The Penny Brohn Cancer Centre

based in Bristol came to Taunton to hold their 3 day course called Living Well Beyond and with Cancer.  This was in the Education Academy at St Margaret's Hospice and I was lucky enough to get a place on it.  Some of  the topics covered were, Healthy Eating, with cookery demonstrations, Exercise, Spiritual Health, Finance Welfare, Mindfulness, Selfhelp techniques for relaxation, meditation and Imagery. I found the course extremely beneficial and I managed to put on my pause button and think about what matters to me, what do I want to do about and where do I want to be.  We were encouraged to use the SMART technique , Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely when setting some personal goals to enhance our lives.  I have made 3 very realistic personal goals with exercise, eating, and meditation and I will keep you posted :-)
If you want to find out more about what this centre can do here's the link to their website.  http://www.pennybrohncancercare.org/. 

I met amazing people on this course, and through sharing our experiences, I felt emotionally drained,  however it did me also make realise how lucky I am.  I did chuckle though when told how atheltic I must have been when I used to go swimming and got up to 50 lengths.  Me atheltic :-)

Pressing my play button and back to reality, Holly came home with a fantastic report with room for targets and goals next year.  Proud parent mode boosted for another week!!

Well done Holly, Karen and Teri

Holly for completing her first ever Race for Life in 36 minutes,  followed by Teri at 42 minutes 10 secs then Karen at 42 min 14 seconds.  Also collectively so far they have raised £470.  Considering Holly admits now to having done no training I feel so proud of her and I'm not allowed to call her a couch potatoe any more.

 It was a lovely atmosphere at the site.  I felt really humbled reading the messages on people's back and I felt very lucky and my challenge was not to cry and I achieved it but only just!  Also just a tad inspired so I'll put it on my bucket list for next year and all being well I should be able to walk it.  Holly is inspired to train for next year's attempt and  we're going to cheer the ladies taking part in Taunton's Race for Life on Sunday.

I'm sure we're both going to get a good night sleep tonight.  Yes I found it hard being on my feet all morning!  Big thank you to Teri and Karen as this would not have happened without your enthusiasm and if anyone would still like to sponsor them all their links are in the Race for Life tab at the top of the page. 
Proud parent signing off, night all xx

3 month review is promising

as the CT scan report from last Monday confirms that "No definite new leisons" and  "most of the leisons have shown a slight reduction in size"  They have not reported on my Uterus and my oncologist is going to chase that and re reading the report at home I can see the words "I think" which isn't good enough.  This confirms that the drugs are working but I am disappointed that I have to point out, a week later, inaccuracies in the report.  However I do feel I can celebrate or maybe breath a sigh of relief.  Umm where's the bottle opener?

We had a discussion around my reasons for wanting to have a hysterectomy and I will wait for the full report and do a bit more research.  It has been agreed that this can be emailed to me, albeit begrudgingly.  It has been quite an emotional build up to today's meeting but I will to get used to it.  My next CT Scan will be in 3 months time as an ultra sound scan will only concentrate on my liver whereas the CT scan covers a larger area andcan spot changes in bone density.

Apart from a summer cold I just feel tired.  I am going to start swimming again soon so Anne get the dust off your swimming costume!