Julia

Thank you for your wonderful blog postings. Your writing is inspirational and fills me with joy and sadness all in one go. When I say inspirational I don’t just mean this as an empty word - but that I am inspired to check out teachings, music and ideas that you have refered to here. Sending you much love and blessings from Cambridge, England. Nicola

For some aural meditation (one of my favourite forms) can I also recommend you find a copy of Anouar Brahem’s album “Le Pas Du Chat Noir”.

Let me know if you can’t find it anywhere…Tris xxx

Thank you for your courage in sharing your experience.

I was introduced to your story through the “Good Weekend” article of August 16, and have followed your blog ever since.

20 years ago, I lost my own mother to cancer as a teenager (she was in her 40’s, and had just completed her master’s degree in exercise physiology for seniors). This experience affected much of my own life’s direction. I know that she would have been inspired by your challenges and triumphs.

I was intrigued by the mention of Vipassana as part of your treatment options. I first came to Australia in order to meditate for 6 months in Vipassana Centers, and found the experience of both sitting in centers and serving other meditators rewarding and transformational.

Currently, I work in Sydney as a yoga therapist, and am also studying molecular biology in order to determine how one might begin to examine a possible correlation between the long-term practice of yoga and/or meditation and gene expression. In my yoga therapy practice, I work often with patients who are at the far edge of what the medical community is able to offer. My fundamental approach is that physical crisis is most often a forced window of transformation — that attempting to return people back to their “old lives” can often be counterproductive to the process their bodies are trying to take them through.

I imagine that you are an extraordinarily busy person, but I am inspired by your story, and would love to have a conversation to get your perspectives on crisis and transformation, and where one might study how the “alternative” therapies might affect cellular function.

Finally, I hope the warm Sydney weather finds you enjoying the sunshine.
Warmest regards,
Remy Quinter

Thank you for such wonderful, enlightening, inspiring and humbling posts; and for your blog in general. You share your experiences and feelings into words in such a beautiful way.

I’ve unfortunately found myself as doctor-as-patient in hospital for almost 10 months in total, out of the last year. I can relate so much to what you have generously chosen to share with us. I’m typing this from my hospital bed, having laughed out loud reading some aspects of your entries - making my fellow bay ‘buddies’ glance over (slightly nervously) in surprise. Hopefully I will be escaping home tomorrow - providing all the little things come together in time.

Your points about ‘breaking the rules’ - how very true - it’s those ’stolen’ moments, those when you already should have been back on the ward after that brief authorised trip to the hospital coffee shop, when you just decide to sneak outside with a friend for a few minutes, and get that breeze on your face and watch the sunset.. or lie on the grass, reading the Sunday paper, whilst listening to the cheesy local radio station …. it’s those moments that make you still feel alive, and like you still have a little bit of free spirit.

I’m also a bit of a book junkie - having 3 books on the go in hospital, and 4 more at home. I’m certain you’d have loved one of my favourite hide-aways during my BSc year of medical school, in the Science Museum in London - certain areas have huge windows with massive sills… as students could get in for free (even before the London museums became free entry for all) so during our unoccupied sessions… I’d often go and curl up on the windowsills, reading-sometimes course reading, more often than not…works of fiction; whilst all the museum visitors would be strolling past, generally unaware of my presence -yet old wartime airplanes suspended from the ceiling observing me in my place of hiding, adding a sense of deep atmosphere to the afternoons activity!

My hospital ’survival kit’ proved essential during my sometimes long periods of captivity (up to 13 weeks) including: non-hospital tea bags, marmite, chewing gum, extra strong mints, notebook and pen, ear plugs, nice luxurious moisturiser, books, lip balm, and my laptop with mobile internet connection, and a decent selection of music and dvds…. Anna, any essentials you care to add?

Anyway - Thank you for sharing your experiences - you are a true inspiration. Long may your happiness, and blogs continue.

KSD

Thankyou, I`ve learnt something far more important.

