Preparing to celebrate

Tomorrow it will be one year since my last hospital visit. How different January has been this year from last. No count down. No waking in the night and remembering what's coming. No wishing my life away to make the nightmare end.

As well as this, tomorrow is five years since my first post-operative hospital visit. This is the 'official' fifth year anniversary, the day I should have received my final discharge, the one I received last year instead. 

I swore that I would do something to celebrate if I made it to five years. At the beginning of February 2012, I'm heading to Finnish Lapland in the hope of seeing the aurora borealis. It would be really special to see those lights in the wilderness. I've seen a weak version near my home, but to see them in the far north would be amazing. Perhaps it won't happen, perhaps it will. I'm going to give it a good try - and if not this time, then I'll keep on trying!

One thing I've learned in the last five years is that life's too short...