Hi there and welcome back. How are you? I hope that you are well. Today I’m going to talk about my 2020 in review; Now 2020, was a tough year for everyone with Covid-19.

I started off the year being positive about 2020. The idea of looking for work, doing a comedy event for Cancers Research, starting drawing with my Apple Pencil and training for a 10K. Then, Covid-19 and my eczema flared up and stopped all of that.

My eczema

I have eczema for the majority of my life. Every now and again, I get flare-ups. It can be quite annoying because when I think that I’m ok, something always stops me. I started taking daily baths early on in the year, mixing up from apple cider vinegar to vitamin e bath oil.

Working

I’m still looking for part-time work. Either contract work, part-time work or self-employed work. I do have some work coming in later on the year from a friend that I took an SEO course a couple of years ago.

My running

Only recently, I’ve started going back on the treadmill redoing the couch to 5K app. Because of lockdown, I have not been out on my daily walks at all.

My exercises

I’ve changed up how I lift my weights, from my basic four exercises to the Pail Bradley workout to something that I found on Pinterest. I’ve stopped doing my daily plank challenge. I’m still going on the treadmill almost everyday. and I’m still using my ab swing and ab-belt but I alternate what day that I use each.

My weight

I started the year weighing in at 64kg, I weighed in at the end of the year at 64kg. Which means no movement in weight whatsoever. My diet has been laxed over covid-19 from me having pancakes for breakfast. I’ve gone back to having porridge for breakfast with gluten-free rice puffs, blueberry jam, and blueberries in it. Overall my fitness has gone down since covid-19, I would sit down after making breakfast and sit there for hours. Even though my watch tells me to stand. Bhanga Blaze isn’t on every week due to Amarjit injuring her back before Christmas.

That’s it for now. Once again, I just want to thank a few people. Firstly, I would like to thank my mum, dad, sister and my Naughty Mamaji, for being by my side, throughout everything. I would like to thank everyone from BTS for sharing this with the community. I would like to thank Kanika, Shirley, and everyone at Carers Trust for giving me the confidence to share my story and I would like to thank Joe for motivating me to get back on the horse. And I would like to thank everyone at the hospital, my family and friends, and everyone who I’ve met on this journey.

Next time, I’m going to be talking about my first experience of acupuncture. Please feel free to leave a comment and as always, if you buy something from Amazon, through the blog, or click on an advert, 100% of the money that I get goes to charity.

Thanks and take care.

Hi there, and welcome back to my blog. How are you? I hope that you are well. Today I’m going to talk about what exercises I do. Now, these exercises I don’t do every day but I do it most days.

Daily om
This exercise I try and do every day. But not all of it as getting on the floor gives me headaches and dizzy spells. The course that I do is called The 4-Minute Peaceful Warrior Workout.

Weights
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Credit for image: https://darebee.com/

I’ve recently changed my weight lifting moves to something that I found on Pinterest. What I’ve been doing is 10 hammer curls, five vertical raises, five ridden rows, five shoulder press with a squat, five heel raises and five bent over rows. I like to do two sets of each exercise.

Ab Swing
I’m still using the ab-swing, even though this past Christmas, I got an ab-belt set. What I do on the ab-swing is I sit on top of the ab-swing and do a set and scoot myself down the seat and do another set..

Treadmill
Because of Covid-19, I’m not in training for a specific race anymore. These days, I go on the treadmill for time and incline. The reason for this is because of my baths, my legs have become very weak. I started off doing 20 minutes on a 2.0 incline to doing a lot more.. I try and go on the treadmill everyday but on the days that I don’t, I go onto the floor bike.

Floor bike
I lost the majority of my weight on the floor bike and that’s why I decided to go back onto he floor bike. I started going on the floor bike for 25 minutes and now I do it for a lot longer

Bhangra Blaze
As I’ve written in another blog post, I like to do Bhangra Blaze class. When its on, I feel improvement in my flexibility and my stamina.

Dancing
Sometimes, I like to get my old Wii switched on and do the Zumba warmups with the Zumba belt. I definitely do feel tired afterward

Chair Yoga
Recently, because of lockdown, Carers Trust have started doing weekly chair yoga. Varsha from Carers Trust runs the class via Zoom. I only found out about this because I’ve liked Carers Ttrust in Facebook. It’s different from regular yoga because it’s more concentrated on breathing than anything else.

