Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Mini Marathon Musing
Oh Yes, and this is me fuelling up pre my run/crawl in Herbert Park the other day.
Cool, eh?
Running is extremely tough at the moment. It's like my body has never run before and isn't sure what to do. My legs are fine and could go on for hours, but my breathing just can't keep up with it. I know it will just take time to get back there, but I'm impatient! Don't my lungs know I'm from the NOW generation? As in tweet, iphone, blackberry, conveyer belts of sushi I want it now! Ahem. ANYWAY.. I've been slacking on my training too, with this cold thing, which can't be good news as I have roughly 5 weeks left..
I'm doing the Flora Ladies Mini Marathon as part of the 1 in 1000 team. The team is aiming to raise over 200,000 for Crumlin Children's Hospital to build en suite rooms for cystic fibrosis patients. Last year I would have ran the whole thing, but with health this year I definitely won't manage to run the entire 10k but I can give a walk/ run a shot! And if I can, that means YOU can too.. yes, YOU there!
*YOU*
www.runningforcf.ie (or walking/or crawling-- and you have to be a woman - and NO DRAG ALLOWED? SOB. It's true. They'll kick you out!) (Maybe if you dress up real good... like this fabulous lady --)
Give it a shot men folk!
Although I doubt you'd manage to look as good as Miss Panti. But you could try eh?
Alternatively, you can throw me yer spare change at www.mycharity.ie/event/run-orla-runnnn
and show your support.
O X
Cool, eh?
Running is extremely tough at the moment. It's like my body has never run before and isn't sure what to do. My legs are fine and could go on for hours, but my breathing just can't keep up with it. I know it will just take time to get back there, but I'm impatient! Don't my lungs know I'm from the NOW generation? As in tweet, iphone, blackberry, conveyer belts of sushi I want it now! Ahem. ANYWAY.. I've been slacking on my training too, with this cold thing, which can't be good news as I have roughly 5 weeks left..
I'm doing the Flora Ladies Mini Marathon as part of the 1 in 1000 team. The team is aiming to raise over 200,000 for Crumlin Children's Hospital to build en suite rooms for cystic fibrosis patients. Last year I would have ran the whole thing, but with health this year I definitely won't manage to run the entire 10k but I can give a walk/ run a shot! And if I can, that means YOU can too.. yes, YOU there!
*YOU*www.runningforcf.ie (or walking/or crawling-- and you have to be a woman - and NO DRAG ALLOWED? SOB. It's true. They'll kick you out!) (Maybe if you dress up real good... like this fabulous lady --)
Give it a shot men folk!
Although I doubt you'd manage to look as good as Miss Panti. But you could try eh?
Alternatively, you can throw me yer spare change at www.mycharity.ie/event/run-orla-runnnn
and show your support.
O X
Book Stuff.
So, I'm pretty bad at keeping up with this and am not really sure anyone reads it. But if YOU do, then, just so you know, I'm going to make a bigger effort with it. Particularly now that my manuscript is finally finished. No really, I actually did it! Phew!
I handed in my final draft to the publishers three weeks ago - which is actually their first draft - but I'm not thinking about that! I took a week off, which actually ended up being a week where my good friend ferried over - because of the apocalyptic volcanic plume- and checked out the IFI Stranger than Fiction Film Festival. (http://www.irishfilm.ie/) (I love the IFI, not least because of their exceptionally delicious brownies.)
Last week I started back work experience in the News Room. Things went well as I bused it into my first marking - feeling like a pro whilst sipping my Capri Sun - to the first annual Arthur Guinness Awards. It was actually great fun. Because A - there were incredible people there. and B - I know the structure of Awards Ceremonies. So it should have been a breeze!
And it was great, apart from the sore throat that tickled me on the way back from the Guinness Storehouse. By Wednesday morning no amount of coffee and vanilla extract (my new - probably odd- poison) would keep me awake. By Thursday I was working from home. On Friday I was.. well, let's just say I haven't been in work since. Which is extremely frustrating.
