Life moves forward in strange ways.

For the first time in 25 years I am exercising seriously and as a consequence am not only feeling great but looking good too. People have been coming up to me and enthusing about the fact that I have lost weight and slimmed down - looking and feeling wonderful!

However, the reality is that underlying my physical well-being is this frustrating hypersensitivity that would mean that being stung by a wasp or hornet is seriously bad news. Sadly, every immunotherapist that we have contacted considers me a very high risk to be treated using immunotherapy and my hopes for treatment on continental Europe or the US have been thwarted by their negative responses.

My own consultant immunologist (or allergist!) is wonderful and is now going up what probably is our last medical alley. We first of all have to determine whether or not I have a blood condition called mastocytosis. Provided that result is clear, then she and her medical colleagues would be prepared to give me immunotherapy under intensive care conditions, and that way my tolerance to wasp and hornet venom could be improved.

I have to go through with this route because I want my life back again - I want to swim in the sunshine, garden with pleasure, walk the hills of England, picnic in the woods, take the children on holiday. I don't want to be a semi-recluse for half the year, and that is why the risk is definitely worth taking. My condition is life threatening and so is the treatment - catch 22! But I would rather go out fighting this condition in a dignified and controlled manner than getting stung on the backside unexpectedly in front of friends and family!

During all my treatment one recurring question has been - do I have this wretched mastocytosis. I have had various urine/blood tests which say no, but these are apparently not definitive. So the next step is a bone marrow biopsy to find out if I have systemic mastocytosis once and for all - if I do then I just cannot take the risk of an desensitization since anaphylaxis is almost the inevitable result.

Well, I just had the biopsy (28th May) and it takes a week or two to get the results.

JUNE

It has been a glorious month in England. The weather for once has been kind.

The Queen celebrated the 50th anniversary of her coming to the throne. There was a wonderful procession and fireworks in London - as well as great celebrations around the nation including a splendid tea party in our local town. There has been Royal Ascot (a horse racing week which is part of the British social scene), the tennis at Wimbledon, picking the first home-grown strawberries - well it certainly should make one feel a bit more positive about the world.

On a local level the children have their sports day and the schools have their summer fairs and parents' days. Our village is celebrating the 100th anniversary of the church by having Songs of Praise on the village green, music recitals, flower festivals.

I can participate in only very limited ways in all this excitement because of the threat of being stung - a sting is so life threatening that it just isn't worth risking life to go to a child's sports day. Or is it? When does the restrictions of this allergy become so invasive on the normal quality of life that it does become worth risking spending an afternoon in the sun? Life is immensely precious but when you have been used to the "good things" of life it is immensely frustrating not to be able to enjoy them anymore. I can only look forward to a normal life with the onset of the British winter - something I have never really done before!

On the medical front, I received the news on the biopsy which was excellent - I do not have systemic mastocytosis which means that immunotherapy remains a viable option provided that we start at very extraordinarily low doses of venom indeed (almost saline, as my medical consultant describes it), the treatment takes place in intensive care conditions (needed to hopefully save my life in the event of another anaphylactic event) and all the medical team are happy with the treatment and associated risks.

I feel compassion for the medical team who are there to help their patients - and yet I am asking them to undertake a treatment which has a real possibility of threatening my life. If all goes well, then everyone will say how brave I was to take the treatment but the real courage actually comes from the medical team making a positive decision in the first place. If I die, notwithstanding my own strong wishes to have the treatment, fingers will be pointed and mutterings will go around about how the doctors should have been more prudent and cautious, should not have been swayed by the patients misconceived wishes etc.

Is it worth my risking my life by having treatment or should I just carry on having a restricted lifestyle during the wasp season (around 8 months of the year)? The problem is that wasps are everywhere and I would rather take the lower risk gamble of having a chance by taking the treatment rather than the higher risk strategy of living with such sensitivity to wasps and hornets, and having the inevitable sting one day.

If I do not take the treatment I have condemned myself, my wife and family to a very limited future - if I do take the treatment then at least there is a chance of reducing my sensitivity and having a normal life again.

