Follow Your Dreams No Matter What!

Making of Baby Love ~ Mitch Hiller

I had a fabulous time on the shoot for ‘Baby love’. The song is a jazz version of the old ‘Baby Love’ that was sung by Diana Ross to be released in June/July 2011. We had our makeup and costumes checked and done. Then I had to sit at a table and pretend to drink wine with a fellow Extra. He was a good looking Grenadian man and yes we were pretending to flirt. Apparently we had to give off the impression we had known each other for more than the fifteen minutes. The couple behind me and at the left of me were actual couples. I was just the odd one out along with my now new partner. Other Extra’s on set kept saying you two look to convincing pray your husband is not watching. I said that’s the idea! We all laughed at my response and I smile further at my video partner.

We were all complaining the apple juice and blackcurrant juice should be real to help us relax. The men had soda water mixed with apple juice to portray whiskey. We all had to pretend to drink as we gazed at a white board smiling occasionally glancing loving at our partners. The white board made your eyes go slightly out of focus though.

You would hear the words Take 1 and a title then the clap of the board in front of the camera. Then the words action as the artificial smoke in the room circulated round our ankles. Every now and then I would drift onto other things clogging my mind, but my on camera partner and I would chat nonsense once the camera stopped rolling. I had him in fits of laughter with stories I had to tell. We would listen to the instructions of the assistant director and play them out like a couple of serious actors which was so funny. I would say Ok! So how you going to unfold your arm from mine without stumbling? Two attempts and it were smoothly done. Once they had finished the front of the club scene they had to film from the backs of our heads. This is when we got to meet Mitch Hiller and his band members. Mitch Hiller has worked with Chaka Khan and many others composing and writing music. His career and band members go back years in the music industry. They thought my story of a guitar and posing for a calendar a bit of a fib so they called my bluff and could not believe the image was me. They said they would check it out later on their computers and to follow them on my FB page. We were in the Jazz/Salsa Club in Streatham for four hours, but to me it felt like just an hour.

Mitch Hiller

I and Mitch Hillers Band

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Do Not Judge A Book By Its Cover!

Do Not Judge A Book By Its Cover!

This phrase I use on a regular bases. Whilst my exterior is all positive and let’s raise awareness deep down sometimes I just want to explode. After my post ‘I Am Not Perfect Anymore!’ It strongly highlighted how the general public’s perception of BC can be tainted if taken in the wrong direction.

My outburst of emotion could easily be twisted into an excuse of your just bitter, but really my words are the realistic truth of a true account of BC. Sometimes you must speak out to be heard for others to try and even develop an understanding.

Whilst some of us laugh at pink wigs and say there is no harm done, even me? The few that sit in the wings watching silently have a right to disagree.

We are not sheep!

We live in a democracy where those with a different account of events should not be muted. If you mute a person they can become withdrawn within society and that is damaging. I understand certain organisations want to promote a positive and not a negative account of breast cancer. But the positive and negative sides go hand in hand to develop a true understanding of this disease. BC women should be able to express their true inner thoughts on BC for them to try to move forward. This any BC organisations should understand and take on board before setting up. That some BC suffers may not be acceptant of their policies and promotional material.

 If society was not so built up on visual perfection maybe the scares would not run so deep on a women’s way of thinking.

My dignity has been given a serious knock, but the fact I am smiling means I have moved on.

That is a total lie!

Like so many BC suffers out there my journey with BC stretches out into years rather than a week or a month it is far from over. Every time you enter an office with a consultant your heart misses a beat with an inner ache. The smiles are there just to reassure the few that my sanity/humour is still intact.

Promoting a false security blanket!

I cannot knock the pink camouflage of BC it is what raises cash for research, but I do knock the fact that certain scrupulous companies use BC to promote their products i.e. Schwartz. To promote their products as a possible preventative of BC or cancer to me is ludicrous. There is no evidence that can back up a dried herb as a preventative of cancer. There are anti-toxin properties in freshly grown herbs which are still being researched.

