Twelve months ago I was in the middle of a very invasive course of treatment which I finished in April. Today after ten months I am only two kilo's below my original weight and getting my general well-being back.
I try to make a point of facing my problems rather than waiting for them to trip me up, better to seek them out and neutralise them before they can become really threatening. In the past all my problems could be solved with effort: working, saving, building, learning, training. But no amount of skill can improve your health. No amount of work or training can change what is in your bloodstream. All I could do was take the medication and wait for it to run its course, putting up with the side-effects that turned me into a stranger.
I spent a year waging a war made up of battles that I could not win, but a war that I might be able to walk away from as the victor if I could only endure the indignities, counting off the days.
This was one problem that I was literally powerless to change and for me that was Hell.
Far worse than the physical effects the treatment had on me though, was the fact that it robbed me of the one thing that defined me as an individual. It stole my Chi, my confidence.
After six months of restoring my physical health I started to face the problem of rebuilding that confidence in myself. I started an ambitious audio project in a new fandom - Crimson Skies - and started to realise: I can do this. However before I could go ahead with it, I needed to do
The Twelve Trek Days of Christmas, officially started it on December 19, something that I have come to see as an obligation to Star Trek fandom, my way of giving something back to the many great fan production groups in return for all the friendship, enjoyment and inspiration that they have given me over the year.
I am only responsible for nine "Days", two of them, Days
3 and
8, were the work of TWERP and Final Frontier Media respectively, and the eBook publishing is being handled out of
Ad Astra this year. I'll soon be finished, I'm expecting to have the last two done by February 19, which means that I will have completed nine major projects in two months!
Hmmm Guess what? [Drumroll please] I've just realised that I've got my Chi back!
