Friday Round-Up

Time for this week’s round-up of the best of the blogs which I’ve read over the past week. These are the posts that have moved me, taught me something, inspired me, and which I’ve wanted to share with you. Remember, if you have written or read a post recently which you would like me to share with readers, then please leave a comment below.

This has been a tough week for me emotionally, so it was wonderful to have something to smile about – thanks to The Pink Underbelly for her very funny take on how to live to 100 via Dr Oz and Oprah and to Brenda for her vividly drawn story of Booker and Verlene.

On a more serious note, we don’t all get to live to 100 if cancer has us in our sights, and Debbie has written a touching tribute to a friend, aged just 66 years of age, who died from ovarian cancer.

Nancy is remembering caregivers in this National Family Caregivers Month and has some helpful tips for any caregivers out there. Caregiving is also the theme of Audrey’s latest blog.

Philippa is in a reflective mood as she remembers her first experience of the Thai Loy Krathong festival. “In 2009, the Festival fell on November 3rd, one month and one day since life changed.  On that day, three years ago I had just had my first chemo, I had two rounds of surgery and I was starting to lose my hair.”

Liz is also reflecting on her own experience with chemotherapy this time last year, and she is writing of standing on the cusp of a new job and moving on with her life a year later.  And how do you  move on after cancer anyway? This is the theme taken up by Nicole in her latest post.

The importance of exercise to cancer rehabilitation  is the theme of two blogs I read this week – No Boobs About It and Caroline’s Breast Cancer Blog.

As someone who has only recently re-discovered the joys of knitting and crochet, I really enjoyed reading Liza’s latest blog on the Healing Power of Yarn Tangles.

As a writer for HealthWorks Collective, I have regularly taken part in their Health Care Social Media Review blog carnival, so I am excited to see that Jackie is hosting the next round. For details on how you can submit your blog, check out Dispatch From Second Base.

Anne Marie is passionately defending the need for patients to remain in hospital after a mastectomy – yes, you read that right. It is too much to expect that anyone is fit to leave hospital after just one day post surgery, but incredibly that is where things are heading. Check out Anne Marie’s reasons for why this shouldn’t be so.

Two years ago, when my dear friend Terri Wingham first emailed me with her idea of  taking a group of cancer survivors on a volunteering trip around the world and asked what I thought, I thought what an amazing idea,  but it’s going to be a big task to get it off the ground.  Well, I didn’t reckon with Terri’s determination and faith to see it through. What she has done to take her dream from its first imaginings to this point is nothing short of incredible and now she needs our help with the next part of her audacious plan. She is looking for support from Richard Branson to help her get her group to Delhi next year and she wants us to help her spread the word. Check out her latest blog to find out you can do just that.

Finally I leave you with some words from Tami Boehmer, a fitting way to end this week’s round-up.

People always ask me how to deal with the shadow of metastatic cancer — the treatments, anxiety of scans and uncertainty of the future. For me the answer is staying in the present and appreciating the light in our lives. The light is always surrounding us if we just take time to notice it. I see it in my daughter’s exuberant smile, in the sun shining on a winter’s day … even the simple pleasure of having my teeth feel clean after a dentist appointment. It’s not something we have to wait for – like at the end of the tunnel – it’s right where we are.

Until next week…

May the light surround you all throughout the coming week.

Yours with love

Marie xxx