So, we hit the point where I have been blogging almost a complete year…. To look at the stats – 3308 page views, this is blog post number 31. I can honestly say, I didn’t know what to expect when I started this project. I didn’t have any goals or metrics to measure success or failure. All I knew is that it is an outlet for me to do something, so I did it.
As I work on typing this up, social media is buzzing about the latest celebrity cancer death – David Bowie, less than 2 weeks after Lemmy. This has given me some notes to consider for future blogs – funny thing was – David Bowie died of liver cancer, and if people were betting – that would have been the type that Lemmy should have died from. Many things about cancer never make sense… all the people who talk about how cannabis cures cancer will probably want to have a word with Tommy Chong, he might not believe it. But all this demonstrates one thing – cancer is everywhere. I think that might be the title of the blog post – as I don’t think anything makes sense about cancer. I know that who gets it, and who doesn’t, doesn’t seem to follow many patterns. I have the cancer of a lifelong smoker in his 70s… go figure.
Some more stats – in the 12 months of 2015: I had – 9 BCG treatments, 2 Cystoscopies, 2 close friends had a final battle with cancer, 2 others from family extensions had the same result, 1 Colonoscopy, 1 TURBT, and a handful of other less invasive appointments such as a CT scan. One might say that it actually was a substantial year when someone starts to keep track of the events and time committed.
Looking at other things that I accomplished this year – 14,000 kms ridden on the “Cancer present to me”, which some consider a low number, but around the treatments and procedures I am pretty happy with that number. My goal is to exceed that next year and get at least 20,000 kms ridden… key to that will be new rain gear – I broke the zipper on my gear during the CwaC this year.
Professional type development – I started taking a bunch of courses through Lynda.com, which allowed me to build the website platform that you now get to view this blog on. In case anyone is wondering, access to this library of courseware is free with my FREE membership to the Edmonton Public Library system (did I mention that its FREE). This has also encouraged me to open other media channels of discussion. I am working on a bi-weekly newsletter which will be a mental health snapshot of what is going on inside my brain (which gives me many logo ideas to steal), which has been running since November… you can check it out in the newsletter tab.
Over the course of the year, I had many ideas about how I envisioned the growth of my blog and web presence. I had many thoughts on what I would present to an audience, and how I would present it. I discovered a few things that surprised me – simple things like… I don’t like myself on video, not a fan of my voice on audio, and the patience needed for video editing – really didn’t help me produce videos. So, some of my ideas didn’t come to fruition… such as weekly videos, or even monthly videos, I didn’t even keep a regular schedule of regular blog posts. I am willing to change and try new things, so that will keep the concepts fresh and lively.
But the fun part is that those things are in the past now – I have new ideas coming up, new opinions that I want to share, and I look forward to the 2016 journey with my audience. Thanks for coming along on the ride with me, even if it is only due to pure curiosity…
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