Sunday Smile Sermon #SSS

It's Christmas time in the Durkin's household! My aunty Tee, little cousins Urban and Xavier are over from Gibraltar. Unfortunately Uncle David couldn't make it over! The Quach's are heading to Australia for Christmas this year, to spend it with Uncle David's mom and dad and to see the rest of the Quach family over there. It will be lovely for them all to meet up and see the new little Quach boy Xavier! I'm sure Urban will love catching up with all of her cousins over there too. They must miss each other massively! I'll be spending Christmas with my sister Alex this year! YAY :)

So, I'm all over the place at the minute, emotionally. It's mental. I think I'm just so happy to have my aunty Tee over and that's stirred up a few feelings. I'm a little tender anyway with my shoulder pouches in! I had the two of them injected with 60ml of water this week. She did 40ml the first time, this time I was like, go for it, put some more in, it's fine and it doesn't hurt. So they did. Stupid me! It isn't really painful at all, it's just a very irritating dull ache. It's hard to keep your eyes on the prize when you are all tender and sensitive.

2015 is going to be amazing for me though! I will be having the final surgery to sort my burn scars out, I will have a new leg. A good one with a cool Alleles cover. I will be driving again! Which I really can not wait for!!! Things will be almost back to normal. I am very much looking forward to all of this, I just feel rather impatient from time to time. It's normally around the same time each month, so I'm probably just hormonal and emotional. I got all teary yesterday! Tee was getting dolled up for a night out with her mates, which was lovely for her to catch up with everyone while she was here. I just really wanted to go out with her, I wouldn't/couldn't with my pouches in, I'm very nervous about hurting them. I know I'll be back to the stage where I can whip a bit of lippy on and go out for a dance. I just can't at the minute and I was overwhelmed by the disappointment. I CAN'T WAIT TO BE BETTER!!!! I wish I could just fast forward this part of my life, the impatience is killing me! I've never been a patient person. I don't think I ever will be. I HATE waiting! It's amplified even more so now with everything else going on. Like waiting for Christmas, that is made more manageable with an amazing advent calendar that my darling Lauren Cullen bought for me. Ciate - Mini mni manor nail polish advent calendar.  It'a given me some lovely little pieces so far, I'm excited to see them all! Thank you so much for that Lauren, you absolute darling!

Today I went to visit baby Mikey, Mikey Joseph Hogan! He's such a handsome little man! Katie and Michael don't half make good looking children! Both Florence and Mikey are going to break some hearts when they're older. It was lovely seeing the 3 O'riordan sisters! Katie, Alice and Fiona. I love you three so much, having a little catch up with you was great. I'm hoping for them to be even more frequent once I'm driving again.

I don't have an awful lot to talk to you about really. I'm still waiting for my new leg, I'm hoping to get it before Christmas, so I can get it covered by my Alleles cover! As soon as I do I'll be whipping it out and showing it off on here and everywhere else! I think I'll be cutting all of my legging on the right side, so that they can show the cover off all the time! All year round. Oooooo I can't wait for it! As you can probably guess from my continuous enthusiasm in my blog posts!

I'm off now anyway, XFactor is on, I can't miss that!

Peace x

The Alleles - McCauley

I saw a lovely post on Facebook, on the page for the Alleles. The company that makes the cool leg covers. I thought I would share it with my blog followers. 

"Hey friends! This is McCauley here...designer and co-founder of the Alleles. I just wanted to share a bit of my soul with you all about how strongly I feel about the importance of fashion and the impact it has on people's self image....It may be obvious, but I am obsessed with fashion!

This company came about because I was so peeved and sick and tired of hearing people talk negatively about fashion and how it is so 'frivilous', 'meaningless', 'consumerist', 'impractical', and blah blah blah... If you are one of those people, look around the room you are sitting in and look at what everyone is wearing...are you wearing the same thing? no? why?... my point is exactly that. Whether or not you think you don't care about fashion, you wear clothes that you like for some reason. These 'clothes' then become an expression of who you are and how you see yourself as an individual. You hear people say things like, 'I could never pull that off!'... if it is 'just' an article of clothing that is meaningless then who cares?? But it's not, it is much much more than that.

