A lot happening!

I was once in B&Q and was looking at the packet of seeds. We haven't got a garden but I was thinking about doing something with the space outside the house. I picked up my choice of seeds and was walking to the counter when it struck me that if it was down to probability,  I would not be around to see the seeds grow and turn to flower. I turned around, put the container back and left the shop crying like a baby, this was the wrong attitude.

To those who maybe reading this who have just found out they have pancreatic cancer, my advice is BUY THE SEEDS!  If I had, I could of seem them flower a few times by now.

I am having a scan a week on Friday, I get the results the following Thursday. My blood results show that the cancer as come back, but there are no tumours showing on the scan, yet. Whatever the scan results are I will be probably back on chemo soon, the doctors have said that it as come back looking at my bloods.

In life, so far, the world as had a funny way of showing me the right and wrong direction in life, been in a situation I am not happy with or was not right for me,  things have not gone in my way. I then have changed direction and things have magically turned and became positive, it may have taken time to get to that point, but it seems that it does. Almost like the world was working with me and not against.

While I have been collecting my thoughts about knowing the cancer has come back, I have tried to carry on as usual. While shopping at my local catering shop, Nisbets   I was given a receipt and was told that if i went online i would have a chance of winning a toaster. Trying to pull an expression like I was interested came natural, just like everyone else who had been served that morning, I knew as soon as I left the shop, the piece of paper wold be in the bin, but then I looked at the toaster! now this was no ordinary toaster! this was a see-through 150 quid magimix toaster.

Lee, one of my friends, had told me about this toaster! and we had one of many of our fascinating conversations, this one was on the subject of  how it must be nice to have a see-through toaster because you could see if your toast was at perfect tone, but not to the point that it cost £150 quid! Anyway! I imagined winning the toaster. I was not picturing me with a fancy toaster, but just the satisfaction of going on Facebook, making my status "Feeling blessed" which really means "Feeling smug!" and then tagging Lee.

I ran home as fast a I could, I was half an hour late as I went in the car, and when I got home I went online  and filled out the questionnaire. Two days later, i was called to be told I had won! and what colour did i want the toaster to be! I then remembered that Lee had left Facebook weeks ago! the disappointment!

Was it really that easy! I then heard a competition on Radio Aire, our local station, it was to win a 4 weeks advertisement package to advertise your business, which wold cost 1000s, eating my toast! I clicked on the link. Feeling optimistic for competitions, but also aware I was turing into an amateur  competition version of the very cleaver coupon kid, I decided to have another go and submit our catering trailer into the best looking trailer award in the yearly British street food award.

After my last chemo I knew i had to jump out of my bed fighting to get better again quickly, so, if the cancer came back, I would be fit enough to deal with it. I needed to carry on life as much as I could, as much as was possible, wanted to try and go back to some kind of normality, the problem been that the catering equipment was getting heavy. We decided to get a trailer, and I have spent a lot of time on this, we had it converted and then in my spare time i have tried to do it up! this as kept my mind active and in a better place, I have loved doing this. When i started to paint it black inside, i was worried that chemo brain had started to effect my judgement, but, standing back, it looks good.  So it was nice to get a tweet to say we have been shortlisted by Richard Johnson from the British Street Food as the best 13 looking trailers. This is ongoing and is on a online voting system, - if you would like to vote click here - and click on Market Wraps and vote and its as simple as that - THANK YOU


British street food awards - https://poll.fbapp.io/best-looking-mobiler-2016?from=user_link&ref_id=vwq9en

I got a phone call after the radio competition to say I had won! -  this goes out in the next few weeks.

I know that there are better times to push the business and plan for the future, but, you have to do the best with what you are given in life, and in a way, trust that. There is no point of not buying the seeds incase they don't grow, sometimes you just have to trust they will.
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How to wind a vegan up!

After my operation last year, i was told i will now start to eat only small but often, and i do eat often, but i also eat a lot which at least I have got one of those things right.

Now people in my situation hang on to any hope they can get there hands on, and I had heard about this thing that people call "healthy eating" but to be honest Im not really into those faddy ideas and I prefire to stick to lard thank you very much, but when I met this lady in the chemo award and she told me about moving on to a diet that is vegan and with that her tumor had shrunk, me and Rob my partner decided to do the same.

Now i must admit, I can not really call it vegan, as very occasionally we do eat fish and organic chicken for protean, but if I get frustrated by my situation then the best therapy is find a vegan, tell them you are vegan, and then tell them you eat chicken and fish (its like lighting up a touch paper on a firework) and sometimes a right good argument does you the world of good, and due to the lack of meat, they have less energy to argue there point so you can usually win! A vegan on the internet said I had a ugly soul when i purposeless told her this, which I think is a bit strong for eating a bit of chicken but there you go!

So, the future is nut cutlets! and I must admit, I have really enjoying it so far, we have been a bit more adventures with veg so instead of just boiling some carrots we have added loads of flavorings to the veg (when i say flavorings i don't mean 'beef!') and we are both plesently surprised!

But, when we have gone out for food, it has been disappointing, we went to a vegan restaurant and ordered mushroom stroganoff (and when i was ordering it due to my dyslexic head, all i could read was beef stroganoff which had the vegan effect yet again!)

Do you know when your hungry and you want to fool yourself that your enjoying something, so our first mouthful we both said it was nice, but the 2nd we realised it tasted like dishwater, after pouring on a ton of salt and adding high blood preasure to my list of issues i have right now, i could taste it.

We have been to a few vegan/vegi cafes now and some are OK, but only one as been great and that was Prashad in Drighlington, which is an Indian restaurant and was a pleasure to go into a Indian restaurant and pick anything off the menu (the starters are amazing).

While I am on this rant, when you go to other restaurant and look at there vegetarian range, some can be really poor too. When you go to Franky and Benny's and order a vegetarian breakfast its like a normal breakfast without the bacon and saussage! not a vegi burger or vegi saussage in sight.

I have also been having supplements which I will talk about next time.

If you want any reference on why the hell I have given up meat, read this:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/5698784/Being-a-vegetarian-can-cut-your-risk-of-cancer-by-a-half-claim-scientists.html

Foods-That-Fight-Cancer

Dietary Fat, Especially From Red Meat, Dairy, Linked To Pancreatic Cancer

What next.... life after cancer

I had a 4% chance of surving Pancreatic Cancer (over 5 years)

I am now 12 months after cancer, this is the situation im in:

I was told I had a 10% chance to be operable.

I was one of the lucky ones and it was operable.

The cancer now could come back, it has an 80% chance of coming back.

So, whats next and what do i do now after cancer?

The part which I find hard at times is whenever you are not well, or have some random pain, I call my specialist nurse, at this moment I have itching and I have become a bit worried about it.

I have had pains and whatever in the past, and I have then worried, then it just goes with time and I then forget, but when you have pain or itching or something that continually seems to just be there to remind you that things have changed and i am not in a normal situation, its hard. 

I think you have to just get on with it, accept and repect that this is not a normal situation and at times I may feel down or tired or sick, but also you have to live.

Its not easy, sometimes things get on top of me, but i try and look on the bright side, and there is a bright side.

I have gone part time at my job and turned to my passion of cooking to open up www.market-wraps.com

This take alot of time! (and energy) but at least it is better than thinking negative thoughts.

I see my business as playing, and when things get me down, personally i try and turn to, how can i push my business more, or how can i improve a recipy or make something better.

My check ups are now every 3 months, it always get a bit nervous around that time, but due to me going to the doctor for any pains i seem to be having more blood tests than every 3 months anyway.