Life was quite good around then. I was employed as a class1 delivery driver at Stan Robinsons to start with but the manager soon decided I was quite good at helping to route and load the smaller delivery vehicles.
I ended up spending more and more time helping in the office as a traffic operator and not going out driving very much. I didn’t mind as I had found a job I quite enjoyed doing, and a bunch of workmates I got on with really well. Several of who I still keep in contact with after more than 10 years!
My MS seemed fairly under control and I don’t think many people realised I had it as I worked just as hard as anyone else. Obviously I had quickly learnt to hide how I was feeling even when I had times when I didn’t feel 100%.
We had our own house which opened up the doors to credit cards and loans etc. That was my downfall as I was useless with money and whenever I was offered a credit card or loan I just said yes. I didn’t realise it at the time but my debts just spiralled more and more out of control.
I was happy with how my MS was going and a lot of the time I could almost forget I had it. But it was slowly getting worse and my legs in particular gradually got more achy. Of course I just totally ignored it and got on with life as normal as possible!
I had made friends with Emil via an online game we both played and we became really good friends straight away. He mentioned one day that he worked as a scuba diving instructor in Cyprus, so I told him it was something I fancied doing. So I booked myself on a course in the UK to do all the classroom and pool work for the PADI Open Water course.
I had already arranged with Emil that once I completed that part of the course I would go to Cyprus for him to complete the course for me. I finished doing the part of the course in the UK then booked a weeks holiday in Cyprus to complete the rest. As soon as I physically met Emil for the first time I knew I had found a friend for life. I completed the OW course and did another couple of courses in the week I was in Cyprus.
I had fallen in love with Cyprus while there and told Hales all about it when I got back home. We decided to have a holiday together there, and that is when Hales fell in love with the island too.
We talked about moving out there but it seemed a bit of a pipe dream to start with. My MS was slowly getting worse so we decided that the climate in Cyprus would help my MS. Our finances had gotten worse due to my stupidity with money and
we realised that the only way forward was to sell the house to try to pay off some of our debts.
We then realised we could either stay in the UK and rent or just up sticks and try Cyprus instead. Not a hard choice to make, so we sold as much stuff as we could, put the house for sale and luckily quickly found a buyer. We packed everything up and 10 days before the completion date on the sale we flew out to Cyprus.
Tried to condense it a bit to stop waffling on too much! I will continue with the start of our Cyprus journey in the next blog.
Rob
My Life and My MS 