Tales of the unexpected with The Boy, my pride and joy.
On The Farm is a make and play jigsaw puzzle which can be used as a playmat to explore the environment of a farm. Using the trademark beautiful illustrations, synonymous with Orchard Toys, the large jigsaw puzzle explores many different aspects of farm life including crop growing and keeping livestock.
Two health alerts in the space of a few days, it's like I'm becoming a public service!
However, when an e-mail from Cancer Research UK dropped into my inbox earlier, there was no way I couldn't share the information.
April is Bowel Cancer Awareness Month, and as someone whose father was diagnosed with bowel cancer six years ago it is something very relevant to me. Discussing the digestive system is often considered icky or inappropriate, I don't care. Receiving a phonecall from your mum at 5.30pm on a cold Friday evening in November when you're the only person left in the dark school, telling you that your dad has cancer and needs to have a 10cm length cut out of his bowel as soon as possible; that's inappropriate. He'd only been to the GP because he was feeling a bit faint and weak, yet a few hours later he'd been sent to hospital and was attached to a two-pint blood transfusion for severe anaemia from the blood loss through his stools.
Bowels = poo.
POO!
Deal with it. We all do it, why it's such a no-no to discuss it is beyond me.
The symptoms of colorectal (bowel) cancer can include
Bowel cancer is the 3rd most common cancer in the UK after breast and lung cancer.
In the UK more than 41,000 people are diagnosed with large bowel cancer each year.
More than 85 out of 100 bowel cancers (85%) are diagnosed in people aged 60 or over.
Ulcerative colitis is a chronic bowel diseases causing inflammation in the bowel.
Having very severe ulcerative colitis (or Crohn's disease) for many years increases your risk of bowel cancer.
Probably about 1 in every 100 cases of bowel cancer (1%) is due to ulcerative colitis.
(This is one of the reasons why one of my best friend's had her colon removed last year at the age of 35. She was so bedbound that she was incapable to caring for her three year old daughter.)
Screening currently works via testing for blood in the stools, and then examining the inside of the bowel. Cancer Research UK are introducing Bowel Scope Screening as a matter of screening before the symptoms occur, through six pilot centres. By 2016, everyone in England should be invited to have a test at the age of 55. Current screening exists for over 60s or those at high risk.
I urge anyone who has the above symptoms to visit their GP as soon as possible. Bowel cancer has one of the best recovery rates.
That's why my dad lived to hold his first grandchild.
I normally stay well away from controversial subjects as I dislike confrontation. However, I have always felt very passionate about the MMR and parents' responsibility to protect their children through immunisations. I did not spend nine months carefully growing The Boy and go through that labour to bring my child safely into the world, to have his health compromised unnecessarily.
South Wales is currently seeing an epidemic of measles with a huge reach. Until now it's been fairly safely ensconsed around the Swansea area, but today I had an e-mail from The Boy's nursery. Measles is spreading very quickly through the schools in the area as many of the pupils have had their first MMR but not the preschool booster. I wonder if parents think that it is something which only needs to be given once? I know that The Boy should have had his preschool booster around Christmas time (3 years and 4 months), but because of his constant ear infections and low immune system due to repeat courses of antibiotics, I spoke to the nurse and delayed it until around now. He should have had it last week, but we were in Butlins and missed the appointment. Following this alert from his nursery, I will be phoning the GP in the morning to get him 'jabbed' as soon as possible.
The alert from the Health Protection Team for Public Health Wales, states that a few cases have been seen locally. That means it's spreading from Swansea, and they have serious concerns about an outbreak in schools. The alert states that if our children have not had their preschool booster, or (when older) have missed a vaccination, that parents must contact the GP, health visitor or practice nurse to be vaccinated now!
This is the exact wording from the Health Protection Team's alert:
Measles is highly infectious and is spread from person to person by coughs and sneezes. Early symptoms include a cough, cold, high temperature and conjunctivitis (painful, red eyes). A red, blotchy rash appears 3-7 days later which usually begins on the face and spreads down over the rest of the body. The person is usually quite ill and often prefers to lie quietly in a darkened room. Serious complications can occur.
Any child who develops symptoms of measles should not attend school for four days after the start of the rash.
It is not for me to tell you to get your child immunised, but so far there have been 541 cases of measles in south Wales, with 100 of those in the last week alone.
For more information on Measles, please visit the Public Health Wales site here.
The BBC news report can be found here.
I love bringing my son up in the town which I grew up in. Every experience he has is imprinted with the memories of my siblings, friends and I doing exactly the same thing, echoing the past, mirroring my actions, with a twenty or thirty year gap.
Our town has many parks, indeed it's known for it, and one of those parks has a plethora of play opportunities. Huge sweeping fir trees with gargantuan hiding spaces close to the tree trunk, woodland dells, Victorian pathways, aviaries with tweeting canaries, and overrun hedges.
In the small playground area, there is a hedge. It's an ancient hedge riddled with pathways which have been explored by children for generations.
And, as these photos of The Boy show from this Spring and the past two, it's a favourite with the next generation as well.
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At the same time that Mr. TBaM and I were sent some new bedding to keep us nestled in our slumber, The Fine Bedding Company also sent some for The Boy so he wouldn't feel left out!
