By Your Side

Love Hope Strength.

Anybody who knows me, knows that this is the charity I volunteer for and support. This charity was set up by Mike Peters (my hero) and is a cancer foundation.

The By Your Side campaign is to raise money for the North Wales cancer centres. You know that I have been fighting cancer since 2009 with 6 operations, 12 rounds of chemo, 30 radiotherapy and 18 herceptin not to mention the blood tests, heart scans, CT and MRI scans.......

And the rest!!!!

Really weird to see a friend on one of the photos M!!!! who is a tough welsh fighter just like me. 

Also Sister Wenna on 1.23 from Shooting Star Unit who took me under her wing.

You see, I have small veins so I am hard to canulate. It would take up to 4 attempts to get a line in for chemo so with 12 chemos, you can imagine how many canulas I had to endure.

Towards the end of my chemo I literally was a shivering wreck and the only way I could actually pull myself together to face it was to listen to "Fight Back" by The Alarm, this song gave me the gythryl to get in there and do the job.

Sister Wenna saw what I had gone through and knowing that I had another 18 shots of targeted chemo (herceptin) to go, she took me under her wing and made it her sole purpose to get the line in herself. She did this spot on for each session. The one she missed because she was on holiday, well, she arranged for another sister to look after me but she made sure I knew in advance etc. 

Above and beyond the call of duty!!

I will never forget Sister Wenna.

More recently they tried to canulate my chemo damaged arm and it was like driving nails into my veins. The pain was indescribable. It took me right back to my chemo days and I started shaking so badly. Totally relieved when my surgeon told them to stop and use my better arm.

All of these memories.

So what LHS is doing for Awyr Las and the By Your Side campaign is amazing and I hope that in the future when I endeavour to raise money for this I will get lots of support.