Time to say farewell...

[Damo]

Ouch that's a sore one :(

Hopefully your on the mend now, stay safe.

[Ferdinand101]

All the best for the future Richard!!

[dickbrowne]

Thanks everyone - skin cancer isn’t really that serious - I had some lumps cut out and I’m pretty certain there won’t be any reoccurrence. I caught it early so it hadn’t spread.

As for the job, I’m back in work now but at a massively reduced salary.

There are a couple of lessons I learnt from this years shenanigans.

Firstly, take the sun seriously. I’m a little thin up top (about the only place I am in him!) so I wear a hat whenever the sun is out. That isn’t enough, it appears. Melanoma is mainly a consequence of sun-caused skin damage, despite the fact that my head and ears are always covered, I should also have been wearing a decent spf. Also, cloud cover doesn’t stop UV.

Secondly, if you have a lump that keeps bleeding with the smallest provocation (literally it would start to bleed when I was just sitting on the sofa in the evening and it would bleed without even being touched) then get it checked out and get it checked quick. I saw the doc on the Monday, was supposed to be flying to Mexico on the following Sunday, but I was in hospital seeing a specialist on the Wednesday in between. Before I’d returned home after that appointment, the hospital was on the phone booking an appointment for me to have my op on the Friday. I missed Mexico (blessing!) but the consequences of postponing the op could have been serious. The NHS takes it seriously and so should you (we!).

Lesson number 3 was that things are just that - things. There are more important things than things. Life will become simpler for us in the near future and that’s why I’m scaling back.

So, thank you for your best wishes, everyone, but the truth is that I don’t see any of this as a problem - it’s an opportunity, a chance to reconnect with what’s important. I’ve come a long way, much further than I ever could have imagined. It’s time to say enough is enough and enjoy what we’ve achieved as a family.

[TheFlyingBanana]

My best wishes to you also. Watches come and go, but health and happiness can never be compared to or linked to wrist trinkets.

Ever onward!