So Schwartz get of the band wagon of BC please! Keep your dried herbs where they belong on a supermarket shelf. Let cancer research decide where a cure/preventative can be found they are the experts.

Anyway my rant is done for now until next time that is. Now onto a more positive note and I love positives. I have been invited to take part as an extra in a music video. It is a jazz number and a very well known song. I have a lovely little black dress to wear. Even though you most probably will not see it in the video or me, but I am just pleased to be concentrating on something else other than breast cancer ;-D

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I Am Not Perfect Anymore!

Read another blog today that appeared on my FB page. The need to express can lead to deletion of posts even FB expelling you. Whilst we believe FB is an open forum to express we can be put in the naughty corner for stirring up emotions. One blogger felt the strong need to speak out on her blog about the distasteful comments put on a FB page she had been following.

What worries me about her whole experience is it has trivialised a very important need. Those needs to express not all people agree to what others are encouraging.

Humour has a place, but to what ends?

Breast cancer and its emotional scars both physical and mental leave the none BC world treading on egg shells on how to approach. Yes whilst we BC survivors want to prevent BC it can lead to anger just by approaching it insensitively. Those that have survived its ugly grasp are still coming to terms with the path they are now on. We hide behind a smile or joke trying to ease the intensity of a subject such as breast cancer, but BC is not a forgiving laughable nor joyous. It is tormenting and cruel with no forgiveness for those it affects.

The FB page was setup by a young person affected by BC, but how does a young person deal with BC, but with humour.

I remember being nineteen and coming out with cheeky comments to hide my discomfort about a subject. I would argue black was white and shout get a life so easily, but something changed and when that change occurred was nearly losing my first born.

When you are young everything is simply solved unless it encroaches on your day to day way of living. Then you have a big reality check and a once self opinionated brat becomes an adult over night. I have heard time and time again well be thankful you are alive there are others less fortunate. Like it is a duty to bite my lip when I come across something I disagree with. You are seen as being frigid like some inexperienced virgin. Your opinions have become a casualty of BC and the explosion of confetti approach is more accepted.

Whilst the none BC community latch onto the pink bomb shell like a suckling infant needing comfort. There are women being driven to despair on anti-depressants to block out the painful images that remain. Yet what worries me is what if by putting a pretty image up we are giving a false perception of BC. That we are trivializing and saying it is ok to have BC because you will survive. So feel your boobs is one more step to encasing the reality.

Before my mastectomy/recon my husband would want to jump my bones every day, but after the operation was done he would lose his erection midway through the love making act leaving me rejected. That is my true reality of BC and something people do not want discussed. BC changes everything and yet I must remain silent. Do not get me wrong my needs were satisfied, but his he would dash away. People’s reactions/opinions shape how we see BC and the recovery process. The disfigurement is not just external, but internal also.

Which would leave me thinking about what his sister had said ‘Most men do not like implants.’

After a while I gave up on even attempting to make love because of the feeling of rejection. After a while you sleep on the edge of the bed with silent tears trickling down your face. That is the true nature of breast cancer. The silent tears and internal screams that no-one wants to see or hear. So the humour is a copping mechanism to mask the truth, but when a BC survivor actually bursts a valve and lets the steam flow on a FB page only to face deletion of posts because it does not fit in with the image. This I strongly question without a doubt.

Yes the true facts that cash raised for a young people’s BC organisation that titillates BC could be better placed elsewhere leaves a question mark. You could also argue the fat cat corporations that line their pockets on our misery could also do the same. For every penny raised for BC is lining someone’s pocket somewhere. Pink or Feel your boobs who cares it’s the money that is important not the tears of women in torment. Let’s all be ostriches and bury our heads in the sand like normal people, but I am not normal.

