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After Lisa’s recent story hit the headlines in the Sunday Mirror and was picked up around the globe we have taken this opportunity to address some of the questions sent into us about this subject.

Q1 - Susan from Richmond, UK:

Most people when faced with dying think about what life means to them on a deeper level and not about superficial things, so why are you having cosmetic surgery when you are dying anyway?

Answer - Lisa Connell:

I have wanted cosmetic surgery from a very early age.  I’ve never been confident with my body and as I’ve got older this has not changed in fact with the side effects of my condition this has simply got worse, with my self confidence at an all time low.  I have always wanted breasts supporting themselves well enough that I can wear tops and dresses without worrying about a bra showing.  I’ve had trouble buying bras in my size and every bra shopping trip ends up in tears. 

Yes, I may have months to live...... Or even years.  My tumour is inoperable and no neurosurgeon will come near me, the only surgeon that came through with some level of hope was offering me a 50/50 percent chance that I’d end up brain dead and a 70/30% chance I’d be left completely paralysed down my left side.

I’m a young woman who has a love for life, travelling the world and wanting to live the dream, which 29 year old doesn’t?!

I have to live whatever life I have left to the fullest and be as happy as I can with myself and if that means that having surgery is going to make me happier then that’s just what I need to do.  Rent a Date for Charity is my life.  I live and breathe for this campaign and to help others, how can I fully help others if I cannot first help myself in whatever way I can?

I have never been religious but I am starting to believe that I am here for a purpose.  If that purpose only lasts a short while I’d be happy because if I have made a difference to one or two people’s lives then that’s what this is all about for me.

The papers can be very crude in their headlines.  We all know the headline is what sells the papers and magazines; things are not always what they seem.

Q2 - Ben from Essex, UK:

It seems very selfish, why are you not donating that money to charity?

Answer - Lisa Connell:

I am doing all I can for others through my campaign, raising both awareness and funding for the cause to support sufferers and have more research done into brain tumours and other diseases. I am a very giving and caring person in my daily life and my friends and family would say the same thing. I am starting to realise that to do good for others does not mean I need to sacrifice my own happiness in the process, if I can do both then why not?

Q3 - Mrs Alexander from Boston, USA:

Why did you go public with your surgery story?

Answer - Lisa Connell:

I desperately need to raise awareness of my cause.  I am not getting income to cover the running costs as yet and what makes Rent a Date for Charity what it is, apparently is my story behind it and what happens in my life since having the diagnosis.  Now, originally when all this started I didn’t want my face anywhere because of my low self esteem and lack of self confidence.  I had no idea the emphasis would be around me and not just my campaign. 

I honestly thought my idea which was unique would be the main interest.  Before I knew it things were going into overdrive and it’s stayed that way ever since. I see now that if I get my face out there more it will hopefully bring people to the site where they can help me to raise as much as possible before I die. I was told by someone in media that it would be a good story so I went with it fingers crossed, hoping that they were right.

Q4 - Yokuto from Tokyo, Japan:

Why do you want to look like Demi Moore?

Answer - Lisa Connell:

I don’t.  Demi Moore is an absolutely stunning woman and it has been mentioned that I have similar features even before she had all that surgery done, back in the early days in the 1980’s/90’s she was just as stunning. If someone asks me who do I think is beautiful in the public eye I would have to say Demi Moore.

Besides....I wouldn’t mind an indecent proposal LOL ;o)

Q5 - Prakesh from Mumbai, India:

How much money did you get for the story?

Answer - Lisa Connell:

I haven’t received a penny. 

All the money we get (which is next to nothing) goes straight to the charities and a tiny percentage to help me try and cover some of the running costs of the campaign.  The paper/magazine sometimes pay a fee but this again goes into the running costs of rent a date. I’m interested in raising the profile and awareness of brain tumours.  I am just like everyone else I have ambition and drive and like most people I want to succeed, this campaign is no different.

Q6 - Ellie from Cardiff, UK:

Are you not worried that you may not recover from surgery?

Answer - Lisa Connell:

NO. 

I’ve had surgical procedures in the past i.e. removal of tonsils etc....

I’m fine under general antithetic the only slight risk for me is that my recovery time will be longer and I have to have lots of rest and vitamins to help my body recover that’s all.  All surgery has risks and I guess considering the percentage is low for this type of procedure its one I’m willing to take if it will make me a happier person and confident in public to do more charitable work.

Q7 - Douglas from New South Wales, Australia:

Have you heard from Demi Moore?

Answer - Lisa Connell:

Yes I have actually, Demi twittered about me recently wanting to get hold of the girl who wanted to look like her then tell me I didn’t need to do it.  Funny enough since these questions and answers she then twittered again having read my blog she then referred everyone to this page to state that actually she realised that I was doing just as she had to boost my own confidence for myself and no one else.

I was born on 11^th April 1979 at the UCH Hospital in London.

My mother and father separated whilst I was still a baby.  I was brought up in Camden Town until the age of three by my father who juggled life of work and college to look after me whilst living with my Irish grandparents in a 3 bedroom flat in Camden.  I moved back with my mum at the age of 3 where I lived until the age of 13.

Both my father and mother (John & Angela) moved on in their relationships.  John met Zoe and Angela met Ricky and have since married and had children of their own.

I went to Rhyl Street Primary School and Camden School for Girls for the first year.

My upbringing was what any normal child from a separated mother and father would have experienced.  Nothing out of the ordinary in fact probably better than most. 

At the age of 12 I was to experience something that would change my life forever.  Without going into too much detail I had stayed round one of my friend’s houses for a sleepover and during this night was abused by my friend’s father.  Bobby Lee of Chalk Farm.  I feel name and shame is the way forward in these situations! 

Bobby Lee lived in Queens Crescent, Chalk Farm which was just around the corner from where I lived with my mum.  I often bumped into him.  Scared and speechless my mother tried to guard me from him and always made sure that the people around knew who he was.  I remember on one encounter a market stall holder was throwing cabbages at him. 

I was dragged through court after court bringing this man to justice.  But justice was never met.  Bobby then known to be involved with the triads was let off with a fine of £200 and a six month suspended sentence.

Dad had a house in Bath at the time; he had bought it for investment and a pension.  We used to go there at weekends to do it up.  This is when I started to turn nasty.  Mum and I would fight all the time she used to try and restrain me and on occasion slap me round the face to try and control me.  I would be punching her, kicking pulling her hair out.  It happened al the time.  I was uncontrollable.  I ran away several times to my dads and of course being a 13 year old with an attitude the lies all came out.  I used to tell my dad that mum was beating me.  The police came in the end and took me away from her.  One of my dads friends was called and picked me up I was not allowed to see either of my parents until the whole thing was investigated.  I lived with Bridget in Muswell hill for about 2 weeks still pursuing the fact that mum was beating me in the end mum gave up and said that I could go and live with my dad.  That’s when we moved to Bath.

Dad put me in a school up there and at first everything seemed to calm down.  It was a mixed school so of course I was into the boys.  Dad lived with Zoe and had done since I was a child it was when dad was offered a job to work in the Isle of Wight that things started going terribly wrong.  He would work away during the week and come home weekends.  Looking back on things now, Dad and Zoe both did a really great job of bringing me up.  I was always helped with my home work.  Taken out, and allowed to go out and stay with friends.  I always had the latest things even though they were second hand.

I liked to bike ride I did a lot of that on my own along the River Avon I met a few people that way too.  I had piano lessons, trampoline classes and swimming once a week so to be honest my time with them was really very good.  It was when dad went away to work that I started to rebel.  I remember one night sitting in the living room doing my home work with Zoe and dad walking in to me throwing the books right in her face, they hit her and hit must have hurt.  It was only because I couldn’t understand a mathematical question and she was trying to explain and I just would not listen.  I think it had something to do with the fact that she knew more than me.  She had control.

So that was how it started again with the tantrums and physical behaviour.  I ended up taking a huge overdose and was in hospital for a few weeks.  They got me to see a councillor and even with her I couldn’t control myself.  It did help slightly but I soon stopped going.  I turned 15 and was too busy going out getting drunk in the back fields with my friends and messing around with my then boyfriend Pete.

Zoe became pregnant.  That was it.  My life at the time felt like it was over.  My dad was not around all the time and all of a sudden there was a baby on the scene and the attention left me and went straight to her.  I didn’t handle it very well at all.  In the end Zoe sat me and my dad down in the living room and said that it was either her or me.  Dad had to make the choice, and I couldn’t let him.  I left.

I was still in school at the time just about to do my GCSE’s I went and saw my social worker and he put me in a bed-sit at the other end of town.  I got government grants to help me out and when I left school I got a job with one day a week to college.  That’s where I managed to get my NVQ Level 2 in Business Studies.

By this time I had moved from the bed-sit into a B&B.  The B&B was ok because the people who run it were parents of some guy I knew from school.  Mum would come and stay every so often and dad would always visit.  I was in the B&B for about 3 months then I was offered a flat.  It was a really nice flat not decorated too well; well it probably was for its time.  I went from job to job not finding anything that I could really get my teeth into.  I ended up jobless and signing on at the age of 16 so all this was in a space of a year.

I was going out all the time, I had no money and was doing a bar job cash in hand in the evenings.

I used to go to this Jungle club in Roxbury’s the night club in the centre of town on a Wednesday night every week for about a year.

At the age of 17 I left Bath and moved back to London.  I moved within a couple of days.  One minute I was there the next I was gone.  I had again gone through another ordeal.  I was raped.  Not by one but by two people.

I packed up a huge bag and left the next day for London.  I went straight to my mums in Hampstead where she was staying at the time.  I was in a state mum couldn’t understand it.  I told her that I was moving back and that I never wanted to go back to the flat ever again.  The next day I went into Oxford Street and walked around all the shops looking for a job.  I got offered one straight away working in Oasis in Regent Street the job was set to start on the Monday.  It was Saturday and the following day mum. Ricky (my step dad) came with me to Bath to collect the rest of my things.  I had to leave everything else there like the washing machine bed etc.  I handed the keys in and that was the last I saw of that flat.

6 Months later I was slowing getting back into the swing of things the job was going well I’d made new friends and life seemed to be improving.  But it wasn’t.

I had learned this new skill.  It was to bottle everything up to the point of breaking.  Before I used to let it out in aggression, this time I was taking overdoses and black outs without even knowing.  Before I knew it I was back in hospital.  Mum had admitted me after she found me passing out after having taken a whole packet of paracetamol.  I was admitted to Nicole Ward at the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead.  I’m not sure how long I was there because that whole faze of my life was a black out.  All I remember is being in a bed next to really nutty people who would swing from side to side screaming out stuff in the middle of the night.  The doctors put me on Prozac that anti depressant drug along with some really strong injections which were to stop me from harming myself.  Soon as the Prozac started working I was out.  I had, had a nervous breakdown and I was only 17.

I know it all sound so very surreal as if it can’t be true but it is.  Not only did these things happen but one which I didn’t mention is the one where a friend and I from Bath came to see my mum for the weekend in London.  We were on a bus and out of nowhere this drunk lunged himself on me.  He was on top of me spread across a double seat in the front row of the bus holding me down trying to hit me.  He must have been in his 40’s my friend Sarah was screaming “somebody help somebody help”  most of the people on the bus were just watching not doing a thing but one guy came to the rescue and through him off.  The bus driver stopped asked if I was ok and we ran off the bus and got the next bus home.  The police were called and they guy was caught in a pizza restaurant causing a disturbance.  This went to court as well.  I remember the judge passing me a letter that the drunk had written to me in court; it said something about how he was not in a good state of mind at the time and for some reason he thought I was out to get him.

So that is how life began for me.  I went through hell.  I believe that is why I am the person I am today and although I have faced my biggest challenge yet I will get through it.