What I love most about being in the newsroom is the way I just get sucked into the rhythm of the whole place. I know I'm meant to be running off to markings and covering things. Bam! Cf, cold, clinic on Monday, lung function down, weight down, mucus up. Grr. So this week has been about recuperating. And rewriting the end of my book....
My editor mailed me the cover last week and I didn't know whether to cry or throw up. Not because I don't like, it's just very odd. I'm on the cover - which wouldn't have been my first choice - and it's very weird to think I am willingly exposing my life the way I am.
My friend, who is also a writer - actually he is an amazing award winning one- told me when I started writing my book back in 2007 "A Memoir is a work of Ego". I told him he was nuts, my Ego has nothing to do with this. Er, maybe I should have thrown it in there.
It really doesn't though, or else I wouldn't be able to say all that I say. People keep asking me if they're in it and what I'm saying about them. It's fun in the beginning, but then it's a head wreck. I like that the book is so honest, I just hope it doesn't bite me in the ass. I've got my flights booked for a quick get- away to a secret location where a faux identity awaits, anyway..
xxx
I handed in my final draft to the publishers three weeks ago - which is actually their first draft - but I'm not thinking about that! I took a week off, which actually ended up being a week where my good friend ferried over - because of the apocalyptic volcanic plume- and checked out the IFI Stranger than Fiction Film Festival. (http://www.irishfilm.ie/) (I love the IFI, not least because of their exceptionally delicious brownies.)
Last week I started back work experience in the News Room. Things went well as I bused it into my first marking - feeling like a pro whilst sipping my Capri Sun - to the first annual Arthur Guinness Awards. It was actually great fun. Because A - there were incredible people there. and B - I know the structure of Awards Ceremonies. So it should have been a breeze!
And it was great, apart from the sore throat that tickled me on the way back from the Guinness Storehouse. By Wednesday morning no amount of coffee and vanilla extract (my new - probably odd- poison) would keep me awake. By Thursday I was working from home. On Friday I was.. well, let's just say I haven't been in work since. Which is extremely frustrating.
What I love most about being in the newsroom is the way I just get sucked into the rhythm of the whole place. I know I'm meant to be running off to markings and covering things. Bam! Cf, cold, clinic on Monday, lung function down, weight down, mucus up. Grr. So this week has been about recuperating. And rewriting the end of my book....
My editor mailed me the cover last week and I didn't know whether to cry or throw up. Not because I don't like, it's just very odd. I'm on the cover - which wouldn't have been my first choice - and it's very weird to think I am willingly exposing my life the way I am.
My friend, who is also a writer - actually he is an amazing award winning one- told me when I started writing my book back in 2007 "A Memoir is a work of Ego". I told him he was nuts, my Ego has nothing to do with this. Er, maybe I should have thrown it in there.
It really doesn't though, or else I wouldn't be able to say all that I say. People keep asking me if they're in it and what I'm saying about them. It's fun in the beginning, but then it's a head wreck. I like that the book is so honest, I just hope it doesn't bite me in the ass. I've got my flights booked for a quick get- away to a secret location where a faux identity awaits, anyway..
xxx
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Late 2009
Interviews after The Irish Tatler Woman of the Year Awards, November 12th 2009 :
Here's a pic from The Irish Times and interviews with The Sunday Supplement and TV3.
Awards always freak me out a bit, especially one's I don't know I'm getting! But everything went well and it's such great recognition for CF.
Awards always freak me out a bit, especially one's I don't know I'm getting! But everything went well and it's such great recognition for CF.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/1114/1224258816373.html (The Irish Times)
feed://audio.todayfm.com/sundaysupplement.xml (The Sunday Supplement with Sam Smyth)
ttp://www.tv3.ie/videos.php?video=16173&locID=1.65.74&date=2009-11-16&date_mode=&page=1&show_cal=&newspanel=&showspanel=&web_only=&full_episodes=
(TV3 Ireland AM)
Dec 2009
03rd December 2009.
