At Least a Stone to Lose

This picture was taken of me about 15 years ago and that is the size I want to be again. To be that size I will have to lose a stone in weight.

I have a condition called Polycystic Ovary Syndrome which was diagnosed when I was trying to start a family but couldn't. I knew something was wrong anyway because I went from a tiny, slender girl to a plump one with boobs literally overnight... well... in a space ofn 3 months. I might add that this was after I had suffered a breakdown following the death of my brother and I had an eating dishorder. Once I started to eat again thats when things went wrong.

I have battled with my weight since that time but I got to goal after I had Harry and remained there until I decided to have the meriner coil fitted which has hormones in it. From the time it was fitted to the time I had it removed I piled on 2 and a half stone in weight. I was just starting to get rid of it when I had my cancer diagnosis.

I have now lost all the cancer weight but now I am in that position where I need to get rid of the hormone weight.

Its so hard especially when you hit a plateau like I have.

When the children return to school in September I can get my old routines back in place... dog walking, running and riding then hopefully, by Christmas I will have reached my goal.

Rain

Had a nice day today despite the ever constant grey skies and rain. I gave my eldest son, Joe a half hour riding lesson on Cola then I went out on a hack, Joe accompanied me on his bike. We had only been out for quarter of an hour and the heavens opened so we returned to the yard. Soaking wet through we cycled home and Joe saw a little baby fox in the hedgerow. Now we are waiting for the rain to subside so that we can turn Cola out and poo pick his paddock.

Life is Fast These Days

The children are now on their summer break and as if on queue, the weather turns for the worst. Last week we had horrendous downfalls of rain which lead to localised flooding (luckily not in my village). It has done the grass some good and weeding my ponies paddock is alot easier so I can't and won't grumble (too much).

Oh yes, just looked outside and its raining again!

This weekend was spent on the welsh mountains at our friends house. She took me to see a wonderful cottage which would be my dream place but sadly its only up for rent. It has land, it is massive with 4 bedrooms and a utility room which could be converted into a grooming parlour. Best of all, no neighbours so I wouldn't have to worry about the dogs excessive barking, the kids could go out to play without worrying about poeples gardens, the children being too noisy, and best of all we would have peace... Its good to have dreams.

I did a silly thing! I used the self checkout machine at the supermarket and only went and left my debit card there so today I need to take a trip out there to pick it up. On the way, I will take my kids for a walk somewhere so we will go prepared with wellies and waterproofs. Watch out for a posting with photographs.

I won in my fight to stop the selling off of Darland High School Tennis Courts, just by the by, thought you would like to know that! I raised a petition of 673 signatures and the plans were dismissed by a respectful majority. If you are interested in hearing more then I will do a seperate blog.

If you are reading this, please could you do me a favour........ log onto Amazon and download a single. It is by a band called Killing for Company and the name of the single is Former Mining Town. The band has recently lost its drummer, Stuart Cable who died suddenly at the age of 40. An amazing person who was full of life, the single has been released in his honour. The proceeds will be split between two great charities which are The Teenage Cancer Trust and Ty Hafan which is a charity caring for children with terminal illnesses. The single only costs 79 pence, so its not much is it but it would help the band, Stuarts family and friends come to terms with their shocking loss whilst supporting two brilliant charities.


The following videos are as a tribute to Stuart Cable. The first one is by his former band The Stereophonics but personally I LOVE the last video "Born Yesterday" where you can see just how passionate Stuart was about his music.

Life is worth the fight

Last Thursday, Mike Peters of the Alarm and a North Wales musician toured the three hospitals in North Wales to highlight their amalgamation. He held a buskathon at each one of the hospitals to raise money and awareness for his charity, the Love Hope Strength Foundation. LHSF has already donated a significant amount of money to the North Wales hospitals in the fight against cancer.

Mike got hit by leukemia about 12 or so years ago, he won his fight only to be hit again with a different form of the disease which is not curable but treatable. Since his diagnosis he founded the LHSF, rocked Snowdon 4 times, Kili, Everest, Rhondda to name but a few. An amazingly talented guy with an equally amazing wife, Jules Jones Peters.

I really wanted to go to the Wrexham Hospital buskathon and Jules invited me to help the team out which I would have truly loved to have done. However, it was my eldest sons induction evening at his new high school so I was unable to make it. I decided to take some flowers for Jules as a show of support and was going to leave them in reception with a little note. When we got to the car park, who should be getting out of their car but Mike, Jules and Matt. To say that God works in mysterious ways is an understatement because I was able to hand the flowers over personally and introduce them to my sons. I was over the moon.

On Monday I went out for an amazing run! Its funny how I come up with the best ideas and thoughts when I am running so I must invest in a dicatphone so that it can come with me on my runs. As I ran in the rain on Monday, I was overcome by the beauty of the world, not just visually but the smell, the rain, it was amazing. I was then struck by the thought that heck, the world is the only treadmill you need. With that thought in mind, I laughed, I jumped and had myself a pretty amazing run.

Our local council has been trying to sell off our high schools tennis courts for development. I instigated a petition and my friend Judy helped me and together we got 673 signatures against the sell off. Judy wrote to the executive council and we were invited to the executive meeting in order to hand over our petition and lodge our objections.

It was quite a heated debate but our community councillor Hugh Jones put forward an amazing argument against the plans. Basically hightlighting the fact that the council had acted in an underhand way and had not made it clear to the board of school govenors the amount of land in question. He also highlighted the fact that selling of school land was against the councils pledge and that of the government. He raised the fact that Prince William was heading a campaign to stop the sale of school land and actually quoted him as saying "recreational land is not a luxury it is a necessity..." He highlighted the fact that Sport for Wales and The Fields in Trust were on our side in preserving the school land. He also drew attention to the fact that in 2009 a survey conducted in our village showed a serious shortfall in recreational facilities.

