Pink Palace garden party a success as usual!

Happy first birthday War on Cancer! - the blog is a year old now,this blog only exists because of all you,  you allow me  to show how you can live actively ( to your own individual limitations) and positively while surviving cancer, you support my cause, and this makes me very proud. It helped keep me motivated when I was suffering a bit healthwise with the cancer prevention drugs, and now I happily drive onwards planning and organising fun/endurance events to raise money and awareness for cancer.The biggest positive is the breaking down of the cancer taboo - people are still very frightened to talk about it. The more we talk, the more we learn and understand, the less scary it all becomes.

Sometimes our friends and loved ones don't survive, but even though tragically they pass away, they will always be fighters and winners in my book, they gave it their all and never gave up, you cannot ask more of anyone.Survival rates are improving, and treatments are getting better all the time...and all we can do is get out there, raise awareness and money for further research...and drive forward to eradicate cancer for future generations...this is what WoC is all about, why I will honestly answer questions about my fight, my treatments and what motivates me forward. If you have a question post it to me and I'll answer the best I can.

 I am well on the way to deciding what events will be held annually and when in the year ( difficult in UK when we have such a short dry period allegedly in the summer months! ). The endurance event was a huge success, and will definitely be held annually. I believe very strongly in this because it is a big commitment. You have to invest into it 100% - to commit yourself to the training. It was a fantastic team effort and definitely brought the group closer together. War on Cancer and I made some great friends in Richard and Sarah and gang from Lost Earth Adventures on the 3 Peak challenge, and I look forward to many years of collaborations in the future.

 Hopefully we will come up with some great endurance events that everyone will want to sink their teeth into and embrace having a go at something new. Ideas for the coming years include white water rafting, climbing the equivalent height of Mt.Everest between a team of climbers in a day - if we get enough climbers we can climb the equivalent of the top 3 highest mountains for example! , rock climbing, abseiling, firewalking and many more things to boot!...and what a massive bonus doing the endurance event - it gets us all out exercising, and as any regular reader knows, I bang on about the health improvements from our exercising, as well as proactively preventing certain cancers and other illnesses as well...come on WoC friends, get out and about more, help your body fight off illnesses!

The garden party was a great success and great fun as usual! A fantastic £410.00 was raised! . Thank you Caroline ( my sister ) for once again hosting your annual garden party as a charity event. The weather was a little hit and miss - but hey, it didn't stop us having fun.

It was brilliant to see families there enjoying themselves, all the kids were really well behaved and the adult kids did alright as well ;) Thanks Sue ( giggly) for donating the kick-ass chilli's, they went down a storm. Thank you to Jackie for helping me out on the bar...think we have become legends in our lifetimes, a bit of a comedy double act behind the cocktail bar so I've been informed! ....whatever sells the drinks does it for me ha ha :)
Thank you Pauline ( mum ) and Rita ( auntie) for running the tombola for us :)...it wouldn't happen without the help of our ever faithful volunteers.

Thank you to everyone who came, I hope you had as much fun as I did. It was a really chilled, relaxed affair, everyone chatting, laughing and gently ribbing each other! - a pleasure to see. I will load photos into the gallery, please be sure to go check them out, I've also updated the fundraising thermometer to the latest total.

As soon as the sponsor money for the 3 Peak Challenge is all in, I will of course update the blog....we are well on with the collecting of the monies now. I have the pleasure of announcing WoC is now financially totally self sufficient! not only does it have it's own paypal account, it now has it's own bank account.

 This is a great positive step forward for War on Cancer towards registering it as a charity in it's own right. I look forward to that day gleefully! - I need some friends/ businesses to become ambassadors for War on Cancer, to help get more notice for us, for people to champion us...hell come adopt me! - I mean WoC ;)....or both lol!! As we move into the second year of existence I hope that we carry on making leaps and bounds forward, to seriously get more recognition, business sponsorship, ( I'll take your company logo to the top of Mt.Kilimanjaro and the Yorkshire 3 peaks next yr! ) more people wanting to attack the events - send and sponsor a  team from your company to take part in  the 3 peak challenge! ....people in other parts of the country, the world, wanting to organise an event in our name, to go make cups of tea and chat to fellow survivors while they have their treatments, to show what can be after the invasive treatments have finished.....this is my vision of WoC's future. I say it will be as big or small as my imagination - I have the imagination and the vision of where I want to take War on Cancer...I don't have all the necessary skills/ connections - so please if you believe in War on Cancer and can help - contact me.

