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Personal reflections

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Ben: It's so hard to plan now. I made plans before and look what happened! When I was young, like I said, any achievement I seem to have made just got dashed on the rocks by some sort of illness. So when I was a kid I sort of gave up....I haven't given up on life; it's like I've given up on a future.

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Catherine: I got to the stage last year where I thought: "I cannot pick myself up again. I can't do it; I don't want to do it. I've done it too many times; what's the point? Something keeps knocking me down, why keep doing it? Why not just lie down and say - OK, have me - go on, take me, do what you like - I'm sick of it.'' And then something inside it just goes: 'Right, you ready now? Come on, chop-chop, up you get!' And you do it. I feel like I planned so long for something that never happened. But I've always planned for it just in case. I don't know how I could have lived it any differently.

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Dave: Socially, I'm extremely happy with my partner, the friends I have around me. I'm really close to all my family: my brother and my sisters, my cousins, and they're quite accepting of who I am, as well all the ailments that I've got as well. I don't really have time for people who don't really accept me. I am who I am, warts and all.

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David: When I was born, the average age of a haemophiliac was eighteen years. Well, I'm seventy now. My parents would be astounded to see me still alive. Last night I saw a philosopher talking on television on this atheism series (I'm a great atheist myself) and he said that, you know, people ask - what is the meaning of life? Well, the meaning of life is to live it - what's going on now. If you can live your own life, and live it to the full, then that is the meaning of your life.

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Haydn: It was only when youngsters started to pass away that we really started thinking seriously: 'What are we doing right? Why is nothing happening to us? Why am I still reasonably healthy?' I just put it down to our - mine and Gaynor's - approach to it, that that we must stay focussed and positive and not dwell on the worst.

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Joseph: At this point it's very hard to understand if there was some sort of plan to my existence, and to a certain extent you've got no choice but to assume that there must be something better than this to go on to one day. But if there was some kind of divine figurehead overseeing everything that was unfolding, I still don't get the plan, because I don't see what I'm supposed to do now I've survived to this point.

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Mick: Yes, it's been hard and traumatic, but because of what's happened to me, because of the illnesses and because of the fear of dying, I've had a more exciting and fun-filled life than most people will ever have. Because we've lived life as in - I'm going to die, so let's just do what we want! Sod the expense or sod the repercussions!