The truth is whilst sexual headlines like ‘Feel your boobs’ create comfort and titter amongst the young. The titter is getting them to do the obvious and be body aware. The argument is done before you even start amongst the none BC community. I just hope that titillation is not being abused by a sick pervert for a kick.

Whilst we are classified as being over sensitive to people saying we are being over sensitive. Can’t people just understand that we are hurting? Our lifes have been torn and turned with no end in site. I have the comfort of waking up to a mirror that can be so cruel it can send you to the depths of despair. I wish I had a perfect breast like before, but the truth is my breast nearly killed me and I am not so perfect anymore!

Yes the titillation raises awareness and cash, but sometimes even when you are young with BC. You do not want to laugh, but you want to damn well scream!

http://www.uneasypink.com/2011/03/feel-your-boobies-or-else.html

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To Spring Clean Or Not To Spring Clean!

The first day of spring is quickly approaching and so are the usual chores of turning the cupboards out. Yes I could ignore and pretend that it is not important, but truthfully I’m on kick arse mode. A good spring clean can be very therapeutic on the soul and mind. It helps you to dust the cobwebs on your brain and sift through unwanted garbage. The frustrations that you have spent months arguing internally over can easily become very transparent. But recently I have neglected all and now I have to play catch up.

My husband has no interest in the house or its needs. He knows he has a wife who is more than capable at doing DIY on her own. It has all been left to me cancer or no cancer from the minute I moved in. If I refuse he knows with time I will get frustrated and pick up a hammer.

I will have the last laugh though because he hates pink. Now would I dare do that...? Oh yes! ;-D

To make a house smile and not crumble you need the time and money. Both of these are in short supply in my marriage especially when we are constantly replacing things due to neglect.

Yes! I am materialistic, but not a branded person. I like to know when I buy something it lasts for some time not just a week or a month. (That is the single parent/Yorkshire bird in me.) I hate replacing something because someone did not take care in the first place. Yes things break, but a selfish bull in a china shop I cannot tolerate. Everything I grew up with I had to share even gifts that were given to me. So I am very protective of what I own unlike my husband.

If I could honestly sum up the actual mess this house is in it would be the house that Jack bloody built!                                                                                                                                                                      The wiring needs replacing because it was never done correctly. The plaster on the walls and the roof has seen its days. All the flooring needs replacing due to rot in places and not correctly fitted in the extension/kitchen. All the pipes need pulling out and resetting. The list is endless in fact you might as well pull the house down and build a new one it would be cheaper. I inherited this mess from my husband and I have to clean it up to a standard I can tolerate because he cannot be arsed.

So yesterday I spent the day fitting a door and encasing the electrics. There is now a neat cupboard primed and ready for painting. I have stripped the what was left paper on the walls which had been painted over with a blue vinyl matt (LAZY IDIOTS!) for a bedroom. The window in that room has now got a wooden cream blind and I am searching for paper to match. At least my youngest daughter will have a bedroom not a monstrosity of poorly thought out mistakes to go into. I hung my head down in shame when I realised how neglected this house is. I feel people are judging me on a situation I have no control over. I moved in striped back the drapery and revealed a hell of a mess. People can only judge on what they think they know, but the reality is they know nothing if they are not willing to see.

So it is Hi ho, hi ho,

It’s off to work I go,

Forget the lemonade,

I need a man with a spade,

Hi ho, hi ho, Hi Ho....

Humour people... don’t forget humour... may add laughter lines to your face, but adds years to your ticker.

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Take A Chance Who Knows What’s Around The Corner

Both interviews went well and once my references are clear for one which is the volunteer position. I will be back in the driving seat doing what I love creating smiles.

My second interview was for a television advert for JML. I learned loads from that meeting not sure if it is for me though. I hate the idea of deceiving the public into buying crap. They were looking for people who are very convincing on camera. This is fine when you’re trying to sell a product for a company, but something doesn’t sit right for me. Anyway it is a start doing a local community project rather than a false smile. And the payment for doing the advert is not payment it is to cover cost and travel expenses.

