I would like to say that I didn't do my blog post yesterday, so that I could do it today with a specific shout out to my dear friend Mr Devey, 26 today! Happy Birthday mate!
However that's a fib! I didn't have my laptop with me in Birmingham this weekend, I couldn't go without doing a blog post! So I'm doing it today.
My week started off great. With the charity, Black Country Neurological Alliance in mind. I love that I've got a little job to focus on and support! It's great! I love having the title of a Social Media Manager too! I need to update my LinkedIn account for this. I set up a Facebook page for the charity, as they never had one. It will be pulling through their twitter feed. I mentioned their twitter account in my last post but just as a reminder please give them a follow on Twitter with @BCNA2013 and also, please like the page I created for them on Facebook.
Their is a statement piece for the charity that sums it all up:
In the Black Country today thousands of lives are devastated by a neurological condition. This might be Multiple Sclerosis, epilepsy, Parkinson's Disease, Motor Neurone Disease or one of around 600 other neurological conditions. Patients and carers generally accept the services offered without complaint. The Black Country Neurological Alliance is an umbrella organisation that is led by people affected directly and indirectly by a neurological condition. We want everyone affected by a neurological condition to be at the heart of the design, delivery and evaluation of services and have the chance to make their voice heard. Our sole purpose is to improve services available to all patients and carers in Sandwell, Dudley, Walsall and Wolverhampton. We are developing information service and work in constructive partnership with decision makers in the NHS and social care. We want to raise awareness of neurological conditions and their impact, and campaign for improved health and social care services in the Black Country region. Anyone sharing this aim is welcome to join us.
You would be amazed at the various neurological conditions people are dealing with in the UK. I have no doubt in saying the majority of readers now, will know someone in their social circle or family that have/and are dealing with such conditions. It is terrifying really.
The brain is the most precious part of your body! It is so, so important to look after it and treat it well! If I had today's knowledge 5 years ago, I would have been far more careful with my social life and the intake of occasional drugs and alcohol. It's good to have fun and enjoy your life while you're young yes, but people please be more diligent with the care towards your brain! Chill out with the poppers and eat lots of fish kids!
If anyone has any cool idea to help me raise the awareness of this organisation, please do let me know. Get in touch with me on Facebook or Twitter to throw any suggestions at me. I'd love to hear your ideas!
I had a lovely weekend, out for Poppy and Sam's Birthday! I felt good too, wearing a black leather skirt with some tights, I had my hair down and straightened, a bit of make up on, no mask! It was great to have that little feeling of normality for the night. Out with my friends and having a little drink at The Victoria in town. It's just a shame that I had to leave when I did, I would have loved to have stayed out longer. I didn't even get a chance to see my best mate Lauren! I was picked up at about 10pm. It was a fun night though, I'll need to start thinking of what to do for my Birthday! Eeeek that will be coming up soon.
I'm off to Gibraltar next week, to see the Quach's! I can't wait!!! In case something really fun or interesting pops up I probably won't post again until I'm back from there.
Until then, bye!!!! x
CONGRATULATIONS MARTINA & RAV ON YOUR ENGAGEMENT ANNOUNCED TODAY!!
I've had a week full of smiles! As per usual. My weekly notifications on the things that have made me smile, must be pretty boring for some of you. But anyway, I'm not writing for an audience!
I've decided to create my own hashtag too. #SSS the title of the last two posts was a give away to this but just as a reference for any new readers. I thought I'd use something like the #FF on twitter. To try and raise the profile of my blog. Trying to get it around to more people for them to read. There are some great bloggers out there, so I thought it must be rather competitive, I might as well create a little hash tag to try and trend it on twitter and get it out to more and more people!
So, this week. It started off well with a lovely catch up with my old friend Rob, my pr2go brother! I hadn't seen Rob since my car crash last year, but I know we met up for a catch up here and there before it all happened. Also, we had been in touch, on social media, of course. But with my drowsy state of mind from all of the drugs I was taking, I wasn't my full self with him. It was almost like I was unsure who he was! I'm glad that horrible memory cloud has finally lifted from me now, since cutting back on my pain killers. It was a really nice catch up with him over a coffee in Birmingham town centre. We'll have to make it a more regular meet up too!
Tuesday was my last meeting with my OT Alex, she is off on maternity leave! I gave her a card and wished her all the best with her pregnancy and time off. I'll look forward to all of the photos when I see her again next year! I saw my OT Katie on Thursday, the little diamond has sorted my form out for the regional driving assessment! Hopefully I'll be hearing from them soon and in no time at all I will be back on the roads, I can't wait! It will be so good for me to just hop into my car and visit friends and family! Without having to rely on other people for transport. I can't wait to be driving again!!!!! [More safely of course ;)]
On Thursday, I went to an informal interview in Dudley, for a charity called Black Country Neurological Alliance, who should have a Facebook page, but they don't at the minute. They have a twitter account though, you can find them at @BCNA2013. Give them a follow if you like!