Since moving back to London I have settled.  I am now my own person. I have got over the lies and torment that I put both my friends and family through and I have made a success out of my life.

I worked in Property Management for 7-8 years moving up the ladder each time I changed jobs.  I was very successful in what I did.  I ran teams of 25 and instigated projects that would make companies millions.

I left my job in June 2005.  Having just got myself out of financial debt I decided it was time for me to travel and experience things I could only dream of.  I left and moved to Thailand.

I was to only live in Thailand for 9 months but the time that was had there was probably one of my best ever yet.

I moved back home in November 2006.  It wasn’t safe for a girl on her own out there.  Having taken all my belongings I came back with none.

The rest of my story I believe you already know.  Through newspaper articles and/or magazines.

I am just like everybody else out there.  I’m not perfect but I don’t claim to be either.  I do believe that I am a much better person today then I ever have been.  What doesn’t break you can only make you stronger.

I now intend to live my life as fully as possible and I am a strong believer that my life’s path had been set out for me.  This was my purpose.  To be diagnosed with a Brain Tumour and to do what I am doing now in raising both awareness and money for a well needed cause.

I don’t believe in god.  I’m not sure what I do believe in anymore but I like to think that there are angles.  I am quite spiritually minded.  I believe there are ghosts and I also believe that someone is watching over me now. 

Nothing in my life has ever run smoothly.  Although I had a few gruelling months last year things have slowly progressed and here I am today.

I am a strong believer that things happen for a reason and only good can come out of evil.

My name is Lisa Connell.  I am 30 years old, from North London.  I have recently been diagnosed with a Brain Tumour.

I was first diagnosed in August 2006 after suffering with my balance and vision.  I was sent by my optician to Moorfield’s Eye Hospital where I was given an MRI scan a few weeks later.

My MRI Scan showed that I had a Benign Meningioma growing in the centre of my brain.

Due to its location I was told that it was in-operable and they were unsure that any treatment would be able to safely remove it.  I was also told they did not know how long I would have to live.  It could be years, it could be months.

 (A MENINGIOMA is a Tumour that grows from the meninges (dural covering of the brain). These can occur in many different brain locations and can cause all sorts of symptoms depending on the size of the tumour and its location. Most Meningioma’s are benign tumours (Non-Cancerous) although some can be more aggressive and malignant (Cancerous).   Surgical resection can be curable for some patients while others may be best treated with irradiation approaches.  In some patients both open surgery and radiation may be required and in others there are no treatments or operations that will cure it.  This is normally determined by its location.)

Following my diagnosis I then had several more opinions from top surgeons all around the country.  All of which came up with the same conclusion.

During the months of February to December 2006, I gradually deteriorated.  My walking became impaired.  I was unable to move from my home without supervision.  I was experiencing double vision and decreased depth perception which resulted in frequent falls and injuries.  I also suffered with server head aches due to the pressure being generated on my brain.  My level of energy was somewhat low giving symptoms of fatigue.  My memory also suffered. 

I was told that I may never walk properly again, or recover.  The National Health’s advice to me was to relax, take it easy and to avoid stress!  I found this advice completely unhelpful and difficult to take in.  It left me feeling even worse!

In October 2006 I was introduced to a friend of my father Mr Tony Blake.  Tony changed my life for the better.  It was Tony who made me analyse my circumstances and actually get up and do something about it.

Tony was diagnosed 10 years prior with having a Benign Meningioma and also suffered from the same symptoms.  Tony, like me is a very strong and determined character and through exercise and healthy eating he managed the symptoms of his brain tumour and is leading a normal life.

Tony’s advice to me was not to sit back and to let the tumour take over me as the National Health advised.  In fact it was to do the total opposite, eat well and get fit.  Seeing Tony that day lifted my spirit greatly.  He appeared to live a normal life even though he still lives with a Brain Tumour.

With this advice my father gave me membership to David Lloyd.  I went five times a week working very closely with one of the fitness instructors, Andreas Kyriakou.  He offered his own time to me to get me on the path to recovery.  We worked together on balance exercises along with co-ordination skills and muscle strengthening.  Within one month I was back on my feet again!

Having spent all this time in my gym I started training for a 10k run.  In July 2007 I ran in the Great British 10k London Run and passed the finish line in 1 hour 15 minutes raising just over £3,000.00 for the charity.  Considering I was told I would never walk properly again this had to be one of my biggest achievements, that was down to two men.  Tony Blake & Andreas Kyriakou.  I can not thank either of you enough, so thank you!

Since the race I have been making it my personal goal to create awareness of Brain Cancer.  I have been working very closely with many brain cancer charities in helping to raise both awareness and funds for the cause and I will continue to do so for as long as I shall live.

That is where Rent A Date For Charity Limited came in.  I had an idea which stemmed from my myspace account www.myspace.com/rentadateforcharity.  I put myself and my cousin Luke on the site and offered people a chance to win a date with us.  The rules stated that the person who donated the most amount of money onto the justgiving within that week won the date.

The idea soon became common knowledge with a little push from my end.  Hence the launch of my new site.

The aim is to have as many candidates registered bringing as much traffic to the site as possible raising the profile of brain cancer around the world. 

We enlist the help of celebrities to place them up for auction which in turn helps boost the awareness and funds for the cause.

Funds raised through the auctions will go the Brainstrust to be held in a separate account until such time there are enough funds to be distributed by way of a grant to the registered brain cancer charities.

Spent the day racing up to Mayfair with the girls we had a meeting with Helen at brainstrust in one of the hotels nearby.

Spoke about our plans and proposals for the collaboration and it’s all looking good very exciting times ahead!

Been up in Northampton all day with the boys at Vanilla Thinking going through the new website design.  Been a very productive day and all is looking good for the re-launch!

Been struck down with the flu yet again!  God this must be the 4^th time Ive had it so far this year!  Spent the last couple of days working from my bed spluttering all over the place!  It’s my friend Kerry’s birthday today and Im supposed to be out on the town in 80’s fancy dress but there was no way I was going to make the evening.  Clare Gauci came by mine she had the flu too and we went up to the pub just to show our faces and headed to the local pub for a quick port and whisky my Nan’s miracle cure for a sore chest and throat well not sure it worked wonders but it certainly warmed the cockles up!

Gutted though all the girls were dressed up raring to go they looked amazing in their outfits!

I wouldn't know where to start with the last month or so being busier and crazier than the last! So much to say and fill you all in on but for now and until I get round to my backlog follow my updates on Twitter!

Feel free to add me:

http://www.twitter.com/lisaconnell

As some of you may already be aware I received news this week that my DWP benefits are going to be stopped as from the 18th August 2009 as I am deemed fit to work!

On top of this recent news I recently sent out a press release to all the journalists called ‘Save our Campaign’ which highlighted the fact that without securing ongoing funds through sponsorship and or advertising revenue the last two years of all my hard work will be in vein. We have put a deadline to secure funds for the 3rd August 2009. If funds are not received by this time the campaign for Rent A Date For Charity will come to a close.

I am now getting to the stage that I just do not have the fight in me anymore and it is making a huge impact on my health and wellbeing. I need to secure backing or take a step back.

For the past two years my mum has kindly invested her own personal savings in the region of £25,000 and with this we have managed to secure trademarks and website development. Unfortunately when you pay a small price for software you don’t always get what you set out to achieve and I have been left with an auction database which does not function to its full potential leaving me and only me to update this all the time from the little knowledge that I have gained from working on this project.

Mandy and I have put together many ideas and plans for future fundraising events and activities but again without the revue secured to do these they are just dreams.

I will continue fighting for the next couple of weeks and will be making changes to the website to simplify things so that we may still continue with the auctions but for celebrities only and will give businesses the opportunity to auction their services in return for free advertising on the auction listings. The auction site will no longer be open for the general public to list themselves for dates.

If we secure funding during this time then we will be able to start implementing our ideas and projects and continue the fight for brain tumour awareness and funding however if we do not then I will simply be spending less time on this project and reviewing my future prospects.

If anyone has any questions or would like to get involved somehow please email us at pr@rentadateforcharity.com  

It’s been taking me some time to get around to writing up my diary entries.  The reason?  Quite simple really Ive been rushed off my feet.  I have to say I shouldn’t complain really but I am.  If I didn’t have Rent A Date For Charity to work on Im not quite sure what else I’d be doing.  A normal everyday job just wouldn’t work.  I work from home and so I get up when I want and I work when I want if Im having a bad day with my symptoms then I don’t need to worry Im only sat at home working so no one to let down.  Lately Ive been feeling so tired it’s beyond a joke I fight it every time and just simply work though why?  Because I have no choice.  I really need to start getting back in the gym again although it was hard work it gave me energy and enabled me to sleep at night which I rarely do these days as Im normally up working till 3 in the morning.

At the moment there is just Mandy and I working on the campaign for Rent A Date For Charity.  Mandy is responsible for the PR and Marketing of the campaign and I well I do everything else.  All the web updates (self taught and not as fast as a professional) PR and Marketing and not to mention everything else in-between the list just goes on.  I really want to be in a position where I spend my time wisely like getting off this god dam computer and actually going out there making a difference to people’s lives.

I have to admit both Mandy and I are starting to feel like we are just chasing our tails.  We have a load of celebrities lined up for the auctions and events in the pipeline as well as some really great projects which will help raise even more funds for the cause but without my site being redesigned to a great standard we just dong see any point in moving forward as I would be the one personally putting in all the manual labour through the site when things were to get busy and I just CANT do it alone.

On a positive note we have recently collaborated with:

Brainstrust the Meg Jones Brain Cancer Charity

This has been the highlight of my year so far.  This collaboration will really help move things forward and hopefully help raise brain cancers visibility and the very much need for funding into research.  Helen the founder of Brainstrust is an absolute diamond.  From day one of diagnosis she has been there for me offering support and advice.  That’s what their charity is set up to do to provide support from day one of diagnosis for both the patients and the family.  I couldn’t think of a better charity to collaborate with.  I really didn’t see the need to set up yet another charity or trust when all I simply wanted to do was raise the funds and donate them.  That way it’s easy and the best thing about this collaboration is that our funds are not restricted to Brainstrust they can go to ANY Brain Cancer charity worldwide which is just fantastic.

I guess our main focus at the moment is to secure sponsorship.  My mum just doesn’t have any more funds to be able to put into the business and I certainly don’t I can barely manage now.  So although so much is, and could be happening our main focus over the next few weeks it to secure £10k to be able to redo the website tailored for our needs so that it can run by itself.  That way we can then proceed with all our plans and start those all important celebrity auctions again.

Had a early start today Mandy and I were off into London for my costume fitting for my part as an extra on the new film by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant - Cemetery Junction.  Im not sure if Im excited or nervous about it but it’s on my bucket list of things to do and Im going to do it.

The costume fitting was near York Way which was just around the corner from my step dads had I have realised this it probably wouldn’t have taken us so long to get there flipping sat navs!

I was given my 1973’s costume which was an A-Line dress and some really dodgey shoes.  I quite like the 70’s look but I ended up with one of the worst outfits, oh well.

Sarah-Jane my agent came to meet us too as she too was playing a part as an extra.  To be honest if she wasn’t Im not sure I could have gone ahead with it I would be a nervous wreck.

Spent the rest of the afternoon in a meeting with Mandy and Sarah-Jane discussing going forward with the campaign.  Im really excited to have these girls on board providing we find a sponsor there is so much in the pipeline which will really help raise the websites visibility one of which is my own profile doing things Ive always wanted to do and achieve through modelling and presenting or whatever else comes my way.

For years I have wanted to go on a ghost hunt!  Im really into mediums and ghost like things it’s always appealed to me and in the past although others might not believe I have had one on one ghost experiences!  I used to think that it could well be my mind playing tricks on me and although I was a sort of believer I still had doubts.  Well that’s up until now of course!

