Life Via a Line

I openly admit I read The Times, I always have.  I am a subscriber and over the years have enjoyed many many articles.   One article I return too again and again is about the NHS and it appeared in The Sunday Times written by AA Gill.   AA Gill used to think that being an NHS patient was like travelling second class on a train, grittier than first class, but in the end everyone ended up at the same destination. In his farewell piece back in 2016 he told of a discovery of a drug not available on the NHS . Below is a snippet from that article. It seems unlikely, uncharacteristic, so un-“us” to have settled on sickness and bed rest as the votive altar and cornerstone of national politics. But there it is: every election, the National Health Service is the thermometer and the crutch of governments. The NHS represents everything we think is best about us. Everyone standing for whatever political persuasion has to lay a sterilised hand on...

As I have aged, I find it satisfying to make a list and check things off. It feels so good that sometimes I will even write down the things I have already done. I just wish that the minor details would turn out how I plan.  The whole attachment to details, I believe is getting harder as time goes on. At a time when I most want to know if all be okay, I suddenly can’t figure the details out. Life seems to have many more variables and people involved now. I have learnt to accept that I will be okay even if I do not know the finer details, the most important part is that I know how I want to feel.  I have started to have a little more trust that I will find a way to be okay no matter what.  The more comfortable I get with letting the details reveal themselves when the time is right, the more aware I have become of all the people who want to know my plans  right now, sometimes this leaves me feeling ashamed for not having it all figured out. Understandi...

Over my life to date, I believe that my life has often just gone in  small circles.  My wheels have been spinning, with no break in sight, for days at a time. I believe that I am a highly efficient person with a logical mind.  I am useless at anything creative but I am enjoying persevering with my new Fuji camera.  I’m not even a good writer but have continued regardless with this blog.   If you’re like me, you know how exhausting getting stuck in these circles become, it just never stops. If I’m not checking things off in my mind or worrying about situations that have not even happened then I’m mentally torturing myself to attempt to use some new method of organization that I thought of while I should be asleep. At work, I am addicted to efficiency. It makes me feel productive and useful. But, I often have too many ideas and tasks to process at once.  The multitude of ideas then totally overwhelmed me and bingo,...

I feel threatened by aspects of my increasingly complex world; but to date my life has never been actually in danger. The problem is that my brain, like it did when I watched Nightmare on Elm Street on Laser Disc all those years ago, reacts as if I am and when I feel threatened, my brain takes over along with my imagination.  In my mind, at 38 Freddie is still going to kill me in my bed. My often mysterious outbursts, actually I have witnessed others have these aswell.  When these happen, higher level capacities, which live in our pre-frontal cortex are disabled. These include things like empathy, creativity, flexibility, and the ability to see new possibilities. My brain will take even the slightest feedback and make it become devastating. In my world, things like transparency, vulnerability, and being willing to admit my imperfections go a long way. I am humbled and I realise the differences between my fight, my flight, my withdrawal and my reasons to freeze. ...

The human body is made up of many different types of cells that are specialized to perform particular functions.  Stem cells are distinct from other cells in the human body because they are unspecialised.  Through differentiation, stem cells have the ability to develop into many different types of cells. Muscle wasting diseases and conditions can benefit from stem cells because they self renew, therefore they continue to divide and produce identical copies of themselves.  Adult stem cells are very versatile and through continual research it has been found that stem cells from blood vessels and fat tissue are capable of becoming muscle cells.  Stem cells can also be manufactured by adding reprogramming factors to specialised cells.  The specialised cells convert to induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS).  iPS cells can be converted into any types of cell. While under going Plasma Exchanges in Kings, I have seen Stem Cells taken from family members to ...

Having my line inserted was a painful and humbling process.  Having the line inserted changed my life. The identities I previously carried around were suddenly irrelevant; the superficial relationships I lent my body to now felt wasteful; and my loneliness was alchemized into gratitude as I saw my body and life heal all due to the line.  Thinking back to my life before my line, I realize how disembodied I was. I had been giving myself away to feel more alive, yet I was numbing myself to a point of not even realizing how tired I was. Before the line was inserted, I didn't pay much attention to my body other than the feeling of daily pain.  If I did pay attention,  I would have likely realized that I was tired, in need of rest, to express my loneliness in way that nourished me.  I was not listening to the wisdom my body was giving me and I certainly wasn't listening to anyone else, who were just actually expressing love and concern. Since having the line...

80 percent of New Year’s resolutions fail, that is a very high percentage.  At one point we have all become part of that statistic.  So by now, some have already failed and it's only the 6th January.   January 1st, everyone is feeling eager, excited, and ready for change only by January 2nd to fall back into old patterns.   For years I have not made resolutions because I spent year after year striving for change but never quite managed to pull it through.   Instead of resolutions, I focus on how my vision, focus, and intentions can put me on the right track throughout the year. Previously, I had failed by the early summer as I was purely focused on results and focused solely on attempting to quit my bad habits.   This time around, I am ensuring that I am happy while working towards my future. Life is easily dominated by social media, its hyper commercial and society is filtered.  I have stopped focusing on ...

Everyone has dreams, some go on to achieve them, while for the vast majority some will simply not believe they can. As I have confessed in many posts, I lacked self confidence growing up and was unsure of myself and although inside I wanted to achieve my dreams, I was simply too terrified to even begin.   I stayed at church youth club hidden away.  I was good at tennis before I started golf but prior to all of this I used to go to Karate, because I lacked so much self confidence my achievements in Karate were very limited, I won a couple of medals but my ability to make any real impact was cut short as I lacked self confidence and was therefore too shy, painfully shy infact.   Unfortunately this continued and I will for the first time openly admit this is the reason I did not go to America to try for my LPGA card, like my friends did.   In mid 2009, I knew I had this one opportunity to overcome every fear.  I decided I wanted to be Lady Capt...

My first post of 2018 is about time and how prescious and fulfilling it is.   Time is incredibly precious, time has become a friend of mine.   The vast majority of us have a different relationship with time.  I don’t have enough time is a well known saying that reverberates through conversations, social media channels, and personal chatter.   Five seconds, five minutes, five hours.  Time feels like forever.  Heartbeats can be elevated or even slowed in 5 minutes.  Smiles can be shared in 5 seconds.  Laughter can fill a belly all afternoon over 5 hours.   Beyond food and water, everyone needs play, everyone needs sleep, everyone needs to connect, everyone wants to and needs to be loved.  Too often, everyone tells themselves they don’t have time. We are all guilty of rushing and scrambling through a day, a week or even a month.  We all are guilty of moving from one thing to the next, trying to check things off l...