For my first Mother's Day back in 2010, Mr. TBaM took me to Dyffryn Gardens in the Vale of Glamorgan. We had a beautiful walk through the gardens pushing our little bundle in his pushchair, and it was good to revisit the site after such a long break since my last visit.
Dyffryn Gardens is a place that I'd first visited as a child with my parents, when the main house used to hold craft fayres every so often, particularly at Christmas time, and we'd wander from room to room and enjoy the immediate gardens. At the time though, things were beginning to look a little tatty, and fairly soon after the main house was closed to the public and left to fall into disrepair despite the efforts to maintain it. Visiting the venue over the past two to three years, and seeing such a stunning house boarded up, was so sad; I'd recount my memories to Mr. TBaM and sigh with nostalgia.
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I know it's been unseasonably cold, and quite frankly the snow that some parts of the country have had in the past ten days has been ridiculous, but I really do feel Spring might be coming.
Don't laugh.
We've had a fabulous week in Bognor Regis on our Butlins Ambassadors; it's been bloody cold with the temperature never getting above 5°C, and the sun has only shone intermittently, but I think that the smell of Spring is approaching. Maybe it was walking back to the hotel in the dusk at half past six in the evening, maybe it was the new buds on the trees, but it's in the air.
Anyway, I've taken 753 photographs this week, whittled down to a still ridiculously large collection of 376.
So I'll show you my week if you'll show me yours!
This linky only works because of people linking to it and then contributing their thoughts to others' posts.
Join in by entering the URL of your favourite photograph of the week (either a 52 or a 365 photo) and show some comment love to everyone else in the community. We've got a Facebook group, and now I've created a collaborative Pinterest board (if you'd like to collaborate, let me know and I'll add you).
83. Look Mummy! (We left for our Butlin's Ambassadors' holidays a day early to break up the journey, and called into Westonbirt Arboretum on the way – more on that in another post. It's an amazing Forestry Commission site, but dear God it was cold. We braved -3°C to explore the play area and some of the old arboretum, and The Boy really showed his growing ability and confidence at tree climbing!)
84. View (Checking into our hotel room in The Ocean Hotel, we discovered that we had a gorgeous view from the fourth floor over the resort. The Boy has been out on the balcony at any and every opportunity this week to catch a glimpse of his beloved helter-skelter.)
85. Plopping (A day trip to Brighton, which was an opportunity that I couldn't let pass when down this way. I've wanted to visit the West Pier for a long time and I find the condition of it so very sad. How it's been allowed to lapse into such a terrible state of disrepair over the past thirty years, is beyond me. Our seaside heritage is one of the things that makes Britain special, to see such a beautiful example of Victorian architecture destroyed is shocking. The remaining pier was a let-down, and so we spent a good amount of time 'plopping' on the beach, having already enjoyed the wonders of the Royal Pavilion.)
86. Round and round (We had passed a walled park several times this week, peeking over the top was a zip-wire and wooden climbing frame. A quick Google showed it to be Hotham Park, which we visited on Wednesday afternoon. The park was amazing, and for most of the hour or so we were there, we had it to ourselves. I even had a go on the zip-wire myself; a first! The Boy found a very different swing to those we are used to, and really enjoyed spinning around watching the sky swirling.)
87. I Can Cook! (This is one of the shows that we've been looking forward to all week. The Boy is completely captivated by Katy's antics on CBeebies and, even though this show wasn't presented by her, he couldn't wait to see today's show. I had to sit him at the front with all the other children, and then join the adults at the back. That was until I heard a frantic 'mummy!' being screamed from the front when the character 'Naughty Salt' was being chased by 'Lucy' around the audience. The Boy hates naughtiness of any description, and it really upset him. Another frantic 'MUMMY!!!' and I'd managed to scoop up his little sobbing body. Apologies to the three parents whose fingers I stood on en route.)
88. By the seaside (Today's photo had to be one that summed up our Butlins Ambassadors break in Bognor Regis; sunshine, deckchairs, cheerful smiles but biting winds. Hats and gloves, long johns and rosy cheeks were the order of the week, but dear God we had fun!)
89. Which ride first? (I won a competition for us to visit Legoland for the launch of the Lego Hero Factory, Build and Test Area. We've never been there with The Boy before, the only other time was actually ten years ago, well before children were thought of, and we commented on the time that it was a pointless place without them. Today we got to try many of the rides that we'd seen then, and how they had expanded the park. Freezing conditions meant that we lasted from 9.30-4.00 but gave up early to head home after a tiring week. The Boy adored the park and the rides were a good length for him to enjoy them, he loved looking over the park map to see where he'd been or which he was going on.)
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Splutter.
Cough.
You get the picture right? That's been my week, alongside three boxes of tissue, five packets of Beechams and twenty seven litres of Calpol. And some coffee thrown in for good measure. Some of it was mine, some of it I shared with The Boy.
Not the coffee though. Never the coffee.
So tell me what you lot have been up to while I've been knee-deep in snotty tissues and Buttercup syrup? And make it good.
This linky only works because of people linking to it and then contributing their thoughts to others' posts.
Join in by entering the URL of your favourite photograph of the week (either a 52 or a 365 photo) and show some comment love to everyone else in the community. We've got a Facebook group, and now I've created a collaborative Pinterest board (if you'd like to collaborate, let me know and I'll add you).