That’s it for now. Once again, I just want to thank a few people. Firstly, I would like to thank my mum, dad, sister and my Naughty Mamaji, for being by my side, throughout everything. I would like to thank everyone from BTS for sharing this with the community. I would like to thank Kanika, Shirley, and everyone at Carers Trust for giving me the confidence to share my story and I would like to thank Joe for motivating me to get back on the horse. And I would like to thank everyone at the hospital, my family and friends, and everyone who I’ve met on this journey.

Next time, I’m going to be talking about 2020 a year in review.. Please feel free to leave a comment and as always, if you buy something from Amazon, through the blog, or click on an advert, 100% of the money that I get goes to charity.

Hi there and welcome back to my blog. How are you? I hope you are well. Today I’m going to be talking about my Q3 and Q4 in review. Now just finishing a second lockdown, not much has happened in the past 6 months. But some things have happened.

My birthday

In August, I had my birthday. I’m 32 this year. For my birthday, this year, I was given an electric ukulele, an effects pedal, and a load of cables to connect up the ukulele to my iPad and laptop. My idea is to record a charity single out for download only. I also got a harmonica for my birthday. As a youth, I used to play the flute and had strong lungs because of it. Now my lungs are weaker than before, so that’s why I decided to buy a harmonica.

My tablets

Last month, I had a couple of blood tests and a couple of days later, I got a phone call from the hospital. They told me to stop taking the afternoon half desmopressin completely. The first few days were tricky with my thirst issue kicking back up again. My levothyroxine has also gone down from 100 to 75. Everything else is stable.

My eczema

My eczema is still there but thankfully, I’m taking shorter baths. My eczema is affecting my feet and my walking. Which is my primary reason for me taking shorter baths.

My daily habits

Because of being on constant lockdown, I have decided to put my Productive app on vacation mode. Which means that my habits are on lock mode. I don’t lose their streak even though I haven’t opened the app.

My food

My breakfast has changed from porridge to gluten free oat pancakes with jam. For dinner, I rarely stir fry anymore. I now have basmati rice with dhal(lentils) with a poppadom. I believe that this breakfast gives me slightly more energy than the porridge because of the carbs that I’m having.but the downside is the extra weight.

My weight

I now weigh in at 60kg, which is slightly heavier than when I last updated my blog. It’s probably due to the fact that I haven’t been for a walk for a while. Although, I’ve most recently started going on the treadmill everyday solely because it tires me out and gets me ready for sleep.

My hair

Due to my eczema and the fact that it’s been five years since radiotherapy and I was still rocking a bald spot, I’ve decided to shave my head and grow a goatee. I bought a porkpie hat to go
along with the Heisenberg look and feel.

A small bout of depression

In the past 3 months, I recently had a small bout of depression. I had two baths that day I know that it’s hard dealing with lockdown with recovery from brain tumours, but that’s what got me. I suddenly missed the old me. I posted this on Facebook in September.

“For some reason today, I really missed the old me today. I miss getting up in the morning with a purpose, I miss working full time, I miss going out with friends, I miss my independence, I miss driving. I miss not waking up in the middle of the night, I miss not feeling tired all the time. I miss the old me.”

I have now admitted to myself that the old me is the past and I need to be more focused on the present me.

That’s it for now. Once again, I just want to thank a few people. Firstly, I would like to thank my mum, dad, sister and my Naughty Mamaji, for being by my side, throughout everything. I would like to thank everyone from BTS for sharing this with the community. I would like to thank Kanika, Shirley, and everyone at Carers Trust for giving me the confidence to share my story and I would like to thank Joe for motivating me to get back on the horse. And I would like to thank everyone at the hospital, my family and friends, and everyone who I’ve met on this journey.

Next time, I’m going to be talking about my weight update and what exercises I do in a review. Please feel free to leave a comment and as always, if you buy something from Amazon, through the blog, or click on an advert, 100% of the money that I get goes to charity.

Hi there and welcome back to my blog. How are you? I hope you are well. Today I’m going to talk about my current eczema journey. I call it my current eczema journey because I’ve suffered from eczema as a baby and every now and again, I get flare-ups but this current flare-up has been the longest and the worst. (bearing in mind, all of my notes are from memory)

My current stint started a couple of years ago when I used Alpecin shampoo a couple of times. Because I was looking to try and grow my hair back. Looking back, this was a big mistake because I’ve now shaved my head.

