Diary of a Ballet Mum

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Posted by Eleanor H

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What Cancer Cannot Do...

I have been irked by an image circulating facebook recently. It is not because I don't admire the sentiment behind it, and it is in support of a fantastic fundraising effort for a charity dear to my heart, but basically I don't think it is true. I am a fan of positive thinking and messages of hope but this one does not sit easily with me. Cancer can do many of the things this statement claims it cannot. I feel compelled to re-write. Here is the original (from the Dawn French website facebook page - incidentally not Dawn French herself, but the page of a fan which could easily be confused): I am glad the writer of this was not there the evening before my seven-hour operation to tell me cancer cannot silence courage. I am glad the writer was not there for my second dose of chemo to tell me cancer cannot conquer the spirit. And yet... These were moments in time. If the writer had been with me throughout, they may have learnt a thing or two about hope, love, courage an

Seven years on, reflections on bowel cancer

It's that time of year again. This time seven years ago I was under the knife for life-saving surgery to remove a cancerous tumour. It's an anniversary of sorts, although I don't think you'll find a celebratory card in Clintons (not sure if you even have Clintons in NZ - think Whitcoulls or something!). Over the past few months, I've been working on the bowel screening programme for Hutt Valley District Health Board. Screening is a new thing in New Zealand and a large part of my role is encouraging eligible people to participate in the programme. I find myself sharing my story more than I had ever anticipated, but I guess it helps brings it home to people that bowel cancer really could affect anyone. It also helps get over that hurdle of foreign-ness (why is this 'pakeha' here to tell us what to do? She doesn't know us or our culture, what is the DHB thinking?!) So, to mark this occasion, here are some comments based on my experience of both canc

Happiness advent calendar

OK. Normally a blog post takes me a while to craft. Today I'm going to try being super quick because I just wanted to this advent calendar from Action for Happiness and see if anyone fancies joining in wth me. I don't suppose for a minute that I will follow the suggestion for every day, but even if I do a third of it, and a couple of others join in, we'll have done something good this festive season. It is hard to feel Christmassy in the gorgeous Wellington sunshine we are having at the moment - in the region of 27C top temperature today. Whereas I have friends in various parts of the UK who are braving the snow. But I don't think it really matters if you feel Christmassy or not, this calendar is probably worth a go any month of the year, whatever the season - and unusually for a advent calendar it goes past the 25th. I've already done day one, by sharing this with you. Let's see how we go for the days coming up. Already I can see tomorrow will

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