marathon donating link

Dear all,

Firstly the link is now up to donate online. It is:

Justgiving - donate to charity and raise funds online - Milo Ruane london Marathon'08 - for sis!

http://justgiving.com/miloruane1

So please start to donate, even if it's only a couple of quid!

Also have a check up yesterday,

White count 4.4 (seems to have settled there....)
Platelets 128, so that's good, seems to be on the rise!
Leukaemic level has gone up a bit, from 4.44 to 7%, but the consultant thinks that I had the last level test when I was on a higher dosage of the chemo, and is not concerned about the rise, as it's only very slight.

Hope all's well with everyone!

Lots of love, laughter and smiles! (the bigger the donations, the more laughter and more smiles, and no I promise, that's NOT emotional blackmail!!! He he he!)
XXX

A big thank you

Dear all,

Just wanted to say a big thank you to everyone for all their support and emails and everything in the past year. Believe it or not, it's a year today that I was diagnosed! Time flys by!

As always, lots of love, smiles and laughter,

XXX

London Marathon

Dear all,

(Sorry for repeated information, have put this elsewhere, and have just cut and pasted it.)

When I was diagnosed I have met a wonderful woman called Patricia who is attached to the hospital in Edinburgh, the Western General, and works for a cancer charity called Clic Sargent.

http://www.clicsargent.org.uk/Home

Without her I believe that my coping with the shock of cancer would have been very different. She not only rings me about once a week to see how I am, and to offer to do things for me, for example my supermarket shopping if I'm not up to it, but also arranged a disabled parking badge, and the opportunity to rant and moan at someone who is slightly disconnected, and won't get upset if I'm upset like a family member or friend would. She has offered me the most amazing amount of support, and I am very lucky to have her, as technically I'm a bit old to have her. I think they let me slip through the net as I'm so far away from home at university.

She is also attached to the Maggie's Centre which is a drop in centre for those with cancer, offering support and relaxing therapies to help for example the pain suffered by those undergoing chemo.

http://www.maggiescentres.org

Clic Sargent do many things including arranging weekends for young people with cancer to meet and share experiences, as it's some times nice to discuss treatment, fears, and experiences with others who are going through the same or similar types of cancer.
(I'm not saying for a second that you all haven't been truely wonderful with your support!)

Milo (for those of you know don't know me, he's my younger brother) after running the New York Marathon November 2006, has decided that he wants to run the London Marathon (as you do!!) to raise money for charity. He asked me which charity I would like the money to go to, and decided to go for Clic Sargent, rather than an obvious one like Leukaemia Research, as I want to get the word spread about them as much as possible. And to boost their coffers, so they can continue the good work.

Clic Sargent is a small charity that is little known. Please, please, please donate! Even if it's only a couple of pounds. It's a fantastic charity who have made my dealing and fighting with cancer so much easier. They help me stay in the stong upbeat frame of mind to beat the fucker!

Please tell everyone that you know!!!

Thank you for supporting Clic Sargent and me through doing this!

There will another post soon with the link to donate the money to. If you want to scribble a cheque, please post it to:

Poplars Farmhouse,
Stoke By Nayland,
Nr. Colchester,
CO6 4RT

Lot of love, laughter and smiles,

XXX

Happy new year

Well my dear blogger readers,

I can't believe I haven't written anything for over a month, my appologies for being crap!! At home the blogging status is still nil, I have absolutely no idea why, but ho hum, not a lot I can do really! So as I'm now back at uni, I can blog away to my hearts content!

Where to begin? I suppose by saying happy new year, and also a belated happy christmas. I hope everyone was well behaved and got what they wanted. As I'm a little angel and am always very well behaved, I got what I wanted which was very nice!!

I had a really lovely Christmas, and for the first time, family Ruane was altogether in the new house for the few days over christmas which was great, and amazingly there were no arguments amongst Ruane children!!! Maybe at the ages of 22, 23 and 27 we are finally growing up and getting along amicably the whole time!! Shocker I know! It was bound to happen some day, and that day has finally arrived! I wonder how long it would last if we spent more than 3 continuous days together.....??!!!

