Onwards and upwards from here

It’s been a while. In truth, I didn’t want to blog until I could find something positive to put down on these pages. And after a month like January, that’s been very, very hard work.

In addition to the funeral of K’s aunt, who died in late December, this month has seen us lose Jess (as detailed in my previous post) and then, last week, a very close friend’s baby brother, too. It’s been an absolutely heart-wrenching start to the year, especially after 2010 began with such excitement and promise.

I’ve also been hinting and nodding towards a new project which was supposed to be up and running by the end of January, that still hasn’t taken off. However, the reasons for that delay are more exciting than they are dispiriting, but all the more frustrating that I can’t share any details of what’s happening just yet.

One element of the project I can talk about is the attempt – along with my band of merry men – to complete the 3 Peaks Challenge in May this year, the weekend before my 28th birthday. It’s a truly daunting task and the most common reaction I get when I tell people about it is, “Why?”.

So I’ll tell you all now to prevent the mass of comments and emails about it following this post: because I can. Because I’m now able to push myself physically; because I’m able to see what my mental strength can carry me through; because I survived when others didn’t and have been given the perfect opportunity to do the things I want to do; because I can help to show the world just what an amazing difference organ donation can make to someone’s life.

This time three years ago, I was still recovering from Christmas and wondering if I’d see my 25th birthday. From then to now I’ve been able to go the kinds of things I only ever dreamed of and pushing myself physically and mentally through the toughest of challenges is something I’ve always wanted to do. And now I can.

There will be more details on the Challenge itself as well as the wider project as things progress, but today felt like a good day to sit myself down, slap myself round the face, pull myself out of my funk and start moving forward with the gift that is another year of life. Today was my first session at the gym in preparation for the 3 Peaks and it hurt like hell – but the pain of physical endeavour pales in comparison to the pain that my friends and their families have been through in the last month.

This is for everyone who can’t, everyone who wants to and everyone who never will achieve their dreams.

Two friends in two months

The turn of 2010 was filled with so much promise. Despite the difficulties of 2009, the challenges, the ups and downs, I’ve been incredibly excited about the prospects for the new year. And I still am.

But not all great things can come to pass and, following my previous post, most of you will now be aware that Jess lost her fight late on Tuesday night. After four years on the waiting list (two years longer than anyone ought to survive after being listed), Jess was just too weak to stand up to the rigours of the massive transplant surgery she underwent at the end of December.

A fighter to the last, she was up and about late last week, starting to be moved around by the physio, but she was hit by insurmountable post-transplant complications that her body just couldn’t cope with. She died peacefully with her family by her side.

Tributes have been pouring in on Facebook, Twitter and all over the news pages and TV channels which followed her story so closely. Many, many people have been affected by Jess, some who never even met her. Everyone is now feeling the overwhelming sadness and sense of lost that is infinitely magnified for her family.

Jess death will not be in vain, that much is clear. Despite the grief throughout the community, campaigners who’ve worked with and alongside Jess have already got their heads down pushing forward into new plans, ideas and ways to ensure that no one in the future has to wait until their too ill to receive a transplant.

As for me, the pain of losing two friends in two months is strong, but not as strong as my determination to make the most of the new life I’ve been given. The new project I’ve been working on for the last couple of months is finally coming to fruition and I’m pulling together several strands of things I’ve always wanted to do.

Here’s to a 2010 that serves not only to bring health, joy and happiness to all of us, but also to honour the memory of all those we’ve lost. Take care of yourself and remember to try – hard as it my be – to smile through it.

11th Hour, 59th Minute

On Sunday night I went to bed with my phone on and next to my pillow. I was fully expecting a midnight text to tell me that our wonderful fighter Jess had finally lost her battle after dragging herself through one last Christmas.

In the middle of the night – just after midnight, in fact – the phone did indeed buzz. I fumbled around, picked it up and read the message.

“Jess is having her transplant NOW”

I came on here this morning to leave a message about everything that’s happened with Jess in the last few days, but in fact my friend Sarah has beaten me to it and written such a concise and accurate blog detailing the events, emotions and thanks that we have all felt over the last few days that instead of trying to rehash it badly, I’m just going to send you over there to read about it. It’s also worth taking a look at the previous post as well, detailing as it does a family’s first Christmas together thanks to the wonder of organ donation.

Spare a thought as you read this for the family who have suffered the worst of Christmases and keep Jess in your thoughts and prayers. Although she’s finally been given her gift, she’s got a long road ahead of her and there are no guarantees. But one thing we all know is that she wouldn’t be with us now were it not for her call finally coming after more than four years of waiting.

Christmas & all that it brings

I’ve been struck again by one of my intermittent bouts of insomnia and have – as usual on nights like this – found myself sitting and contemplating all around me.

In particular, I’ve been reading back over this blog entry from the summer and going back through the last few months on my Facebook. I wanted to break into the “real world” and do something that felt like a tribute to my donor. I know now that the decision to go to Liverpool was made in haste and a fog of ambition and clouded judgement.

I can’t regret that decision, though, as it’s left me in a place now that’s so much happier than I was before I left. Being away has made me realise what it is I want to do, but more than that it’s shown me that I have the knowledge, drive and courage to pursue it.

