Paying It Forward The Awesome Way

Paying it Forward The Awesome Way

3 April 2022|Health, Nutrition, Recipes, Research papers, Sustainability

Finnbar was a little boy diagnosed with a brain tumour aged just 5 years old.  So much of that sentence is so wrong, but so much of what has happened since is so right: 

Finnbar was initially diagnosed with a Grade 2 Astrocytoma brain tumour in 2015. As the weeks went by it was discovered that his tumour was far more aggressive than initially thought and on 5 August 2016 little Finnbar passed away in his parents’ arms.  

His parents Tristan and Claire Cork set up a charity to help other families of children diagnosed with brain tumours. It was always hoped that the charity would not only be able to provide small grants to help share some of the financial burden, but that one day it would be able to help in other AWESOME ways – which is where these two come in.

Meet Dawn and Maisie.  Dawn has joined the charity to help fill a void that occurs when families are travelling back and forth to countless hospital appointments or discharged from hospital into a completely different life. She will help give families support and guidance from parents who have lived the nightmares and made it out the other side. Sometimes, it may be a family day out that’s needed, or emotional support, someone to listen, to show empathy to a child and their family whose world is literally turned upside down overnight.

Dawn can do this because she has lived it for the past 6 years and will continue to live it everyday for the rest of her life – not, she says ‘because I’m Superwoman, but because I am a mum of an awesome warrior girl.’  That’s Maisie.  She is.  AWESOME.  

As Dawn says: ‘Darrell, Maisie and myself have benefitted from the love and support of this charity. We met Tristan and Claire during the early part of Maisie’s stay in Addenbrookes Hospital  in 2016 and we kept in touch and have remained friends. Now I want to ‘pay it forward’ in the way that I know best, showing people how to fight the fight, letting people know that it is perfectly ok to not be ok and help them get the necessary support for their child and the whole family, to help deal with some of the emotions, the guilt and everything else that life has thrown their way.’

Proud to call this AWESOME family friends.  You can follow their story here.  These two are both Superwomen to me.

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We promoted Jessie’s work a couple of week’s ago on Something New and here’s her book topping the Kindle UK charts in Nutrition after being released this week.

Dr Tim Spector from Kings College London (author of Spoon Fed) says it’s: ‘A must for anyone who wants to understand their body and improve their health’

This biochemist knows what she’s talking about.

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Could you sign up to this for at least a month?  The Jump is a UK registered charity trying to encourage us to do this for 1, 3, 6 months, or more – ‘to protect our earth and live with joy.’  Their goal is a world of less stuff and more joy, where humanity is in balance with nature – through helping achieve a two-thirds reduction in the impact of consumption in rich countries by 2030.’  A noble cause.  

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Fruit salad’s for warm summer days right? Not this one.

Our daughter had a sore throat this week and I’ve read many times that pineapple has  natural soothing properties, in fact as effective and much better for our bodies than commercial cough medicines.  

This quick, easy dessert ‘hit the spot’ on a cold early Spring day:

• Fresh pineapple
• Fresh blueberries
• Fresh mint (from a pot in the garden)
• Frozen raspberries
• Filtered water

Here’s a recent Pub Med research paper to back that up: ‘pineapple has been proven to have various health benefits including anti-inflammatory, antioxidant activity, monitoring nervous system function, and healing bowel movement.’

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Oftentimes nature just ‘blows me away’.  The beauty of this garden flower is just stunning.
Symmetrical, delicate, I was disappointed to see this tulip fully opened within a few hours of taking it from our garden and using it to boost my week-old Mother’s Day blooms.  I thought it would be wilting the following day, but no, it had closed up overnight and looks just as beautiful today.  God’s perfect creation…

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The Gathering No2 is this Thursday, 7 April, 6pm UK time, 7pm CET.   Zoom code: 848 9307 1202 Password: 762099 Or just click here  Catherine Rolt is opening our time together – it’s a safe place to listen, speak, sense, feel, ask, learn and/or share.

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Delighted to share that Facebook recognised us as an official charitable cause this week.  

You can now donate directly from our page or here’s the link to set up your own fundraiser to help us continue our work.

As you’ll see there are no advertisements on our site, no affiliate links, nor are we sponsored in any way.  

Our needs:

1. We would love to remain independent and are now at a cross-roads where we need a professional purpose-built website (dear Calum at GoDaddy tells me this one’s at capacity!)
2. We need to begin marketing the site to attract a wider audience.  Friends and friends of friends and friends of their friends are growing our site, but there’s a big world out there that could all benefit from the knowledge shared.
3. We’re all volunteers – the potential of this project is huge.  We need many more ‘hands on deck’ to do this justice as we grow.  Professional hands (that cost money) too.

Thank you for considering supporting us!