"This cancer can go fuck itself!"

“This cancer can go fuck itself!”

This was what I said to myself yesterday when the house music upped its tempo and I picked up the cadence on my turbo trainer. My heart rate rose, and the power I hammered into the pedals increased. I felt uplifted rather than frustrated, it was a mini peak moment and it felt good.

If you’re reading this, you might be wondering what the hell a turbo trainer is.

Well, sooner or later the cooler and wetter weather will arrive and you may find yourself wanting to ride indoors. My solution is to put my bike on an indoor training device, hook it up to a computer and ride in places all over the world: Yosemite, the French Alps, The English Lake District, Norway and many other places. On this occasion, I was cycling in Oak Creek Canyon, Arizona. Today was Honister Pass, England. Next I am going to kick Alpe D’Huez’s butt. Want to know more? Go to the Tacx website.

To quote Mark Twain: “Get a bicycle. You will not regret it, if you live”. 

“Hang on a minute, what about the cancer thing?”, I might hear you saying.

Yeah, I’m going to have to explain that a bit.

Actually, it’s been a while, and some people know, others not. To be honest, there are two reasons why those who don’t know, don’t.

• I didn’t know how to tell you.
• I wasn’t ready.

Now I do, and now I am J.

I was inspired by a Facebook post by a friend, Raniero (he’s an inspirational fellow). He’d been rushed into hospital recently and he shared his experiences (thanks to Facebook for translating from Italian). It was that easy. I wish I’d done that. But frankly I was in pretty bad shape when the shit hit the fan (which was in May), it’s only been since late September that I’ve felt good again really.

I decided today to do a write up, so that you can find all about it without having to feel uncomfortable asking and to avoid me having to repeat thing over and over.

Depending on how much you want to know, here's a short version, and if you want to know more after that, here is the longer one.