It started on my feet for some reason, I’m guessing that because shampoo rolls down the whole body. Me and my mum went to my GP and he gave me some allergy tablets and three lots of cream, including a steroid cream. I followed the instructions that my GP gave me for a couple of weeks and saw no improvement.

Then I started to put Pomade Sulphur cream on my body, after having a shower. In which I saw improvement, but Pomade Sulphur is hard to get a load off.

We went back to my GP saying that I’m still suffering and they gave a stronger allergy tablet.

About 6 months ago, I started to take baths. They started out as really long baths (10 hours plus). The only thing that I put in the bath was mustard oil. After a while, I would put apple cider vinegar, some bath salts, and tea tree oil in the bath. For a while, this would work but then my eczema would get worse. After finding out that apple cider vinegar has sugar in it and bath salts baths should not last more than 20 minutes, I stopped using both.

I would do some research and found this non-vegan bath milk, which has had some good reviews. So I started to add that to the bath. Someone on the eczema Facebook group said try E45 bath oil, so I tried that as well. I then experimented with some non-vegan goats milk powder but that didn’t last.

My current bath oils alternate between E45 bath oil, tea tree oil, peppermint oil, and that milk thing
in one day, and the following day, I put in vitamin E bath oil on its own. I still spend over 3 hours in the bath, which is less but still too long. With my baths, I use this bathwater filter that I got from Pure Showers. I open the taps, leave it for a few minutes, and then add the oils in afterward.

After the bath, I like to put Cetraben on my head and neck, and because the bath oil sticks onto me afterward, I leave it as that. Sometimes, I do like putting E45 anti-itch cream on afterward.

My mum did some research and she believes that my liver needs clearing out and I suffer from “Nightshade”. Which makes me allergic to root vegetables like potatoes and aubergines. Which was giving me a reaction. Which is a shame, because I now love aubergines. After speaking to one of her friends, my mum has put me on a strict diet having lots of coriander

That’s it for now. Once again, I just want to thank a few people. Firstly, I would like to thank my mum, dad, sister and my Naughty Mamaji, for being by my side, throughout everything. I would like to thank everyone from BTS for sharing this with the community. I would like to thank Kanika, Shirley, and everyone at Carers Trust for giving me the confidence to share my story and I would like to thank Joe for motivating me to get back on the horse. And I would like to thank everyone at the hospital, my family and friends, and everyone who I’ve met on this journey.`

Next time, I’m going to be talking about 2020 Q3 in a review. Please feel free to leave a comment and as always, if you buy something from Amazon, through the blog, or click on an advert, 100% of the money that I get goes to charity.

Hi there and welcome back to my blog. How are you? I hope you are well. Today I’m going to talk about the word games that I like to play every day. Most of these games, I just play the daily challenge.Some of them, I do play the full version of the game. I will separate theses off into categories. The categories are the following:

• Crossword style
• Block linking
• Other

Crossword style
The games that I play in the crossword-style are:

• Word link
• Wordscapes

Crossword games work by a connected grid of hidden words and a circle of letters

Word link
Word Link is the first game that I like to play every day. It has a bland layout and the main game doesn’t follow the crossword-style of gameplay, the main game follows a line system.

Wordscapes
Wordscapes’s main game does follow the crossword system, but I only play the daily challenge. Its layout is more colo8rful than Word Link.

Block linking games
I play a lot more block linking games. They are:

• Word Crush
• Wordful Hexa
• Worddie
• WordWhizzle Themes

Word Crush
This is the first-word game that I started playing, before my diagnosis. It’s very plain layout and colour scheme makes it easier to concentrate on. It does offer free hints after watching a video. This is a more traditional block linking game.

Wordful Hexa
This game is slightly different because instead of squares, this game uses hexagons. Which adds a whole level of difficulty. This game doesn’t offer a free hint, you have to complete the daily challenge to get a free hit.

Worddie
This game, I also started playing before my diagnosis. This game doesn’t offer free hints, you have to complete the daily challenge or complete a pack in the normal game. This game is a simple connect the blocks and the blocks fall down game.