A few months back a friend of mine Tony Youles who Id met through a date on RentADateForCharity told me about this ghost hunt in Kent in a location called Northdown House it was on £35.00 a ticket and he thought I’d really enjoy it so I booked it up and although I almost never went because a) Id totally forgotten about it and b) was so shattered I did.

I went along with Rose (my medium) and her daughter Kelly.  It was Rose’s birthday present from Kelly so we all drove up there and arrived at 9.30pm.

None of us really knew what to expect.  We had all seen Most Haunted and what they get up to.  This was definitely top of bucket list of things to do!

Our group was lead by Donna Harris.  Donna Harris runs a paranormal investigation team, who are endorsed by "the Society of Metaphysicians” they are the only investigation team throughout England and Wales that hold this honour.

Donna is classed as a Clairvoyant, Clairaudient, and Clairsentient which means she is able to see, hear and sense spirit. This is a natural ability that has been with her since the age of six and she frequently attends residential seminars with her colleague Tony Stockwell.

Besides the investigations she also undertakes psychic workshops as well as psychic Tarot readings, not only on a one to one basis but within the public sector; in halls, pubs etc. The paranormal investigations are undertaken from a scientific point of view and all data is sent to the Society of Metaphysicians for analysis and to be archived with both English and American libraries for future research and reference.

We knew we were in safe hands!  Infact we did chat to Donna about the possibilities of hosting a charity fundraising ghost hunt which she was really interested in doing.  Hopefully if this documentary goes ahead to include bucket list items to do before you die then we could feature this too as it’s something I believe everyone should experience firsthand!  Trust me sceptic or not you will soon become a believer!

So our first step was into the cellar.  I have to be honest I was feeling a cold sweat when we headed down it was cold, dark and had a musky smell about it.  All we had were little torches and hands to hold onto!  Poor Donna had hurt her leg so was on crouches but managed to get down on her arse! Lol

We formed a circle each holding hands and Donna called out to anyone that was there.  She seemed to be getting some sort of messages coming through and it wasn’t until I started to go all hot down one side of my face and cough so much that I could barley breath that Donna realised something was tapping into me.  It turned out just before I was about to break the circle and it died down that the ghost that was there apparently died of a breathing problem.  I tell you it was so strange.  I did panic I must admit and wasn’t sure what to do but as it went there was no other explanation for it.  It couldn’t have been asthma I rarely have asthma attacks and for it to come on and off just like that as well as the face feeling burnt it just wasn’t normal.  Anyway that was nothing compared to what was about to come!

We had one session down in the cellar and because of all the activity that was going on down there we decided to go down for another session.  Not much really happened in this one but a torch did fly off a chair and hit Donna in the leg which gave us all a blooming fright!

The next session was upstairs in the main part of the building.  We all chose the room to go into Im not sure any of us were expecting to see what we saw.

Anyway the way I would describe this room is like a big classroom.  School chairs all around a couple of tables around the edges.

To make sure there was no trickery in this we chose a table from another room to bring in.  The round wooded (heavy) table was placed into the centre of the room.  All I can say is unless you watch this Video you will have no idea what this was like and really and truly you ought to have been there!  Watch Video

This is a video taken previously but will give you an insight on what happened!

So being the sceptic that I am I asked Donna to leave the table and leave just myself and my friend holding the table.  I thought there would be no way this table would continue to move with just us two holding it and I was wrong.  We even instructed the ghost to pull each individual leg up making sure it was no hoax and it did.  AMAZING that’s all I can say Paul Daniels eat your heart out!

From the table rapping we went into another part of the house to do some chair tilting again see an example of what happened here: Watch Video

Again my friend and I did the whole chair thing together and well it certainly moved not just up and down but catapulted towards me like it was about to throw it at me!  Well that’s what I thought anyway it was Donna telling it what to do but it had me and my mate over the other side of the room quicker than you could say GHOST!

We did the glass too you know where you ask the spirit questions and it moves the glass left or right.  We even tried it on our own and it still worked you should have seen us everyone heard the questions we were asking without us realising just how clear we were being from another room from everyone else oh well it still moved and it answered!

We didn’t finish our investigations until 6.30am or at least that was the time I got home.  I have to say that that has to be the highlight of my year so far.  Ive always wanted to do a paranormal investigation and as Im a believer or was kind of a believer before hand Im glad that Ive finally proved that the goings on in the past that Ive had are indeed real.

My dad is an absolute sceptic there is no way he would believe in things like this let along god he is just a pure non-believer.  Dad promised me that when we do the charity ghost hunt he would come and I would prove him otherwise.  Im hoping a few of my mail friends come actually as it will certainly put the frighteners up a few people and you all know who you are! Ha ha

Well what can I say?  The past few days have been lovely.  It’s not often I manage to get away from home/work and actually chill well I chilled up until last night anyway.  I went shopping with my mum in Bristol we love a Primark shop and New Look managed to get a whole load of bargains for under £50.00! 

Every Monday Pete and his family go for a bike ride to their local pub with the kids.  They are all fanatical bike riders and often compete in competitions as does his dad who is my grandma’s brother.

I decided to bike ride with them to the pub I managed to do 2.5 miles at 12 mph in 12.5 minutes wow I sound like a pro but I did keep up with them all and it felt good!  We then had a pint by the River Severn and headed back to do the other 2.5 miles.

There would have been no way I could have done that a week before, thank god I gave up smoking!  It’s been 5 days now and counting!

All Ive been doing since is preparing for my time off.  Sabrina is off on holiday tomorrow for 2 weeks so there is just me and Mandy working.  I needed to get through my blog entries and update a few bits and pieces on the site you won’t believe how much time that takes up.

Im starting to feel nervous now.  Or is it excitement?  The day of my operation is drawing close only 12 hours to go and although Ive waited over 10 years for and didn’t think I’d feel nervous I am!  I think Im more nervous about the filming and photo shoots they are going to be filming right through the surgery tomorrow Ill have to watch it back Id be squeamish before but it’s got to be done hasn’t it!

Off now to have my dinner with the family it’s about time I got my arse out of bed and working and spent some time with them again before tomorrow.  Wish me luck!!!

Not sure when Ill next complete my blog Im always chasing my tail with this but you can keep updated by following me on twitter!  www.twitter.com/lisaconnell

So we woke up at a reasonable hour.  Mum and I were treated to a bacon sarny with cheese and lovely cup of tea!

I think the hardest things this morning was not lighting up that cigarette!  After a warm cup of tea in the morning my first thing was a ciggie I need to give up not only for my health but for myself.  I’d been meaning to give up for a while and although Id cut down to 2-3 a day it seemed pointless smoking at all especially now that Ive joined up to Esporta and have a free personal trainer laid on to get that body Ive always dreamed of.  How the hell was I going to swim, cycle or run with a lung full of crap!  Plus the surgeon said that it would be in my interest to give up especially if having surgery Im just sorry I left it so late.  It’s hard though after over 10 years of smoking now I understand!

So we said our goodbyes to Pete was so great to see him and headed into Bath’s town centre to do a bit of bra shopping.  I had to find a bra that would support me after surgery.  It’s really hard as I was unsure what size I would end up so in the end I got the biggest I could find.

I hate bra shopping!

We went and had lunch with my friend Griff and then done a bit of charity shopping.  Me and mum are terrible for the charity shops!  I found a pair of DUNE shoes looked like they hadn’t even been worn once in gold so high I doubt ill ever be able to walk in them but got them for £4.99 so had to buy them!  I’d make myself walk in them at that price they must retail over £150!

We headed over to my cousin Pete’s in Breadstone just after lunch.  Pete runs Halo Films whom filmed Lisa Connell’s Story which we are currently trying to get commissioned.

Halo Films specialise in science, history, wildlife, well-crafted documentaries and low cost programming solutions for new channels.  Its founder, Peter Georgi (my cousin) was part of the BAFTA winning team behind the BBC Series, The Human Body and produced and directed the BBC's only IMAX film. Business partner, Teresa Watts was part of the team that launched new Sky channel, Horse and Country TV and has spent 23 years working for the BBC and ITV.

We had a lovely BBQ at the house that evening followed by a few glasses of wine and a run around by the kids they wore me out!

Mum and I left London about 9am running slightly late was due to be at the Life Style Surgery for 12.00 for my final consultation with Simon Lee my surgeon.

Got there in good time mind you say Simon and was pleased with my result.  Ive finally decided on a cup.  Im going to have breast uplift of around 6-7cm with implants.  Size was not the most important thing for me as shape was.  Having had the droopiest boobs (in my mind) for the past 10 years I wanted to stand to attention.  I love the false look admittedly and seeing as Ive never had a problem with my size Ive opted for the lump on top look!

I also had my lips filled out slightly more too Id got used to the lips they gave me and me being me decided it wasn’t enough and filled them out a bit more.  This time I didn’t feel a thing!

We spent the rest of the day driving round Bristol trying to find a place to have lunch why is it that in the country everywhere shuts just after lunch and doesn’t re-open until 6.30pm!  Right pain in the arse!

We eventually made it into a hotel for some bar food and headed over to Bath.  We were due to stay at my first ever boyfriends flat for the evening and back to Bristol the following day to spend time at my cousins house in Breadstone which is just outside of Bristol and right in the country.

I met Pete (my first love) from work and grabbed his keys he works in the local newsagent so I showed him my feature in Glamour Magazine.  Was really great to see him we get on like a house on fire and although there isn’t the love there anymore we really are like brother and sister.

Mum and I made ourselves at home whilst waiting for Pete to come back from work in the end I went and met him and didn’t end up going back to the flat until 10.30pm we decided to head out for a quick drink and a few glasses later got back with a classic Schwartz burger! Garlic Mayo with all the trimmings I love those burgers they remind me of the days when dad and I used to go to Bath on the weekends whilst he was gutting out his house for us to move into we’d often head to Schwartz burger for a garlic mayo special or a chilli burger best in the world!!!  One of my other friends works in there so we had complimentary chips too, nice one Griff!

Well I have to say that this night was one hell of a revelation.  Pete and I had a heart to heart.  We went out together for 3 years he was my first ever love!  Although slightly older than me.  Pete decided to tell me the trust about our relationship and basically confirmed what I’d always thought.  He couldn’t keep it in his pants!  I did laugh when he was telling me I was shocked that all my thoughts were right and that it took over 15 years for him to tell me!  It didn’t matter now but it just goes to show that that’s the reason I don’t trust anyone anymore!  I don’t think I can honestly say Ive ever been out with someone who was 100% faithful.  MEN.

Mum and Pete stayed up until 2am talking about the bible that was my queue to leave and get an early night.

Well after the weekend I had last weekend and all very spare of the moment the last thing I expected was to end up in bed at Midnight on my birthday celebrations. Zambucca, Aftershock NEVER, EVER Again....

It had been a fairly quite week on the work front. We are in negotiations at the moment as to what to do with the site. I think I will ultimately by shutting down the auctions for the time being and concentrating on getting donations to the charities and people aware of brain tumours through campaigns online and off. That's not to say that Rent A Date For Charity won't be back because it will be back and by all accounts with a bang!

Obviously some of you had read the stories in the press recently about my surgery. Well you know how things go with media and its funny even when a few sites/papers picked up on the fact that I wasn't having surgery to look like Demi Moore they found my questions and answers on my blog and chose to skip the important parts about how Im doing this for myself to enhance my own features and not to look like anyone else other than ME! It does make you laugh but at the time it really made me sad not to mention my family.

Anyway the truth is out there now mum isn't paying a thing it's all been given to me for free and everyone is happy. Most of all me.

SO back to my birthday weekend...

