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I've had an intense  (and tense) relationship with BT  - formerly known as British Telecommunications - recently.  I have my phone line, broadband - which is working fine at the moment touch wood - and You View TV with them. The TV package was "sold" to me a good while ago, on a day when I had persuaded myself that £7 a month for a service which not only gives you lots of  TV channels and "Catch Up" but also has the magical ability of recording live television while you go and make a cup of tea and can play it back without you missing any of the "live" bits. Now, I've never been a particularly logical thinker, or technological master. I mean, the remote control itself is a mystery to me apart from the on/off button. My son and son in law will tell you with glee about the time I couldn't get the television in the bedroom to work, only to be told that this was because I had the aerial plugged into the power socket of the freeview box. ...

Post cycle 3 chemo - Day 6 We are half way through the chemotherapy - and when I say 'we' of course I mean Jane, who is as strong, amazing and more beautiful than ever.  With each session of drugs so far, it seems to take longer than last time to feel normal again, though of course real "normal" won't be for a while yet.  The drugs in the chemotherapy treatment so far are  f luorouracil  (also called 5FU) e pirubicin c yclophosphamide docetaxel  (also called  T axotere ®)    (FEC-T from the initials of the drugs name)   The side effects include risk of infection, bruising, feeling or being sick, diarrhoea, sore mouth, anaemia, loss of appetite, taste change, hair loss, sore eyes, skin changes and of course,desperate tiredness and aching bones.  This is what I am watching my daughter suffer, and this is why I feel useless. It's past the time of trite comments of "why her and not me ?"  and wishing that I could take i...

As I pressed the "Publish " button on the keyboard yesterday after posting  this post  , an advert for toothpaste came on the television. This one : Because I had just been writing about food ingredients, and because I spend much of my time lately reading about them, I looked at the  Aquafresh website   and the ingredients on each type of toothpaste. (I have to say I thought that Aquafresh was just that, but it appears that there are at least 7 differents types by this one company) Extra Fresh ®  + Whitening Get Triple Protection® benefits every time you brush. Each variety provides strong teeth and gives your mouth a fresh, minty clean sensation that tastes great and lasts. Aquafresh® Extra Fresh® + Whitening toothpaste has a minty, extra-fresh flavor that tastes great! INGREDIENTS - Active Ingredient Sodium monofluorophosphate (0.15% w/v fluoride ion) Inactive Ingredients Sorbitol, water, calcium carbonate, hydrated silica, glyceri...

Write-Place: Cancer - Just "one of those things" or something m... : It happens to most of us at some point in our lives. We, or a family member or friend becomes ill and we begin to analyse our life style,...

It happens to most of us at some point in our lives. We, or a family member or friend becomes ill and we begin to analyse our life style, desperately searching for an answer to how this could have happened and even more desperately hoping for a simple solution to the problem. There has to be an antidote to all the "bad" things that we have knowingly done to our bodies up to now and if we stop doing some things and begin doing others, all will be fine, we think. We sometimes conclude that it's "just one of those things" and we were unlucky to have this happen to us. It was no one's fault and nothing could have been done to prevent it. Fortunately, many of us recover from the illness with no lasting side effects. Whether this was from the medical intervention we received or the changes we made in our diet and lifestyle - it is likely to be a combination of both - doesn't concern us too much. The illness that blighted our life has gone and we are tha...

Two days before assaulting a BBC producer, Jeremy Clarkson was told by a doctor that he might have cancer and that being given the warning was one of the most stressful experiences of his life.   He has attempted to explain his state of mind at the time of the attack by saying  "Two days before the “fracas”, I had been told, sternly, by my doctor that the lump on my tongue was probably cancer and that I must get it checked out immediately. But I couldn’t do that.  We were in the middle of a Top Gear series. And Top Gear always came first.’ Clarkson said he had now been given the all-clear, but wrote in his column in The Sunday Times : ‘That was the most stressful day I have ever had in 27 years at the BBC. It was beyond-belief stressful, everything was gong wrong, and then you know... there you go. But everyone has stressful days, and they manage to cope better than I had."   The Sunday Times Well, yes. We do all have stressful days and we all have dif...