People

So what do you think about when you're 25? How to get on the property ladder? Where to go next with your career? Or, how to deal with the news that you're the only person in the world to be diagnosed with two forms of a life threatening disease?

For Notts lad Adrian Sudbury it was very much the former two but after driving himself to casualty in a bid to finally find out what was making him feel so awful it was soon to become the latter.

Rather than me telling you what happened on that particularly significant day, it's probably best left for Adrian, or baldy (a nickname he chose), to do it for himself:

"I've never been like Geoff Capes but before all this I was fit and healthy. Each week last summer I was running 5km, swimming, doing boxing training and playing 5-a-side with lads from the Examiner down at Soccer City in Waterloo.

"'How long would I have lived if I hadn't driven myself into hospital?' I asked. 'Maybe about another two or three weeks, it's hard to tell,' my consultant replied.

"That revelation was like a slap in the face. Everything else that was swirling around my mind; being a cancer patient, the length of time I would be in hospital, chemotherapy and its awful side effects, the fear of not achieving remission, all collapsed into a single moment of clarity – there was no choice but to start treatment."

The unknown

Adrian was diagnosed with two forms of leukaemia and knew at this moment that he was heading into the unknown. Whether it was the journalist in him or just the need for some way of coping with what lay ahead he decided to blog his experience, right down to filming himself as he went through a bone marrow transplant.

"Readers of previous posts will know how important having children is to me, so do we go for IVF knowing full well that by the time they are 10 I could be dead? Being told you will die much younger than you normally would is hard to come to terms with.

"'Anyone could get hit by a bus tomorrow, you don't know what’s around the corner.' That's what everyone keeps saying, but for me the 'could', in this metaphorical incident, has been replaced with a 'will – at some point'. Also, why does everyone seem to think there are so many bad bus drivers out there?"

Old friend

It's at this point where I feel I should be honest, when I first stumbled across this blog I had to do a complete double take... That's Adrian Sudbury my old friend from college. It was my turn to feel awful, I hadn't seen or spoken to Adey as I knew him in ages but still thought of him as a good friend.

Adrian's (or as I'd say Adey's) blog is a startling insight into every aspect of a young person's battle against cancer and for me it was a timely reminder that some people have it worse than I do.

I don't want to spoil the ending of Adrian's battle and I don't really know if these things ever do have an ending, but suffice to say I stumbled across his blog at probably the most optimistic time. Lucky me (I hope I can remember this).

Adrian's blog has been shortlisted for the Guild of Health Writers' Online Award 2007.