How to say what hasn’t be said already
What am I doing? How did I get here? Why should I even bother writing what everyone either knows about, has an idea of, or even is able to offer much better advice than I ever could! Because they don’t have my story and they don’t have my experiences of this bastard illness that has blighted my family over the last few years.
I am Andy. I design a magazine called Haunted. I’ve written a book (with my son) called ’72 Minutes in the Woods’. I’ve written music as The Haunted Guy. I am a son, a husband, a dad and a grandad. I’ve been a brother-in-law and a grandson. And I have also supported close relatives with there cancer journey. And it’s been an extremely tough and emotional journey for too long now.
I think the starting point for me even thinking of putting this blog together has to start with my sister-in-law. Shaz. Her battle began, like with so many, as a series of small but uncomfortable occurrences. Going to the Doctor’s and being told various different things with varying degrees of certainty and after too many months, got to a devastating diagnosis. Our Shaz was a bus driver. A character. A proud lesbian. And most importantly, once you got to know her, a real genuine character. Even through the toughest of times, Shaz did not let the illness define her.
So, that’s my entry point. But there are things I learned along the way about myself, about the system, about all the things that could and should have gone better and about some of the taboos that we never really talk about – from someone looking on at what’s happening. My grandfather, my dad, my two sister-in-laws, my wife and much of her family have been subjected to the blight of this awful disease. So what I will put on here comes from the heart.