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

I’m the annoying one in the family that takes the photos. ‘Just stay still a moment till I take your photo’, ‘oh that will be a great’, ‘oh try again’, ‘oops the dog photo bombed’ you know the drill? On reflection I think it started when my Dad was first diagnosed with cancer. I realised that all our time together was uncertain so we should celebrate good times and remember to capture it on film too. I’m grateful we did. His last years flashed by like glimpses from a train carriage, sometimes just so fast no memory or image remains. His last photos showed the effect of illness and medication and that hurt. But within those we caught one where he sat with the dog at his feet, content with the world. The dog was my families but we all knew really his primary attachment was my Dad! That photo comforted me for many years after his death. It sat on a table by my chair. It’s 25 years now since Dad died but the urge in me to capture special moments remains.  He was always my go to fo

I’m writing blogs in my head at the moment but then somehow they don’t find their way to the page. Getting through each day is taking my energy and I’m busy trying to hold on to a life that remotely looks like it used to. This week however I’ve managed to cause something of a stushie (Scots meaning a row) by challenging the pink wash of breast cancer. I was interviewed and mentioned that I didn’t wear the pink ribbon at all this year and feel that the pink hue that has become breast cancer awareness month is at risk of trivialising a very serious condition.  The Times of a London decided to cover it as me calling for the pink ribbon to be scrapped! Which I didn’t and absolutely agree that the pink ribbon has become an international symbol and as such has helped to raise much needed income and awareness and that’s much to be thankful for. And Estée Lauder when they introduced it in 1993 did not set out to declare that thereafter everything Breast Cancer needed to be pink and flu