2013 in Pictures

January

We had a lovely family gathering to celebrate new year 2013. 

The rest of the month was quiet, and sadly we lost mums Aunty Nancy but there were many happy memories to share.

February

I presented my Body Image booklet at the CF conference in Southhampton, which was a great experience.  We visited friends in Manchester and had a lovely weekend, and LLTGL launched their fab "Let Love Live On" campaign for valentines day :-)   I finally met an online friend Kelly and Seb met her lovely poodle Barney - and made his first good friend haha.

March

I presented to the physio team at my hospital about pulmonary rehab in Cystic Fibrosis.    We had a lovely family celebration for Easter.

  

April

This was a busy month for organ donation awareness!!  It was my 5th transplant anniversary so was rather apt to be spreading the word!   I  did two talks at George Heriot school to 4th year pupils,  I helped out some media students , who were creating a short film about organ donation as part of their module and met with another student, Mike, doing a masters in Design who was completing a project and dissertation around organ donation.  Finally on the day of my anniversary I spoke at the  Regional Collaborative Meeting - this was essentially key players in organ donation, ITU and A+E consultants - all the people involved with identification of donors and dealing with donor families in Scotland.  I did also manage some 34th birthday celebrations in April too and we went to a 1950s party for Irene's 60th ;-)

May

We had some amazing weather this month, so spent lots of time in the garden - I went on a spree of painting everything in sight :-)   At the end of May I went in for my shoulder surgery.....ouch! 

June

I spent most of June recovering from my surgery - I had some problems with my chest post surgery but otherwise recovered well!   We went to Mike's design show to see his final work on organ donation, which was really interesting.  At the end of the month we had our friends over for the weekend to stay, and Seb learned to tolerate his arch enemy 'Alfie' for the evening ;-)

July

Busy month!  Had my lovely friends Barry and Louise, and their 3 kiddies for the weekend - we had great fun!  

Then we had Uncle Hughs Golden Anniversary celebrations, a trip to Hawick for Andrews cousins 40th and it was also great catching up with my cousin Kelly Ann and her family :-)  

August

We went to Pefkos in Rhodes for a lovely relaxing week.  

Mum and me went to Stobo Castle for some pampering and at the end of the month me and Andrew zipped across the Clyde in aid of the Willow Foundation.  Team Glasgow riased over £4000 together! 

September

We had a fab trip to Brugge with Claire and Giuseppe -mostly spent drinking beer! 

Myself and Victoria ran the organ donor desk at Freshers Fayre.

 

October

Andrew completed his first half marathon in aid of Breast Cancer.  

We attended a charity 1920s night, so got dressed up which was fun. 

We then went to Elgin for the weekend as my friend Sheila was organising a  quiz in aid of LLTGL. 

At the end of the month I was in London for the LLTGL advocate weekend :-)  Mum got her hip replacement this month and continues to make a good recovery.

November

We celebrated our friend Cameron's wedding!  Then I started a post graduate course in Autism and spent most of the month frantically researching and writing a first draft of my essay.  

December

We started the month with a trip to visit Louise and Barry and start the Christmas fun!  

I enjoyed the run up to Christmas - making crackers, wrapping presents and baking mince pies :-)  I had my work night out which was great fun and met up with my friends for a Christmas lunch.  

Sadly we lost Andrews Gran this month - we did however know that she was finally at peace and no longer suffering.  

Christmas itself was lovely (as always) and we have both enjoyed spending time with all our family :-)

 

I don't know what next year will hold, and I am not one for making new year resolutions.  I hope for more adventures, dreams coming true, fun and laughter and health and happiness for all my family and friends.  I thank my donor once again for giving me this chance to celebrate life.  And regardless of what happens in my life this year;  I am content, and I am happy.

“When you are discontent, you always want more, more, more. Your desire can never be satisfied. But when you practice contentment, you can say to yourself, 'Oh yes -- I already have everything that I really need.”   

Dalai Lama

Two sleeps......!!

Well that's me home for Christmas and it's only 2 more sleeps......!!    So happy to be home with my family and looking forward to catching up with everyone over the festive period. I think Christmas is about spending time with family and friends and just taking some time out of an otherwise busy life to remember those that are important to me.

We decorated our tree a few weeks back and had some new ornaments this year - from Bruge and Rhodes, to add to our happy memories.  We actually have so many decorations now that I think we need another tree next year!  I love unwrapping each one when we decorate the tree, and spending a moment thinking about where it came from and the memories it brings back.  Many of them do remind me about Frances Ann - but in a happy way - and I can feel that she is still part of my Christmas every year.

Now I am home with mum and dad, I have another tree to look at.  Theirs is also filled with decorations with memories of years gone by.  There are of course the home made ones from our school days, decorations I remember from being young and newer ones they have collected on holidays in recent times.   The angel at the top is hilarious.   Frances Ann announced one year she was making a new angel for the tree.  It consists of a ping pong ball painted pink for the head, tinsel hair, paper rolled up for the body and the wings ripped of the old angel and glued on!   It keeps falling off the tree so we have to tie it on with ribbon now - it kind of looks like it's about to skydive off the tree any second, but we love it!!!   

Mum has been baking (despite her sore hip) and the kitchen is full of pancakes, scones, fruit loaf and now she is making truffles.  I made some mince pies (even made my own pastry) so we are certainly stocked up for the season.  

