Typecast

It's all well and good having new goals and challenges at the beginning of a new year but we put ourselves under enormous pressure, don't we?  The new year feels like a clean slate - a chance to start afresh, but how many of those Grand Ideas are binned by 20th of January? One of my favourite hashtags to use on Instagram is #BeTheBestVersionOfMe . I use it on all my running photos as it makes me examine who I am, what I'm doing, where I'm going and what I'm doing to get there. So, all my new year goals are running and health related because it should hopefully be easier to fit this into my current lifestyle.  For the first part of this year I've challenged myself to run in a 10 mile race and I'm slowly building up to that distance.  It's a massive deal to me because I still find 10k (6 miles) a slow, hard slog but the race is booked and the challenge is on!  I'm keeping a journal of all my runs  between now and then because I found this ...

Photo Credit :  Jerry Kiesewetter Back in 2009 a report  noted that media coverage of celebrity illness triggers a 'cause and effect' situation. The example used was the positive effect on the take-up of cervical screening (a smear test) after the coverage of Jade Goody's battle against cervical cancer.    Jade was part of that hard-to-reach age group - the women aged 25-35 - and because Jade was a woman who wore her heart on her sleeve, made mistakes in a very public arena and spoke her mind, her circumstances created an identifiable event which was much more effective than a national campaign or a simple leaflet.  Fast forward nine years and the Jade Goody effect is wearing off . Across the UK cervical screening figures have fallen with more than 1.2 million women not taking action on their reminder for a smear test - a 20-year low. Because of our wonderful National Health Service, the smear test is free, is available to all women over the age of ...

If you've been here since the beginning you'll know that one of the first posts I shared on this blog was the story about discovering my 14-month old daughter had Neuroblastoma - cancer of the adrenal gland. Since then, I have attempted to raise awareness by encouraging people to talk openly and honestly about their experiences with cancer through my blog series, Cancer - Your Story . I've also raised over £2000 for Cancer Research by participating in a few Race For Life events and by throwing myself out of a plane in a skydive. I've always tried to use this blog as a platform to share articles and news about cancer treatment developments. One question I was always asked when my daughter was in hospital - and one question that I have asked friends who are working their way through treatment was " what can we bring that's going to help? " And you never want to sound patronising, do you? I recently discovered Cancer Care Parcel which was set up ...