I’m immensely lucky to be surrounded my my wonderful family, my always-supportive friends and, of course, my wonderful K. Since getting back from Liverpool I’ve been happier in my life, my house and my skin that I can remember for a long time.

At the same time, thinking about the future has made me think about all those around the world less lucky than me. I lost my friend Jo just a few short weeks ago and said my final goodbyes last week and knowing that her family face Christmas without her is heart-wrenching. Added to which I’ve got one friend in hospital over Christmas, another friend’s baby brother in intensive care and two more friends facing the very real possibility that this will be their last Christmas if their transplant doesn’t come in time.

This time last year, my brother was fighting in Afghanistan in one of the longest and most protracted operations of our combat there. On Christmas Eve, in an experience I’ve never had before, I was overcome by emotion during the midnight service thinking about him and the dangers he was facing. Without realising, and something I can only attribute to the kind of sibling bond I’ve always derided, I woke on Christmas morning to a phone call from my parents to say that he’d lost one of his closest friends right by his side that night.

In truth, despite our hardships, my family is undoubtedly one of the luckiest and most blessed in the world. I’ve fought and won battles within my own body and been lucky enough to be given a second chance at life. My mum has battled her own illnesses and come through with flying colours and my bro has fought and survived one of what is turning out to be the bloodiest wars in decades for the British Armed Forces.

I’ve been blessed by so much happiness in my life and as Christmas approaches with people living in fear, in hope and in grief, I realise more than ever that now I know where I’m going, it’s time to put the pedal to the metal and get my arse there.

I can’t wait to get started. Here’s hoping that the New Year brings all of us the things we want most in life and, should it fail to and instead present us with more, deeper challenges, may we all have the strength to fight, battle and rail against them and emerge victorious this time next year.

As a wise man once prayed: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

Merry Christmas to you all, and a Happy, Healthy, New Year.

Avatar

This may well be ultimately premature as I defy anyone to go and see this film and come away with their head clear and their mind made up. I currently have two major thoughts banging around my head. Before I explain myself, though, a word of advice. If you are remotely interested in film at all – not this film, just film in general – you HAVE to see this film on a big screen. It simply will not have the same impact on your telly or – God forbid – downloaded to your computer. This is justification for shelling out your hard-earned on a trip to the flicks.

ONE
Amazing. Stunning. Awesome. Incomprehensibly beautiful. Art on an IMAX scale. THe most utterly visually amazing film you will have ever seen, guaranteed, bar none and no exceptions. When they say this film is a game-changer for the 3D world, a concept I didn’t really understand beforehand, “they” are absolutely right.

I’ve never seen photo-realism to this extent. I’ve never so greatly empathised with, nor felt an emotional connection with, any animated characters like this. I’ve never seen near-lifelike creations communicate with such raw emotion and depth.

There has never been a film with digital environments this flawless, with a fantastic world created in such a way that makes you wonder where on Earth it could be. But unlike Middle Earth, you can’t just pop to New Zealand and find the back drops – this is pure artistry from the best in the business. ILM and Weta, two of the CGI and physical effects supremos in the business, have created undoubtedly their best work from first frame to last in this film.

TWO
Style over substance. It pains me to say it, but this is the genuine article. A world so rich and nuanced, a planet so beautifully rendered, a people so carefully crafted and a script so atrociously hackneyed it makes you groan.

However, there is an argument to say that the last thing you want with a movie on this kind of grand scale is a complicated plot which bogs the whole thing down. I would, however, have liked some characters who weren’t straight out of “How To Write A Blockbuster Movie 101″. Giovanni Ribisi is a great, and hugely underrated, actor. But in this he’s given nothing but “conflicted corporate fat cat” to play with and it appears is boredom is only assuaged by marvelling at the brilliance of the effects which weren’t even there when he shot. As if he knew what’s out the window behind him was going to be more interesting than the stuff happening in front of it.

More than this, though, what disappointed me was James Cameron’s shoe-horning of a ridiculous, over-used and way-too-heavy Afghan metaphor into the whole thing. If he was any more overt about the message he was trying to get across, he’d have needed a banner with vast, IMAX-screen, 3D words all over it proclaiming “THIS IS ABOUT NOW, AFGHANISTAN AND WHAT WE’RE DOING TO OUR PLANET AND THEIR LIVES”. And disappoints me is that I know he’s a better filmmaker – and a better writer – than that. Hell, the rest of the film proves that, if nothing else.

I can’t let it lie on a down-note, though. This is undoubtedly the most remarkable film that has ever been made. It contains images, creatures, people and effects that you will never, ever have seen anywhere else. It has a level of beauty in both craftsmanship and sheer visual brilliance that has never been seen and I’d venture to so won’t be again for a good long while.

This is a truly ground-breaking movie of epic proportions and will be a firm favourite of many people for many, many decades to come. It will, no doubt, be a favourite of mine, to. Because despite my misgivings, it’s one of the greatest filmic experiences anyone can ever have.

Once again, I reiterate from the start: do not wait for this movie to come to you: GO AND SEE IT IN THE CINEMA because you simply will not appreciate what this film is until you see it 20 feet high with your sexy 3D specs on. Enjoy. And let me know what you think.