It started off in Leigh on Sea. To be honest it started rather badly. Ive not been myself for the past few weeks very depressed again and extremely emotional and tired. Dad and I had a massive row over the phone about my party on Saturday night which ended up only being organised 6 days before as my weekend away had to be cancelled as we were unsure of when the surgery was due to take place. We now know but it didn't leave us long to organise something. In 30 years my dad has never been in the same room as the other side of my family. Not on purpose anyway. I guess as it was my 30th I wanted him to be there and although I understood his reasons as to why he didn't want to be there the reasons just weren't good enough. At the end of the day Dad and I are really one of a kind. I have his business head and definitely his hair but most of all his stubbornness. So Friday was a bit weird for all the family. I was tired had a glass of wine in the afternoon which knocked me for six then had a headache the rest of the evening so lay in bed.

Woke up Saturday morning to my phone going off second after second. If it wasn't a text message or a phone call it was a message of Facebook or something wishing me happy birthday. It certainly put a smile on my face.

I headed downstairs my family on my dad's side were all coming over for brunch. We were off to a place in Leigh on Sea where everything was organic and fresh for breakfast/lunch. My little sister couldn't make it as she had just started her new job training as a wind surfing instructor on the sea front. Little Leo (my brother), Zoe and Dad and Margie and Big were all there. I was presented with all my prezzies I was given a cheque from my aunt and a Return to Tiffany necklace from the rest of the family. I'd wanted one of those for years and as it was my 30th thought now would be a great opportunity as it is really sentimental to me. Petra my aunt sent me a card which when I opened a butterfly flew out and scared the living daylights out of me! No lot a real butterfly but a sort of paper made one with a twisty bit of metal that made it pop out the card and fly off into the air, actually a brilliant little gimmick!

My cake was amazing! It was made up of profita rolls, white and dark chocolate raspberries and strawberries all my favourite things!

The brunch was gorgeous just what I needed before a hard night out on the razzle. Dad and I went round some of the little shops in Leigh looking for an outfit for my birthday Im so broke at the moment it's a joke but was desperate to have something new for the birthday night. Dad's friend worked in jewellers there and told us to go to the vintage shop up in the ally hidden away from her. I love vintage clothing! We were in the for quite a while. I was looking at jumpsuits I absolutely love jumpsuits but the only ones they had were slightly too small for me or needed a decent bra to go under. Except this ONE dress. It was Pink, my favourite colour and reminded me of something that Marilyn Monroe would wear I tried it on but it was slightly too big so we left.

A few more shops later and a whole load of toilet stops after dad told me to go back and try that pink dress on again so I did. He ended up buying it for me as a present and also sat for 20 minutes stitching it up so it would fit! Now this dress what slightly OTT but it was nothing compared to last year's birthday dress. Me being me turned up for the 29th in a nurse's outfit whilst everyone else was in jeans and trainers! Lol But I loved it!

I had a shower at my dad's we needed to get back early as my friend was ill and was due to get the party decorations up and there was no one else to do it. Dad did eventually come back to mine with me which I was really pleased about. He didn't come for the meal but he came for the drinks after. One out of two I guess isn't bad.

I had the best night ever! All my close friends and family came for the meal and lots of people turned up for drinks after. I can remember doing shots one after the other and then dancing on the bar. I can also remember being given a glass of pink champagne by the owner and not knowing where I put it every time. It turns out that the champagne never even left my side. Every picture I have from that night has a picture of my pink champagne in it. But I swear I never had it all night.... LOL

One of the funny things that happened was that I got up on the table and started dancing like the good old days! Faye joined me and we shook our tooshes for old times' sake. When we finally made it down after a flash or two my mates Shabana and Becki got up and started dancing. The funny thing was that they got asked to get down and it wasn't that sort of establishment! Ha ha ha ha I couldn't stop laughing when they told me Id obviously been given birthday girl rights but how funny was that!

Everyone who I wanted there came. The Kalloushi's the Gilgunns, Gauci's, Bowlers you name it they were there so to everyone that did come thank you ALL for making it such a big and great night!

SUNDAY – pretty hung over apparently my best mate Fletch along with my mum and Becki had to pick me up and quite literally take me home at 12-12.30 I was totally bladdered! Considering I drank that many shots and had that much to drink the rest of the day wasn't so bad. Becki and I headed over to pick my mate Clare up who was with another mate Mel whom had found themselves at a friends house and had been up till 11am that same day still drinking! Thank god I passed out when I did! That's all I can say! Mel was in a right pickle it was so funny. I took Princess with me and we took the girls back home to sleep...

Becki and I headed over to Shabana's for the rest of the day with 3 DVD's plenty of Pepsi and not a lot else really. I remember falling asleep to a DVD and that was about that. Monday was fun though. I got the party bug in my system again and headed straight out to one of my local pubs the Black Horse in Barnet. The sun was shining and opps yep again the shots were flowing well my way anyway. We had some good old fish and chips and a few more pints. Yep proper geezer bird me. Why pretend to be a lady when clearly Im not LOL

So that was my birthday weekend. Not as messy as the weekend before but better than the weekend before. When someone asks me now "how old are you" I was going to keep saying "Im 29" but I cant... I cant say that without a massive smile on my face and everyone knows Im lying! So now I guess Im happy to say that Ive now reached the Dirty 30's!! Now that... Has a better ring to it ;)

I woke up this morning all nervous! I was anxious about confronting that certain person about their lies and anxious about all the filming and treatments I was due to have.

We had a really scrummy breakfast at the hotel full on fry up. I was due to be at the Life Style Surgery Clinic in Bristol by 9.00 am seeing my surgeon Simon Lee for my first consultation.

The camera would be following me all the way throughout the day so this was a little nerve racking but at the same time was fun! After all you have to make the most of things and enjoy every moment.

We waited in the waiting room of the Life Style Surgery for Simon Lee to come down and introduce himself to me. It was so funny I wish I had caught it on camera! Simon came in to introduce himself and tuned around to my mum and said "you must be Lisa"! We all looked at each other and cracked up laughing before I came forward and said that it was me.

I had my consultation. We discussed all the options of breast augmentation. My problem with my breasts is that for 10 years Ive hated them. Im now 30 and they have really headed south. I wanted my breasts to sit upright and perky to enable me to wear a backless dress or top where my bra strap wouldn't be showing for years now I have never been able to wear the tops and dresses I love and although I wasn't shy to show my boobs off at any point I wasn't too proud of them. The main reason for my augmentation was to obtain the shape and look Ive always wanted which we had agreed would have to include a breast uplift of around 6cm. To gain the shape Ive always dreamed off the uplift alone would not give me that so I had to choose the size of the implant I wanted. The bigger the implant the more I like the breasts. I was thinking well if Im going to go through all this surgery why not go bigger? This decision was one that I would have to sleep on. I didn't know too much about augmentations before had so having been given a lot of information in one day it wasn't a decision I could make overnight.

The surgeon was lovely, very understanding and honest. I felt extremely comfortable having Simon as my surgeon.

We left the Life Style Surgery and headed down to Beatology for the start of my treatments.

I was given an all over massage, a body wrap, Microdermabrasion, and a lip plump! I have to say I was really scared about the Microdermabrasion. It ended up being the least painful of the treatments.

Microdermabrasion is where the skin is treated to a deep, mechanical exfoliation which gently resurfaces the outer layers of the skin, removing damaged cells and stimulating the skin's natural cell regenerating process. A healing cold light laser is applied to promote the development of healthy cells, collagen and elastin, followed by lymphatic drainage and oxygenation of the treated area. The result is healthy, natural, smooth and youthful skin. I ultimately wanted flawless skin as Ive had a problem with acne in the past and some scaring and I heard this type of treatments works to rejuvenate your skin.

It can be quite uncomfortable and I was expecting to be all scabby after but in fact it was very gently and rather soothing and the results after weren't so bad that I couldn't go out after.

The one treatment that I did have which I wasn't originally planning on having was my lips. I had the opportunity to have my lips done and went for it! I always live on the edge me and never do things my half either! That's just me.

I had them done and boy did it kill me! I had a dental block to numb the pain but you could still feel the injections going in, in some places. Jane the lady that did this for me was lovely. We didn't put too much in as it was a first time for me I didn't want to go overboard on the first time. It only lasts 8 months and if I don't like them I won't do it again will I.

I have to admit the moment I walked out of the room to see my mum and the entourage that were following me everyone started laughing. No one harder than my mum and then Sabrina. I knew as soon as Sabrina started laughing Id done a wrongen! I looked again in the mirror and remember thinking "Oh my god, what have I done!" I looked like a duck face! My face including my cheeks were all swollen and red and my lips, well my lips where huge, red and yep a duck face!

Mum had seen people have this treatment before and was laughing to wind me up. She knew that after a few days the swelling goes down and the lips settle but for a brief moment I did s**t myself! Admittedly!

We had a real laugh today and I really enjoyed my whole experience. Not to mention Mum farting on camera and blaming it on me!

We went to visit Bristol Film Studios too. There I did a live interview on camera for the purpose of the documentary footage. For once I felt comfortable filming and me being my usual self I wasn't taking and crap from the interviewee who asked me all different kinds of questions some good some object able. I was very proud of myself today.

We were treated to a 5 course meal tonight at The Living Room in Bristol. The manager Stuart had kindly offered us a place for 3 people to eat after our long day of filming and I have to say that this was the best meal and I honestly mean this that I have had in a very long time!

We didn't reach the restaurant until 10pm we had literally been running around and filming all day but by the time we got there a bottle of wine was sitting on the table and our order was taken. I would highly recommend eating there and the price had we have paid would have been very reasonable. Service second to none too!

We headed back to the Arnos Manor Hotel and all fell asleep within minutes! It had been one of the best days of my careers so far but also one of the most tiring days too.

Drove up to Bristol today with Sabrina my PA and my mum. Had a couple of toilet stops and arrived in good time. Must say we did have a bit of a situation on our hands not one that we couldn't handle anyway but it did turn out that was indeed a snake in the grass! My problem is that I believe everyone and trust everyone, my mum is worse than me mind but when I do find out that Ive been had over Im not one to keep quiet about it whereas my mum is. Anyway this snake got found out and that was that but it caused a huge amount of upset which was uncalled for. The way I see it if someone can lie about something so minuscule what else could they be lying about?? I don't have relationships in friendships with people like that and I certainly am not having any business associates like that either. It was just such a heartbreaking situation to think that someone would stoop so low to warrant even lying about things to me. Anyhow what's done is done you just have to move on and deal with it. We will be seeing this person tomorrow so I shall be having words anyway.

We made our way to the Arnos Manor Hotel in Bristol Gary, the manager of the hotel had kindly put us up complimentary in the bridal suite! We had a large bathroom with Jacuzzi and a huge double bed! Not to mention a goody bag of chocolates and wine! We felt like blooming royalty! There's a first for everything I say...

After a long evening of meetings and conference calls we all finally settled down to sleep about 2am. After what had happened earlier on in the evening and the revelations we had made we had to address a large amount of other issues before going forward with anything else. Im so lucky to have such a great team around me.

After the week Id had the only thing that seemed viable at the time was a holiday. As usual I booked a last minute deal, this time back to Tenerife. My cousin Christina came with me it was our first holiday away together. Christina is married and has two lovely kids Georgi and Jack. Christina is one of my favourite cousins alongside Luke I think us three are the closest cousins in the family we are all as mad as each other!

I wasn't handling the press situation too well to be honest. For the first time I felt what it felt like for all those celebrities out there that get good and bad press. It wasn't nice at all!

We landed in Tenerife! What a feeling of relief! I love holidays I can't get enough of them and if I had the chance all over Id be travelling the world by now or living out my dream as a travel presenter.

We had a right laugh on the plan on the way over. There was a couple sitting behind up obviously drinking far too much. The guy kept knocking into my cousin's chair over and over again to the point that her whole body was being jolted forward each time. Christina asked them politely to stop knocking and they didn't so of course I had to step in! Mouth all mighty me but I can't stand rude people. So I turned around politely and said "you have been asked nicely now Im telling you, stop banging on the bloody chair!" GITS I hate people who have no consideration for others. They got told anyway you should have seen the looks we got on the way out the airport.

