2011 28th January - Life & Death

Yesterday Gino D'Acampo (I hope that's the correct spelling) cooked naked on This Morning, having promised to do so if they won the NTA. Since being off work, after the first few weeks, or the weeks where I'm at hospital three days out of 5, This Morning is usually on - on good days I'll do some laundry or ironing or write my blog/chat online to friends at the same time and just pay most attention to the section I'm most interested in. It's an easy way to soak up a few current events and nicer than watching the news which is more austere.

I have a thing for Italian men, my children's father is part Italian, the last man I had a relationship with (not The Rock, we've never had an actual relationsihp, just feelings at the wrong time) was half Italian. It's partly the looks, partly the whole Italian culture. Gino's cheek is obviously an added bonus. Beating Bowel Cancer have shorts cut out with a plastic bottom for some of their campaigns and when he turned to the sink and flexed his glutes, lingering longer than necessary with his back to the camera (at this point he had an apron on) I couldn't help but think "he'd be a good campaign poster for BBC". Later, when he'd removed two knitted woollen "warmers" onto the worktop, Philip Schofield had thrown them into the studio with a pair of tongs.

I follow Philip on Twitter and soon enough there was a photo of the offending items that raised so many giggles and disgusted looks. I'm not up to doing a Peru Trek, it's all I can manage to trek around town or the supermarket some days but I thought maybe they could auction them like the musical tie. The charity have stayed in contact with me for four years. A couple of years ago I did a parachute jump, not strapped to anyone, I jumped with 2 instructors and once my shoot was pulled was on my own so I completed stage 1 of AFF certificate. Had it not hurt my back so much during the training and been expensive I thought I might continue it as a hobby. I raised nearly £1000 for them which was amazing. I've never been good at asking for anything remotely related to me! So yesterday and today I've been sending a few messages to the team and am hoping that amongst the thousands they get, one of mine might stand out. I emailed the show too, just for good measure. So far no response, but I should be getting ready to go to have my line flushed and the swollen, hot, red lump around my PICC line that is now oozing the familiar "infected" snotty lime green pus indicating a need for yet more drugs!

This day last year I was in the hospital and it wasn't a good day. Today isn't so bad, my stillborn identical boys Alexander & Elliott left my body and broke my heart 19 years ago. Eighteen hurt more. I cannot be more grateful for the two children I managed to go on to keep, despite how hard things have been for us all. They are the reasons to carry on, to deal with my life the best way I can, to show them that enjoying what you have is more important than anything else, even when it seems you don't have much.

So whilst remembering two of my dead babies, I'm also hoping the lovely Gino will do me a favour and add to my fundraising to help raise awareness and maybe safe a life or two.