As I have said before, I would rather be remembered for going out fighting.

JULY

Whilst there is still the glimmer of a possibility that I may be accepted for treatment I remain "sensible" about how I live my life - aware that if I do get stung for living "normally" my wife will understandably never forgive me.

It is frustrating. I am a "modern" man and was making a beautiful salad and thought what would finish it off beautifully would be some nasturtium flowers - totally edible and so pretty! I popped out into the garden, looked around carefully, picked them and came back into the house. The salad was served up and my wife then realised what I had done - she was not amused and she was right, I suppose. There is no point risking life to improve the presentation of a salad. It is the old dilemna rearing its ugly head - quality of life to me is all important, not quantity. It is the flowers in the salad that makes life a little bit special and yes, I would risk my life again for that special thing. However, it is also selfish because my wife wants me around for as long as possible - if she could, she would tie me down and forbid my doing anything outside at all.

Medical progress this month has been frustrating. The hospital have still not decided whether they want to treat me or not - it is a difficult decision for them. The treatment could kill me and yet the alternative is a limited life with the probability that a wasp sting would do it instead - then everyone would say how disgraceful it is for them not to have given me a chance! I am keeping absolutely everything crossed that they sense and give me the treatment I urgently need.

I am hugely gratified by the website - we had around 23,000 visitors in July and I responded to several hundred e-mail enquiries from concerned visitors who wanted to find out more. The site has also begun to cost me money as the web traffic has grown and I have therefore decided to open a shop dedicated to ethical and natural products which may help my visitors. It would be great if the shop could generate something towards the running costs of the site which is costing quite a bit of money each month.

I have also been approached by a TV production company interested in my dilemna and story - it is very early days but if it can help improve awareness of insect sting allergies then I am happy to take part. So much of my e-mail correspondence revolves around family doctors ignorance about insect sting allergies and so I hope that in my own way, we can help them too.

Finally, we thought our house was wasp proof, but one got into the shower room the other day. Everything had netting on it except for - the extractor fan.

It has now!

AUGUST

The school holidays are upon us in August and like most children mine understandably want to go on holiday with their dad like so many other children do.

Sadly, it is not so easy this year as the traditional holiday of the English family involves going to lovely warm climates and exposing our pale bodies to sunshine. This dramatically improves the likelihood of my being stung by stinging creatures and so for this year they went alone on their holiday to the English south coast. This means that they left me behind, well stocked up with food and the necessities of life to survive a week without them. I love them dearly and it was great when they got back, but secretly - I quite enjoyed the peace and solitude for a week!

The website got about 28,000 visitors in August - that is a lot of people who have been stung or hurt by wasps and bees. A number of those have written to me personally and I am so thrilled that I have been able to help a number of them - it is so gratifying when they write back and thank me and it is so exciting to be there for them too.

The prospect of treatment becomes more and more real as time progresses - and I hope that during September we may get the good news that my treatment can start. As the time gets nearer, it becomes less and less attractive. I am fit and healthy at the moment so why should I risk my life on this treatment? Simple. I just feel I have to give it a go because it is things like the summer holiday that are important to life. The alternative of being stung at some undetermined time in the future is not a prospect I would want to consider. The probability is that my wife and children could witness my death from anaphylaxis and that is a prospect for me, and a legacy for them, that is unacceptable.

I have been told that the wasps and bees are at their worst in the Autumn - dozy and aggressive. My life continues to be restricted as a result though we have found that during the day I can go swimming (indoors), tenpin bowling, cinema, museums, and similar indoors places. It is frustrating that in England at least my condition is not rated as a disability and so I get no favoured car parking status. This is fine as long as my long suffering wife is happy to drop me off, but in essence it means that I can no longer go alone to the hairdresser, dentist, wherever without having to take the risk of being stung, and dying as a consequence. My independence has, to a considerable degree, been taken away from me.

Still, I have made it through the summer and there is only a couple of months for the wasps to disappear and then.......we can breathe again until the coming Spring!