Young Women's Ovarian Cancer Support Group

I first met K. at Paul's Cancer Support Centre where we were both taking the Healing Journey Course (now known as Coping With Cancer Stress). She immediately impressed with her eloquence about how she felt and the things she was going through.  She had a fantastic sense of humour and we got on very well. Neither of us opened up about what type of cancer we had; for my part I found it was difficult thinking about it specifically, let alone talking about it in front of a group of people I didn't know very well.  But as the weeks passed and the sessions broke into smaller groups to talk about issues in greater depth, K. and I realised we had a lot of problems in common to do with our illness.  We started going out for lunch or a coffee on my day off and she told me she was thinking of setting up a support group to help younger women with ovarian cancer. 
Unfortunately, with a gynae cancer you are often surrounded by older ladies in waiting rooms and gynae support groups.  It can feel even more isolating to have a "rare" cancer at a younger age and you often feel adrift with no-one to talk to who understands.  Friends don't/can't always deal with things and can drift away.  I accompanied K. who had arranged to talk to Bernie, the fantastic manager of Maggie's West London who agreed to start a small support group in association with Ruth from Ovacome, the ovarian cancer support charity. 



I am delighted to say that several years later we are still meeting once a month and the number of young ladies who receive support and advice from the group continues to grow.  It is an informal meeting, 6.30-8.30 on the first Wednesday of each month.  People can raise any issues they are struggling with and there is always a professional available to talk to or point you in the right direction for further information.  We sometimes have a speaker presenting on relevant topics such as HRT or nutrition.  One of the ladies in the group kindly led a set of yoga sessions at Maggie's.  
The building itself is worth a mention. While it is next to Charing Cross Hospital on an extremely busy road, it is designed to provide a shield from the outside world and is definitely a haven, always with a welcome and a place to sit quietly or chat to someone. 

 

Unfortunately my lovely friend K. is no longer with us, but her legacy is a marvellous thing and she herself knew how much it means to all of us.  I continue to go to the meetings because although I am now physically OK (mostly), there are always new emotional hurdles to deal with and in K.'s honour I am proud to attend as a "veteran" and hopefully to help provide support to others going through similar things.

Tea With Ovacome 2015

Wow, what a day! On Saturday 28th, Tea With Ovacome at the Mayfair Hotel was a great success by any measure.  There are thanks due to many people who have been working behind the scenes all year for the event.  It's aim is to raise awareness and funds for Ovacome, the ovarian cancer support charity. Firstly, Adele the organiser and her daughter Zindzi, who are both very inspirational ladies.  The champagne tea was originally Zindzi's idea and she was also an original catwalk model.  
Now in it's 5th year, the event is even bigger and better.  Karen McGhie, Emily Mulligan and Fay Newman at Apricot clothing were marvellous for making sure us models looked good and organising the clothes on the day and on the previous fitting.  Karen even came back from Spain for the weekend especially for the event. She kindly spent literally hours attacking and taming my hair with the hair straighteners and refused to give up on a tough job.  She was helped by Helen who is a beauty student.  Big thanks also to make-up artists Victoria Penrose and Sarah Marie who were sending out masterpiece after masterpiece from their temporary "salon".  Philip the owner of Apricot very generously donated the clothes to the models afterwards. Thank you, Philip!  

Apricot have again designed a dress and bag specifically to raise funds for Ovacome. March is Ovarian Cancer Awareness month and this year Apricot have worked with Michelle Heaton, formerly of Liberty X, to promote the dress.

My own Apricot dress waiting patiently on the rail.

Lovely lady Sabrina from Simply Be and her team also gave up some of their own time to arrange a dress fitting in their Oxford Street store, along with plenty of fizz.  On Saturday, Sabrina was full of emotion watching the ladies on the catwalk and was fab behind the scenes, dropping all the clothes off at the hotel herself and making a trip all the way back from Exeter that morning.  It just shows how very generous people are and how much work goes into an event to help it run smoothly.

