H.O.P.E - Have Only Positive Expectations

Back in 2013 when I went to #DPCON13 I was fortunate enough to meet lots of wonderful people. One of these wonderful people said something to me that has stuck in my head ever since. She told me how reading my blog made her feel happy. In her darkest days when she was feeling blue she would pop over and have a read of what I had to say because my positivity picked her up.

My heart filled with so much joy then that my eyes started to leak a little. I had no idea that my words could make such a difference to people, especially people I thought so highly of.

Recently I have felt less than positive.

The reasons for that are many and varied and mostly elusive to me at the moment. By all accounts I should currently be a shimmering ray of positivity light. You know given that I am on #ouradventureofalifetime and all. Apart from the fact that is has been put on pause. Though all of this is a discussion for another day.

Because today I want to share with you a woman who despite the bleakest of possibilities is still a shining tower of positivity and H.O.P.E. (Have Only Positive Expectations).

Jennifer and her boys, image via H.O.P.E for Jen Facebook Group

Jennifer Fitzgibbins is a 29 year old mother to four who within the last month has had her entire world turned upside down. Doctors have given her three to six months left to live as her body has been invaded by aggressive cancers.

Rather than just roll over and let those precious months slip by Jennifer is determined to show cancer who is boss and refuses to go down without a fight. She is determined to do everything she can to prove the doctors and statistics wrong. 

A feat that she has already mastered once before.

In September 2010 as a young mum of two, she was diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer. After a double mastectomy, chemotherapy, radiation and reconstructive surgeries Jennifer was only given a less than two percent chance of ever having more children. In 2012 she gave birth to her third son and earlier this year welcomed her fourth.

A Canadian by birth Jennifer travelled to Australia in 2005 where she met and fell in love with her now husband Scott. The family have recently gone on a holiday to Jennifer’s home town so that Jennifer has the opportunity to show them where she grew up and experience the boys’ first time in the snow with them. Jennifer will also receive further radiation treatment with the extra support of her extended family.

To help raise funds and show support for the Fitzgibbins family a Facebook group has been established. They are currently aiming to reach 1000 members so please pop on over and say hi. As much as old Facebook can get a bad rap at times it does have an amazing ability to rally troops and make people feel loved and supported.

If you are in a position to donate money you can do so here.

Childhood dreams and the adult reality

As a child growing up there were only ever three career paths I ever really considered. They were (in no particular order I might add) being a journalist, a formula one mechanic, or a truck driver. Actually not just any old truck driver but a Mack Truck road train driver.

Where most young girls had their walls plastered with the latest posters from whatever the hip kids mags of the era were, my bedroom walls were adorned with road trains. Specifically Mack ones.

I loved everything about them. Particularly the fact that girls weren't supposed to interested in them. I was a bit of a rebel like and and refused to conform to as many norms as I could. Of course the fact that one of my parents closet friends at the time worked for Mack and gave me an endless supply of these posters also had something to do with my interest.

image found here

With hindsight and looking at that glorious image above I can't help but wonder if my obsession with them was also to do with the freedom I thought a truckie had. Not to mention the wonderful view of the open road ahead of them and the sights I was sure they would see. I do know however that I desperately wanted to be the first female road train driver.

Till of course I discovered that someone had already beaten me to it and my dream was shattered. It was about that time I decided to be the formula one mechanic. Purely because I was certain that no woman had done that yet and I was destined to be a pioneer of some description.

Being a mother was certainly never on the list of things I was aiming to do. Though in all fairness neither was not having children. It was just not something I gave much thought to.

As I got a little older and I realised how much loved and needed to write it seemed only natural that I would become a journalist. Because that is what people who love to write do isn't it?

Clearly non of these childhood aspirations came into fruition. Instead I am stay at home mum who is currently working part time, while trying to study (again) as she waits for her adventure of a lifetime to begin in around fourteen weeks. In between it all I somehow squeeze in blogging.