Great blog. You write beautifully. Thank you for sharing your experience with us. Look after yourself. Much love, Urmila.

…stumbled upon your blog and found myself swept up into a little of your world.Agree with the books ,friends chocolate thing (green and Blacks Maya Gold does it for me !)and the anticipation of it all does heighten the thrill

I have a secret vice too which is very satisfying which is when I visit gardens somehow small seeds fall into my pocket which I then grow and give to my friends ’spreading part of God’s nature’ as somebody once put it -naughty but
nice

I do love the world inside your head and hope maybe there is a book in there somewhere …

SJV

lovingkindness

ah

You dear hairless hamster - how do you manage to make me laugh when blogging on this subject??? I wish I had seen your blog before we last met, I realise now I should have spent that lovely afternoon advocating for the alphabetical shelving of Michael’s books…how dare you say the word Kindle???? Instead, we spent the day lounging around your lovely new house and touring Sydney with your gorgeous husband and father…so I guess it wasn’t a total loss.

This just to say I have finally seen your blog, and am loving it…also reading all the comments….my you have a lot of friends, cyber ones and real ones! Though a suspicious number of the women you grew up with seem to have taken their husband’s names…what’s with that???

Much love baby! Natalia

Great posting, and you’ve made me think now too.

Feeling good is a bit about feeling happy and a bit about the innate pleasure of looking forward to things, rather than a state of mind of how things are right now.

Feeling good comes from the pleasure of anticipation. It comes from looking forward to visiting friends, small moments shared over good, strong coffee. It comes from daydreaming of finding a spot on your favourite beach in the haze of the late afternoon when the sun glints off the water with the background hum of happy people dawdling to draw out the end of the day.

It comes from salivating over the thought of biting into the perfect slice of lemon drizzle cake where there’s just enough sugar crunch to set off the sharpness of lemon juice-sodden cake underneath.

Being more sentimental, it comes from touching the tiny tip of your baby’s nose, or the sensation of a child’s warm paw in your big adult hand. Which incidentally makes me feel horribly grown-up, but only fleetingly.

Maybe it even comes from the curious satisfaction of sorting and categorising and making lists, then working your way down them and crossing things off. Think of lovely, long lists with lots of “ands” in, with the pleasure that comes from being purposeful and the happiness of getting things done. Watch a small child sorting coloured bricks in no particular way, but sorting and stacking and piling them nonetheless, as evidence of the basic human happiness that comes from thrill of ordering things. Endlessly recategorising songs on an iPod must be the nearest you can get to this joyful childhood sorting.

Any information addict will tell you it comes from the greedy pleasure of hoovering up newspapers and magazines, overdosing on newsfeeds and blogs and getting back to reading a book as you did as a child by lying on the floor reading incessantly until you can feel your ribs burning from where they’ve been pressed into the floorboards for too long, with your elbows numb from the effort of propping yourself up.

And, I agree with you, feeling good comes from breaking the rules with the thrill that comes from feeling that in some small, but significant way, you’ve beaten the system. What is it about breaking the rules that feels so good? There must be an inherent joy in being a seditionary and subverting the system. And revelling in the pleasure of going against the flow and not blending in with the crowd.

Keep blogging Anna. I hope you can add people reading your blog to your feel-good list.

best wishes
ab

buzz marketting

Can I recommend Chad Vader, Day Shift Manager? (It makes me feel good.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wGR4-SeuJ0

Liz Harding

Looking forward to seeing Darth on the streets of London next Spring- you will be a fashion icon for 2009.

Great descriptions of all the enjoyment of your senses. Keep painting the soul with the stunning achievements of nature. And enjoy the snowdrops as they appear in Australia while we flood into Autumn.

Very best wishes

Justin (J)

What a great blog. Perhaps part of the secret to your energy and dynamism is your openness to such a range of things that make you feel good!

I applaud the meat pie and tomato sauce!

Love Karen A

Sophia