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

In my mindful weeks holiday I have enjoyed time to reflect on some of life's paradoxes.And then I read the wonderful open letter to the woman who called Obama a retard on twitter, Letter from Special Olympian .Please do read it, you wont regret it. Its a dignified challenge full of grace and eloquence and I felt compelled to do this short blog after reading it.  As it made me think of how often disability, illness, change in circumstance affects peoples perception of us. That somehow this difference makes us less then we were, different from others,in need of a different approach. The head tilt that says so much. Now of course that's not always bad, if the encounter is one of empathy and mutual respect . But I guess my plea is , see the person not the condition. And also remember that every experience in life makes us who we are.I loved one of the quotes from my Mindfulness class last week, "Pain is inevitable but suffering is optional" . An important message to all

     I was going to write about prevention and breast cancer this week.But I am on holiday and trying to practice my mindfulness more regularly so i have decided I might just do some mindfulness reflections instead.A little post regularly to enable my mindfulness practice. "Dont cry because its over, smile because it happened." Dr Seuss The quote above came to mind as I reflected on a really lovely family weekend, celebrating birthdays and seeing so many people I care about in one room, from new born babies to people 80 years plus. What a complete joy and how quickly it galloped passed. They have gone home now, the puppy is coming back down from hyper space and the cat has emerged back out from under the bed.And I have a week off to recover! So yes i feel a bit sad its over...of course I do.But mostly i'm really smiling with fine memories and looking forward to the next happy occasion to treasure.

" Live your life each day as you would climb a mountain. An occasional glance towards the summit keeps the goal in mind, but many beautiful scenes are to be observed from each new vantage point" So this week saw day one of my eight week mindfulness class. Leading me through a process which I hope will help to embed  practice of being more mindful. It's a secular process aimed at increasing well being and reducing stress. Me stressed? I know, such a preposterous suggestion:/). Our first week involved going around the room and describing our expectations and challenges currently. As I described my expectations and current challenges I found a strange sadness settle on me. I often talk about my experience of cancer but I usually bat it off with skill. I did say to the group I am well now but hoping mindfulness will help me achieve better balance at this stage of transition. But something in the admission to a group of strangers made it so much more real and it

It's impossible not to know its breast cancer awareness month, with national landmarks fabulous in pink. Journals full of stories of women impacted on by breast cancer and numerous news items. And I am remembering that last year I began to feel a little overwhelmed by it. Bizarre given my job , but true none the less. And I notice in me a reluctance to wear pink , almost as I am surrounded by it, it's my last way to say this doesn't define me. And as read others blogs and tweets on the subject I hear their own frustration. One in particular made a special plea to remember in the middle of all the pink awareness, that breast cancer isn't a pink and fluffy disease it's hellish and hard and steals lives for too many people. It's not I'm sure intended, but the constant awareness raising , without the balance of understanding the real impact , has the effect of perhaps disenfranchising those its meant to help.It's hard to escape it and sometim

In a week that had the Breakthrough Breast Cancer Board come to Scotland, saw the launch of Breakthrough 100 and held a parliamentary reception to launch Breast cancer Awareness month I will admit to have shed a few tears. OK some may have been about how sore my feet were by the end of Thursday and others maybe on Monday when the alarm went off and I realised a new week had begun, but mostly it was because at all the events I attended last week there was raw honesty about the impact of breast cancer on people. We hadn’t allowed a pink glow to prettify breast cancer and tidy up the traces. We faced it squarely and said we as group of people and as an organisation have the desire and ambition to change breast cancer for good.   And the pink explosion of October is a very important part of raising funds for all our work. So every pink item sold (not telling you what I just bought in M&S but it is very pretty!), every pink pin bought, every pink party enjoyed w