospital and lost 20kg (3 stone) of weight before they diagnosed what was wrong. 

There will be time to reflect more deeply and to share more at later points, God willing, but for now this is news that needs some time to sink in. Life for my family will change again, that’s for sure. For one thing, I may have time for more blogging!

What I will say is this: whilst this is not good news, it is another challenge in a life full of challenges, and an opportunity to grow. I believe that life for a Christian believer is a training ground, and hardships are the exercises that make us stronger. A sports coach will design training sessions incorporating 'progressions', so that athletes can master certain skills before adding complexities and further levels of difficulty. This is my family’s next progression. We must face this challenge with the knowledge the Master Coach is guiding us, encouraging us, promising His help, and He intends it for good. 

“Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” (2 Corinthians 4:16-18)