All in all we had quite a good holiday the weather was pretty cloudy patches of sunshine but when it was hot it was hot. I went out a few nights some with and some without Christina. As soon as I have a cocktail or a drink more to the point all I want to do is party! We met some really nice people whilst we were out there one of which was a guy Id met on 2 previous holidays too, we'd kept in touch over Facebook but what a coincidence that was...

The food at the hotel wasn't all that. I had a bug the whole time we were there so wasn't eating much anyway but the little I did eat was crap. I don't think we will do an all-inclusive again it makes you feel trapped to the hotel.

Although I was supposed to be on holiday this holiday turned out to be another working one. What with phone call after phone call and email after email sorting out media and pr opportunities I was constantly on the go. It would be nice to go away for once with no worries or work to do but I guess that's the downside of being your own boss.

I woke up this morning really nervous and being sick.  I had my MRI results today and I always get like this just before I go for them.

Sabrina met me at London Bridge station along with my dad.  I wanted Sabrina to come along with me for support and to give her more of an insight on that side of things.

We were waiting into the waiting room of the ENT department at Guys Hospital and I decided to seize the opportunity to put my flyers out and the receptionist was really nice about it.

We didn’t have to wait very long we were called into the room within minutes of arriving.

Both my dad and Sabrina followed me in and we all squashed around the one chair in the cubical which had been sectioned off.  One of the trainees come in with my file and sat us all down.  He brought my scan results up on the screen.  On the first glance my heart fell into my stomach to me the tumour appeared significantly bigger down one side!  I asked him to bring up my old scan which he did and on comparing the tumour appeared bigger than the earlier scan which I was informed was now pressing against my brain stem.  He pulled out my files and read out a letter which suggested that I was to go in for more gamma knife radiotherapy treatment.  It wasn’t his call o make that final decision so we waited for Professor Gleeson to come over.

I couldn’t stop the tears running from my face, Sabrina was rubbing me on the shoulder whilst my dad was red in his face obviously feeling stick to the stomach.

We chatted to the practitioner having a giggle about things and talking about my website I couldn’t stop the feeling of anxiety knowing that I may have to go through my treatment again.  The radiotherapy itself wasn’t painful but the cage drilled into my head and the remission period after was probably the worst treatment Ive ever been through.

Professor Gleeson came through to see me and as always greeted me with open arms and a smile.  He sat down at the computer reviewing my scans and looking through my files measuring my earlier scan and the current one.  Professor Gleeson confirmed that there was a size difference between the two MRI’s  he couldn’t advise us if it was the tumour that had grown or if it was the expected side effects (swelling) from the gamma knife treatment I had last year.  As my tumour is in an inoperable position they are not able to perform a biopsy on me as it would be too dangerous so as per usual I am having to go back in 6 months time to have another scan. 

Professor Gleeson advised that as I was mobile and relatively in good state of mind there was not need to rush me in for any further investigations as they first needed to determine if the growth was in fact swelling or tumour growth.  Any further procedures would deteriorate my condition faster and only if something is to happen within the next 6 months will they take me in.

Sabrina and I talked right after and explained how she felt about it all.  She expressed her anxiety not knowing what to expect and was really sad about it all.  Seeing my scans and hearing the results whilst with me having been so close with one another for months reality dawned on her and for her hearing from Professor Gleeson that I would never be going to see him tumour free and that it was something I was always going to have made her really sad.

She also felt that when he said that I was going to lose all my hearing and that I was to be fitted with a hearing aid in the next coming weeks gutted for me.

We all left in a kind of positive mood as Professor Gleeson however serious always tried to help me see the positive side of things.

We all spoke about for a short while after I was still in shock but looking forward to our evening out with Sincura.  It would give me some time with my friends to take my mind off things.

With constant telephone calls all afternoon and having to re organise the guest lists Sabrina and I were rushed off our feet so in actual  fact had no time to even wipe our arses before we had to rush off and get dressed for the event.

My friends arrived on time at 8pm we were already pissed before we even left the house!  Talk about dutch courage!

We got to Crystal Night Club where the event was being held and formed an orderly queue outside as everyone turned up.  The doors were opened at 10pm with Willy Wonka in full regalia!  The party had just begun!

We were greeted by Candy Cane girls and given complement cocktails on the door.  We were taken downstairs and introduced to the organiser at Crystal.  We were taken over the to the VIP area where we were given complementary bottles of vodka.  While the DJs were mixing their tunes and grabbing last minute guest from upstairs and phone calls Sabrina was called up by one of the bouncers saying that there was someone upstairs claiming to be on our VIP list.

Sabrina got up there to find that this guy had just turned up with the screen print version of our flyer claiming to be from the BBC.  Because he wasn’t on our list and not dressed according to the dress code the decided to kick up a fuss with the head doorman.  This didn’t go down too well...  Sabrina tried to sort the situation out as diplomatic as she could at the same time wondering if he was actually some kind of stalker! Lol

Sabrina had to leave early and left my friends and I partying the night away.  We were made very welcome by both the Crystal organisers and also the Sincura team.  Jimmi Harkishin also known as Dev from Coronation Street arrived and sat down with all my friends.  Luke (My gay cousin) and I were talking to him for the best part of the night.  Jimmi was looking out for us all night and told us how he regarded us as family having known our family for so long and whatever he could do to help to just ask.

It was a very late night and everyone enjoyed themselves.   I managed to lose my purse in the meantime gutted....

So far so good...  I really have no idea where this month has gone!  It’s flown by!

The last few weeks have been pretty tough.  Sabrina and I have been literally working round the clock.  We have been working on our sponsorship packagesand finally finished it!  We had several sponsorship enquiries just before Christmas which was amazing but we just weren’t prepared for it so now we are and the packages have been sent out

Some really exciting things have been happening this month so much so that I won’t be mentioning until everything is concrete so watch this space...

Emotionally Ive been coping pretty well.  I had my MRI scan this month and Im due to go back on Friday for the results.  I don’t think much would have changed as when I was admitted into hospital just before Christmas I had a CT scan which didn’t show anything obvious.  They brought forward my MRI so that they could investigate the problems Ive been experiencing with my ear.  Although they have fitted a grommet a couple of years ago the pressure in my ear and loss of hearing Im experiencing is becoming increasingly unbearable.  It’s also affecting my balance more and as Ive not managed to get myself back into the gym as regular as I had hoped my stability is decreasing.  Although that doesn’t stop me wearing my high heels!

Im feeling very positive about the year ahead I believe this year is going to be the year for me and the business.  Our search for a title sponsor continues...

Im not sure if I mentioned before but Sabrina and I thought it would be a good idea to start doing reviews on products and services on the site.  People were starting to offer us freebees in alternative therapy as well as things from my bucket list which was fantastic but I thought I needed to do something back in return.   One of my first alternative therapies offered was with a local Osteopath ‘Palmers Green Osteopath’ Ive now had 2 sessions with them and found out so much about my own body it’s amazing the things that they find!  Ive always been very flexible and suffered really badly with back, neck and shoulder pain I just put it down to stress and posture, sitting on a computer 12 hours a day obviously didn’t help.  I wanted to go to them to see what they could do to help me as I knew that the back, neck and shoulder pain wasn’t doing any favours to my headaches.  It turns out I have a similar disorder to my younger brothers.  Hypermobility Syndrome.  It runs in the family.

Ive always wanted to get my teeth done.  Ive never been comfortable with my smile and as a child I was told that I never needed braces which if you were to look at my teeth now was an obvious mistake!  I guess Im just being a little paranoid but Im not particularly comfortable with the way I look especially my teeth!  Im thinking about getting veneers so went to my dentist to find out about them.  High Barnet Dental Careoffer a really good service Ive been going to them for absolutely years and Im very comfortable with my practitioner.  Ive been in talks with them about having my veneers done in return for a review/publicity on the site which they seem very interested in so Ive been in touch with a few places now.

Every day I hear more and more inspirational stories with what I am doing.  Last month I talked about a girl called Joanne who was continually in and out of hospital due to a spine injury.  I still continue to keep in touch with Joanne and although she is in excruciating pain and hospitalised every given week from infections she still continues to show her support to my cause.  Such an admiration.

This month Sabrina introduced me to someone very special.  Leanne Grose.  Some of you would know who I am talking about and other might not.

“In 2001 at the age of 20 Leanne was taken into hospital where they found a tumour in her left foot. The tumour was removed and she had 3 months of radiotherapy and treatment, however due to severe pain and a very determined tumour returning on 17th November 2002 Leanne’s left leg below the knee was amputated.

Leanne is a strong independent person who is passionate about life, an individual who does not believe this disability will hold her back.

She has a zest for life and loves being around people, she enjoys ‘making like a sponge and taking in everything’

Leanne has a strong and fun personality and these things together have got her through tough times.

Her last amputation was in May 2006 in London, she then finished 5 weeks of radiotherapy.

Leanne believes things happen or a reason (a bit like myself) and she’s not a wannabee, she’s a somebody and she wants to get out there and be huge, helping others and ridding the country of a taboo.  You can be young, sexy and feminine even if you are different, it’s simply makes you special!

Leanne is working tirelessly and is making a success in this business and is willing to do whatever it takes – she wants to be the first woman to walk down the red carpet on one leg and crutches!”

Taken from Officially LeanneBiography

In the last two weeks we have managed to secure a couple more volunteers!  Bita who is a very close friend of mine is now working with me Monday to Thursday and although it’s only her first week she is doing fantastically!  Bita herself works only at the weekends for a local retailer and wanted to help out in her spare time with my fundraising.

Bita is a fantastic vocalist performer and regularly does live PA’s so during the time she is not with me or working at the weekends most of her time is spent song writing and recording new music in the studio.  Check her out!

We also have onboard the lovely Victoria who will be working part time from home assisting Sabrina with the day to day duties.

We have been sent some really great donations lately we have just received a couple of signed tennis balls from Martina Navratilova plus singed photos along with a few other things which have just been fantastic.

What with Nicola McLean going live on the 14th February and Joe Swash’s celebrity prize draw special! Things are sure to get there!

Last year whilst I was away on my Odyssey trip a friend of mine recommended I got in contact with a lady called Lynn who run a website called www.pinkwishes.co.uk.  Anyway Lynn and met up for a meeting as we were working in the same fields.  Lynn gave me some really invaluable advice on things I should do on the site such as adding a prize draw section to generate more traffic which I did and it has proved to be a great success.  What with one thing and another we lost touch over the recent months and then I had an email from her.

Lynn is a Breast Cancer survivor, she started Pink Wishes for two main reasons, to help get back on her feet after many years of ill health, and because she also wanted to develop a website where sufferers, could access the kind of Information she was looking for when she was diagnosed.

However Pink Wishes has developed into a Magazine website with useful Information on many subjects that all women can enjoy and benefit from. The website is updated on a regular basis, to keep it Interesting and appealing.

It took me a while to get round to registering and I have no idea why it took me so long!  The site is just fantastic they offer really good giveaways to their members and the information they have on there is second to none.

The other reason Im mentioning this is because for the first time in my life after registering on Pink Wishes I actually won something!  I won a limited edition Stella McCartney bracelet!!  I got it the following day and it is absolutely stunning!

Membership was only £5.00 and to be honest it was totally worth it.  Ive seen firsthand how much effort goes into the work that Lynn does, she is just an amazing person inside and out.

As a member you benefit the more times you visit!  Exclusive invites to celebrity events (I shall be having a word!) Members free gifts, product discounts and even a change to review products yourself.  Every month a member is picked at random to review products!