Yikes! I haven't written here in ages. Since June I've been :solving the heymoptosis problem, taking lost of iv's and getting my exercise tolerance back, doing shifts in The Irish Times newsroom and spending November at the NYC Marathon with the Cystic Fibrosis Association. I was there supporting incredible people who ran the 26.2 miles for people with CF in Ireland. Some knew people with CF, some were family members and others just wanted to help. The spirit was invigorating. Here's an Irishwoman's Diary I wrote for The Irish Times about it :http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2009/1104/1224258025306.html
I also received The Irish Tatler Woman of the Year Award which was incredible and so shocking this November. I'll blog properly about it in the next few days. Awards remind me how the Irish people have put CF at the top of their agenda, and it gives me strength - particularly if I've been in a stick hospital situation, or heard of a friend stuck in one.
I'm still working on my book, entitled Salty Baby, which is coming out in Autumn 2010 with Hachette Ireland. I'm finally getting my energy back and things have picked up healthwise. CF is fickle, but right now it seems to be on the right track! Hoping to finish IV's tomorrow and jump back into work on Monday - I can't wait!
Orla xx
Yikes! I haven't written here in ages. Since June I've been :solving the heymoptosis problem, taking lost of iv's and getting my exercise tolerance back, doing shifts in The Irish Times newsroom and spending November at the NYC Marathon with the Cystic Fibrosis Association. I was there supporting incredible people who ran the 26.2 miles for people with CF in Ireland. Some knew people with CF, some were family members and others just wanted to help. The spirit was invigorating. Here's an Irishwoman's Diary I wrote for The Irish Times about it :http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2009/1104/1224258025306.html
I also received The Irish Tatler Woman of the Year Award which was incredible and so shocking this November. I'll blog properly about it in the next few days. Awards remind me how the Irish people have put CF at the top of their agenda, and it gives me strength - particularly if I've been in a stick hospital situation, or heard of a friend stuck in one.
I'm still working on my book, entitled Salty Baby, which is coming out in Autumn 2010 with Hachette Ireland. I'm finally getting my energy back and things have picked up healthwise. CF is fickle, but right now it seems to be on the right track! Hoping to finish IV's tomorrow and jump back into work on Monday - I can't wait!
Orla xx
Thursday, September 17, 2009
September 2009
I haven`t blogged in an awful long time. Most of the past few months has been spent in and out of hospital - which is where I am again at the moment! Reading Eckhart Tolle`s book A New Earth has really helped reinstate a feeling I`ve been having for a while now about inner peace and sense of oneness with nature that just kind of melts all the external, material stuff away. That said I went to the People of the Year Awards on my Saturday on release and wore the most beautiful dress from Roccoco beside the Westbury in town. It was made by a Korean designer and is a soft mushroom colour. I`m not big into dresses of things that pull you all together, but this looked like it did that and yet I was still so comfortable I felt I could flit and float around if I needed to. I set the colour off with gold heels nad a gold headband from American Apparel. It worked really well and even though I looked super pale in the photos it was the most comfortable I’ve felt in a long time. Trying to get the outer world/inner peace balance going on because having a sticky patch. Nice not to have to worry about going up on stage! The recepients this year were absolutely incredible. It was amazing to see it from the perspective of an observer- you don`t fully absorb it when you`re winning, it`s all so surreal. I cried for a lot of the ceremony(sap!) - it was incredible. Will blog more tomorrow.