I'll hopefully be raising their profile and get them a bit more active online. It's not something I'm massively qualified in exactly, but I'm a little geek when it comes to marketing and social media, so fingers crossed I can use my skills to help this charity. At this meeting, I was given a list of what some of the people are dealing with neurologically. In that long list of various conditions, I ticked two of the boxes with my brain tumour as a child and my acquired brain injury from my car crash. If they are setting out to help people who have or are dealing with such things, I want to do my upmost to help and support them.
I am now their Social Media Manager and Newsletter Editor! Hopefully I will play these parts well and do them proud. I'm sure I will ;)
My writing course on Friday was good, although, I hadn't printed out my homework! I was suppose to have written a short piece, discussing my "light bulb moment". What inspired me to write. I thought I could just use my blog bio for this, so it won't be too difficult a task. I don't think I had a lightbulb moment really. It was more for a fact that I needed to write down what went on each week to support my short term memory loss. Then, with all of the positive feedback I had from this blog and all of the comments and chats I've had with various people on Twitter & Facebook, I thought I should keep writing! It was probably from this blog, that I decided I would write a book. A book that I'm fairly stumped with at the moment, so I could really do with some sort of lightbulb moment now!
On Saturday, I went to Blackpool with Anna, my brother Daniel, Grace and her mom Maureen, the kids Isabelle and James, and Daniels friend James. We all drove up to Blackpool for a little weekend trip to see the lights. I've never been before so it was interesting to say the least. The main point of the trip was to take little Isabelle to see all of the lights at night. We went for a meal at Frankie & Bennies, at which the wait was ridiculous! The food was alright though, so I can't complain too much. Then we strolled along the peer, taking in all of the illuminated scenery. On the Sunday, we went back to the pier for a breakfast and a little stroll. I had noticed a place for fortune telling along the peer on Saturday, I was intrigued by it, so we went back so I could pop in to see what she had to say. I thought it would be funny to hear what she said without me giving it away that I had a prosthetic leg. I thought my walk was pretty normal in short distances and she might not even notice! I wasn't wearing my face mask either! So honestly, I thought, it's a con and I just wanted to catch her out. She was a lovely old lady though, and she didn't seem too intrusive. She ended up telling me that I would meet "the one" next year, in April. His name would consist of the letter H, he would have something wrong with his hand. I would have 1 child, a daughter. And that was it. It wasn't very convincing, although I will be looking out for someone in April with a H in their name! She did say that if I didn't meet him, it would be my own fault. Which was a bit of a cop out! But we'll see, I'll let you all now at the end of April!
Luck! Luck definitely exists, good luck and bad luck does not. I mean, obviously it exists as a verbal statement of recognition of your opinion on the display of luck. That is all it is though, it's an opinion. It is a way of judging a situation and labelling it in a way in which suits you or your understanding of it.
I'm currently reading the The Luck Factor by Richard Wiseman, it is VERY interesting! It's quite funny how I reacted to it as well. At the beginning of the book I was like, God Rich, you shouldn't say this and that, there is no such thing as good luck and bad luck, it is how you judge a situation. Then I read on, and wollah, I was right! He started to explain how luck is perceived and I was spot on! I love it when I'm right ;)
Let me test you readers on this one. Is what has happened to me lucky or unlucky? My situation, how it happened. what happened, the lot. Label it with good luck or bad luck….. I'll give you a few minutes….
…. I'm going to guess that the majority of you say it was bad luck. Understandably, I can see where you're coming from.
Now, my opinion on the matter is, I am a very lucky girl!
I died, but I was lucky for the paramedics to resuscitate me back to life.
I was amputated, but I'm dealing with it with the support of my amazing family and friends, I'm lucky to have all of these people around me to help me and to make me smile!
I was badly burnt on my face and chest, I am still in the process of getting these scars sorted out with further operations this year. The damage to my facial nerve prevented me from being able to move the left side of my face. Surgeons did take a nerve out from the back of my left leg and gave it a 1% chance of it working once placed into my face. It is woking! I still have a way to go before I'm back to normal and have full ability to move my face, but it's coming. I've currently got a twitch in my left eyebrow! :) I'm working on it and it will come back eventually.
I am very lucky! The burns could have been slightly moved to right and blinded me! The massive bang to my head, from flying through the roof of my car (luckily a soft top convertible) and then landing on the floor and having the car land on top of me, apart from making me brain dead, it could have been a lot worse!
I was in a coma for nearly a month after the crash, my family didn't know whether or not I would wake up from it. They didn't know if I was to wake up with severe brain damage. I did suffer post traumatic amnesia, but that is clearing up loads now. I'm almost back to normal mentally. My concentration is still a bit patchy, but it's just through the laziness of not using my brain for such a long time. I will be back to normal in no time.
