Where's your head at?

Ok so I think its about time I filled you in on where I'm at at this particular moment in time. Obviously I'm still receiving Herceptin and taking daily Tamoxifen, I haven't had a whole body CT scan for about 8 month's now and feel I've gradually slipped into my new life post Cancer. However, I'm not the same person I was before and have changed almost everything about myself and my life. I continue to eat healthy and avoid red meat (I only eat free range chicken once a month) other than that I eat fish, eggs and pro-biotic organic yoghurt. I try to juice at least 3 times a week (I was doing this daily for just over 2 years) I've cut it down as I've started to feel better and believe juicing 3 times a week is sufficient in keeping my body both alkaline and healthy.  I continue to go for healing at least once a week this is very necessary and life re-affirming, I can't live without it. I try to meditate daily or at the very least weekly and I attend a weekly meditation group where we concentrate on healing. Yoga has become a weekly practice which also helps with the meditation. Another massive plus is I've started painting again and I feel ok about it. I'm in the middle of painting a couple of new collections and finished off old paintings this has proved to be quite cathartic and has brought me a new lease of life.

Occasionally I slip into my old mind set but I do recognise that this is not healthy and more importantly I am aware of it and try to nip it in the bud before it takes hold of me. Negative thought patterns are not tolerated anymore. This is easier said than done of course as the mind is a powerful manipulator, it also doesn't help when other people pass away or deteriorate with this disease, I can't help getting upset when someone passes even though I know they are going 'home' back to their natural spiritual state. I try to remind myself that this reaction to someones passing is natural and needs to be embraced worked through and ultimately let go of.

In answer to the title of this post my head is in a good place at the moment, I am positive and I've started to plan for the future something I never thought I'd be able to do especially on the work front. I've decided that I want to become a further education teacher possibly teaching foundation in art at a college as well as finishing my current paintings is my goal at the moment, myself and my partner have other plans but I'm going to try and stay focused on my current projects.

Back for a bit....

Hello all,
Well I'm back from the terrifically sunny and absolutely gorgeous Newquay it was truly great just too get away although I did miss the cats terribly. Plenty of walks and talks with my friend sandy we also managed to visit the Japanese Garden just outside of Newquay which is magical especially at this time of year, I took a heap load of photo's and ate far too much but what the hell I figured I deserved a break. Taught my friend Sandy to paint with Acrylics which pleased her and me enormously also did a couple of paintings myself. My partner Lee got on and has started the conversion so we will be going back over in a fortnights time for another week and so it goes on until its finished.

MRI results came through whilst I was away in Newquay and the doc's say I'm cancer free on the brain   so big massive sigh of relief and something to celebrate for a change. Hospital appointments are sort of dying down I've got a routine heart scan on the 31st of May and a lymph nurse appointment other than that I don't have to go to the dreaded oncology department for 3 months!!! first time in 2 years, so hallelujah to that. Although I have a slight nagging fear going on in the back of my head which is only alleviated by having regular scans, the doc's said I'd been stable for long enough for them to give my body a radiation scan break.

Other news is I'm still steadily putting on the bloody weight very annoying, this has been getting too me I try not to let it piss me off but I've spent my whole life as a skinny size 8 and now I'm trying on clothes that are a fucking size 16!!!! bloody tamoxifen!!!! When I say gets to me I mean I get really depressed and dive into the fridge I figure I may as well go with it even when I'm just having juice and nothing else I put on weight I may as well eat what the hell I like and be done with it. The worst part is not being able to fit into any of my clothes also I've taken all the mirrors down I can't stand looking at myself anymore because the person staring back at me quite simply is not the Sarah I knew before all of this shit started, its so depressing, god knows what my boyfriend thinks!

Hope you are all doing well and sending everyone some love and light
Sarah xxx

Back to Buckfastleigh........

I posted a little over a year ago about dropping into Buckfast Abbey after a particularly fraught session of radiotherapy and on entering the actual Abbey was over come with emotion and tears, I later found out via a vicar friend of mine that what I was experiencing was to do with the fact that I was in a holy place or as the celtic peoples called it 'thin places' a place where heaven and earth overlap because of this particularly sensitive people like myself are moved to tears with sheer emotion, on this visit I am happy to report a much happier me and no more tears, the Abbey is a special place but I take the lack of emotion or tears as a good sign of my own strength and healing, I lit a candle and said a prayer for our recent loses ie: Laurie and Lisa god bless them, and I wrote out a message to the monks asking them to continue to pray for myself and all others affected by this disease. When I left the Abbey the sun had come out and it truly feels like spring albeit a little bit late.

Other things have been happening, I've started painting again, this is a big positive as I thought I'd never paint again, I am currently painting my contribution to the Royal Academy in submission for the Summer Show 2013 its the first time I've ever entered.

I woke up this morning and had a prophetic dream in so far as I could remember it word for word and I had a message from an old friend weirdly enough a friend that I associate with horses and today is....Grand National Day.... so in the spirit of nothing ventured nothing gained I've put a couple of bets on, see if my prediction will come true, if nothing else it adds a bit of excitement.

Regular readers will know that I've been looking to move this has proved to be very difficult as basically I am without a job (made redundant then got breast cancer) and my partner was made redundant so we are skint and currently living on benefits (which is very hard) I have done some work from home but its never enough, in order to move we need about 2 grand (we rent) I've tried selling everything, my partner has picked up bits of work but nothing concrete and permanent, luckily we did have one asset worth a thousand pounds and this has now sold today, so we have a grand towards the big move. I'm hoping that things will carry on improving and we will continue on this lucky streak, we deserve some good luck.

Butterflies and Rainbows

Last year whilst still going for chemo at the hospital I noticed on the drive up to the hospital nearly every time a rainbow in the sky, I also painted a picture of a rainbow over a stormy sea with one sailing boat in it please see below, another oddity was I found myself thinking about butterflies I even dreamed about them, whilst reading Bernie Seigels book Love Medicine and Miracles he mentions both rainbow's and butterflies in the same sentence, here's the symbolism attached to them:


Rainbows are a sign of hope
Butterflies are a sign of regeneration/transformation

It wasn't until I read that book and now realise the message being conveyed to me, the rainbows in the sky were trying to show me that if I had nothing else I had hope and the butterflies were pointing towards changing my life regenerating and transforming into the butterfly I truly am inside.


This picture means so much too me it was the only painting I did last year whilst going through the hell that is chemo and this is how I can now interpret it, the sea and sky is moody and fierce signifying the cancer, I myself am symbolised by the lone sailing boat struggling in the stormy sea, the rainbow offers me a strong message of hope that I will get through this and come out the other side and to date that is what I have done, weathered the storm and returned somewhat changed but ultimately triumphant. I really needed to write this down and remember it because somewhere inside me, something is telling me its very important.


Sending you all rainbows and butterflies
Love and light
sarahx