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Ketchup Daze
A running joke I have with a friend of mine who has CF is “ Stop squirting ketchup in your sputum cups to get attention!” which of course no one is. It`s a funny way to handle irritating moments like yesterday morning, when you wake up coughing up “ketchup“ from your lungs. Not the nice tasting kind. You should really call the hospital. It`s the best thing to do. Or you could just grab some breakfast and get on with the day. Because sometimes it “just happens”, as all who doctors, who know not what to say, at some time like to exhale, exasperated. It wasn’t really the case yesterday. Sensible or stupid - I could have been either. I could have waited to see if it chilled out and cycled to UCD as planned. Stupid would have been much easier, but that in itself would have, well, been stupid. So I called my team and an hour later I’m in one of the two examination rooms being told “Blood is black and white. It’s usually nothing big, just an indicator of infection.”. So technically I could go on home IV`s? “… But sometimes it’s about a blood vessel that starts up and won`t stop. It doesn’t matter if you`re standing on Nutley Lane and this happens. If you bleed and it doesn’t stop. You bleed and it doesn’t stop”. You see I knew that, deep down I knew that and I`m not a lunatic. But it`s not always the case.
I got a bed that evening. I was extremely lucky. It was a case of refusing to go to A and E, but the severity of the situation being so beyond me that I knew I was going to go to A and E, but had to fight obviously in the hope that I wouldn`t. A bed popped up because there are not a lot of people in at the moment, and maybe because I said I was already mentally planning to chronicle my time in A and E. I don`t care what it was, but I got a bed. If I can get a bed every other CF patient who needs immediate treatment and observation, as my consultant said I did, should get it immediately. After my first dose of IV`s I realised how yuck I actually felt. I was feeling that nauseous grumble of mucus in my chest. I fell asleep reading The Universal Journalist, dreaming about actually working for longer than 3 weeks. I did notice that half of the ward was closed though. They deployed the nurses to other areas and then had to reopen six of the 12 closed beds to alleviate the A and E. They then could not get the nurses back and hired agency to man the ward. Right.
You have a lot of time to think about these things hanging in a hospital bed. For lunch I ordered roast chicken, boiled potatoes and peas. I had been tempted to order the Chicken Cordon Bleu but I couldn’t’t be sure about it. Roast chicken was usually safe, not too tough. It strayed far from it’s predecessors and it’s accompaniment let it down further. Three hard boiled potatoes. It made me think of an episode of Wife Swap I watched recently, the only episode I`ve ever watched. Rhona Cameron was on searching desperately for organic food in a fry filled house with a less than charming, distant husband of another woman who saw the role of a wife as subservient. There`s a scene where she makes beans on toast and looks like she’s about to cry. After six weeks in here, three weeks out and now being unexpectedly lassoed back in, that’s how I felt.
Mountains of peas, carrot trees and rivers of gravy flash through my mind waiting for dinner. I ordered something safe. It will be good. Then the spuds are so hard the knife gets stuck in each of them, the peas are dry and the chicken’s exterior is hard and rough, the inside not much better. That’s where the ketchup comes in. Can I please have some milk and ketchup?, I ask the giggling kitchen lady. Giggling because she brought me in a delicious looking roast beef, turnip and mash potato a few minutes previously, that I had to refuse. Alas it was someone else`s grub and I was holding out for my super chicken, smooth and tender. This sent her into fits of giggles - Maybe she knew something I didn`t? Ketchup. I was still waiting twenty minutes later as my food grew colder. In fairness it`s standard routine here to deliver all condiments after the meal has been eaten. I shouldn`t really have expected anything different.
So I ate the dry hard potatoes and picked the purple bits out of the chicken and watched the kitchen lady, roughly my age, stroll past my door towards the kitchen with tea and then back towards the ward door, her purse tucked under her arm. Potatoes - so easy to cook. I eventually asked a nurse for both. She brought milk but she didn`t know where the ketchup was. I got it at 1.15, 45 minutes after I got my dinner. Yum.
It may seem like an example of mild neurosis that I`m writing this here. But it’s just a small example of how disconnected different parts of the system are. One of the most important things I can do in here, apart from take all my meds, is fight my infection with calories. I loose thousands of them each time I have an infection, just breathing and coughing. Food is so important, and antibiotics sometimes destroy my appetite, as with a lot of people with CF. So I`m not hungry, but I know food will help my recovery which gives me the drive to eat what`s in front of me. I know I need more than what`s in front of me to fight the infection. Good food would be nice.