Whilst I was researching the advert interview I found a website searching for actors for a film. I checked it all out and found it to be genuine so I’m going to have a crack at it. It was an improv piece and I kind of enjoyed it. When I was at secondary school my drama teacher said I should do acting. Apparently he rated me highly in my reports from school, but I did not have the confidence to follow it through I always saw me as a no body. That’s why I say I’m a background person rather than up front. I think doing the calendar shoot made me look at myself differently. I may not be the best looking women out there, but I have character. I had already done a couple of appearances on Television before now as a contestant. At the time I was trying to raise cash to get my own home for me and my eldest. The production team even then said the camera loved me, but they say anything to build your confidence up.

When I met Steve all that excitement fell to the wayside and I become a mum for the second time. So doing the calendar made me realise what I was missing out on. It is not about being in a film. It is about saying I can do that. I had a good nosey at all the other pieces on the web page and stuck my neck out. If the axe comes down then so be it I can say I tried.

http://www.raceforlifesponsorme.org/sarahmendoza0770

Cupcake sleeve (Hungry Caterpillar theme)

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X-rays & Fundraising

This week I have had the luxury of having an x-ray done on my lower back. I know this is nothing and a pre-cautionary measure by my GP. I’ve been getting back pain for a few months, but it was slowly getting worse and affecting my walking. Personally I put it down to the fact I have had so many painkillers which has affected my bowel movements.  In other words I’m constipated and it is bloody painful. Constipation that word is never mentioned when we are young or that it can give you back pain, but becomes part of life when you reach a certain point. I would whisper to friends I’m bunged up and need a remedy (Prunes) rather than discuss it with my GP, but prunes are not doing their job. Oh well my GP is insistent I have an x-ray first to make sure nothing sinister is lurking.

My phone has been busy also and I have two interviews to go to. This is a welcomed distraction from the hum ding of boredom at home. Life must go on and I just can’t wait to find out whether either interview flourishes into something that finally puts a smile on my face. I am a grafter who loves the buzz of chatter and smiling faces that have achieved something that they thought they could not do. That is the whole point of the design of art and craft. To share the knowledge you have achieved in designing something so they can have a crack at it themselves. Art and design is all about self development whilst exploring different techniques that are out there. I just hope I remember all what I am typing when I go to my first interview. I am confident that at least one interview will lead to a job it is just one is paid the other is not. Well beggars cannot be choosers in this current climate.

The good thing is in my free time the other day I did some fund raising in South Bromley. I was there with a bucket and sash requesting donations for a machine that would help with solving lymphodema. Thankfully I only had four lymph nodes removed, but those that have all removed are at high risk of swelling. This is a very painful condition with the smallest cut leading to fluid build up in their arm or leg that can flare up at anytime. This machine can help avoid the misery of surgery and the threat of lymphodema with a simple scan.

With my youngest daughter there holding the bucket asking for donations people were more than willing to dip in their pockets. A cute face and a bright smile is an excellent secret weapon on the sympathy vote to raise cash. I and another fund raiser got talking about how certain people avoid giving. I mentioned I had four twelve year old boys give my daughter a penny each. My reply is well every penny counts and thank you very much with a smile, but what I said is very true. They may have found it funny giving just four pence, but those four pence is important never the less. So please keep giving those pennies kids because they end up in the sewers anyway when your pockets weigh too much.

It does not matter whether it is a penny or a pound as long as the goal is achieved. You cannot go in all hopeful Rome was not built in a day it takes time and me and my youngest have offered our services for next month. Once people see your face on a regular occurrence especially a six year old child who I might add enjoyed doing the fund raising experience. It will ripple and giving a penny or a pound will not be so hard to a service their mum, sister or Nan may need.

Thank you Lyn and the others involved we had a lovely day xxx

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Lets Not Mask The Facts.

I’ve been thinking whilst analyzing a couple of BC blogs. This is a bad thing because I go into overdrive and sometimes ask myself too many questions.