I am pleased to report that the council voted against going ahead with the planned sell off much to the aggitation of those involved in finance!

So I must report a pretty successful few days!

Chemo Brain

I changed from Cancer Aint Gonna Beat Me to Sara's Fight Back because I wanted to move away from cancer, move my life forward. However, there are some aspects of cancer that aren't quite so easy to leave behind and I feel that I must talk about them in order to spread awareness and nurture understanding.

When I finished, what I call, the radical part of my treatment in October 2009, I really thought that I had cracked it. I had been operated on, poisened and burned and life would resume as normal.

How wrong I was.

My first realisation came early in the year of 2010 when I finally realised and accepted that I was not as physically strong as I had previously been. It was a shock I can tell you because I expected to pick up where I left off! I accepted the situation, grieved a little bit and moved on.

Today, my second realisation hit me. Chemo Brain! Yes, I am suffering with chemo brain or cognitive disfunction. It basically means that I have word retrieval difficulties, word/name memory difficulties, sequencing and feel confused alot. I can no longer multi task as I used to, my short term memory is shocking....

Today I hit meltdown. I had a good cry then went off for a run to clear my head and get rid of the negative energies in my body. After 15 minutes of a 45 minute run I realised that my chemo brain and subsequent melt down this morning has given me an understanding of what it is like to have autism, or cognitive difficulties. I then felt a bit guilty because I am in a situation that I can rest my brain but children with ASD are unable to do this. When my son has his next melt down, I will know exactly how he is feeling and I am better able to deal with him.

30 minutes into my 45 minute run, my brain started to work again and my thoughts became less random and by the end of the run I was laughing and picking the seeds off the long grass as I ran past.

My head is still fragile, it won't take much for me to hit melt down again but I can grow from today now that I have accepted my situation and put in place strategies for us all to cope as a cognitive disfunctional family.

Autism

Today we went to our sons IEP review at school which is where we discuss the progress and agree new targets.

I am so proud of my son because we are now discussing literacy and academics rather than behaviour, speech, language and communication. He has made so much progress and his self esteem has been raised so I am hoping that the literacy will start to come.

I went to Glyndwr University this evening to see an Autistic adult give a talk. Well, what an amazing talk it was.... witty, humerous and enlightening. I have a better understanding of what my boys are going through, how they see life and why they do the things they do. Best of all, it has given me hope that my boys will become well rounded adults.

I could write pages and pages on my life with autistic children but I won't because words cannot adequately describe what life is like.

All I can say is that my life is so much better for having my autistic children, it has made me a stronger and better person and I enjoy dealing with their little ways.

Autism is such a broad spectrum..... well..... thats why they call it a spectrum. No one ASD person is the same or affected by the same things. My children do have sensory issues..... light, sound, taste, texture etc, we think H may have dyslexia, they have compulsions and OCD habits but we live our life around them and deal with them. It is hard having autistic children, nobody can ever understand just how hard it is for us as parents and them as human beings living in this crazy world.

There is hope for my boys, and now that the condition is being discussed, and people are becoming more aware of it, tolerance is growing.

One thing the condition has taught me is that I don't give a fig what other people think of me or my children...... I believe in me and most of all I believe in them, nothing else matters!

Monkeys on my Back

When I run, I seem to generate great ideas for my blog. Ideas that I would like to share with people. Yesterday I had a lovely run. The wind was blowing and although it was hot it was a great temperature for running. While I was out I listened to my MP3 of all the songs which have got me through my life.


I realised that all of my life I have had "Monkeys on my Back". These monkeys aren't good, they are not nice, they hung onto me for all their worth but I shook them off. The monkeys come in all shapes and forms and their names are;

Depression
Infertility
Annorexia
Low Self Esteem
Autism
Cancer

The only monkey I have been able to get rid of completely is Infertility! Yes, I got rid of you because I have my two wonderful sons who I had to fight hard for and wait many years for.

The other monkeys have been shaken off but they are always there in the shadows, lurking with evil intent, waiting for a chink of weakness to appear in my soul, waiting for negativity to slip into my life so that they can jump on again for the ride.

The only monkey I am desperately afraid of is Cancer because I have no control over him. If he decides to get on my back again I can only hope that physically I have the strength to kick his butt again. The other ones are relatively easy to keep at bay because as long as I stay strong they will remain in the shadows.

Do you have monkeys on your back?

Summer Ramblings

Life is good!


I hate the way I look at the moment... my body is not mine and my hair is not mine....


However, I am getting back into shape slowly. My energy levels are much higher than they were so that I can push myself through the pain of back ache and do all of the things I enjoy. My running is going really well as is my swimming and aqua jogging. I love riding Cola but the only down side about that is my back hurts so much when I ride.


My hair is growing slowly too. I am striving for a short, chin length bob then after that, maybe a bit longer. It will be nice to feel feminine again.


The weight is coming off slowly but I am determined to get there. I am within a healthy BMI range now which takes the pressure off me a little. My fingers and toes are still swollen and sadly, I still can't wear my wedding, engagement or eternity rings.


I am enjoying life with a passion now. I have been given a second chance and I recognise that.


Summer is coming and with that brings all sorts of changes in the lives of my sons. Joe will be finishing at primary school and moving on to High School, we are attending his last ever primary school sports day tomorrow....


Harry will be moving up to year 5.... I am wondering how he will cope with the change and the fact that Joe won't be there.... I know he is worried because he keeps asking me questions about it, seeking confirmation.


I wish Harry could remain with his existing class teacher because she has worked wonders with him this year. His self esteem has gone up and with that so to has his reading and writing. He still has a long way to go but he is coping much better with life these days.