Audrey’s Blog on living well with disability and breast cancer

                                                        After the storm It is estimated that there is one woman diagnosed with breast cancer every eleven minutes in the UK. Yes thats right one person, their family, their friends, their colleagues knocked side ways by the diagnosis, every eleven minutes. And sometimes in my job it feels like I know them all. Of course I don't but it's a rare day when I don't connect with someone who has just been diagnosed, heard good or bad results, lost someone they love and all the shades in between. Breast cancer after all is called a common condition, it's impact felt by many and on every one of these occasions there is a tough road to travel. Our work in Breakthrough helps to make some of these roads a little easier I hope and also very importantly gets better outcomes for them. But we also want to prevent this happening to more people.   So why am i saying this now? Well for two reasons. Recently I got an u

                                 Ring the bell that still can ring                                   Forget your perfect offering                                 There is a crack in everything                                   It's how the light gets in. What do you do when you are stuck on a train? If you are me you read, tweet, email, text, listen to music and that's just the first  hour! After six and a half hours and approaching home I was falling asleep and I asked twitter for help,the train was going on to Aberdeen but I wasn't....I hoped. Sing and set your alarm both useful suggestions. I'd just been listening to Leonard Cohen and a singalongaleonard would be an unwise move, not least for my fellow passengers. But I arrived eventually exhausted and reflecting again on the balance of my life; that would be lack of it really. But i was up the next day for a breakfast meeting where I enjoyed a wide ranging discussion on health and social

You know in that moment when you notice your mobile phone has three missed calls in a short space of time, that there is something wrong. And there was. Someone very dear to us had had a heart attack. Your own heart stops too for a moment until more details emerge. Then as the details emerged we were reassured that it was a mild one and with the right care and rehabilitation all will be well. Thank goodness. And as I write she is home and doing well. Yes that's right, she. Did you assume perhaps that it was a he, as I said a heart attack? Because women do have heart attacks and often underestimate their risk. What is important is that all women are knowledgeable about potential risks to them and the impacts on their health and know how to modify their risk where possible, whether that's breast cancer, heart disease or conditions like diabetes. And the good news, in a way, is that keeping active, keeping your weight down, not smoking and watching your alcohol intake

Going Nowhere.... I have had some really uplifting feedback this week . In particular the blog from Jayne Cox who  is woman I have met on twitter on jaynemcox ,  a coach for women especially those with confidence issues and she asked me to be this months WOW woman. It stands for woman of worth and I guess any other complement is in shadow of that. She asked powerful questions and my answers to those make, I think,  a moving blog. A local journalist too did a very perceptive piece about my story and our important work. She entitled it "when the helper needs help". These experiences and others have made me ponder on self perceptions. Because my reaction is the most telling thing of all. When my doctor was recently summarising my medical history she said "so you have recurrent breast cancer and severe asthma". I was shocked, really shocked. No I wanted to say that's not me, I've just had a bad spell, the cancer was very early, I will be fine so