Skip to main content

Fighting a good fight with great grace

Ok, so I'm just a tinsey winsey little bit in awe of this woman.  But, before you leap to any conclusions, allow me to illuminate you as to her recent triumphs.  As though surviving three rounds of chemo weren't enough, this lady is on her bike, and racing through the cycles.  Inspiration personified.  That's Charlotte.





She certainly is fighting a good fight, and my own little battle which takes place in the gym most days continues alongside her awesome efforts.  As I approach my yoga practice, I offer my poses up in her name.  As I swim lengths, I think of her.  As I lift my weights, I add an extra 1.25kg on each end, in her honour.  As I clip onto pedals, I do so with pride.  In Combat classes, I punch harder than my shoulders are inclined to and kick higher than my hips hope to.  I am so full of loving admiration for the person who inspired me to exercise as an undergraduate where such pastimes were frowned upon by a great many of our fellow students.   

My respect for her is boundless, and so too is my determination to support her in any way I can.  Since learning of her diagnosis, it's as though the adverts on the radio for Macmillan and Cancer Research are several decibels louder than anything else on air.  They stop me in my tracks and bring back to the foreground of my mind my dear friend's daily challenge to live alongside and beat the hated alien.



26 miles in 26 days

If you haven't already, please don't think twice to sponsor Charlotte's (not so) little sister run 26 miles and 385 yards for The Prostate Cancer Charity and Breast Cancer Care - the Joint Official Charity of the 2012 Virgin London Marathon. 
Do your bit to send cancer on its way.   



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Table. Apple. Penny.

Whilst there were several places I might have been that morning, I wouldn't have been anywhere else.  The practitioner from the Memory Service arrived promptly.  I liked her instantly.    Mum was nervous.  I think I was a little, too.  It's been a difficult year.   "It's Friday, it's the fourteenth of December and I'm at home..."   No problems there.  CAMCOG, or the Cambridge Cognitive Examination is a thorough assessment tool used to assess the extent of extent of dementia, and to assess the level of cognitive impairment.  The standardised  measure assesses orientation, language, memory, praxis, attention, abstract thinking, perception and calculation.    "Table.  Apple.  Penny."   Three everyday items that were introduced at one point, and then referred to again later on.  Again, Mum was able to recall each.      I am reminded that the...

Glass half full? Glass half empty? Or perhaps the glass is broken

I am, constitutionally, a glass half empty gal.  I will always first acknowledge what I don't have, what I have lost, and what it is that I am seeking.  I tend to overlook my strengths, concentrating only on those bits of me that are underdeveloped or weak.  I refer to myself as a realist, but in doing so compliment myself and insult those who genuinely are simply realistic.  My modus operandi is to identify what's not working and acknowledge this before seeing more clearly what functions perfectly well.  This has its place: I edit others' written work pretty well.  My fastidious attention to detail serves me, and the author.  Accuracy counts, for me and I have an excellent memory.  I can remember a great many of my sessions with clients verbatim.  Even this asset is something I can, and do, diminish the true value of, by concentrating on 'I should have said...' or 'why didn't....  occur to me during the session?' Earlier this we...

Joan Miro: Emotional Art

"Painting and poetry are like love; an exchange of blood, a passionate embrace, without restraint, without defence.  The picture is born of an overflow of emotions and feelings." Miro, The Farm 'La Masia' (1921-22) I learnt a great deal about Miro on a recent visit to the Tate.  I learnt a great deal about a lot more too. Miro wanted to discover the sources of human feeling.  He described his method of creating poetry by way of painting, using a vocabulary of signs and symbols, metaphors and dream images to express definite themes he believed to be fundamental to human existence.  The exhibition displays his sense of humor and lively wit.  His chief concern was a social one; he wanted to get close to the great masses of humanity, and he was convinced that art can only truly appeal when it resonates with roots of lived experience.  "Wherever you are, you find the sun, a blade of grass, the spirals of the dragonfly.  Courage cons...