Elliott Rodgers

A friend put this amazingly funny and soooo sweet image on Facebook today and I felt I just had to share. So utterly, utterly cute and proof that not all supermarket head office staff have no sense of humour!

I have a friend who works as a Nurse at Harefield Hospital; friends with Cystic Fibrosis; I donate blood and have had a donor card since I was 14.

Kirstie Tancock, an amazing young woman and star of the BBC3 programme Love on The Transplant List back in November (one of the best programmes of 2011, haven’t cried so much watching TV in a long time) is cycling from the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital to Harefield Hospital – 180 miles in 3 days as a massive celebration Of the gift of life Kirstie recieved. Thanking all the people who helped get her to where she is today by raising money for these Charity’s and also to help others in Kirstie’s position to recieved the same standard of care and help.

Please sponsor Kirstie Tancock and support her efforts!

Kirstie was born with Cystic Fibrosis, progressive lung disease. She had been in and out of hospital all her life with frequent chest infections but it was as she reached her late teens that she started to experience a rapid decline in lung function and mobility. Up until then, Kirstie had managed to complete school, study performing arts and arts management, qualify as a fitness pole dancing instructor and run a successful business.

In March of 2011 Kirstie attended Harefield hospital for transplant assessment. Her lung function at the time was just on the cusp of transplant criteria; thankfully the decision was made to put her on the active waiting list for new lungs.

Just six days later, back in Devon, Kirstie was back in the Royal Devon and Exeter hospital due to an alarming decline. She didn’t leave the hospital for 4 weeks and on returning home, required carers to perform the simplest of tasks that she was to breathless to do now, such as run a bath, cook food and other general day to day things to get by.

In May Kirstie was struggling even more, and finding the four metres from her bed to the bathroom difficult. She was admitted back into Hospital to start using a non-invasive ventilator called a bi-pap over night and to give her exhausted lungs a rest when required. Kirstie’s CF consultant told her then that if she continued at this rate of decline, she had just six months to live. It turned out six months would be an optimistic prediction. Kirstie was devastated; she was getting married and was terrified it would not mark the start of their lives together, but instead be a goodbye.

Three days before Kirstie’s wedding she was rushed into resus, unable to breathe. She was stabilised but it was apparent that time was running out. Kirstie went from the High Dependency Unit to her wedding with her nurses, physio and doctor all ready to intervene if anything went wrong. Kirstie’s husband-to-be Stuart had a Do Not Resuscitate order in his pocket, knowing if Kirstie did not want to be put on a ventilator if she collapsed, as a transplant would then no longer be an option. Happily, Kirstie made it through the day with the support of her loved ones.

Two weeks after her wedding Kirstie was rushed back in and given a choice; to stay at Exeter and be made comfortable or to be airlifted to Harefield and receive invasive treatment to keep her alive for as long as possible. Kirstie was airlifted to Harefield and placed on a machine called ECMO which removes the blood from the body, extracts the carbon dioxide, oxygenates it, and pumps it back round, essentially doing the job of her heart and lungs. Kirstie spent a week and a half on ECMO until, when she was literally on death’s door, a donor was found.

Since her transplant, Kirstie has fought her way back to health. Her muscles had wasted as she had been so ill, but she’s now back teaching Fitness pole dancing, attending the gym six days a week and six fitness classes a week.

I’m making some changes to my website for 2012, they’ll be a whole new more “personal look and feel”, some pages and features are going to be retired and some new ones may even appear.

In order to accomplish this there will be some periods where my site will temporarily become unavailable for a few hours, I’m going to try and keep these as short as I can and late evening. The first of these is probably going to be this Sunday afternoon/evening. There may in the next couple of weeks be a few less blog posts as I focus on bringing all the changes online.

The changes will be worth it.

As part of these changes there is no more slideshow and I am reverting back to the WordPress gallery shortcode, combined with a Lightbox using the jQuery Lightbox For Native Galleries plugin

They’ll be no blog post on Wednesday as I am supporting the SOPA/PIPA Protest using the Stop SOPA Plugin just to let you know. My site will be unavailable all day.

You can find out more by visiting the American Censorship – Stop SOPA site.

A very thought provoking video created by Jesse Rosten.

Fotoshop by Adobé from Jesse Rosten on Vimeo.

“This commercial isn’t real, neither are society’s standards of beauty. ” Jesse Rosten

It’s sad to think that on this incarnation of my website the spam count has now exceeded 10,000. (The total now is: 10,863)

Thank God for Akismet the world’s best anti spam system. Hint to spammers your s**t doesn’t get read, doesn’t get to see the ahiny lights of the internet so f**k off leaving your purile drivel on my site.

A couple of friends on Facebook are always sharing photos with clever, inspirational or funny. Ever once in a while, one strikes a chord… This one I thought I would share.

I’ve been adventurous in the past.. rock climbing, potholing, abseiling and rappelling off various objects including bridges going face first and backwards. I’ve even gone down a hundred foot zip wire backwards, hanging only by the feet. I was a specialist and taught cofined spaces rescue and heights rescue while in a search and rescue unit.

My “to do list” still includes doing a fire walk and a parachute jump once my leg gets better.

One thing that I’ve never wanted to add to my collection is bungee jumping, I know of two many accidents and problems that have occurred. The experiences of Erin Langworthy, a 22 year old tourist in Austraila took it to a whole new scary level. She was bungee jumping from the Victoria falls bridge, 364 feet (about 111 metres) over the Zambesi River. All looked good until the bungee cord broke and she fells into the crocodile infested waters! By some miracle she survived, although she was hurt herself (a fractured collar bone, massive bruises) she still managed to swim to safety even though her legs were tied!

Talking to 9news, Erin described what happened:

It went black straight away and I felt like I’d been slapped all over. The water was going quite quickly and then I started to hear the roaring. It’s like being in waves, you get sucked under and then you pop up so it’s very disorienting, I didn’t know which was up or down.

Pretty horrendous but it gets worse… so much worse…

It was quite scary because a couple of times the rope actually got caught on some rocks or debris. I actually had to swim down and yank the bungee cord out of whatever it was caught on to make it to the surface.

One of my presents was an 8 star filter for my NX5 Camera (and a Step Down Filter) which when you take photos of lights turns them into gorgeous pretty star patterns… Here’s an example I shot of my friend (the extremely lovely) Nicky’s Christmas Tree.

Sometimes you see a movie which makes you laugh and really makes a difference in the world…

So here we have Vinne Jones in a British Heart Foundation presentation… Hard and Fast Hands-only CPR… It’s Not As Hard As It Looks