Well actually, there is no somehow about it. I stay up late tapping away on my keyboard trying to churn out words of awesome so that I feel in some small way close to actually being something similar to what my younger self thought I would. That and the fact that writing is one of the things that helps me keep a grasp of my sanity.

Sitting down to write is one of the few times in my day where my brain doesn't feel kerfuddled and all over the place. Instead it is when I usually feel my most centred and together. Which is more than kinda nice I can tell you

Somehow or another though, thanks to this little old blog I have been fortunate enough to have had the opportunity, on more than once occasion to actually pretend that I was a journalist. And by that I mean I was able to interview famous people. Well one famous person and two mothers of famous people.

My first famous person encounter was with the mother of Emily Seebohm, Karen. Emily, in case you didn't know is an amazingly fast swimmer. The next came shortly after and was even more exciting as I spoke to Pam. Who just happened to give birth to one of this country's fastest ever male swimmers, the ever gorgeous Eamon Sullivan.

But I am starting to digress and get caught up in name dropping. Or rather post dropping I guess.

When I sat down to write this post I had originally planned to call it Love Your Sister and Touch Yourself. My last brush at playing journalist was when Samuel Johnson rode his unicycle to town.

If by chance you missed it he was riding his unicycle around the country to raise awareness and funds for breast cancer. Love Your Sister was the name of the organisation they set up to promote Sam's journey. It was around this time last year that they were in Darwin. Actually Lovely got to celebrate her twelfth birthday watching Sam swim with the crocodiles. But again I am starting to get off track.

You see something else happened around this time last year.

A beautiful woman lost her battle with breast cancer.* Before she left the world though she left one of her most well known songs to be used for breast cancer awareness.

Which ultimately is what I really wanted to share with you today.

So have you touched yourself today?

*actually chances are more than one beautiful woman lost her battle this time last year, there was only one however that really made the papers.

Thankful I got my gear off

Well another week has flown on by. On this time I feel frazzled and worn out and quite frankly there is no real reason why. It is also the first week since I have taken over the ranks of Thankful Thursday hosting that I felt like going to hell with it all, what does it really matter any way?

I am glad though, that is not the path that I opted for.

As grumpy and crotchety as I may feel, I still have so much to be thankful for and perhaps by stopping to think about it I may just manage to snap myself out of it sooner rather than later.

I am thankful that I have finally shared a photo for Naked Tuesday. I have mentioned before how wonderful I think Craig's attitude about life is and with the arrival of my very own Naked Tuesday photo on Tuesday (of all days) I realised there was no time like the present.

I am super thankful to have received so many positive comments about my photo as well.

I am thankful that I now have not one but two appointments with specialists regarding my arm and its' silly clot. After having a mini meltdown in the chemist and then the doctors office on Tuesday because 5 injections were going to cost me the same as what 10 had been, the powers that be finally saw to me getting an appointment with a private specialist next week. The kind receptionist informed that I had skipped a rather long waiting list.

I then returned home, checked the mail and discovered a letter from the hospital had finally arrived letting me know I had an appointment next week.

I am thankful to now be able to get two more opinions on the matter.

I am thankful that we have private health insurance which allows me seek both opinions and not really completely on the public system. Though I guess until next week I won't know exactly how thankful for either I really am.

I am thankful that Mr Awesome has been incredibly awesome in the understanding department when it has come to my erratic moods of the last two days. Apparently the stress of it all hit me like a brick wall when I finally received my highly anticipated appointments and I fell into a thousand little pieces of grumpy worry.

Not that I like to wish my life away but boy will I be glad to finally see some specialists next week.

I am thankful that the dentist I discovered the other week is all kinds of awesome, it makes going back to see him as regularly as what I currently need to a little bit easier.

I am thankful that I was able to find some chocolate covered pretzels in the fridge. As Miss Cinders will attest, chocolate and blogging go hand in hand.

Most of all though I am thankful to all of you who take the time to stop by and say hi. Especially those that take the time to share their own thanks and read the thanks of others.

