Diary of a Survivor

Can you imagine all the rats deserting sinking political party HQs this week? Serve them right.  Like others, our little patch of endangered Britain finally woke up. In our area, a brand new candidate swept the council cronies off their comfortable seats, delivering a...

I have just realised the Wellness Day I am organising is a few days away.  The idea behind the event is to showcase some of the therapies and products available to help us look and feel better.  I will be welcoming people as they come through the door, but I have done...

I am a simple soul.  I expect my elected MP to vote to represent their constitutents' views.  Nuff said about this week's performance in Parliament;  instead have decided to make 'use' of him. When, yet again hospital transport 'forgets' me, I complain.  But this time...

Digging amongst the rubbishy murk of PFI funding, bad contracts and other NHS-management that is the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, there is pure gold.  Such as the young visiting Swiss Opthalmologist who is prepared to try a new idea on my almost-blind Tamoxifen...

My first Christmas in the country since I was a child produced two delightful surprises.  First one was on Christmas Eve, I had woken up to a painful, puffy eye, the long-term consequences of Tamoxifen treatment which sometimes returns, and had chosen that day to...

An enquiry has found Jeremy Hunt’s statement to the House of Commons in May that nearly 500,000 women had not been invited for breast camaancer screening, and that 270 may have died needlessly, was based on wrong advice. Thousands of women were rightly concerned about...

Skin is our largest organ So why doesn't the NHS help us look after it?  I eep on banging on about looking after it, but if we don't, germs and nasties can enter through the cracks and cause untold harm. So make look after it - pamper with a purpose. When my cancer...

I believe it was Einstein who said 'I have no special talent, I am only passionately curious.' What' s wrong with the NHS today?  The old 'curious' doctor or nurse seems to have disappeared.  Today, there is a set procedure for treating you  - and forget it if you...

Our village postman called up the stairs this morning to tell me he had an "interesting looking parcel for you". And I was really touched when I opened it, because it was a lovely box of goodies from Lush. Divine smelling bottles of Shower Gel, an interesting lip...