Tomorrow I will have the traditional Christmas eve catch up with my friends -who all come to mum and dads and we eat cakes and drink coffee, while exchanging gifts.  I will set the table for Christmas day, start running around slightly hyper, and then we will go to the Vigil Mass.   Afterwards we will settle down to a Christmas movie, before I am packed off to bed so that Santa can come!!  My stocking is ready!  I am not sure whether I will be able to sleep.....it's unlikely :-)

I will be remembering my donor at this time and thank her for each Christmas I can celebrate with my family.  I will also be remembering my dear friend Gerard's family this year - he sadly died last week after developing severe chronic rejection after his lung transplant.  He was an advocate for LLTGL and a member of Team Glasgow.  He will be missed so much - but his memory will certainly live on and I think too, of his donor, who allowed him those extra Christmases with his own family.

Although we do feel loss more poignantly at this time of year, we should also remember the happy memories and use them to add that little bit of sparkle to Christmas......it will always be a special day for me.....you just have to believe in the magic :-)

Jenny Wilson   

Sadly Andrew's granny passed away on Wednesday 4th December, in the early hours of the morning.  She had reached the very respectable age of 94.   Fortunately myself and Andrew were there with her all evening - she was in a deep sleep but I am sure she knew we were there, holding her hand, and she looked very peaceful.

I have known Jenny for 13 years now, so I felt like she was my granny too!   She lived in Milngavie her entire life, so she was delighted when myself and Andrew moved to Milngavie nearly 9 years ago - buying a house in the very same street she grew up in.   It must have been comforting to think that her family had returned to her roots.  It also meant that we were accepted readily into the community - because everyone knew Jenny Wilson and Andrew was her grandson. 

I would often meet her walking in the town centre when we first moved to Milngavie.   Marching up the pedestrian precinct at a rate of knots, with her tweed hat and a determined look.   She seemed to know everyone she passed and they knew her.   She would always be keen to go for a coffee if we met and always ready for a wee slice of cake to go with it.   I remember her sitting in her big chair in the living room, surrounded by her crossword, various books, the phone (which she was frequently on!) - all piled up on what was supposed to be her zimmer ;-)  When myself and Andrew popped into visit we weren't allowed to make coffee until we had been there at least 40 minutes, just in case we left too soon haha!     I remember dropping in unexpectedly one morning to find her up on a chair cleaning out her top cupboards.  She was about 88 at this point!

We sometimes took her to the shops for a look around and she always amused me by her interest in nail varnish and pink lipstick.  She always looked immaculate and never really lost interest in her appearance.  For her 90th birthday we got her a hair appointment with the famous Taylor Ferguson in Glasgow centre - she has always talked about wanting to go there.  She loved every minute of it and looked amazing at her 90th party!

She had a very good sense of humour - very wry and often unexpected.  Nothing really got past her!  She had a feisty spirit and knew her own mind....and there was no changing it once it was made up.

Jenny was very independent until only a few years ago when her health began to fail.   She was still getting out on her own well into her late 80's and she really struggled with she could no longer do this.  She did manage to stay in her own home until the last couple of years, when she eventually moved into a nursing home.   I know she struggled with this change, because she had been so incredibly independant her entire life but the nursing home staff were excellent, and it was a relief for everyone to know she was being well cared for and felt safe.

In recent months she has been confined to bed but had been comfortable and settled.  Her body has been so strong and held on longer than anyone could have expected.   It is difficult in this lead up to Christmas to know that she is no longer with us, but I also like to think she is now reunited for Christmas with her husband Charlie, her own parents and her siblings.  She can have some party with them this year.... and we will raise a glass to her memory and know she is now at peace.

Hello again!

Well I have managed to come back and update before Christmas!

A great way to end the year was a successful visit to Newcastle for transplant clinic last month.   I had a drop in lung function in the summer - probably because of the shoulder surgery - but it has been worrying me since.   In fact in recent weeks it was playing on my mind all the time and I found myself waking during the night worrying about my next results. However I was VERY relieved to find my lung function back up to it's normal and everything else looking perfect.  That is actually the best Christmas present I could get :-)

The rest of November was pretty busy as I just went a bit mad and wrote the entire 6000 first draft of my essay!  I used to work like that at school and at uni - mostly because I never knew when I would be unwell or end up in hospital, so I couldn't risk leaving work until the last minute.  It's probably a good habit to have developed although most people think it's a bit strange ;-)   I am waiting on feedback from the tutor on the content and Uncle Hugh is checking my grammar.  My plan is to do no work on it over Christmas but hopefully get the final draft completed in January.

I gave a talk on my experiences of transplant to a group of pharmacists, which was interesting.  I put a few extra slides in talking about the regime of medication that still needs to be followed post transplant.  It is nothing compared to pre transplant but I think people do sometimes forget that it is not a cure as such.  Not that I am complaining - taking some tablets is no hardship in return for life!!!

One days tablets:

We made a start to the Christmas season with a visit to my friends Louise and Barry.  We had a fab festive weekend, starting with a trip to the local farm for the kids (and me!) to see Santa's grotto and a nativity play.  We watched a Christmas movie, ate a mini Christmas dinner and decorated the tree.  I felt rather festive by the time we left...!    I have yet to put my own tree up but that will be this weekends plan :-)