Fat

Last night I put a photo on twitter that I shouldn't have done.  I did not do it to be malicious or unkind or to ridicule or to have a go or anything else that it may have been interpreted as. I will not put the photo on here to show you, it was a photo of me next to a photo of an obese person and I entitled it, 'I suppose I'm not fat...'  I have also deleted it.

I did it and tweeted it and then got the consequences of it.  I did not think.  I did not mean to portray what was interpreted.  I could blame exhaustion and not thinking properly.  I could blame not thinking properly without exhaustion, but I don't think that I should necessarily blame myself for doing it, however that is what I am doing.

Generally speaking I would like to think I'm a fairly nice person and think about others often before myself. That I think about my actions and how others would feel, and that often I don't say what I would really like to because it would be upsetting and hurtful.  I think that's why I found last night upsetting.  I never meant to be 'that' person.

I, as you know if you read this or know me, have fairly large self-image issues which I am trying very hard to over come.  I am trying to see how I am and to like, love, accept how I look without constantly wanting to be just a bit thinner, or to have smaller thighs or to look like they do.  And it's hard.  The older I get the more aware I am of myself and how events in my like have impacted, I am beginning to fully process how being fat when I was little and then in my 20s has shaped me and my self-opinion.  And it's all my own opinion.  I was never called fat.  My grandmother weighing me certainly didn't help, but I was never bullied or called names. I had friends and remember having fun.  It's all me.

I know at a level I'm not fat, to fit into the size clothes I wear I know I'm not fat, yet......  I am aware of every mouthful of food that I eat and the consequences that could happen if I did actually let myself eat everything that I wanted to when I saw it.

I hope that when I'm not so exhausted, when this fucking degree is over, hopefully tomorrow, my cravings will lessen and I won't be constantly thinking about chocolate and doughnuts and cake.

Maybe I think that I'm fat and dare I add in ugly, maybe that's too harsh, ok looking, as well because, unlike the majority of my friends, I am still single.  Maybe it's easy just to think bad things about myself as a way to explain it.  I don't know.  I do genuinely sometimes wonder what is wrong with me though, and have two categories.  Fat and ugly or don't drink and cancer.

It's amazing what we tell ourselves, with no actual true reasoning or evidence as to why.  The mind is incredibly powerful and I also don't know why I can't accept deep down what I am told.  Maybe it's all been a protection as I've needed to focus on me and not had the space or time for anyone else. Or maybe I just need a shit load of therapy.

XXX

Getting Involved

Well my lovely Bloglets,

Back again.  Lucky YOU!  So this time the content was sort of suggested to me.  Obviously I’m more than happy to be writing it, otherwise I wouldn’t be doing this.  Generally speaking, I don’t do anything I don’t want to.  You may have gathered this from me already….

I put this blog in three places.  Here, well, depending on where you are reading this here means where you are rather than where I mean it to be.  So to start again.  I put my blog on my blog blog (katruane.blogspot.com), on Facebook as a note and the Leukaemia & Lymphoma Research website (minus the swearing).   I can’t remember how or when I started posting on the Leukaemia & Lymphoma Research website, or how I came across the charity.  I have been trying to remember and can’t.  Maybe one of you reading this does know.  If you do, could you leave a comment to remind me how it happened?  It’s not important; I’m just a bit bemused as to how it’s happened.

So, Leukaemia & Lymphoma Research.  Pretty obvious why I have become involved with them.  But only in the last few weeks have I become properly engaged (gobby) with the charity.  Their focus, as the name indicates, has been on research, but now, the focus is widening to incorporate the patient. This means they have a survey out at the moment (http://populuslive.spss-asp.com/mrIWeb/mrIWeb.dll) to find out about patient experience and to then implement change where it is needed. 

Listening to patients and what they have to say is paramount.  Patient representatives should be in parliament assisting change because let’s face it.  Unless the politician or clinician has had cancer they haven’t got a fucking clue.  Patients know.  Our experience is priceless and what we say should shape future treatments both in terms of the actually drugs and the interactions between everyone in the health care system - from receptionists through to the top clinicians in the country.  This is why I do what I do. I want to help. I want to make sure that NO ONE experiences the shit that I have, because no one should.