I am very lucky to have had such a smart and intelligent brain before the crash! If it wasn't for boys & alcohol, I could have been a rocket scientist! hehe ;)
If I wasn't as smart before having the bang to the head, I would be pretty stumped now. I am lucky to have such smart & intelligent parents! So I digress, the point is, what happened to me was very shit and nasty to deal with, but the luck involved in the incident, is just down to my perception of what happened! How I look at it and how I let it effect my life moving forward.
If I didn't loose my leg, I would never have met so many amazing people on social media and at the Limbpower event this year. I am grateful to have had the chance to meet so many incredible people!
If I wasn't burnt on my face & chest, I wouldn't have met the lovely Katie Piper and the amazing people who work with her for the KPFoundation.
If I hadn't suffered an injury to my brain, I wouldn't have met my two lovely Occupational Therapist, Katie & Alex, who come to see me on a weekly basis and help me to get back to where I was before the crash. They are both lovely ladies, and I'm glad to have them as new friends in my life.
Yes, the situation I am in on a daily basis, is one I would rather not be in, I do miss the things I would be doing on a daily basis prior to the crash I was involved in. However I'm not going to mope and dwell on it. I need to look forward and focus on my recovery and my future. Life is too short to be wasting your time looking back at bad situation you have gone through. No matter what happens to you, you should dust it off and get on with your life, if you want to live a happy one. If you dwell on things that have made you sad at the time, then you'll be stuck with that for a long time. You will have the mentality of a very unlucky person. And guess what, then you will be unlucky! You'll be in a rut of "bad luck" and it will be your own fault.
So don't do it people. You make your own luck in life!
"Is luck just fate, or can you change it?
A groundbreaking new scientific study of the phenomenon of luck and the ways we can bring good luck into our lives. What is luck? A psychic gift or a question of intelligence? And what is it that lucky people have that unlucky people lack? Psychologist Dr. Richard Wiseman put luck under a scientific microscope for the very first time, examining the different ways in which lucky and unlucky people think and behave. After three years of intensive interviews and experiments with over 400 volunteers, Wiseman arrived at an astonishing conclusion: Luck is something that can be learned. It is available to anyone willing to pay attention to the Four Essential Principles:
Readers can determine their capacity for luck as well as learn to change their luck through helpful exercises that appear throughout the book. Illustrated with anecdotes from the lives of the famous such as Harry Truman and Warren Buffett, The Luck Factor also richly portrays the lives of ordinary people who have been extraordinarily lucky or unlucky. Finally Dr. Wiseman gives us a look into "The Luck School" where he instructs unlucky people and also teaches lucky people how to further enhance their luck."
If you want to give this book a read, you can find it here . http://www.amazon.co.uk/Luck-Factor-Scientific-Study-Lucky/dp/0099443244/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1412527159&sr=1-1&keywords=the+luck+factor
So what else has made me smile this week, well, PEAKY BLINDERS!!! I can't wait to see Tom Hardy in it next week. I bet he'll be just wonderful.
I have a little job interview next week too. It's a voluntary roll for a a charity that deals with MS and I thought it would be good for me to get back into a work frame of mind and see how I get on with focusing on various tasks each week. I do miss work, as crazy as that may sound. But I do! I will try this one out, get back into the swing of things and then look into something bigger and better. As much as I'd love to use my skills in marketing and PR to help a charity spread across the UK, I would still like to be getting a pay check at the end of the month. It's not like I'm desperate for the money, but I like earning my own way through life. I'd like to get back to a career and have my own targets to reach each week/month. I'll let you all know how I got on next week anyway ;)
So I started a course in Wolverhampton for Advanced Creative Writing, it was good to meet a few lovely people and it will help me get this book of mine done. It was nice to meet them all and I'm looking forward to the next course! The courses are every Friday at 10am, for 10 weeks. I'm not sure what the end result will be, it will be good for me none the less.
I've had a lovely weekend in Birmingham. I went for a meal with my Nan, Alex, Dan & Grace yesterday evening. That was just delightful. Then I stayed at my Nanny Ds with Alex. Alex has some henna she picked up in Dubai and said she would give it a go on me if I wanted, I asked her to do a little design on my right thigh. She did a great job on it too! It will probably fade away soon, with the friction of my prosthetic leg socket, but it looks great for the meantime. Thanks Alex!
Today Nanny J came around to pick me up and we went to Erdington to see my lovely Auntie Nia and Cousin Elis. It was a lovely dinner and very nice to see them both! They are both heading out to New Zealand for Christmas this year, so we won't get an awful lot of time to see them before they go. God I can't believe Christmas is nearly here already! I feel like you could sneeze and it'll be 2052!