Our entire point of existence is to give choice to people so they can express themselves...to show the world that despite of missing a limb, there is a still person who has more to talk about then 'just what happened to them'....there is a person who has interests, who has flare, who likes music, who loves motorcycling, running, art, their family, etc. We hear stories from our clients all the time of how their cover has transformed the way they see themselves and how complete strangers interact with them differently now that they are wearing a funky cover. This is quite humbling for us little designers that a chunk of plastic that we made to fit on ones prosthesis has that much power and can shed a bit of positivity and remove stigma that is more often than not 'hush hush' and 'pitiful'... no one wants to feel like that.

I attached this photo of myself and Nadine at the last photoshoot we did. It may be a bit 'too much' for people to wear this look out on the streets...but it does show the potential, the fun, the beauty and energy that can exist in a complete head-to-toe look! These dresses were designed by moi and Nadine's covers were influenced by the floral of the fabric. Thinking about the socks, the stockings, the shoes, the hem length, and the color combinations really does take weeks to figure out and to bring together so when people get excited about the images we share our hearts flutter a bit. Makes us think we are doing something right!! Details matter, style matters, beauty matters and being timely matters.

Thanks for being such a force of life during this photoshoot Nadine xo

And thank-you everyone else for listening to my little fashion rant 
-McCauley

 — with McCauley Wanner, Nadine Richards and Alison Andersen.

#SSSSS - Someone Special's Sunday Smile Sermon ;)

A little carried away with the S's there! 

So I haven't posted since I turned 26! The age thing was hard to deal with! This is a girl who woke up from a coma thinking she was 16 speaking, so the turning another year older was a bit sore! I'm dealing with it though, nothing to moan about. It was well celebrated with friends and family before going under the knife again. (If you're a new reader, It's not plastic surgery! Although it was some sort of surgery for cosmetic reasons. I'll go into it later.) 

Thank you so so much to my amazing family for all getting together and going for a lovely Sunday meal at the Crown at Wergs, in my neck of the woods, Tettenhall. It was a lovely pre birthday meal, and very nice to see you all together! For the ones that didn't make it, you missed out on an amazing Sunday roast! Unlucky! I wore my lovely dress from Oasis that my Aunty Tee bought for me! I love it! Thank you Tee, David, Urbie & Xiggy! 

The day after this meal, it was my gorgeous, super cool cousin, Jack's 1st Birthday!

I'm sure he had a lovely day over in Paris with Aunty Eve and Uncle Gerome

  

I hope this little rascal comes over to the UK soon, so I get to cuddle him before Christmas!!! 

Eve and Gérôme would obviously get one too, but Jack is just waiting for a cuddle from his crazy cousin. I really really would LOVE to see you all soon, if you can't get over here, I'll be hopping on a plane in the new year to see you three! That's a promise! 

So, I've been eyeing up the gym classes for the past couple of weeks, when I've been going swimming. I'm looking to get back into the gym gear and getting fit and healthy again, I say again as if I was before my accident, but seriously, I wasn't that fit and healthy before hand. I think it's more of a desire to improve myself now, because I've been all delicate and sore. I need to get stronger and of course slim down a bit too. I have such a sweet tooth and for someone who can't walk things off as much, I should eliminate all forms of sugary goodness, but no, I just can't! My aunty Eve posted me some amazing brownies for my birthday! Seriously heavenly! They were demolished in just a few hours! I have a very deep love for chocolate, so deep a love that I will never be able to eliminate it from my life. Never! So I need to start getting more active and fit in the gym to even things out a bit. Plus, I am aiming on doing a marathon as soon as I get a running blade! I won't go into that again, I get too carried away with the next cool leg I want and I might as well wait until all of my further surgeries are done with before going off on a tangent looking for the next cool prosthetic to go after. Trying to fly before I can crawl, as Anna referred to me last week, when I said "I'm always trying to run before I can walk". It made me laugh, but it's so true! 

