I am pleased to announce that my vasculitis is in remission (see this page on Vasculitis UK for more information). This means that there are no active signs of the disease and my blood results show no signs of inflammation.
This is thanks to the excellent care of the Specialist Doctors in the NHS and the Rituximab infusions provided by the NHS.
All of the care I have received from NHS Staff has been nothing short of exceptional. Staff have been kind and compassionate. They have delivered safe, high quality and evidenced-based care.
The care has been driven by clinical need, without staff having to worry about the cost and without me having to worry about my ability to pay. I am beyond grateful.
My blood sugars have continued to reduce with my Hba1C currently being 52. My Hba1C was 58 in February 2025 and 99 before that. My Medtronic insulin pump (the MiniMed 780G) has played a massive role in this reduction, but so have better diet, increased exercise and loss of a bit of weight.
I have come off all medications, apart from insulin. This includes medications for high blood pressure, high cholesterol and mental health medications. I have made a number of changes to my life to become the happiest that I have ever been.
The hole in the roof of my mouth has gotten slightly bigger, now being about 1cm in size. However given the improvements to my overall health and the fact that the vasculitis is now in remission, the surgeon is keen to repair the hole in the roof of my mouth in the coming months.
I recently released my latest book FINDING YOUR HAPPINESS. I wanted to share with you why I wrote it. To do so, I need to tell you part of my story. So, here goes:
Nearly 2 years ago now, after two years of being physically and mentally ill, I was diagnosed with Vasculitis.
Vasculitis is an autoimmune disease, where your immune system wrongly mistakes small blood vessels for foreign cells and attacks them. The vasculitis diagnosis came with a reduced average life expectancy.
The average life expectancy for someone with Vasculitis is 20 years from the point of diagnosis. This meant I had just 20 years of life left. I was 38 years old at the time of diagnosis.
This shortened life expectancy caused me to ask myself: Are you happy? The answer was no.
I have Type 1 Diabetes and was slightly overweight. My blood sugars were always too high. I had high blood pressure and high cholesterol. I was on two different antidepressants and an antipsychotic medication. I didn’t have time, energy or motivation to exercise. I didn’t eat well or sleep well.
I was working in the National Health Service (NHS) as an Alcohol Specialist Nurse. I enjoyed my face to face work supporting people with addiction issues. But the ever increasing workload and other stressors made me unhappy at work.
My relationships with family or friends were good. Or at least, at the time, I thought so. I spent a lot of my time with family or friends trying to meet their expectations of me – to be entertaining and funny, to be there to support them in difficult times, to take care of them. This is what I thought a good relative or friend did.
I didn’t have a partner. I didn’t go out on dates. In truth, I’d given up on romantic love. I’d decided that I just wasn’t lucky in that department.
Despite being a Specialist Nurse on a decent salary, money was always tight. When I really thought about it: I was very unhappy. I felt like I was existing, rather than living.
I decided to use my own counselling skills developed in the 18+ years working with people with addiction issues to counsel myself. I decided to look at my entire life, every aspect of it, and ask myself: What would make you happier?Then I would make the necessary changes. It was a daunting task.
Sometimes, it is easier to be stuck in an unhappy and unfulfilling rut, rather than be brave and face the truth. Especially when facing and accepting where I was in my life. This involved acknowledging the unhappiness and beginning to make changes.
Change is always uncomfortable and sometimes even difficult. Our brains like patterns of behaviour, they are key to our survival as a species. But patterns of behaviour are not key to a healthier and happier life.
So I got counselling. In my eyes, the Counsellor had two roles. The first was to ensure I kept being honest with myself. The second was to ensure that I made the changes that needed to be made.
I explored every aspect of my life. I started making changes. After nearly two years of hard work, I can finally say that: I am the happiest I have ever been.
Transformation complete? No. True happiness is a constantly evolving and ever changing process. One that requires daily checking in with yourself, navigating through the challenges of life and continuous work to ensure you stay as healthy and happy as possible.
Take a moment to think about a time your past when you were truly happy. Imagine living every day with that same feeling of happiness. This is why I wrote FINDING YOUR HAPPINESS, because everyone deserves to live a happy life.
I am currently writing a book on the topic of happiness, titled FINDING YOUR HAPPINESS, which is due for release later this year (2026). Writing a non-fiction book requires me to do a lot of research and explore my thoughts, opinions and feelings about what the research suggests. This is something I love about writing.
A question that has caused me to do a lot of thinking and feeling recently is the question: Can money buy happiness? I didn’t know the answer to this question, so I looked into the research. In this blog post, I share with you the section I’ve written for FINDING YOUR HAPPINESS, free of charge, because I’ve found it fascinating.
Your Money
The question that I often get asked is:
Can money buy happiness?
Research suggests that having more money does increase the likelihood of a person being happier, up until a certain annual income.
Once a person reaches around £75,000 (around $100,000 USD) per year, money no longer has any impact on how happy the person is, when compared with other people that have the same income.
I would like to acknowledge here that this is a very high level of income and that most people don’t have an income this high. At this point, I am answering the question above based on available research.
This amount of money stated above is correct for the year 2026. This annual income amount is likely to increase year on year, as the cost of living is ever increasing.
According to research, the reasons why more money increases the likelihood that a person will be happier include:
Basic needs are met: Enough food, clean water, decent housing, appropriate clothing, access to healthcare and access to education. This significantly reduces a person’s level of stress and can provide a person with a greater sense of security.
Increased choice and autonomy. The person has more options and freedom of choice in their life.
The person has money for comfort, pleasure, leisure and fun. This includes money for travelling and new experiences.
The person can use money to give them more free time. For example, they could hire a cleaner, cook, pay for childcare, all freeing them up from the time they would have spent undertaking these activities.
Some people who reach this high level of income or exceed and still seek to increase their income. Why do they do this?
One reason could be that they have a strong belief that more money = more happiness. This belief likely comes from their past experiences. Earlier in their career, increases in income probably did contribute to making them feel happier.
Although the research does suggest that more money increases the likelihood of being happier, it also points out that having any amount of money doesn’t guarantee happiness.
You could earn the amount stated above (or more) and still be miserable. You could equally earn a lot less and yet be incredibly happy.
My view is that no amount of money can buy happiness. Happiness is a feeling. A feeling we get through a wide variety of experiences. Yes some of these experiences require money, but others do not.
The best way to keep informed of the release of FINDING YOUR HAPPINESS is to sign up to my newsletter here. You’ll receive just 1 email per month covering: details of my new books/articles as I release them, notification of my latest blog posts and the very occasional special offer. This is not a spammy sales newsletter, but an opportunity to stay up to date.
Write soon,
Antony
My published non-fiction books include:
Funny Emails To My Friend is a collection of emails to a friend. These emails were intended to entertain my friend and also make him laugh. Topics included: Jokes, Puzzles, Inspirational Quotes, Future Technology to Be Excited About, How to Fight A Shark, How to Woo A Turtle, etc.
Ways The Human Body Can Go Wrong is a book about all the ways the human body can go wrong. It includes symptoms and treatments/cures. It also includes some useful learning for medical and nursing professionals.
The Alcohol Therapy Workbook is a therapy-based workbook for people who are struggling with alcohol or have struggled with alcohol in the past.
Antony Simpson is a participant in the Amazon EU Associates Programme, an affiliate advertising programme designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.co.uk.