It’s exciting getting involved with Leukaemia & Lymphoma Research now, at the beginning of the patient focus phase.  Last week or the week before I went to a focus group about patient experience and then last night about information booklets.  Obviously I love giving my opinion on things, but I do do it with others in mind and do my best to think of those without a voice. To be able to have the opportunity to input at this stage, to make sure that things are right and as they should be for patients, is crucial.  It is getting involved now that will make a difference and make things better for the next person diagnosed.

It is doing things like this, going to parliament, being on expert reference groups that show me why I was diagnosed with cancer.  I’m not being passive and whinging about everything.  I do whinge, yes, but I also get vocal, in, well I hope, a positive and constructive way.  I do this for all of use, particularly the lost tribe (16-24 year olds).  I do this for those who can’t.  I do this to make a difference.  I do this to help.  I do this to make people aware of what it’s like.  I do this because I can and will continue to do so until everyone gets the treatment they deserve.

With love and hope,

XXX

The NHS

Well my lovely Bloglets,

I'm meant to be working, so of course I thought I would write instead.

It’s something that I have been thinking about writing for a while and I sit on a yo-yo ever going up and then down with if I will write this and post it.  It’s controversial.  I don’t want to get trolled or abuse.  But saying nothing is making me angry.  So I shall write, and hope that people are kind.  Or at least recognise this as a view that I believe, as I would because it’s mine, that it’s valid.

The NHS.

Recently it has been in the forefront of everyone’s minds.  In the press.  On twitter.  Not so much on Facebook.  But there are petitions everywhere.  And a lot of hate being directed at the current government.

I’m not going to lie.  I do not know the full picture.  But to be honest I don’t know if anyone does.  IF you want to try and understand how the NHS is governed and the money is split watch this….

http://www.kingsfund.org.uk/projects/nhs-65/alternative-guide-new-nhs-england

Any clearer?  Probably not.  It’s a minefield.  And the NHS is fucked.

The problem with the NHS is not the government, this one or the last or the one before that, although to be honest, I don’t think the last one helped much dragging us into a war that basically bankrupted the country…. However.  What the NHS was set up to do and what it does now are two completely different things.  The NHS today is overwhelmed with chronic disease which is expensive, myself included and yes, I do feel guilty about this, and a rising population of the elderly.  I want to make one thing very clear.  I do NOT believe ANYONE should be denied treatment.  BUT I do believe that those who have conditions that can be resolved through lifestyle changes should not be given pharmaceuticals or surgery which is expensive.  Conditions like type 2 diabetes and obesity can be dealt with and improved through different ways.  Once again, I am NOT saying that help should not be given.  Different help should.  Part of me also thinks that if the person isn’t willing to try to change and to obtain a better level of health without pill popping, well….

And for every person over 50 to be given statins.  What a fucking joke.  Statins have side effects which will mean that some need more drugs to counter those which give side effects so more drugs are needed and before you know it a healthy person is taking 5 different drugs a day.

Big pharma has a lot to answer for. 

And the way that we expect to go to the doctor and by fixed without taking any responsibility for ourselves.  Maybe I am over critical.  I have made so many changes to try and get my body to a place where I can be chemo free.  I don’t want to be on treatment, and yes, I am eternally grateful that I get the drugs free.  Of course I am.  So many get given prescriptions who could be helped in other ways, and THAT is why the NHS is fucked.

I was at a high level meeting and it was openly admitted that the NHS runs at 60% efficiency.  60%! If the NHS can’t be sorted with all the thousands of managerial bodies etc that are already employed, how else can it be saved?  Maybe that’s the problem.  Too many governing bodies.  Not enough nurses.

I live in the NHS, not through choice.  I am of course worried about what’s going to happen, I just don’t see how it can be saved in its current state without radical change, which of course, everyone will hate. 

With love and hope,

XXX