Happy Birthday...

I turned 48 last week. Birthdays for me are usually a time of reflection and planning rather than celebration, so I worked out where I am and started working out where I want to be as I approach 50. 

Here are some thoughts...

i) I still want to be married and happy.
ii) I still want to be doing martial arts.
iii) I still want to be playing pool.
iv) I want to spend less time at work.
v) I want to spend more time writing. 

What this list tells me is that I am pretty content with my lot. Work may veer between toxic and awful and stressed but acceptable, but it does pay an OK wage. And everything else is generally fab. I just need to routine the writing and I am golden.

I think the 18-year-old version of me would be pretty happy with the version he saw 30 years later. And not just because he actually woke up with a woman who sometimes let him do rude stuff. And didn't charge him.

Customer Service...

I recently had a problem with a Venum rucksack I bought from Made4Fighters.com, a website and company that specialises in supplying all things martial arts.

Even though the warranty period had expired on the bag, the company did everything they could to contact the bag manufacturer and I ended up with a brand new bag. This was great customer service from both Made4Fighters.com and Venum and it cheered me up. 

It particularly cheered me up that two smaller companies went above and beyond to keep a customer happy... in the same week that Royal Mail and Virgin Trains demonstrated a total lack of care and consideration when trying to resolve an issue with a shit delivery service and replacing missing tickets, involving designated seats on a designated train.

Made4Fighters.com and Venum are both fabulous. Thanks very much to them. 

Royal Mail and Virgin Trains, however, clearly don't give a flying fuck about their customers. If either of the latter were a person, I'd shit in their mouths and sew their lips together. Then watch until they swallowed.

Foot Drop: Part IV...

At last. Some good news. I have seen a neorologist and he thinks the nerve damage is unlikely to be the early signs of MS. This is a major win. It was always an unlikely scenario, but having that particular fear rattling through my head for 10 weeks has not been a pleasant experience.

After much extensive prodding and poking and examining, he is pretty sure it's nerve damage to the fibular nerve. He is also quite optimistic that he can eventually repair it, though he has warned me that it may be a six-month process.

Neither of us still have any idea how it has happened. Generally, if i pick up an injury, it tends to be martials arts related. But I usually know pretty immediately if I have done something because the pain is instant. I am also good at monitoring my body for signs of wear and tear and knowing when to rest or protect something.

So I am now facing more tests and scans and examinations and other bits and bobs. I will also have some form of orthapaedic support for my foot. But there is forward momentum and, at some point, I will be fully mobile again.

In the meantime, I'll train what I can when I feel good enough to do it and not beat myself up if I can't train at the regularity and with the intensity I want to.

My martial arts journey is not over yet and I feared it may have been. It's just going to be taking a few quite side roads for a while...

Foot Drop: Part III...

Hospital waiting rooms are often pretty grim places and this one is no exception. But ill and injured people waiting to be diagnosed are probably not the happiest campers in the world.

There's also the additional thinking time, where all the worst case scenarios can run through your head. For me, these are irreparable foot injury and MS. Anything else will be a bonus.

So it's now a case of waiting. My life could be about change. I am trying to remain positive and see any outcome as a new beginning rather than an end. But it is quite a tough lie to maintain. It's also really tiring trying to be upbeat when you largely feel like getting angry and crying.

Frankly, I am well fucking bored with this.