Dale’s Personal Blog

Last Friday, 22nd Jan 2010, was a bit of a milestone. After a year of surgery involving three major operations to cure me of Ulcerative Colitis and put me back together again, I was signed off by the surgeon as being officially fixed.

Apparently, I am doing better than average in terms of function, which is a big relief as these procedures are never certain to work. The main thing is that normal life has resumed, and I am already starting to get reasonably fit again through weight training and cycling. At some point soon, I’ll get back onto the squash court, which will be the first time in over two years.

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank a few people.

Firstly, there’s my surgeon Nick Beck, a pretty cool guy who apart from being good with the old knife, made the various decisions that needed to be made a lot easier than they could have been. His clear and straight talking style was just what I needed. There’s then the rest of the team at Southampton General Hospital who looked after me so well, particularly those on Ward E7, who I had the ‘pleasure’ of staying with on three occasions.

I would also like to thank my personal trainer, Mike Simms, who worked with me in the gym to get me into the best shape possible for each operation, and then coached me through the recovery each time. I am sure paying attention to physical preparation helped everything go more smoothly, and I was really glad to have the benefit of his knowledge, experience and creativity in coming up with routines to work around my limitations as my various wounds were healing up.

On the work front, I really have to thank Jon Collins, who took over from me as Managing Director of Freeform Dynamics when I became too ill to run the company. There was always a plan to put him into that position, but it happened a bit quicker than anticipated with little or no opportunity to hand over the reins properly, and he rose to the challenge under very difficult circumstances extremely well. I am also grateful to the other guys at work, all of which, in one way or another, had to step in and cover for me. Martin Atherton, for example, made sure a lot of the research and analysis I was involved in got pulled together properly and published or presented effectively to the outside world.

Finally, though, thanks to Helen, my wife, and my two kids Jack and Laura. They had to live with me during the whole thing and put up with not only the impact of the illness, but also the side effects of the various drugs I was on before the decision was made to go down the surgery route. And Helen really deserves a medal for all her support as she had to deal with the fallout both at home and at work; as Operations Director for Freeform Dynamics, she was also providing support to Jon as the new MD.

Anyway, line drawn, and time to look to the future. I have to say that I have never felt better, and I’m raring to get stuck into 2010.

I’m back!