Anyway on Tuesday 11/11, I wore my poppy with pride and held a moment of silence in the car with Anna, as we drove down to the QE for my pre op.  After my pre op, I went to the Durkin's to stay with Alex for the night, to wake up to tea and toast in bed with presents to open! And so I did! I had some lovely gifts from them all! I'm a very lucky girl. I went out for a meal with all my friends in the evening, Byzantium, a lovely tapas restaurant in Kings Heath. I bloody love that place! So tasty  It was lovely to see all the girls too, lots of lovely cards and presents from them too. Now, with my operation the next day, I had to be very diligent with my intake of alcohol! I didn't have any in Byzantium with the meal, after the meal, most of the girls had to head home, being a school night and all, Mary, Catherine and Elaine were all willing to pop over to the Hare for one cheeky nightcap, so we walked over and I had a lovely pint of Guinness! I thought I'd keep it safe with a Guinness, rather that an eye shot of Brandy! I didn't want to do anything to jeopardise my operation that was going on the following day. A pregnant lady can drink 1 pint of Guinness so little old me could have that before my 12pm cut off! 

The next day was very exciting, not even nervous, I was purely excited! I felt like I'd been waiting for this operation to come around for years! It had been a long wait, with annoying cancellations. So now it was all on the go and I felt great to have this ball finally moving! I knew it would be a slow and painful journey, but I was excited for it to be moving at last! 
So Alex was with me as we walked into the QE, I stripped off and got into a gown, and gave her my clothes to bring home with her. We both sat down in the room where you wait to go into theatre, she started to cry! The smell of the room brought back lots of memories for her, of the time I was in the QE and it was all scary and sad. The time I was peacefully sleeping while my family were all worried and tearful! It brought it all back to her and she just burst out. Poor little thing. It must have been a horrible ordeal for them all. Smells can really tug at your memories and emotions. I was just excited to be getting this next step done! I gave her a hug and then went off. 
I woke up in the recovery room and was moved to the burns ward. I thought I would be in and out that day, but they thought it best for me to stay in over night to make sure everything was ok. It was fine, I must have been very drowsy and out of it for a while, I was looking forward to ordering some ice-cream and jelly while I was there that night, but I ordered a cake and custard and then I didn't' even eat it! When something interferes with my appetite you know I'm not fine! 
It was lovely to see some of the nurses there, I wasn't in my old bedroom but I still saw a lot of familiar faces. They were all kind and said how well I was doing and things. 

I went home to the Durkin's and waited there for a while until Anna came and collected me. I thought I would start taking photos of my scars and tissue expanders, so that anyone else who might need to have them done, can look them up and find them in my blog.  So I'll take a picture of them and add it to my blog weekly. This week is just the pouches under the skin, which you can hardly see really. Here is an image for you 

The 3 white plasters are cover the 3 little scars from where the skin was cut in order to slide the tissue expanders in. The ports for these are nearby. They will be injected each week and so the 3 pouches will get bigger and bigger, growing as it expands and allowing new skin to develop which will be used to cover my scars. You can't really see these pouches at the moment, only slightly. They will hopefully get bigger and bigger in a few week and in a couple of months, the extra skin will be pulled over the top of the scars. Then it will look much better. I'll show you all a picture like this each week so you can watch them grow along with me. It is interesting isn't it! It will be so good to see a before and after in a couple of months.

I missed the Great Gatsby Ball, an event held for Limbpower on Saturday 15th. I've just noticed it again in my diary! So gutted to miss that! I bet it was so fun! I'll do my best to make the next event they hold.

I also missed a Banks gig on Monday! Gutted!!

I had an early appointment at the Malting's Mobility Centre, I tested out my new leg a little bit, it still needs a few alterations before I can take it home.

It was my cousins Jake & Keira's birthday on Thursday, the two little tinkers turned 8!

I went back to the QE on Friday. They checked my 3 wounds, gave them a little wipe and redressed them. I've got a bag full of these plasters to use daily now too. Everything is looking good, no infections, I was like, "can you just inflate it a bit now!" Being eager to get it going and start the process, but they advised that I should let it heal a bit more and then next week we can start pumping them up! I hope it all goes well and I can handle it all, it is a little nerve racking, not knowing how it will feel and how it will take. I want it all done as quickly as possible though. I want this all to be done by Jan/Feb next year, I'd like to start the new year as a new, healed woman.

I treated myself a lovely red jumpsuit from Topshop, and a cool black dress. One of them is a present off my nanny D, a Christmas present, so she can wrap it up for me and I'll open it Christmas day.

It will be lovely to wear both of these in the new year with, hopefully, my scars all looking good and less apparent. 

