Life is truly flying again, and I am loving it!

Last week myself, Oli and some rather fabulous LLTGL helpers held a talk at the Treasury in Whitehall. It was a fantastic event, organised by their disability committee. We scooted up to London, with me saying “I’ll be a lot calmer when we’re at the station/on the train/at Whitehall/in the main room" at various intervals, each statement proving to be an utter lie.

I spoke first, about LLTGL, Transplantation, the statistics and the fears of waiting, and then introduced our guest speaker C, who bravely agreed to come along to tell the assembled what it was like watching your father wait and hope for a new heart. The audience was silent as she explained beautifully that the wait for transplant is like a washing machine – most people would say rollercoaster but that implies ups then downs whereas with a washing machine you are pelted with all these emotions at once (trademarked by C, Oli and I shall now be begging to steal said description). As she reached the end of her talk, the emotion of it all surfaced and she broke down, and I moved up to the mic to finish her speech whilst giving her a gentle squeeze.

I cannot even begin to explain how much more of an impact it has coming from someone who is living the situation right here, right now and we cannot thank C enough for being bold enough to stand up there and pour out her heart to a visually moved audience. The whole afternoon was just fantastic and we will hopefully have several more events stemming from it so watch this space...

One thing down, one very exciting thing to go: Cabaret Favourites is a mere two days away and I am now officially petrified! We had a full rehearsal on Saturday and the amount of talent we have in this cast is just incredible. Wednesday should be a fantastic evening; I am starting to get really rather panicky about singing on stage myself (not a good start when encouraging others to do so!) I keep having this fear I am going to cough in the middle and then remembering my new lungs don’t tend to do that...we will hopefully have some pictures which I can post after the big day.

Things have been so busy that I keep forgetting that a week today I shall be sunning myself (well sitting nicely in the shade smeared in factor 50) in much sunnier parts! I am going on my first proper summer holiday...2 weeks in gorgeous Greece. We are returning to a place we often went to as a family when I was younger, so I cannot wait to go back. When I had my tension pneumothorax and they were trying to stabilise me enough to move me to the Brompton, I apparently asked my dad to talk about our little haunt in Greece and describe it to me to keep me calm. I am so lucky to be able to go back, and I can’t wait to see what it is like now, this time with precious new working lungs.