There are some days where I just cant think of things to write about and then others just from random conversations that make it so I cant stop writing. I had two such conversations in the last few days. The first was with a mushroom lover. Which made me get off my backside.

I forget what started us talking, but it got around to mushrooms and the woman in question said she would never have told anyone about her hobby for taking pictures of mushrooms for fear or being laughed at and it was a death in the family that made her question how she was living her life.

I thought taking pictures of mushrooms was a great hobby and went on to share the courses I knew of that were local involving mushroom ID and growing mushys at home. Besides I can talk about staffys all day long and she used to have a staffy. I think i was in the shop for 45 minutes chatting.

Im leaving out a lot of details because it was a private conversation but it reinforced what I should be doing with my life. Every now and again I get off track.

The second conversation was with a mate who questioned if I was up to doing my level 2 bushcraft course. Mainly because Ive just gotten over two bouts of pneumonia and lost ten kilo of body weight.

My response was . Well for a start good points I was feeling like crap but then again when I got out of my second double lung transplant. Four months in hospital before going home I weighed 50 kilo and was dragging my arse around in a gutter frame. Three months after getting home i started training in three martial arts and it took two years to tell anyone I was going home after training and still using a walking frame then taking an endone and two beers I was in so much pain for the first four months.

Then just beause I am who I am I did a four day stint at the Australian Institute of Sport training with Paul Kale in Kinetic Fighting. Granted I was taking three endone a day to get through it. I think I was about 6 months of of hospital at that time.

So I think at last count I have a screwed left knee, 28 % nerve in my left leg from my back injury, four crushed discs, 15% nerve damage in my right leg from scar tissue in my right groin from having a 90 litre blood transfusion and a 12 inch blood clot, a screwed left shoulder (bone on bone grating), chronic pain from the back shoulder and groin, side effects from my meds to do with my hands, a broken sternum, 65% lung capacity, half my diaphragm doesnt work, been told Ive been terminal more times than I care to count and waiting for my third MRI to clear me from pancreatic cancer. So far Ive spent four years in a wheel chair and 12 years dragging around an oxygen bottle and have a lowered immune system limiting where I can go. Who can forget diabetic from the meds too.

Some days are good and I over do it and love working and spend three days recovering and totally exhausted. Some days I’m flat, some days are great, some days I’m on two different pain killers and a shit load of beer.

Point is “Don’t let shit get in your way of life”.

This picture was hanging on the wall at rehab it means a lot to me