New years was also fun as I came up to Edinburgh for Hogmany. I was also very clever and convinced my cousins to do the driving and in return I'd bring my disabled badge so the parking was free!! (As I was driving back up for uni on the Sunday, I didn't want to do the drive 3 times in a week, and flying and the train is soooooo expensive at that time of year! It was soo much cheaper to split the petrol between the 4 of us, even with the crazy price that petrol is at the mo.....bring on the lorry driver strikes and see if that gets is lowered a bit!!!)

Health wise everything is trundling along fine. I had a check up at the Hammersmith around the 18th Dec and the platelet count had once again dropped from I think 138 to 78...good!! They wanted to see me again before I came back up here for the start of term, so of course I agreed. Without thinking I accepted the appointment for the 2nd of jan. This was the day we were coming back from Edinburgh. When I got home I realised this and spent over 2 weeks trying to change it. And of course there were no Leukaemia clinics between christmas and new year, or even just before christmas, so with a lot of colourful language, shouting at my parents at there every suggestion (becuase it was their fault of course that my consultant hadn't emailed me back, and that her secretary was on holiday) I finally got a response on Christmas day of all days (why she didn't check her emails before that is a mystery to me!) that it was fine for me to have a blood test locally, as long as I got the results to the Hammersmith consultant before the 2nd Jan. So I rang the surgery (when it reopened on the 27thm, at 8.30 AM, highly unamusing!!) and fiound out that they don't do blood tests for those under 65 (not very fucking helpful!! Not even the words cancer and Leukamia allowed them to sneak me in!) So they told me to ring the local hospital who were great and did a blood test for me. I did have to get the Hammersmith to fax over a blood test sheet, but I got it all aranged. So off I went to have my blood test. I took it up to Haematology and they told me they wounld't process it, once again, how helpful!! (It was a really grumpy person who blatenly had NO christmas spirit WHATSOEVER even though I said it was important and used those two secret passwords that get me a lot done, being cancer, and Leukaemia, but to no avail. They said they would post the boood up to the Hammersmith that everning for it to be processed there. I then thought nothing of it, and enjoyed family festive stuff.

I had emailed my Hammersmith consultant saying that I had had a bloodtest locally and that it had been sent up etc etc etc This was on the 27th. When in Edinburgh on New years eve I finally got round to phoning the hospital to see if they have recieved the blood and what the results were. (I had assumed that no news was good news, and that the counts were ok, and to carry on as usual). I spoke to a very nice registra who went to the lab to see if they had recieved the blood, and guess what....they fucking well hadn't!!! Yay for the NHS!!! You would have thought that it would be very simple to get a test tube of blood from one hospital to another as it was all bagged up and labeled etc etc etc Onviously not! You also would have thought that after all the trouble I went to to have a blood test done, the consultant could have emailed me to say that they hadn't recieved anything..... So I thought fuck it. I'm not going to change my going home plans, I feel fine, I'll just miss the appointment and go to the one booked at the Edinburgh clinic on the 10th.

I know I have ranted about my edinburgh consultant in the past, so I think it is time to say something nice about her. For all her flaws when it comes to being motherly/understanding etc etc etc, she ALWAYS gets back to me IMMEDIATELY when I either phone or email her!

So that was all fun and games!!

My lastest results are platelets 99 and white cell 4.4, so it's all good.

I am now back in lecures which I'm finding a bit tiring, so need to be uber organized and start my essays next week as we now have the titles, and not leave it till the week before they are due in , as they would be very shitty essays, and I'd probably get about 5%, and put myself in hospital with exhaustion!!

I've also basically decided to leave at the end of this yeasr with a general degree. I don't think that I want to do another year of uni, don't know if I'd be up to dealing with all the stress of a dissertation etc etc etc I'm also begining to feel that my time at uni is coming to an end, and I'm ready to get on with my life. I feel very similar to how I did at school in the upper 6th. Before christmas I was quite happy and content, but after christmas the itchy feet began, and I was getting ready to leave and begin the next chaper of my life!


So for the time being, that is all. I'm going to do a seperate blog in the next couple of days about Milo ruunning the London Marathon for me, and my charity of choice which is Click Sargent, so gret ready to empty piggy banks, open your wallet, get the check book out etc etc etc

Lots of Love Laughter and Smiles as usual!
XXX