Not only has all this been going on this month but RDC have been given VIP invites to a huge do on Friday with Sincura!  Im sure I’ll have plenty to tell on the night so watch out for the next blog bulletin!

Ive not managed to write any diary entries for some time now.  I spent most of Christmas with my friends and family or alone.

After the events previously where I was ridiculed in public I really didn’t realise how hard it would hit me and make such a bad impact on my life.

I was so bad at one point not only did I feel like giving up on everything but I even contemplated taking my own life.  Ridiculous I know but true.

In 1997 when I first moved back to London I was admitted into hospital after having a nervous breakdown.  I was just 17 at the time.  I can’t tell you how Ive been feeling the past few weeks only that the feelings I had at that time of the nervous breakdown were nothing compared to what I went through over Christmas.

I know having a brain tumour that you get depressed all the time anyway its part of the symptoms but depressed was most definitely an understatement.  Im not sure why I let things get to me as much as they did and I hate myself for being that way but it’s now 2009 and after my first trip back to the gym yesterday I plan to change quite a lot of things this year.

Instead of spending every waking hour on the computer working my butt of to make my website a success Ive decided to concentrate on number one for a change.

Ive decided to give up smoking.  Im doing ok but its definitely harder than expected.  I’ll be going to the gym every day from now on Monday to Friday for 3 hours a day as I did a year ago when I trained for the 10k run.  I already feel so much better just for going for one day.  That then leaves me the rest of the afternoon to work.   Ill clock off at 5.30 every evening and I won’t go back on my computer until the following afternoon.

A few other things have changed too.  I changed my personal email address so that only contacts I wish to have my details will get them.  All the other emails/correspondence I get will now go through my PA direct to filter and forward ones relevant to me.  Omitting any nasty or negative emails.

It only takes one email/phone call to set me off again and become so depressed.  I may seen hard faces/confident on the outside but Im just like every other human being.  I have feelings.

Im hoping 2009 will be the start of what’s to come.  We have some very exciting things happening the early part of this year and if all goes to plan the site should be running to its full potential by the end of the year.

Sabrina (my PA) and I have been working on our sponsorship packages over the past few weeks which we are just finalising now.   Im hoping that good sponsors will come through shortly to enable me to continue to do what I do best and make Rent A Date For Charity a long lasting legacy in my name.  2008 was a year to do all the ground work with the site.  They always say that you don’t earn any profits from a new business until 2-3 years later.  Im hoping this will start in the 2nd year.  Ive donated 18k but Im now in debt of 10k and I need to clear this ASAP.

As we only have 2 full time employees I and Sabrina it’s so hard to keep up with everything.  I and Sabrina find that we are continually chasing things and juggling things about to get things done on time so sponsorship will help with staffing and the running costs of the site.

I regret that if we don’t find any sponsors in the first part of this year that the site will have to shut down and although I really don’t want that it will be my only option. 

I spent Christmas with my dad in Leigh on Sea.  My best friend Shabana came along with her little girl Leila.  There were going to spend Christmas alone in Shabana's flat in Barnet but there was no was I was having that.  I decided that either I would go to them for Christmas or bring them down to meet my family.

Christmas day was perfect.  I had my best friend, my godchild and all my family with me.  I hadn’t bought anyone a present this year.  They all understood my financial situation but it was gutting.  I love to give rather than receive I always find accepting gifts awkward especially when I didn’t have one for them.

Leila was completely spoilt over Christmas she came home with a massive bag full of toys, she did better than me! Lol

Leila was telling everyone “I went to Lisa’s Daddies house for Christmas at the seaside and the sea went Swoosh!”  You have to laugh!

Why is it that when your low everything seems to happen at once?  All my ex’s have crept out of the woodwork and are coming back to me asking for forgiveness and telling me how they messed up and want another chance.  What’s going on?  Ive never been so lonely and venerable as I am now and although one or two of these guys are gems I left them for a reason.

So why am I still single?  I run a bloody dating site for crying out load.  Ive decided today that Im going to put myself up for auction more often.  Im hoping that maybe through these auction dates I can find a mutual date that I actually fancy and get along with.  I think it’s time now I settled down.  Ive been single for far too long now and in and out of relationships all the time, it’s time for me to settle down and enjoy life with the one you love.  So people watch this space!

Is there such a thing as an ideal man?  I always imagined my ideal man to be tall dark and handsome, creative, fun and ambitious.  I can tell you now I really don’t believe there is such a person.  Everyone I meet are out for themselves, shellfish, liars and not to mention cheats!  But I’ll definitely let you know when Ive found him, if I find him that is!

New Year...  Hmmm can’t tell you much about that really except that I was totally bladdered and the last thing I remember was getting out the cab getting there!  I woke up the next day with two fat bruises on my legs and when I eventually made it out of the house my two bid dustbins were on the floor outside toppled over.  So Im guessing I must have stumbled in, or should I say on top of the bins??!  So much for giving up drinking...

I was out quite a lot of the Christmas period with one party or another or just up the pub with friends.  I drunk loads and partied hard.  Most nights I don’t remember.  Now looking back I think I know why I went so crazy especially when the reports Id get back the night after where how I’d been crying my eyes out in the toilets all night.  DRINK does nothing for you when you’re depressed, instead everything comes out.

Ive never in my life felt this lonely.  I worry all the time.  Will I ever meet anyone who will love me and take me for what I am?  Will my business become a success?  Will I get any help?  The questions could go on and on.

All I know is that Im really going to try and give this one last bash.  Im going to spend more time with my friends and family.  Give up smoking and work hard both at the gym and at home but at reasonable hours.

I think many of us have the same New Year’s resolutions but do we all stick at them?  I need to do something else with my time too.  Ive even thought about taking up presenting or modelling.  I modelled as a child and although Im camera shy these days some of these photographers have done wonders with the pictures! Lol Thank god for Photoshop ay!

I need to have a career on top of what Im doing.  I want to travel the world so perhaps I should look into becoming a holiday presenter?  Who knows all I know is that I can do more with myself if I apply myself and property management is not calling me anymore.  Ive even considered the thought of glamour modelling?  Why not?  If you’ve got it? Flaunt it right! lol

Sunday mum and I woke up pretty early, we headed up to breakfast with Jennifer the landlady of the B&B she was an absolute legend.  The place was cosy and she really made us feel at home I’ll definitely be staying there again.  We stayed at the B&B until lunch time charring to Jennifer I was telling her what had happened the night before and felt totally gutted.  If Im honest I was starting to get all depressed over it all.  Its horrid being on the receiver end of such malicious rumours I think the thing that made it worse for me was that these people were going through the same thing as me yet that didn’t bother them.

I went out for lunch today with Pete and Mary two of my oldest mates we ate at my local pub just off the London Road where I used to live with my dad.  How things change of the years.

The roast was probably the best roast Id ever eaten and for the first time ever I managed to eat the whole thing.

My good friend Lysha also came over to see me.  We haven’t seen each other since I left Bath in 1997 and I found out that up until 2 years ago she was living in Barnet just around the corner from me.  I couldn’t believe it where was Facebook when you needed it!

We got home late on Sunday mum stayed over with me the more and more I thought about things the more and more depressed I became I nearly knocked everything on the head.  And for what?  A few small minded people.  I was supposed to be going in for an MRI scan today the moment I woke up I was crying.  The last thing I wanted to do after what I had endured over the weekend was go for an MRI scan.  Although I hoped the tumour hadn’t grown I don’t think I could face anything else this side of Christmas.

Mum called them and cancelled and I stayed in bed the best part of the day.  Worn out from the weekend and emotionally drained.

Mum and I headed up to Bath yesterday for the weekend.  It was supposed to be a well deserved break for the two of us and for us to spend some quality time together.

I lived in bath during my teenage years and had lots of friends still living there.  We arrived around 7pm and headed straight for the B&B I only booked the B&B two days ago and it was just by chance they had a cancellation.  This weekend was one of the busiest weekends to be staying in Bath as they had their Christmas Market on trust me to book late I thought I wasn’t going to make it at one point.

Id arranged to meet a few of my old school friends in Bath town centre mum and I were running late.  It was so good to see everyone and catch up mind you saying that half the time I couldn’t understand a word people were saying what with the background music and my deaf ear...

We ended up staying out until about midnight mum was dancing around the dance floor like a crazy woman it was really good to see her enjoying herself for a change she has been really down lately and its horrible to see.  I practically had to drag her off the dance floor I was so shattered I just had to go back to the B&B.  I felt a little embarrassed inviting everyone out to see me and leaving early but Im sure they understood.

We spent most of the day in the town centre the Christmas Market was on, I’d never seen Bath so busy in fact it was that busy mum and I opted out of shopping and headed out for a cup of coffee.  A friend of mine who I dated years ago met up with us for a quick drink and a catch up.

I must say today has certainly been an eye opener for me.  My friend was telling me that we went out together for almost a year and I couldn’t remember any of the time we were together.  Not one thing I had to get him to tell me the stories and it was like he wasn’t even talking about me, such a weird experience but proved I wasn’t going mad but simply losing my memory.  Im sure he was a little upset that I hadn’t remembered a thing but at the same time I think he understood.

In the rush to leave yesterday I forgot to bring my laptop.  It was the first time ever Id been away without working and to be honest it did feel good!  Mum and I decided not to go out tonight we were both totally shattered and the B&B we were staying in was so homely I just wanted to get cosy and stay in.

The night would have been a nice relaxing night but instead it turned into what I can only describe as one of the worst nights of my life.

Carlie the girl I told you about who also has a tumour anyway I speak to her on a regular basis now we get on like a house of fire.  Totally genuine person and you don’t get many of those now days.  Anyway I was on the phone to her when I remembered something that happened in the week.  I was sent a post by an online networking group for Brain Tumour saying that there was a really inspirational story on their group by this guy.  I don’t normally check out anything to do with the groups I accept but on this day for some reason I decided to see his story.  Before Id even got that far I saw that this same person had posted a wall post on the group page warning everyone on there that everyone to watch out for someone who was active on the networking site trying to muscle in on everyone’s fundraising efforts and that this person claimed they were a charity but no one knew where all the funding went.  I decided to email this guy to ask who he was referring to as Id been recently contacted by Tigers for Kids who claimed they were a charity but in actual fact all they were fraudsters.  I wanted to see if we were talking about the same person.  This guy never replied and Id totally forgot.  Carlie was a friend of his on there so I asked her to send him a message to see who he was referring to.  I couldn’t believe the response he sent her back and literally within seconds of her asking.  Read for yourself:

“ello, i got your question on the group,but dont really wanna say on there her name as i cant prove it yet but i believe if you raise money for charity ALL money raised should go to that charity. the person i was refering to is lisa connel.

i cannot prove it yet hence why ive not named her,but i recall that she once stated that "up to 30% of proceeds through her charity (rentadate)go to charity....up to 30%???? so effectivly it could be 1% then!...so wheres the other 70% going? i asked her this through the brain tumour uk forom however she used her contacts(apparently her family are millionaires) to have the question removed rather than answer it.

i know she's upset others on here and some have gone so far as to say that she has no tumour or is exagerating her symptons however again thats just speculation.

let me know what you think as i may be barking up the wrong tree and i dont wanna be sued!!!

(THEY MIGHT HAVE DELETED THE THREAD ON THEIR GROUP BUT IM NOT DELETING IT ON HERE)

I was gob smacked!!  Immediately me being me and very irrational I got Carlie to forward me the message and posted the exact private message he had sent to Carly on the wall of the group for all to see.  How dare he!  I made a comment before I sent the post saying something like if a MRI scan and gamma knife treatment doesn’t prove I have a brain tumour what will?  I have never ever claimed to be a charity I never wanted to go down that route I simply wanted to be a company that donated funds to charity.  Where he got his figures from I’ll never know and as for the Brain Tumour UK forum, they don’t have one?  “Apparently her family are millionaires”?  If only, Ive always fancied an easy life.  I was totally disgusted as was my mum and Carlie.  This guy who didn’t even know me was making accusations in public about me and he didn’t even have the facts. 

