On Thursday, April 19th at 8am I will be abseiling down the QV1 building. QV1 is the fourth tallest building in my city of Perth, at 40 stories high and just over 160 meters (525 feet) its going to be no small feat.
As part of this annual fundraising event, you need to complete a training day to assess your skills and requirements for the day as well as familiarise you with the equipment you will be using on the day.
Although I wasn’t looking for love in the beginning, since receiving my ostomy at 26 it’s something that played on my mind. My delightful ex had wished me dead on the eve of my first surgery so my faith in the opposite sex was at an all-time low. That and I couldn’t even look at myself let alone love myself, so how could I expect anyone else too. The fear that I would never find someone who could love me like this was real.
Going back as far as I can remember I always wanted to travel the world, there wasn’t a continent not on my dreams list. As a family we never stayed put in one place for long, first living in an old bus that had been fitted out travelling around Australia getting home-schooled before settling down if you could call it that, moving house every six months to two years until I was old enough to take flight and step out on my own. At 19 I left my rental property, my boyfriend of three years, my job and my family with $50 AUD in my purse, a back pack and a sense of adventure, from that moment I was hooked on travel. I returned just over six months later to finish my accounting and finance degree with the knowledge that I could use those skills, making the world my oyster.
I know I have discussed this topic before but believe it belongs in my “Things I Wish I Knew Back Then…” series, as its high on my list of things I would have loved back when my journey began. If you didn’t see it check it out HERE. I also, however, wanted to take some time to briefly introduce you to the ones who influenced my life and some up and coming ones that are inspiring me to do wonderful things. They are all amazing bloggers and ostomy awareness advocates, so if you do get the time check them out. Well worth your time. We all write differently and focus on slightly different issues with the same main aim, to raise awareness and help others along with ourselves through this ostomy life.
It's ten years on now from when I first began this ordeal, why now have I started this you may ask as I'm not a writer. I was never any good at English in school and my spelling has always been appalling. I even had to change that word to something that spell check could recognise, as my original thought came up with "no replacements found”. My punctuation sucks, I'm not sure when I should use a comma or a full stop and don't even get me started on what a verb is versus a noun (much to my husband’s dismay, he has explained it many times but like times tables it never stuck). But despite all this, I still believe that by putting my story out there it may help others overcome any hurdles thrown in their way.