Are we being driven into a false sense of security?

The BC statistics are a rounded off figure not a true representation of the facts in my opinion. Personally when tallying the figures I would like to know about metastasis/secondary’s and time frames. (Especially after reading this one particular blog recently.) Her arguments are valid and portray the truth about BC and finding a cure. Other BC sufferers would sooner not know because they want to move forward this I respect, but I want to nitpick the true facts of BC not a written placebo.

If you confront an oncologist with the information that is there for all to read on the internet or newspaper, you are told not to worry because it does not affect you and your treatment. But what are the true figures to this dark cloud that hangs over our heads? If I mention to any medical professional that another person has a reoccurrence of this disease. Their reply is but they can go on for years with treatment. These words they are quick to regurgitate like a record that is stuck. There is an instant explanation waiting to be triggered by even questioning the treatment for BC.

Should I feel safe?

Clearly that is the wrong attitude to have because no-one is safe from reoccurrences no matter what stage the BC. It is a game of chance that you do not fall in that percentage that is dished out and quickly forgotten. The mentality that the medical establishment have on treatment to keep the masses calm about the facts is blasé with a smile and a percentage.

My plastic surgeon meeting clearly indicated all is not so straight forward with any treatment for BC and reconstruction. The hesitation and excuses for me not having my nipple done indicates they are airing on the side of caution with my treatment.

Yet my oncologist is in a rush to shift me along the conveyer belt that is ready for me to climb on board.

Consultants in their eagerness to treat don’t want you to question even though it is encouraged, but they do want a nodding dog that is easy to treat. I have clear examples of this with typed correspondents from my past medical records when questioning my treatment on diabetes and my first pregnancy. Mistakes can be made, but who takes responsibility? Normally you would not read their inner thoughts on your medical notes, but they were frustrated with my intense questioning.

19 November 1996

Letter to Dr H

Many thanks for your fresh note about Sarah Byrne the young woman with whom myself and Andrea had a long session, which was predominantly a counselling session today. She is clearly angry about her various health problems and it was necessary to let her anger subside before we could proceed to any discussion of her problem with impaired glucose tolerance, its significance and how to proceed with it. She has had a lot of advice from friends and relatives, quite apart from professional advice and is a very confused young lady. It is important to clarify her impaired glucose tolerance has not progressed to frank diabetes, so I am arranging a glucose tolerance test.

She wants to know more about her prospects for a future pregnancy, but bearing in mind her problems during her previous pregnancy several years ago, she also had several questions with regard to her cervical problem for which I understand she is due to have a colposcopy performed by Mr H on the 10 December. It was inappropriate for me to attempt to answer these questions, but I am sending a copy of this letter to Mr H who would be in a better position to deal with questions in this area.

I think her weight loss is caused by her excessive calorie restrictions earlier this year. She has now gone the other way and eats lots of cream cakes etc. I think it will be important to get her further dietary advice and we will take this up on a further visit as she didn’t want to take up the offer of dietetic advice today. Unless she has progressed to frank diabetes she needs to be discouraged from testing her urine.

I will review her after the glucose tolerance test.

Mr W

I was freshly diagnosed as a diabetic and going through the very early stages of cervical cell changes which would of lead to cervical cancer if left.

They had taken me into a room and expected me to except something that should have been explained to me after having my eldest daughter in 1990. Not only that, but I was going to be angry because my family at the time thought I might be anorexic.

I had gone into over drive where my diet was concerned and changed it around. This in turn caused my weight to drop very quickly. I had not taken into account that when changing your diet your metabolism has to stabilise itself. Questioning their way of thinking rather than obey the rule of the nodding dog was upsetting my consultant. 

My list of why’s and what for’s was to find out the truth about treatment I received. But the consultant did not have the time or patients to help me understand why errors were made during my pregnancy. I understood he was not present at the time and it was in a different hospital, but I had a right to vent my frustration at being informed six years later of certain events that took place.