Given the fact that I have enough energy to be bored, but not quite enough to continuously read, I`ll probably update this most days. With thoughts, musings and what ever else pops up.
Peace out!
I got a bed that evening. I was extremely lucky. It was a case of refusing to go to A and E, but the severity of the situation being so beyond me that I knew I was going to go to A and E, but had to fight obviously in the hope that I wouldn`t. A bed popped up because there are not a lot of people in at the moment, and maybe because I said I was already mentally planning to chronicle my time in A and E. I don`t care what it was, but I got a bed. If I can get a bed every other CF patient who needs immediate treatment and observation, as my consultant said I did, should get it immediately. After my first dose of IV`s I realised how yuck I actually felt. I was feeling that nauseous grumble of mucus in my chest. I fell asleep reading The Universal Journalist, dreaming about actually working for longer than 3 weeks. I did notice that half of the ward was closed though. They deployed the nurses to other areas and then had to reopen six of the 12 closed beds to alleviate the A and E. They then could not get the nurses back and hired agency to man the ward. Right.
You have a lot of time to think about these things hanging in a hospital bed. For lunch I ordered roast chicken, boiled potatoes and peas. I had been tempted to order the Chicken Cordon Bleu but I couldn’t’t be sure about it. Roast chicken was usually safe, not too tough. It strayed far from it’s predecessors and it’s accompaniment let it down further. Three hard boiled potatoes. It made me think of an episode of Wife Swap I watched recently, the only episode I`ve ever watched. Rhona Cameron was on searching desperately for organic food in a fry filled house with a less than charming, distant husband of another woman who saw the role of a wife as subservient. There`s a scene where she makes beans on toast and looks like she’s about to cry. After six weeks in here, three weeks out and now being unexpectedly lassoed back in, that’s how I felt.
Mountains of peas, carrot trees and rivers of gravy flash through my mind waiting for dinner. I ordered something safe. It will be good. Then the spuds are so hard the knife gets stuck in each of them, the peas are dry and the chicken’s exterior is hard and rough, the inside not much better. That’s where the ketchup comes in. Can I please have some milk and ketchup?, I ask the giggling kitchen lady. Giggling because she brought me in a delicious looking roast beef, turnip and mash potato a few minutes previously, that I had to refuse. Alas it was someone else`s grub and I was holding out for my super chicken, smooth and tender. This sent her into fits of giggles - Maybe she knew something I didn`t? Ketchup. I was still waiting twenty minutes later as my food grew colder. In fairness it`s standard routine here to deliver all condiments after the meal has been eaten. I shouldn`t really have expected anything different.
So I ate the dry hard potatoes and picked the purple bits out of the chicken and watched the kitchen lady, roughly my age, stroll past my door towards the kitchen with tea and then back towards the ward door, her purse tucked under her arm. Potatoes - so easy to cook. I eventually asked a nurse for both. She brought milk but she didn`t know where the ketchup was. I got it at 1.15, 45 minutes after I got my dinner. Yum.
It may seem like an example of mild neurosis that I`m writing this here. But it’s just a small example of how disconnected different parts of the system are. One of the most important things I can do in here, apart from take all my meds, is fight my infection with calories. I loose thousands of them each time I have an infection, just breathing and coughing. Food is so important, and antibiotics sometimes destroy my appetite, as with a lot of people with CF. So I`m not hungry, but I know food will help my recovery which gives me the drive to eat what`s in front of me. I know I need more than what`s in front of me to fight the infection. Good food would be nice.
Given the fact that I have enough energy to be bored, but not quite enough to continuously read, I`ll probably update this most days. With thoughts, musings and what ever else pops up.
Peace out!
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