I can't say I've ever been so happy to see the tail end of a year as I have with 2020. A year spent in global suspense as the Coronavirus pandemic permeated all corners of our globe. I had, and still do, many reservations about that situation and now with the more virulent strain spreading at alarming rates, even more so. Christmas was a subdued affair, as I can imagine it was in most areas of cases. We never thought as a family that we would be touched by any great challenge, not at least in the immediate times. How wrong was I.

Heading up Mount Fuji in 2018. The setting sun casts a shadow over the low lying cloud. This is when the temperatures start to fall, fast!

I'd always been someone who walked everywhere. Happy to wander solo through jungle pathways, hike up mountains and sleep wild. I always thought I was bulletproof, especially as I welcomed the latter years of my life while hearing of past friends and acquaintances doing battle, with varying outcomes, with a number of conditions, illnesses and challenges. I'd never really worried about or given much thought to yearly medical checks, if it ain't broken don't fix it, right? Alas in 2019 I had some blood tests show that I had elevated protein levels in a blood test. Not giving it a second thought, it fast escaped my mind, it started to become a concern when a year later at a second test those same numbers had deteriorated to a point that needed addressing.

Long story short, after a battery of tests for most bad actors in the health sphere such as cancers and such, on December 20th, 2020, after a liver biopsy I was diagnosed with AutoImmune Hepatitis (AIH). When finally being faced with your own mortality all kinds of dark thought race through one's mind. Longevity, hereditary implications for my son, transmission potential for my wife. Japan has a fantastic health care system but one still that delivers its findings with blunt, to the point deliverance. It's what we always imagine we see as the best way; "Give it to me straight Doc, I can take it". But man, does it hit hard.

Having now found a fantastic online support group the haze has lifted. There is now clarity where once a maelstrom of darkness and uncertainty reigned. Everything comes down to management, and in my opinion, diet. Many folks are suggesting there is no correlation between diet and AIH but in my view when an immune system is attacking the organ that provides all the filtration of what the body ingests, the liver, it can only stand to reason that if one places good fuel into the body only good will prevail? To that end I have embraced a regime of juicing, extracting and drinking predominantly vegetable juices to undergo natural and daily bodily detoxes. It tastes like crap but man do I feel great.

I guess this whole event also explains the lapse in my posts. Hoping this will now be something I can look to reignite moving forward. There are a few things I will be looking forward to update you all with including a project where I'll be asking for folks to write their name on my balls..... !

All will become clearer in time.

Cheers,
Mark.