WordWhizzle Themes
This is another game that I played before my diagnosis. Unlike Worddie, this game doesn’t have the blocks fall after you solve them. This game also offers free hints via a short video.

Other games
The other type of games that I like to play are the following:

• Crossword Quiz
• Pictoword
• Word Craze

Crossword Quiz
What this game does, it shows the option of a theme, then displays a blank crossword chart. When you click on a word in the chart, a clue pops up, either a sentence or a picture. When you get a question right, the game gives you coins which you can then use for a hint. Or you could watch a video.

Pictoword
I solely play this game on my phone. This game is quite simple, two images appear with a load of letters. The aim of the game is to get the answer from the two images.

Word Craze
This game is different from the rest. This game has either a written clue or a picture clue and instead of having a limited number of letters to use to guess, it gives you the whole alphabet.It does offer free hints via video and it helps you throughout the game by telling you what letter to put in if you are one letter out.

That’s it for now. Once again, I just want to thank a few people. Firstly, I would like to thank my mum, dad, sister and my Naughty Mamaji, for being by my side, throughout everything. I would like to thank everyone from BTS for sharing this with the community. I would like to thank Kanika, Shirley, and everyone at Carers Trust for giving me the confidence to share my story and I would like to thank Joe for motivating me to get back on the horse. And I would like to thank everyone at the hospital, my family and friends, and everyone who I’ve met on this journey.`
Next time, I’m going to be talking about my most recent journey with eczema. Please feel free to leave a comment and as always, if you buy something from Amazon, through the blog or click on an advert, 100% of the money that I get goes to charity.

Hi there and welcome back to my blog, how are you? I hope you are well. Today I’m going to talk about the new brain games that I’ve started playing. They are called G E I S T, Neuronation and mindPal.

G E I S T (AKA Memorado)

The one thing about this brain game, that it has a daily IQ test. This test doesn;t give you the answers which makes it difficult to remember the answers. This game offers a completely different set of games compared to my other games. One favorite game that I like to play is called Panda Pop, where you have to tap on the balloons that are styled like a panda and not the actual pandas themselves.

Another round that I like is a round called Painting Path when the player is given a grid of squares and the player has to move these coloured boxes around the grid to fill it but each of the colours have a limited amount of squares to move around in.

The one thing that I don’t like about this game is it doesn’t allow you to replay any of the rounds. And the fact that it doesn’t give you a score, just perfect, passed or failed.

Neuronation

This game is far more complex in its layout and the way that it delivers its tests but all the games are unique, There is this one particular game that I do like playing and it’s called Trail Tracker where the player is given a grid and a set of arrows and the challenge is to start at certain point on the grid and following the directions, that the game gives you to do.

This game doesn’t constrict you on how long you play but it is full of adverts.

MindPal

This game has only a couple of unique games, the rest are all copies from previous games. There is this one game called Path Finder where you get a grid with dots all over it and the aim is to connect up the matching colour dots up without crossing paths and using the whole grid.

All of these games are free and available in the iOS app store and in the Google Play store.

That’s it for now. Once again, I just want to thank a few people. Firstly, I would like to thank my mum, dad, sister and my Naughty Mamaji, for being by my side, throughout everything. I would like to thank everyone from BTS for sharing this with the community. I would like to thank Kanika, Shirley, and everyone at Carers Trust for giving me the confidence to share my story and I would like to thank Joe for motivating me to get back on the horse. And I would like to thank everyone at the hospital, my family and friends, and everyone who I’ve met on this journey.

Next time, i;m going to talk about the word games that I like to play every morning. Please feel free to leave a comment and as always, if you buy something from Amazon, through the blog or click on an advert, 100% of the money that I get goes to charity.

Thanks and I shall see you soon.

Hi everyone, and welcome back to my blog. How are you? I hope you are well. Today’s blog post is another recap of the past three months. About my current health status, my hobbies and everything else in general.

My eczema

My eczema is still there but fortunately getting better. After finding out that apple cider vinegar has sugar in it, I’ve stopped using it for baths and drinking it because it was making my skin worse. These days, I use this non-vegan milk formula with bath salts and peppermint oil. My skin is softer than ever before but unfortunately, I’m still itchy, especially on the scalp, which scares my mum. And I’m still taking long baths. The longest one being over 8 hours.