Speaking of which...

An InLinkz Link-up

Oh and just one more thing, today sees me traipsing back to the dentist and then off to work, I will comment and share your posts on Friday though. Thanks once again for joining in

Thankful Thursday

Hello and welcome to another round of Thankful Thursday. Which I must say is quickly becoming my favourite day of the week. The first lot of thanks for today has to go to the five rather awesome bloggers that joined in with me last week. It really does make me feel all kinds of awesome and happy.

To say it has been a big week at the office is an understatement. And when I say office I mean inside my head. I am so thankful that it is all done and dusted now.

I am beyond thankful that I get to spend my
days hanging out with this little cutie patootie

As you may have read on Tuesday it has been no fun being me this last week. Thankfully most of what I was referring to has now passed. Which is great as it means I can now return to normal programming and making the most of what is before me. 

I am thankful that Lovely has returned, filling the empty space she left at the dinner table. For whatever angst or unrest she may cause at times, the place is just not the same without her around. I am also thankful that she had such a great time while she was away and while she might not say it as much as we would like to hear it I am pretty sure she missed us more than she lets on.

The thing that I am most thankful for this week though is good health. Not just the we are free from colds or tummy bugs kind of health but the really big we don't have a major life threatening illness kind of good health. 

A young boy, nine years old in fact, at Zany's school was recently diagnosed with a brain tumour. He was whisked away to Adelaide for surgery the very next day and operated on the day after that. They may not return home for some six months or so.

I am thankful that in these modern times and thanks to the wonders of the internet that the family is able to seek support, both financial and otherwise to ease some of the burdens that they face. If you are able to spare a dollar or two I know Joel's family would be especially thankful.

People like Jimmy also make me incredibly thankful. If you haven't heard of Jimmy before you need to check him out. He is a twenty year old South Australian who is walking around Australia to raise money for childhood cancer. I am thankful that someone so young wants to make a difference to people he hasn't met. That fills me with hope.

More random thanks goes to

- picking a winner or two in the race that stops the nation

- spending a lovely day with my mother watching the race that stops the nation

- Spotlight having some yarn that I desired at a super ridiculous price

- being able to take the kids out for a spontaneous pizza dinner

- wonderful thunderstorms in the middle of the night cooling everything down and making the grass green once more

- being able to FaceTime my eldest nephew so I could hear him say Aunty

- being able to pick myself up and carry on even when it was the last thing I felt like doing

- having some rather cool goodies sent my way because someone thought my little old blog was a bit cool

- the fact that it is now Thursday which means the weekend is just around the corner

Now you - 

Monday Mention. Jimmy's Walk

Long term regular readers will probably recall the flurry of excitement back in April when all round legend Samuel Johnson came to town. 

For those of you who may of missed it Sam is currently unicycling his way around this great brown land to raise both funds and awareness for breast cancer. To date Sam has covered just over 10,000km and raised some $800,000.

From following Sam's journey I happened to come across another rather awesome and inspiring young man. 

Jimmy. 

Photo from Jimmy's Walk for Cancer Facebook page
He is celebrating just passing the 6000km mark

Jimmy is a twenty year old South Australian, currently on a 18,000km trek around Australia to raise funds for the Brainchild Foundation. He is a third of his way round the nation and will soon be heading my way.

Now while Jimmy may not be a famous actor that I may or may not have been crushing on for a number of years I still find the thought of being able to have a chat with him a bit exciting. 

You see it is not everyone that can take a whole year out of their life to go for a walk to raise awareness for a cause. In fact I am pretty certain that it takes a rather special kind of person to not just think of such a quest but to actually go out and make it happen makes them extra special. 

Looking through the Jimmy's Facebook Page for photos for this post and it is confirmed that Jimmy is all kinds of special. A photo that says 

"You don't need a reason to help people".

Please take the time to drop by Jimmy's Facebook page and say hi.