A Strange Anniversary

My upcoming birthday will mark the 10th anniversary of my NF2 diagnosis.

It’s a strange, twinning event.

I quite like that they fall on the same day, as, technically, I’ve had this condition for as long as I’ve existed (unbeknownst to me).

I also like the idea of light and dark being with one another, co-existing in their shadow dancing.

Ten years is an amazing timeframe. A decade is a real chunk of a life. I look back at who I was in the minutes before my diagnosis and wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t gone for that test.

How much longer would I have been able to continue with my world before this stood in front of me, unavoidable?

“There you are!” I’m standing in a dark room, staring upwards at a blinding light, bathing me in brightness.

There’s no running from a neurological condition – especially when it affects your vestibular system! It’s within every cell in your body and will continue to be in all future cells.

It’s not a cancer. It isn’t an infection.

It’s me. It’s in my mutated DNA and to hate it would be to hate myself.

So, this strange anniversary nears, and on it I will drink a birthday pint for all that I had and for all that I have.

Sláinte!

Why isn’t this a pint?? Looking out of the pub at Clew Bay and Croagh Partick, with a deceiving blue sky (it was not a toasty day).