It's Monday evening and my body temperature is 37 degrees. I know this because my wife has just measured it as she has done four times a day since Friday.

This time last week I had an incurable disease but did not know it. After work we ate dinner and then snuggled. Watching TV under a blanket as the early autumn wind and rain lashed against the old Victorian windows of our flat.

This evening we have done the same but some things are different: It is not raining outside; I have taken a break from catching up on the weekend's TV to start a blog; and the knot in my stomach reminds me that I have Leukaemia.

I have never written a blog before but figure that if ever there was a time then this is it. I'm hoping that it will serve a number of purposes. I would like it to be a place for my mind to deal with what is happening now and what is to come; I hope that friends will stop by to see how I'm doing when I am unable to keep in touch; and I hope that it serves as a useful trail of breadcrumbs for anyone else who has to walk this difficult path behind me.

At the moment I know very little about what I have but hope to fill in the blanks as I go. What I do know is it's name: Hairy Cell Leukaemia. I also know that it is rare and incurable.

That said it is, I am told, treatable.

For now though I have no immunity to infection. The common cold has become something to seriously worry about, avoiding crowds is the aim of the game so thankfully I am able to work from home.

Popping into the office today to pick up my files however was very strange. Most had only been told that morning and it was hard to tell how much of the hustle and bustle was business as usual and how much was a cover for any shock they may have been feeling. This whole thing is completely out of the blue. I'm a fit and active 35 year old high on life and looking forward to the birth of his first child. It's possible that some of the guys I work with were in the odd place filled with shock and bemusement that i was in last Wednesday when my doctor gave me the news. Maybe they too will wake up the following day wondering if it wasn't all just a weird dream.