My mum also posted a wall post, we were all fuming mum said how disgusted she was seeing a message like this about her daughter who has since diagnosis done all she can working round the clock to raise awareness and funding for brain tumour charities.  She expressed how even when I was really ill I would still be working away to help people like him.   This guy had a tumour removed recently himself so mum pointed out how lucky he was to have had the option of surgery.

The wall posts flew around a few times but not between mum and I we said and done all we needed to say and boy did I feel better for doing it.  Others on the group who were also my friends or had heard about what I was doing were defending me and highlighting the facts.

This guy privately messaged Carlie a short while after insinuating he hadn’t even checked out my website or what I was doing.  And he had the cheek to start spreading rumours??  One word.  NOB.

I don’t think Ive ever felt this hurt before in my life, I was anxious and devastated that someone would even think I could be fraudulent in any way.  I understand one of the points he raised that Rent A Date For Charity could be a little deseeving as some people could take that as I was a charity but it’s exactly what it says on the TIN.

Your Rent, A Date...  get this... for charity! 

I wouldn’t mind but since launching the site as many of you know Ive got in debt of £10k, donated £18k+ and spent every living moment working my arse off to raise awareness of brain tumours for sufferers like him and for what?  To be ridiculed in public with things they didn’t even know what he was talking about.

I had a personal message from one of the other admins of the group (and yes this guy was an admin too!) she told me that she had removed all evidence of that disgusting argument and asked me to forward a copy of the email onto my mum.  She said she understood us all being upset but didn’t understand why we had to use their support group to place these arguments.  I wouldn’t mind but it was their admin that posted the thread in the first place so perhaps they should have been taking this up with him and checked the facts out first?

Apparently it never crossed their mind when this guy made the post that he was referring to me.  They felt our discussions on the group had discredited them.  It’s a shame that their main admins were the cause of all this.  Allegedly a 30 year old woman with child who also suffers from a brain tumour and lives in London started all this.  For some reason she thought I was conspiring amongst other members of the group.  Conspiring about what?? And to think she herslef is a mother how do you think it would feel to have your own child ridiculed like that in public from people who lie and backstab?  Ive got better things to do with my time like raising money and awareness for people like you lot who actually believe in what Im doing and yes hopefully I will too be rich from all this one day.  Well why not!  Business is business and all that and Im still donating 85% of auction proceeds to charity.  What are you doing exactly?  Get a life.

I never thought I would say this but you know what all this boils down to don’t you.  Jealousy.  I never asked to be in the public eye and I never thought I would come up with something no one had done before I got lucky that’s all.  It turned out that people where interested in my story and one thing lead to another and a year on Ive been in media all over the UK press and TV.  Since starting my campaign a lot more people have become more aware and thats what this was all about, what I wanted to achieve.

I had several emails after this incident from other members of the group highlighting how upset they were that this guy was allowed to post something like that in the first place.  It’s so sick how we are all working towards the same goal, all brain tumour sufferers but yet they chose to ridicule me.  Ive certainly learned my lesson here.  I was supposed to be in discussions with them as Im arranging a tour next year and so are they, but seeing as Im muscling in on their fundraising efforts I’ll leave them to make their own plans.  Good luck to them I hear that some of the members who first signed up have pulled out all because this so called woman thinks she boss.  Do me favor love relax.

Everyone who reads my blog knows me by now.  I don’t lie, Im honest about EVERYTHING and I don’t care what I say as long as what I say is true.  Since finding out about this tumour Ive changed the way I think about everything.  I don’t see the need to beat around the bush anymore.

So anyway that was the story about the nasty online thread.  It had my mum in tears and many people really angry and disgusted.  For those that knew me it really wasn’t a problem it just highlighted people’s true colours.  To be honest having read all the emails and threads etc it felt like it was almost a fashion to some of these people.  Like a race to who had the worst tumour??  It’s really sad actually.

Mum and I didn’t sleep much all night thanks to all this.  Seriously my life is like one big Soap!

So far this week Ive managed to get our new celebrity up on the site Nicola McLean!  Nicola’s auction isn’t due to start until the New Year when we plan to do a massive re-launch.  Im really excited that Nicola is on board fingers and toes crossed Nicola should be able to help raise the websites profile and make some serious money on the auctions for the charities.

CDWow offered us a great deal on all those who buy CD’s DVDs etc through our site.  They are offering £0.50 off the total price with 3% of the total price going to RDC!  Its brilliant to have such a great well known company on board.  Im thinking this year has basically been a year for ground work with the site.  Ive got a really great feeling about next year.

Sabrina came into work today she normally works from home.  We had a meeting with Mandy at RPR Media who kindly offered to help us both out on our sponsorship packages and marketing plans.  Many came round and give Sabrina and I a lovely candle from the White Company as a little Christmas prezzy.  We talked for a good few hours and went through what needed doing and where we were going to start.

Over the past couple of weeks we have had two companies enquiring about sponsorship for our site.  I’d been meaning to put something together but really didn’t know where to start there are so many different ways to package the sponsorships and it’s not as easy as it looks.  I just need to be in a position where Im not worrying anymore.  Im still borrowing money from my mum left right and centre to pay the bills for the site let alone the website costs for re-design we tried to work out what we had spent in the last 6 months getting the site to where we needed it and that’s in excess of £10k!  Mind you that said the website should be finished by the time Christmas arrives well I hope so at least because I just can’t afford to get into any more debt over this the worry is sickening but I know things will take off and so does my mum that’s why she is doing this for me bless her.

Ive been feeling a wee bit de-motivated lately what with dealing with my own personal problems, being ill and then being rushed off my feet to the point I don’t even have time to see my own friends and family so I was really pleased to have this meeting today I felt a lot more productive and it was great having Sabrina here with me we really work well together.

Had a few advertising enquiry emails today which was a great start to the morning.  I haven’t really been concentrating on this area of business as it’s only ever been me working on the whole site so I’d been distracted by other things.

One of my threads on the UKBusinessForums had a reply this morning too I had an offer from a company called Money Saving Cashback although they were unable to offer an exchange of advertising space or a prize draw for the prize draw section they said that they were able to offer me some backlinks from their site to help drive traffic my way.  Their site receives over 2 million unique monthly visitors.  I had no idea what backlinks were until I searched it up on Google.

Backlinks (or back-links (UK)) are incoming links to a website or web page. In the search engine optimization (SEO) world, the number of backlinks is one indication of the popularity or importance of that website or page (though other measures, such as PageRank, are likely to be more important). Outside of SEO, the backlinks of a webpage may be of significant personal, cultural or semantic interest: they indicate who is paying attention to that page.

In basic link terminology, a backlink is any link received by a web node (web page, directory, website, or top level domain) from another web node (Björneborn and Ingwersen, 2004). Backlinks are also known as incoming links, inbound links, inlinks, and inward links.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I emailed the company straight back Id already been familiar with another site called Money Saving Expert which Id used previously and know how popular these sites are to consumers.  Obviously I will offer advertising space in return; we will just need to negotiate the time scale they are prepared to do this for.

Jenny (My new part time advertising sales lady) had made a few calls on Friday and one of which was to Soho House.  Soho house is a private members’ club in the heart of Soho and renowned for being a celebrity hang out.  I’d been there previously as a guest of Gary   McCausland.  It’s a really plush place and although they were not interested in advertising with us they said they would be interested in sponsoring a celebrity date which is fantastic.  As a sponsor they automatically receive permanent advertising space on the gallery pages for the celebrity in which they sponsor as well as on the auction listing so its works well for both of us.  I forwarded the managers details onto Sabrina who is currently coordinating all the celebrity dates/meet and greets.

I had a message come through today also from UKPress.  A journalist for That’s Life magazine was looking for a story for their valentines issue with a health factor to it.  I forwarded on my press release to see if there was anything she could do with my story with the connection to Rent A Date For Charity and although we spoke on the phone later this afternoon and she loved the story because of the previous press coverage Ive done it wouldn’t have been any good.  Neither the less she now knows about my story and said she would keep me posted for anything else that comes up.  This is a problem we seem to come up against a lot at the moment.  Most stories people want, they want as exclusive stories obviously mine is not exclusive well not in the UK anyway.  Wouldn’t it be great to get a magazine/newspaper to feature all the celebrity dates that come up on the site on a regular basis!  That’s exactly what we need I could see more celebrities coming through this way too.

Samuel Abrahams called me today.  Sam is the guy who approached me this time last year about doing a documentary about my story.  We had put a small pilot together but at the time my cousin from Halo Films got involved and pretty much took over.  Peter (my cousin) had pitched his own pilot to all the major and sky channels but none of them had anything available for over 6 months. 

To date nothing has really come of this pilot which is a total shame because the amount of comments I have had along with emails stating how good it would be if it was commissioned is outstanding!  You can see the pilot Halo Films made HERE.

Anyway Sam called me for a catch up and to see what was happening.  I told him that everything had come to a standstill with it but the idea that we had now was to make a DVD for the use of all brain tumour charities as an awareness tool.  The idea would be to follow me over a 9 month period with everything that Im doing along with coping with my own illness.  As I interact all the time with brain tumour charities/patients telling peoples stories through this documentary and hopefully making a huge campaign out of it.  The only problem with this is that we would need to have got it sponsored which was proving difficult although I must say I probably haven’t gone down the right channels with this.

Sam emailed over his pilot that he put together for me to see as I hadn’t seen it before.  I must say I did cry when I watched it.  He caught all my emotions in it from being happy and having a laugh and a joke with my mum to freaking out on my dad swearing at him and everything.  Having a brain tumour makes you so up and down especially with your emotions and all this is captured on the footage.  It gives more of the real me which I love.  So Sam is planning on pitching his version to see if we can get it commissioned for an hour long documentary film.  Fingers crossed someone commissions it.

I also had an email back from a lady called Kelly from Spa Finder.  Id emailed them about the possibility of donating a prize but unfortunately they were unable to offer any free prizes as their giveaway budget has already been allocated but she has registered on my site and said that she will defiantly get back in contact in the New Year.  So that’s brilliant.

On Saturday I mentioned that Emma and I met a guy on a PR stall and got chatting to him.  I gave him my card and he called today.  Andy is from Ranieri Communications who are a leading boutique style consumer technology PR agency. Who have developed a solid reputation within the national, consumer and lifestyle press, and maintained its strong contacts within the IT press.

Andy had spoken to his boss in their meeting today about meeting me and they have decided to help out by donating some hours each month to help with the publicity for myself, the site and the celebrities associated with it.  I now have 2 PR agencies helping me and although they both specialise in similar things we seemed have to work out a way where neither of their paths should cross.  Andy said that they have lots of contact in entrepreneurial magazines; business magazines etc which he wanted to pitch my story too.  It would be great to get my story into magazines like this you just don’t know what doors can open up for you.  We have arranged to meet on Thursday at my home when Sabrina and Mandy from RPR will be present to talk about the best way forward which Im really looking forward to.

I went out for a meal tonight with Dan.  We ate Sushi.  Although I dabbled with sushi before I hadn’t actually been to a proper Sushi restaurant.  Some bits i liked some I hated but eating eel for me and liking it was a turn up for the books!  Im not afraid to try anything but I have to admit I felt like I was on Im a Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here!  The build up to putting it in my mouth was killing me!

I spent the best part of the day in bed.  I was feeling so down in the dumps and sorry for myself there was no moving me.

My friend Shabana came over with her little one and helped me clear up.  I seem to have no time these days to tidy up after myself, if Im at home Im working and when Im not at home Im out (obviously) lol.

