About Me

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Isle of Bute, West Coast of Scotland, United Kingdom
Too old to be a rock chick, so I am the hippy hen! Environmentally and socially conscious, eco aware vegetarian goddess. Human and animal rights activist Against discrimination in all its forms. LGBT Ally. Lover of music, chocolate and crochet.. Womb cancer survivor.

Saturday 27 December 2014

A change of direction.

As many of you may know, I have been raising funds for Macmillan Cancer Support for the past few years, since I was diagnosed with womb cancer in Dec 2009.
I love beads - especially handmade glass beads and have been making and selling pieces of handmade jewellery and accessories to help raise funds through my FB pages, buteartism and Angels of Hope and also here on the island.
Thanks to some lovely people who have bought items and also donated items to some of my online auctions, since 2010 I have raised over £1,200 for Macmillan Cancer Support.
Over the past few years I have also been raising funds for a womb cancer research project Fundraising for womb cancer research and last year I started raising funds for AMMF - which is the UK's only cholangiocarcinoma (or bile duct cancer) charity. This is the cancer that my Mom died from in Dec. 2013.
Since FB started messing around with post reach it has become increasingly difficult for posts to be seen and therefore I have been unable to sell as many items in 2014. I have almost 700 likers on the main buteartism page and yet some posts only reach 20 or 30 people!!
So I've made the decision to close down the Angels for Hope page and also to take down my items that are for sale on the buteartism page, although I will still continue to hold online auctions there occasionally.
The first will be in March and will be for AMMF. Then in September there will be another auction to help raise funds for a womb cancer project.
In between, there will be small flash sales for various good causes and I will continue to donate items to other auctions being run to help various other good causes.
I hope you will check out the pages and maybe even think about joining in the various auctions.
I know I've said before that I would try and keep the blog updated regularly and I will try, I promise. :-)

Sunday 23 March 2014

In memory of Mom

As some of you may be aware I lost my Mom just before Xmas 2013. She died of cancer, a rare and aggressive liver cancer that affects the bile ducts called cholangiocarcinoma.
She had been diagnosed 5 weeks previously and told that she had 4-6 months. So you can image that it can as even more of a shock when she died just 5 weeks after getting her diagnosis.

The last few months have been very hard for myself and my family; trying to come to terms with Moms illness and diagnosis and then her death.

Having had cancer myself, I knew that Mom would not be able to cope with the chemotherapy that was the only option that was open to her, even though we were told it may only prolong her life by a couple of months, if that.

As it was, Mom decided that she didn't want any treatment. She eventually went into a hospice and died there 2 days later.

Living so far away from her, and with my own health being not good, meant that I didn't see her before she died. I had seen her 4 weeks previously when we went down to visit her when she was diagnosed and had intended to go again once she was settled in the hospice, but sadly she passed away before I could get there.

Since her death I have found it increasingly difficult to cope. The feeling of helplessness has been overwhelming. I was able to fight for myself through my own cancer diagnosis and treatment but I couldn't do it for my Mom. I wanted to wrap her in cotton wool and protect her from the awful things that were happening to her body. I felt totally helpless being so far away, knowing there was nothing I could do.

21st March would have been her Birthday. I knew it would be a difficult time, not just for me but for the whole family. I wanted to do something in her memory. My own ill health prevented me from running a marathon, or climbing any mountains or jumping out of a aeroplane!!!

So I decided to do what I do best, run a fundraising auction in her memory. I decided to raise funds for AMMF - the only cholangiocarcinoma charity in UK.

The auction can be found here Mom's Auction and runs until 6pm Sun 23rd March. There are lots of lovely handmade items to bid on and I'm hoping that I can raise at least £250 for AMMF.

I've decided to do one for them every year in memory of Mom - they need money to help fund research as well and it also helps raise awareness of them and the cancer that kills around 1,800 people each year in the UK. It will also help me cope each year as her Birthday comes round.

Please check out the AMMF website for more information.

Thank you.