After many years of serious back pain, on my way to work one day, I collapsed outside a shop in Nottingham. A few days later, I was in hospital after three emergency MRI Scans being told I had a Spinal Tumour and it needed to be removed in an emergency operation to give me a chance of walking again. At this point I had no movement but some small amount of feeling below my waist. None of my reflexes worked and it was looking grim.

Some amazing surgery and care from some incredibly committed nursing staff helped me get up again and now a few months on, whilst there’s still a long way to go, I can walk. You can read the full story of it here on the blog I wrote from my hospital bed on my phone as my wife wouldn’t allow me access to my laptop. But you can’t keep a good blogger down.

One of the keys to my recover, was Frankie the Schnauzer, She has literally been by my side and on my lap since the moment I left hospital. Here’s her reaction.

The poor dog has been subjected to all sorts of tears and upset as well as some incredible highs, a few breaks away and helping me with my slow recovery back to what will hopefully be a near full health. Here are some of the highlights. The first was coming home, which was full of contrasts.

After a week or so at home we then headed off to Anglesey. It’s one of the most beautiful places in the UK and somewhere we have loved our whole lives, so was a great place to rest and recuperate. It was a great week away and we were very lucky with the weather. You can read about that here.

if you’d like to read the full story of how I’m learning to walk again, you can see that here.