I want to really drive forward now and hope you all stay with me for the journey. I will always be eternally grateful to you all for everything you do. Please carry on talking and sharing War on Cancer with your friends and colleagues, together we really can make a difference, I hope this blog does, if it helps one person through a tough time, it is already a success.

Until next time

Tracy




 

Moving WoC forward positively and the upcoming event

Hello everyone

It's been a while since I last updated, and here's a vision that makes us think of balmy sunny days...but because it's the UK, the truth is we are stuck in a wet miserable summer again. It seems the odd sunny day we get through summer are few and far between these days....so we must go make the most of them! This photo was taken at Lyme Park where I had taken a visiting Australian friend who was on the trail of everything Pride and Prejudice....a massive fan of Jane Austen's novel is our Merryn!, we were lucky, there was a thunderstorm we drove through on the way there, but the sun broke through to shine on us that particular afternoon!

The money from the 3 Peak challenge has not all been collected yet, but I will update the fundraising thermometer and write a blog about it when I have a final figure for you all.

On a really positive step forward for War on Cancer - by the end of next week, it will have it's own bank account as well as it's own Paypal account. It will be totally independent and this is a great step forward to realising my dream of registering WoC as a charity in it's own right. Some of you may thing this is taking forever, but I think it's important to pave the way slowly, to understand that War on Cancer is only just one year old, and it and I are still on a learning curve. I'd rather iron out the issues and events before submitting it for charity status. But watch out folks when I get to that point....I'll be plaguing everyone to death for corporate sponsorship, people to adopt us for a year, a patron, ambassadors.....you name it!! War on Cancer will be reaching for the sky to raise money and awareness to new dizzy heights.....to help support individuals and their families through the tough months of treatments and the uncertain years immediately afterwards.

My thoughts and prayers go to a family member who has just being diagnosed with cancer, I am here to try and help you in anyway you want or need, to listen to you, to try and explain some of the things likely to occur in the coming months, anything I can help with, I'm there for you. I send positive thoughts and massive hugs to you. Also to a dear friend who has just had the devastating news of secondary cancer from her original breast cancer - you can beat this my love, I know you can...you roughy, toughty Yorkshire lass!! positive hugs and love to you and I am here whenever and if ever you need me too . Love to you both, and please try to stay positive through the unknown and sometimes daunting times ahead...it truly helps xxx

Well we'll hope for better weather than we are having right now! - Saturday July 28th see's the annual garden party at my sister Caroline's AKA....The Pink Palace! the food theme this year is Tex Mex...and if you want to truly get into it, you could always dress up to match the food theme!!

We hope to see you there in great spirits looking forward to fun and laughter. Bring a beer or two with you, then later if you fancy...you can come visit me at the cocktail bar for a drink or two! Anyone with unwanted gifts they'd like to donate for the tombola will be gratefully accepted. I f you cannot drop them off, contact me or Caroline and we can arrange to come by and collect. Thank you for your continuing support of out tombola's!!.

I saw my bladder consultant last week, and he has decided to try sort out and relieve my issues through some surgery. It is a day surgery under general and will take place later this month. I really do hope this works as I have been having issues/infection symptoms for coming up two years this September. So to have some relief from it all will be bloody marvelous!!

So I am to have a rigid cystoscopy, bladder distension, biopsies and internal botox injections. I find it really strange that people have botox injections to firm up the wrinkles etc....yet used internally, it will relax the walls of the bladder!!. Here's hoping this does in fact give me some relief after all this time!!

So please remember to wear sunblock out where ever you go! and in the UK if we ever get a sunny day, please be sensible and use it. It only takes a few minutes to put it on, go on, don't be silly, protect yourselves from the sunrays!!

Until next time

Tracy