I'm hoping my new leg, will be all sorted and I'll be confidently walking on it in the new year, maybe even with a cool cover, like the Alleles ones I mentioned in a blog post a few weeks ago. Alleles is company in Canada.

• The Alleles design Studio, designs and fabricates fashionable accessories for lower limb prostheses.

INSTAGRAM: @the_Alleles
TWITTER: @the_Alleles

Have a look at the Instagram pics to see some of the cool designs they do. 

I wish there was something similar to this in the UK!

Anyway, the new year ahead, 2015, is looking good for me!  

I'll be looking better, I'll be driving again, I'll be more mobile and hopefully able to get an apartment with my sister, Alex! I can not wait! 

Until next week when I'll give you an update on my 3 pouches, peace! xx

Remembrance Sunday Sermon of Smile

 They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning,

We will remember them.

So it's remembrance Sunday today, so I hope my sermon of smiles doesn't take away the importance of the day!

I'm typing with my poppy on and I have held the lost soldiers in my mind. I probably wouldn't be typing this very sermon now if it wasn't for them! So I hope whoever is reading this now holds a few minutes of silence and gratitude for the lost lives. 

So, I had an absolutely beautiful break away to Gibraltar last week! It was so nice to see my aunty Theresa, Uncle David and my cute little cousins Urban and Xavier! So much love for that little family! <3 

Since I've been home, I have to say ITS FREEZING!!!!! It feels far more colder then when I left. I got spoilt a bit by Aunty Tee while I was there too, she bought me a gorgeous little dress from Oasis as a birthday present! I love it! I will be wearing it next week for my birthday meal with the girls.  I also got a lovely jumpsuit from Tee, it was very comfy and looked stylish, so I might wear that today for my birthday meal with the family!  

I'm going for meal after meal since I've been home! I went to Miller & Carter in Shirley with Liz Devey and Grace yesterday, for an early lunch. It was so lovely to catch up with them, it had been like a year since I saw them last! It will not be left so long this time. Thank you so much for my beautiful bracelet Liz!  I've got it on now and I always smile when I look down at it. I'm a very lucky girl. And of course the chocolate makes me smile too! Very kind of you all, Liz, Rob, Grace, Alex and Josh. 

I met up with the charity I'm working with on Friday too, it was so nice to see them all and catch up with them. We have a new chairman too. I'm looking forward to the next meeting and the roadshow in Dudley on 15th November. 

If any of you would like to come and check it out, please do!  

You can find their details on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/pages/Black-Country-Neurological-Alliance/217276271775898 please give them a like if you haven't already, and on Twitter @BCNA2013 please follow them if you are on Twitter, to see what we get up to and how you can help out too if you want. 

I went to see the fireworks yesterday with Anna, Dan, Grace, Isabelle and James. It was lovely! Not as good at the ones we saw last year at Alton Towers but still very nice. It was at Twin Lakes, a little theme park for children, which was nice for James and Isabelle too. Of course I went on a ride with Grace. I'm a big kid after all! 

So, next week I'm going to be 26! That is scary! I swear I was 21 yesterday! Time really does fly, and my God how many things have changed since my 21st. Mental! 

Anyway, it's my birthday on Wednesday , I have a pre op on Tuesday, Birthday meal with the girls on Wednesday, and my operation on Thursday. Then, the Dudley Roadshow (in the above picture) is on Saturday. I think I may be a little too sore for that. Fingers crossed I will be fine and I'm able to go. it all depends on how I'm feeling after the skin expanders have been put in. I'm hoping I will be fit and vibrate enough to go to this Roadshow, there is no way I will be feeling up to the LimbPower Great Gatsby Ball, which is also on this same Saturday. It's a shame I'll be missing that. I will be in a much better position next year, so I will not miss a thing that LimbPower get up to! That's a promise! 

Until the next sermon, peace! x

Late Sermon of Smiles - Black Country Neurological Alliance

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOSH! 

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!! 

#SSS Sunday Smile Sermon

Evening folks!

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!

#SSS - The Luck Factor

 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!

1. I died, but I was lucky for the paramedics to resuscitate me back to life. 
2. 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! 
3. 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: 

. Creating Chance Opportunities
. Thinking Lucky
. Feeling Lucky
. Denying Fate 

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!

That's all for now folks, peace x