The very questions/answers I put forth to the consultant about diabetes are now written and accepted in medical journals worldwide. The consultant at the time dismissed me and said there was no evidence of what I was trying to say. The question was simple is there a connection between diabetes and pre eclampsia? He said no, but I argued there was after researching diabetes. This irritated the consultant at the time and he found me to be not so easily pleased with his replies.

My family never knew of my situation until much later and the cream cakes were words said in defiance and anger against a person who did not want to listen. If I remember rightly my reply was I might as well go to a cream cake shop and stuff my face by the way I have been treated. His reply was but that will not solve your problem will it Miss Byrne.

I sensibly took a friend along with me who is well educated and knew what to ask, but even she to this day cannot understand how a hospital could make so many errors and still hold its head in defiance. It was clear that the hospital was in the wrong and someone should apologise, but that was not going to happen.

This very consultation left me feeling let down at my treatment past and present. The thought of returning to the hospital for further appointments was a no go and I sensibly dealt with my diabetes on my own without medical intervention for many years. This meant I was less stressed and not calorie counting as he put it.

When I received a copy of these notes March 2010 I was not surprised by the correspondence between my GP and hospital, but if you ask questions does that mean you are an erratic patient? 

At the beginning of the BC journey you have a calendar hung up and you jot down every appointment you receive. But after a period of time you stop writing the appointments down in the hope it will be your last, but the folder you start to keep with the appointment letters in gets heavier and becomes distorted with the weight of questions you long to be answered, but are too scared to ask just in case the above reaction happens.

My husband and friends say as long as I remain positive cancer will not return, I should keep repeating that to myself. This is easily said than done when every ache makes you ask yourself do I go and get checked. I have read so many stories of BC survivors ignoring these aches and finding out much later that their niggling doubt was right.

I can clearly understand the anger and frustration that some women begin to feel towards BC. The truth is far from pink it is more black/grey with lots of tears.

So this now leads me to the pink BC brigade that we all see. So who sat in a room and attached pink to breast cancer? Was she a flower power maiden who burnt her bra in defiance by any chance? I think not! The truth be known? She was probably a housewife who wanted the closet attitude of BC to be removed and raise some much needed cash for research. She did not know that it would become such a money making racket, but most probably hoped it would to solve the lack of funds in areas across the board. 

I never wore pink as a child or adult until now. It was the colour I associated with dumb blondes and fake tans even though it suited me, but I avoided it like the plague. So why have I had a change of heart about wearing baby pink? The truth is I actually don’t know. You think by joining the masses you are achieving something, but the brand does not sit well with all. The pink ribbon has been traded in as the pity those with breast cancer symbol, but that is not the true colour of BC. The real value of pink is in multi billion pound research industry that has latched on. As long as pink is attached to BC the money will keep rolling in to satisfy its needs. As for the little housewife that created the pink brigade she has long gone just another statistic left in the BC void.

There are women out there fighting for the facts and not hiding behind the over exploited colour pink. In the same way I tried to fight for the answers back in 1996 and were dismissed as neurotic.

They are tired of; oh everything is fine routine and would like the real facts about BC. Their anger to a colour that was clearly attached to distinguish male from female has no place in the BC realm of facts and figures. It is society’s way of burying the true tears and torment of this hated disease.

I am not satisfied with the reply well they can go on for years with treatment.

I would like to feel that those BC suffers who are fighting this disease head on are receiving the treatment not the placebo answer to keep them going. Until we truly understand and know the full facts not scribbled down estimates about BC. The pink will be used as a money making event to mask the facts. This makes me feel uncomfortable and very let down. The system is both secretive on targets and quick to hide behind fiction rather than dishing out the facts. Why is breast cancer on the rise really? Is it being triggered by something more than we are led to believe? I know I am high risk for this disease and I know what my trigger is, but until a cure is found I am clearly in the dark like many other BC survivors.

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