Sabrina also arranged for Simply Be to kindly donate their evening wear dresses to the models.  I love my quirky monchrome and lime Grazia geo-ombre print maxi dress which will no doubt be getting a lot of wear.  Thanks to my trainer Dan for supplying the muscular arms and the ability to fit into a size 12 again!
The ladies from Barry M nails again ensured we all had our Teal Tips on. 

For the third year, the company is donating 50% of each sale of Aquarium nail paint in Pacific during February and March to Ovacome.  

And look at the K. Middy hair that Karen and Helen achieved for me! (Never to be seen again).

I was so pleased to be supported by my lovely friends Sandra, Janet and Susan, my mum Joy and my aunts Violet and Sandra. Wouldn't be the same without you, ladies!

Act natural ladies and that's a wrap! (Below photo from Karen).

Click here for a write-up of the event in the 2015 Ovacome Summer Newsletter.

Model Behaviour

Today was the first Tea with Ovacome 2015 meeting for the 12 catwalk models to select our Apricot clothes (one causal and one dressy outfit).  I started the day believing I'd gone to the wrong place when I arrived around the back of Wembley Stadium in a deserted retail park. There was definitely tumble-weed in the car park behind a locked gate.  But inside, there was a lunch laid out and a lot of bustle around the rails of clothes.  Apricot have been wholeheartedly supporting the event since 2013 and have designed a second limited edition dress for the occasion; the proceeds of the dress go to Ovacome - last year it raised £17 K for the charity.  It will be on sale in March which is designated Ovarian Cancer Awareness month.

One of the nicely organized dress rails before the hoard of ladies hit it

Apricot's 2014 teal dress beautifully modelled by Adele, the organizer of Tea with Ovacome.

A sneaky peak of the 2015 dress:

And a few pictures from Tea With Ovacome 2013 and 2014:

Must go now to practice my "walk".

3 Little Ducks - Park Run

"222; Three little ducks!" said the man giving me my time tag at the finish line this morning. It doesn't sound an impressive placement in a race, and indeed, I was 3rd from last in the Park Run at Wimbledon Common.  But I was so proud to have finished my first 5 km run since my cancer diagnosis, and I didn't walk any of it. Or crawl. I was even faster than my only other "official" 5 km timed run which was a Race For Life in Battersea Park almost 20 years ago. On that day, I remember a supporter yelling helpfully "come on, you walkers!" and I had to point out to him I was actually a runner.

Today's run was in a snowstorm and piles of mud, which, although it made things very difficult, means that hopefully in drier weather my time will improve. One unavoidable puddle reaching the top of my trainers brought to mind the old English nursery rhyme Dr. Foster:  Dr. Foster Went to Gloucester, in a shower of rain; he stepped in a puddle right up to his middle.....

One thing I do like - on the web page for the results, you are classed as an athlete.  At the end of the run, your time tag is matched to your unique barcode which you print out in advance by registering on the website.  In this way, you can be tracked at any run you do anywhere and watch your progress.

My friend, Miranda, has various strategies to help her to get round the course, mostly involving distracting herself with poem or song lyrics.  Luckily for her, she is good at remembering them; I suggested a poem (Ozymandius) then couldn't even remember who wrote it, let alone any of the words! Must try harder. Most of my distractions involved being lapped by the runners at the front who finished just as I reached the half-way mark. At one stage, I could have slipped in front and "won".  But of course that sort of thing didn't cross my mind.

Capital C

I attended a "Capital C" event today run by SWARM and Macmillan, an experimental project designed to ask cancer patients and carers about how they cope long term with the effects of a cancer diagnosis and treatment in London and how their experience could be improved.  Everyone came up with loads of ideas relating to physical and mental health, finance, work, community support, etc. which will be taken and discussed by Macmillan to be collated into a London-wide strategy to be written this year.

It was great to be part of such a useful project and to meet some new faces.

The above is a photo taken from the Swarm website of the last meeting at Impact Hub, York Way, Kings Cross, London.