Hula hooping

I’ve started using a weighted hula hoop. I try to go on it everyday but because it’s in the garage, I can’t be bothered due to fatigue or it’s raining, I don’t go on it every day. However, my mum does go on it every day. Even with her back, she is a lot better than me at it.

Paul Bradley fitness

Last month, I attempted a 5 day Paul Bradley fitness in lockdown course. This was hard for me because it involved a lot of getting up and off the floor.  While doing burpees. I didn’t do the whole 5 days because of my fatigue. It did show me a couple of new exercises to do with dumbbells which I’ve carried over.

Back using the hyperbaric oxygen chamber

Throughout lockdown, I didn’t use the hyperbaric oxygen chamber. And to be honest, the only difference that I saw was my fatigue and my eyesight. My brain games are better than ever before. I used the hyperbaric oxygen chamber twice before it shut up again because one of the limited staff members got covid19 themselves.

Adding new brain games

Recently, I’ve expanded my brain games, by adding three more games. I will go into more detail next month.

My drops app

I’ve finished my Hindi level on my drops app. So what I’ve been doing on the app is going through a workout mode called “Dojo mode”, where it goes through all of the chapters and creates a 15-minute game. The highest score I’ve gotten from this mode is 87%

No more Reiki

Unfortunately, Anita has stopped doing her free Reiki, she now charges £10 per person, per session. This is a real shame because when she moved the start time to 7:30, I wasn’t falling asleep. It has motivated me to attempt to learn it myself and perform my own reiki.

My weight

I now weigh it in at 60kg, which has gone up slightly since the last time. Before my diagnosis, I weighed in at 74kg. After the fluid blockage, I weighed in at 114kg. Before my diagnosis, my waist was 36 inches. After the fluid blockage, I had a 40-inch waist. Now I’ve got a 30-inch waist. Before my diagnosis, I used to wear large t-shirts. After the fluid blockage, I wore XXL. Now I’m wearing a medium to small.

My mobility has worsened since the past three months. Because of my eczema, I’m stiff all over, I’m limping whenever I walk and because of the creams that my mum puts on me at night time, I’m extremely warm at night times. My mum sometimes takes the mick of me by calling me an old man.

At the start of the year, I set some goals for myself, to start retraining for a 5K to look to do a 10K, get back to work, and to start the P90X. Unfortunately, I’m still not working, and I’ve haven’t started the P90X yet, but I have restarted my couch to 5K and I’m doing it without energy balls which is a great plus for me.

That’s it for now. Once again, I just want to thank a few people. Firstly, I would like to thank my mum, dad, sister and my Naughty Mamaji, for being by my side, throughout everything. I would like to thank everyone from BTS for sharing this with the community. I would like to thank Kanika, Shirley, and everyone at Carers Trust for giving me the confidence to share my story and I would like to thank Joe for motivating me to get back on the horse. And I would like to thank everyone at the hospital, my family and friends, and everyone who I’ve met on this journey.`

Next time, I’m going to be talking about my new brain games and give them a review. Please feel free to leave a comment and as always, if you buy something from Amazon, through the blog or click on an advert, 100% of the money that I get goes to charity.

Thanks and I shall see you soon.

Hi everyone, and welcome back to my reblog, how are you? I hope you are well. Today I’m going to talk about my weekly Reiki sessions with Anita Wall. Anita does her Reiki sessions through her Facebook group, Distant Reiki Healing. Anita does her sessions once a week, Friday at 7:30pm.

Firstly a bit about Anita. Anita is trained in level one, level two, masters, teaching and masters in teaching. The style of teaching is Dr Usui Reiki with Angel ascension healing. Anita does offer one to one Reiki..I asked Anita why she chose Reiki and she said Reiki brings the positive light through the body dissolving negative energy.

Anita has been doing it for the love of the group since covid began. To help offer support to each other and offer a sense of love and community. Anita is a channel and connects with each and every one of us and this is beautiful healing energy.

The reason that I had started Reiki was because my sister had mentioned it to me that her friend from Look Good Feel Better had started a Facebook group called Distant Reiki Healing. I had said that I wanted to give it a go and then I asked my mum if she wanted to join in. She said yes. So since then, me, my mum and sister have been doing Reiki together.

Everytime the session starts, Anita picks out an angel card from a stack, each with a thought of the day’s meaning. Sometimes Anita, will dedicate her session to a healing crystal. Then Anita would tell us to light a candle and to tell the candle what we want to be healed and what we want from the session. Then the Reiki session begins.

