Last time I had cancer ...

It all happened so fast, really. Not the build-up, that took months and months, waiting for them to do more tests to explain what the lump on my arm was. But once they'd identified it as a tumour, it was action stations: diagnosed on Wednesday, lump-no-more by lunchtime Thursday, then radiotherapy, and all was well with the world.

The speed of it all didn't stop us worrying though, because being told you have cancer has that effect, really: you worry, plain and simple.

But the treatment was very bearable, and, having been told it would leave me feeling tired, I was a good patient, and took 2 months off work to have the treatment ... and luckily enough, I felt fine throughout. I even managed to go to the gym most days before my drive over to the Christie for my treatment every morning.

So the last time I had cancer, after the initial shock and worry, luckily, things went really quite smoothly. I used that time off to chill, and some good things came out of it ...

I got fitter than I'd been for a long, long time, preparing me ultimately for my 365challenge. And I gained in many other ways too.

A friend, Graeme, recommended that I should watch "The Wire", so I bought the box-set of Season One, and by the time I went back to work, I was chomping on the bit for the box-set of Season Four to be released, having devoured every episode in between. I'd never have watched it if I hadn't found myself with the time to do so, and if I hadn't, I'd have missed one of the greatest television series of all time!

Another friend, Dave, suggested I read "Dissolution", by C.J. Sansom, the first in the Shardlake series, set in the time of the Reformation. Outcome: read all four in the series. Loved them. And "Any Human Heart", by William Boyd, the stunning, disjointed autobiography of Logan Gonzago Mountstuart. Huw suggested that one, and it was absolutely absorbing.

I read other wonderful books, watched some great movies, and generally de-stressed from work, and honestly, as the treatment progressed, I felt more and more assured that that cancer was history. So last time I had cancer, believe it or not, the experience wasn't totally horrendous, but I actually came out of it having had some real positives.

It would be great to have more of the same this time ... so, any recommendations to make that more likely to be the case? Because I'm going into this looking for the positives from the experience ...