The day focused on understanding how the existing assets, communities and spirit of London can be utilized to bring about changes for the better and maybe a more cohesive approach in providing support for those who need it.  Let's hope to see some positive progress later in the year.  Watch this space.

I took the opportunity while I was in the area to enjoy the beautiful day and check out Granary Square by Regents Canal. London continues to surprise.

Unfinished Business - A Light Bulb Moment and the Zeigarnik Effect

At the start of the New Year we are surrounded by media stories of resolutions, diets, get fit regimes, etc. I like to have these all in hand before January so tend to ignore them, but being stuck indoors feeling ill this Christmas and New Year made me realise I am surrounded by a lot of small jobs and projects to be finished later. When, exactly, is later though? 
A quick look round and I came up with the following:
An anglepoise lamp inherited from my nan (ages ago), has never had a light bulb and has never been used;
A wall-hanging I was making while learning to weave; almost finished but abandoned;
A large hall cupboard full of stuff needing to go to the tip/charity shop;
A half-sewn tablecloth I was going to have ready for the Summer to use in the garden;
A pile of filing;
A pile of stamps I've been collecting to send to a charity;
A pile of ink cartridges to recycle that have been sitting there for weeks;
A T-shirt I am designing and printing for my dad - all ready to go but not printed.

I can't decide if this is a psychological blockage, plain laziness, loss of interest or reaching a difficult point in all the projects - e.g I couldn't find a light bulb due to the full cupboard,

wasn't sure how to finish the hanging, the tablecloth was a tricky shape due to a patchwork of odd material scraps I chose, etc.   They all seem like small tasks, but I see most of them every day and thus have brief thoughts about them too.  

There is actually a psychological effect on the mind called the Zeigarnik effect, a phenomenon named after Russian (Lithuanian-born) psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik, who discovered in 1927 (never let it be said my blog is out-of-date!) that the mind tends to remember and fixate on unfinished tasks rather than ones that have been completed.  In this way, the mind tends to fill itself up with lots of to-do lists, making us feel overwhelmed at times.  It can lead to a loss of focus and a feeling of not being in control or particularly productive or having time (breathing/thinking space) to be creative. Basically, your mind has a limited capacity for attention - you can only fit so much into your active memory at a time (I knew it! Well, I did once but then forgot I knew it...).

After my illness, I have had a very poor memory which has been affecting my work life quite seriously.  I have had to set up new methods of working, writing EVERY LITTLE THING down and training my colleagues to remind me of the most mundane things (e.g. to check my to-do list!).  Other friends tell me of their experiences of "chemo-brain" (mild cognitive impairment) which can be a side-effect of chemotherapy or having cancer; the exact cause is not known but can have symptoms such as being unusually disorganised, trouble remembering facts, confusion and difficulty doing simple tasks.

Anyway, having had an unusual fit of activity and emptied the hall cupboard, I came across exactly the required light bulb for my nan's lamp and have been able to see the sewing machine better which has meant I sat down today in the grey of the afternoon to think about the next step for the tablecloth. The Zeigarnik Effect tells me that once I have started my task I am more likely to finish it.
Maybe it'll be ready for next Summer, thus freeing my brain for another task....
The Zeigarnik Effect is used often in our daily lives and in business; think of the TV Series with the cliffhanger ending....you automatically tend to want to tune in next time to know the ending.  Newspapers continue stories on another page, causing you to want to turn through the rest of the paper to find the ending.  Charles Dickens employed the technique of maximum suspense in his serialized tales.  A good public speaker will start an engaging story, which is interrupted part-way through, and then return to it at the end of the talk, thus keeping the audience alert and wanting to know, how did it end? Our brains do not like unfinished business.  On that note, I'd just like to add.................to be continued.

The Rising of the Sun.....

The rising of the sun....

And the running of the deer.....

The holly.....

....and the ivy.....

I've truly lived in a Christmas carol this year!

Happy Christmas to all my Facebook friends and all the best for 2015.