The Reiki session begins a bit like meditation through the headspace app, Anita will tell us to deep breathing, in through the nose and out of the mouth. And then she would tell us to do a slow scan down the body through the different body chakras. As someone who has meditated for a couple of years, I’m quite familiar with the process,

After the session is finished, Anita always tells us that it’s a charitable thing and she tells us to pass on the nature of her Reiki.

Every time the session starts, I always ask the candle to do 3 things: to fix my fatigue, to fix my eczema, and to get me a job.

That’s it for now. Once again, I just want to thank a few people. Firstly, I would like to thank my mum, dad, sister and my Naughty Mamaji, for being by my side, throughout everything. I would like to thank everyone from BTS for sharing this with the community. I would like to thank Kanika, Shirley, and everyone at Carers Trust for giving me the confidence to share my story and I would like to thank Joe for motivating me to get back on the horse. And I would like to thank everyone at the hospital, my family and friends, and everyone who I’ve met on this journey.`

I would like to also thank Anita for providing notes and for her Reiki.

Next time, I’m going to be talking about 2020 Q2 in review. Please feel free to leave a comment and as always, if you buy something from Amazon, through the blog or click on an advert, 100% of the money that I get goes to charity.

Thanks and I shall see you soon.

Hi everyone, and welcome back to my blog. How are you? I hope you are well. Today I’m going to talk about how I kept my sanity during covid19 lockdown. `I know it’s hard when you can’t go out to see friends but it’s still possible to keep your mind occupied.

• Pick up a hobby (or more)
• Zoom meetings
• Chat to an old friend that you haven’t seen for a while.
• Start a course
• Write the date on a board
• Change up your usual meals
• Change your TV schedule
• Make new friends

Pick up a hobby (or more)
When you are at home, bored, find a hobby to keep yourself occupied. Either be it some writing, playing a musical instrument, reading a book or some cooking. With me I like to do it all the above. I believe that doing more than one kept me busy and sane.

Zoom meetings
My ukulele group, bhangra class, and my local Headway group meet up every week via zoom. My local Brain Tumour Support group and my local MacMillans joined in cancer group meetup once a month on Zoom as well.

Char to an old friend that you haven’t seen for a while
Last month, I spoke to Joe, via Zoom. It’s been over a year since we spoke face to face and it was really nice to see a familiar face that I haven’t seen for a long time. We now speak once a week now via zoom.

Start a course
This time off is a perfect opportunity to expand our skillset for when we go back to normality. I’ve recently started doing a javascript course on Udemy. It’s there to make sure that I’m ready to get back to work.. Thanks to Joe, I’ve also started use https://www.freecodecamp.org/ to get my skills back up.

Write the date on a board
When lockdown started, we were struggling to work out what date it was. So that’s why my sister started writing the date on an erasable board.

Change up your usual meals
Normally, my dinner consists of mushroom stir fry with rice. But recently, on weekends, I’ve recently started doing these recipes from Bosh with my stir-fries. It’s a break up from the norm that I need.

Change your TV schedule
Before lockdown, me, my mum and sister would spend every weekday morning watching Jeremy Vine. Since lockdown, we have been watching This Morning. I’m not sure which one I prefer just yet

Make new friends
Recently, I joined a Shine young Cancer meetup. It was my first one since Christmas last year. I had a really good time chatting with other young adults. I had a really fun time talking to other people about this horrible illness and even made a couple of new friends. One of those friends also had a brain tumour.

That’s it for now. Once again, I just want to thank a few people. Firstly, I would like to thank my mum, dad, sister and my Naughty Mamaji, for being by my side, throughout everything. I would like to thank everyone from BTS for sharing this with the community. I would like to thank Kanika, Shirley, and everyone at Carers Trust for giving me the confidence to share my story and I would like to thank Joe for motivating me to get back on the horse. And I would like to thank everyone at the hospital, my family and friends and everyone who I’ve met on this journey.

Next time, I’m going to be talking about the weekly reiki sessions that me, my mum and sister have been doing. Please feel free to leave a comment and as always, if you buy something from Amazon, through the blog or click on an advert, 100% of the money that I get goes to charity.

Thanks and I shall see you soon.

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