I think today was a time to reflect on everything.  What I was doing, where I wanted to go.  I managed to sort myself out by the time evening came I knew what had to be done I just had to do it.

Part of the reason I am feeling the way I do is because Im lonely.  People always get lonely around Christmas time it’s just that time of year but what with everything else going on in my life right now it’s time I made a few changes.

I didn’t get the response I wanted to hear but I didn’t get a bad response either.  I think this week will be the week I work out what Im trying to do and who I want to get there with.

I spent most of the afternoon on the laptop looking at flights to Thailand.  There’s no way I can afford to go but was hoping had they of been cheep enough the family would have pitched in for my Christmas prezzy.  Now is the only time Im going to be able to get away for an actual holiday after the New Year the only way I’ll get away is if it’s on business?  I couldn’t find a flight for less that £1,000 its ridiculous I guess what with the run up to Christmas and with what’s going on in Bangkok right night I could have chosen my time better.  Im just going to have to look at a couple of weeks away to the Canary Islands or something.  Anything for a break.  Ive been away this year loads but none of them have been relaxing or time away from work Ive always had my laptop with me and considering Im still in remission from my gamma knife treatment I think I deserve a blooming break!

I found out something this weekend too.  Someone really close to me in my family has been lying to me.  I knew they were lying about something before but they insisted that everything was ok again.  They lied.  If there is one thing that I have learned is that lying gets you nowhere and only upsets people in the long run.  Considering how close I thought we were I was gutted that this person who I have looked up to all my life was a liar and a repeated liar at that.  Ive been told for years how much this person lied but never believed it, well you don’t when they are this certain figure in your life.  Now I know that we don’t live in fairy tale land and these things happen.  It’s a shame though not only has it upset me and to be honest I don’t even care about this lye but it’s made me look so differently towards them.  The one person I thought I could trust, love and be there for has really knocked me for six this time.

Emma called me at 9.30 my alarm had been going off all morning and I just didn’t wake up.  Considering I felt tipsy last night after 3 drinks I didn’t have one bit of a hangover so the water before bed obviously helped.

Emma and I were booked to go to Olympia as they were running an exhibition for Business Start Ups.  People like James Caan from the Dragons Den and Caprice where all due to make appearances there talking about how they started and what made them so successful.

So there was me, running late as usual.  I picked Emma up and we headed down there.  I put the most stupid pair of shoes on!  They were killing me!  When we finally got there we qued to see Caprice, Emma kept saying that when she asks questions I needed to put my hand up and indirectly mention Rent A Date For Charity seeing as we had gone to her agent previously asking for her help and to go up for auction.  Without a drink in hand there was no way I was going to do that.  Turns out that Caprice cancelled on them and so we had qued for nothing.

We also managed to miss all the other speakers that we wanted to meet too.  Trust us!

With business card in hand I targeted a few of the stalls and basically offered them free advertising in return for freebees for the site.  I made a good few contacts including one from a PR company who was really interested in helping out.

Emma made me call over this lady who apparently came second in the Apprentice.  I had no idea who she was as id never watched it so had no clue what to say.  Anyway she took my card and promised she would look at what I was doing and email me.  So I guess it’s a start, she even mentioned that she was single so if anything we could get her up on a date!

By the time we got back it was dark and we were starving.  We ordered a Thai meal and sat in and watched the XFactor together, Emma her little boy Jake and her boyfriend.  We have all known each other for years.  Her boyfriend is my ex's brother and pretty much like a brother to me too.

I got home around 10pm just in time for Im a Celebrity Get Me out of Here!  Poor little Princess had been home all day on her own I felt so bad!  She normally goes everywhere with me.

I was having another emotional evening.  I know woman get emotional at the best of times but I always seem to be up and down with it.  One of my Ex’s and I have been really close lately nothing has been going on with us purely just friends.  We were together for a very long time and we are like sole mates.  Because of the mood I was in I started thinking about what could be.  These past few weeks all Ive been thinking about is having my own family some day.  Im sick of being single and stuck up on the top shelf.  Ive not met anyone I relate to as much as I do with this person and needed to let them know how I was feeling.  So being me sent the longest text message hoping for reconciliation.  It just seemed stupid to me.  We got on so well and we are so good for each other all his mates are my mate’s bla bla bla...  It’s not that I haven’t tried to form relationships with anyone else.  I just can’t.  When you love someone so much it’s hard to get them off your mind especially in times like these.

So that’s what I did.  I put my cards on the table and had it out.

Woke up this morning by the phone.  It was Jenny the sales lady.  Jenny had thought about everything and decided that working with me on the advertising sales was what she wanted to do.  Although she could specify hours she could do she was happy to continue and actually start on the calls today so I was really pleased.

The web guys finally managed to get the right emails sent out of the admin control to both the seller and the buyers but needed another day to complete the back end such as the bid transaction reports etc I guess Rome wasn’t built in a day and I needed to be patient with all this.  Thanks to Dana helping out as my little guinea pig looks like we were back on form.

I received a thread from one of my posts on the UKBusinenssForum from a company called Sporting Desires.  They were interested in giving us a prize draw for some free advertising space but also enquired about our rates for some more prominent advertising space which looked promising.  Sporting Desires provide the best quality range and lowest priced sporting equipment and sporting souvenirs in the UK, they sell a large variety of Official Football Club Merchandise & Rugby Official Merchandise too.

The UKBusinessForum also sent out a newsletter today including UKBF Member Spotlight  Newsletter which included my picture and link to their blog entry with the interview we had on there and that went out to all their members which I was really pleased about.

Ive been having a banner design made up to give to other websites to help promote Rent A Date For Charity but with all these things they take time and still we had a few amendments to make before making them official but we are getting there and so far so good.  Let’s just hope that others find them eye catching too and come to my site to register.

Ive been pretty tired all day and feeling a bit emotional too so when one of my friends from my old work called to see if I fancied going out I jumped at the chance.

Paul came round to pick me up about 8.  We headed into central London and went to a couple of bars in Farringdon.  I had a text from one of my dad’s colleagues daughters asking me to come and meet her seeing as I was in London she was at one of my dad’s Christmas do’s which he couldn’t make.  Paul and I went there for about half an hour had a really good time.  I did drink.  I had vodka soda water and lime and although I only had 3 drinks I felt pretty drunk once Id hit the fresh air.  It just shows you when you go without drink for so long how it affects you and considering I hadn’t eaten a thing all day that was probably why.

Katie the girl we went to meet is 17 and it’s so funny because she is exactly the same as I was when I was her age.  Her mum had been trying to get us to meet up for ages so that I could have a talk with her as she was staying out late and taking drugs and she hoped that I could talk some sense into her.  So when we had an opportunity to go outside for a quick cigarette I took my chance then.  I explained to her that she was the same as me in fact I was probably worse as a child.  I said that part of growing up was experimenting but that she had to be careful in what she did.  We have all been there, drugs, men, staying out to all hours getting up to mischief I just hoped that talking to her she would see that there was so much more to life and to do things in moderation.

I think I got through to her as her mum text me later that night to say that she thought I was great fun and that Id spoken to her so I guess it was a start.  Im no councillor but Ive been through enough in my lifetime to know what’s right and what’s wrong and it doesn’t matter how much your mum, dad or friends tell you not to do something it only makes you want to do it more.  People have to learn by their own mistakes but guiding them in the right way helps.  I guess as Im on her level in respect of partying and having fun and knowing that I was the same as her at her age made her feel comfortable with me to talk to.  She’s such a great girl even my friend Paul said how nice she was.

I ended up getting to bed about 2am and although I felt a little tipsy I made sure I had plenty of water before I went to bed.

Didn’t start off on a good note today.  One of the candidates on the auctions had been won but the buyer didn’t get any emails to confirm this was the case.  We recently took out the messaging system feature to stop people from making arrangements outside of the auctions.  What was supposed to happen didn’t. 

The winner and seller should both get an email say the auction had been won and once payment had been received they would both be notified and contact can then be made through the online messaging system.  Luckily a very kind lady called Dana had won a friend of mine and offered to be my guinea pig and place bids on a few tests auctions.  The problem still wasn’t resolved by the end of the day and I knew that a couple other auctions had been won so once it was resolved I’d have to contact those clients to ask them to re-list their auctions again it was the only way.

Dan the administrator for UKBusinessForums sent me an email today advising me that the interview that they had done with me was now up on their blog.  So Ill add this link to my press page as I think it’s important to put all of that on there which reminds me to add the blog entry from Justgiving too.

Sarah Mills (Trisha’s PA) emailed me back today and completely understood why I didn’t want myself and Dan to go on the show.  She was happy for me to suggest another angle on going on there so I’ll have to put my thinking cap on and see what we can do there as it would be a great opportunity to get some more awareness out there.

I emailed Joanna back the girl that contacted me who saw my article in Company magazine and was laid up at home due to a spine operation and offered her an opportunity to work with us.  I personally know how mad you can go being stuck between four walls with nothing to do and thought offering her some voluntary work would be good.  Joanna came back to me today and looks like she is on board to help out on getting some prize draws for the site which is great.  I think it’s very important to all stick together at the end of the day people in the same or similar boat all know what it’s like to not have anything to work towards and hopefully I can help change a few people’s lives even if only with a few bits and pieces of work to help us out with then Im only too happy to.

After having hit several brick walls myself when I was diagnosed, looking for work was not the easiest thing to do.  I had so many knock backs which I’d never faced before in my entire working career, most of the jobs I went into was because I had been head hunted for and to be knocked back and told all sorts of rubbish like you’re not qualified enough, we have filled the position or just to the point we need to have someone reliable i.e. not taking time off work were just devastating to me it makes you feel like your worthless.  All this rubbish about equal rights there are so many ways around this for employers it’s just stupid if you ask me.

I spent most of the day getting the prize draws back up and running and generally catching up on myself which I must say is hard. 

Now, if I am being totally honest which at the end of the day is my point for these posts I clocked off this evening about 8pm.  I normally don’t finish work until early hours of the morning but I have found now a solution which helps me.  My family understand why I do it which is amazing but I now have one spiffy a night to get me off the computer and to help me sleep.  If I have this around the 8pm mark it’s virtually impossible for me to put an email together and Im so drawn to working and need to give myself a break so that’s how Ive been managing it. 

Im not one to take tablets and although I have a whole stack of sleeping tablets in my draw I find this works much better for me.  It also relaxes me and if Im suffering with a headache eases the pressure too.  That’s not to say I condone it.  I know people that spend their lives around this stuff and it’s no good at all it makes people paranoid and I guess most users use it to forget about their worries I can see why it helps.  This is just my way of relaxing, getting to sleep and getting off this dam computer.  At the end of the day, and this is not me justifying myself this is the truth this stuff is given out on prescription ok maybe in tablet form but its given out all the time to people who suffer with pain.

I had one call tonight from Jenny the lady who offered to help on advertising sales she was calling up to pull out as she thought she had taken too much on.  It’s such a shame as I really thought she was perfect for the job and we had spent quite a few hours going over things together that, that time had just gone to waste.  Oh well another hurdle I’ll get over.

I had a meeting at 11am in Barnet with Vicki; Vicki was the lady that offered to help part time on a volunteer basis with my website whilst my current designer was away on business.  We met for about 2-3 hours going through everything.  I was confident that we could work really well together.

I drove round to meet Dan at the gym and dropped off his ticket to Turkey.  Placed a couple of posters up there and then headed to Belsize Park to meet my mum as we had another meeting in London with Kate from First Artist Management, Kate got in contact and wanted to meet and speak about the possibility of help me out.

At the end of the meeting it evolved that Kate was working on a big event in March next year with a brain tumour charity called Brain Tumour Research Trust.  Although Kate was extremely busy she thought that if she could get in contact with the charity and tell them what I was doing that perhaps they too would come on board as a beneficiary of the funds from the auctions as well as possibly getting me an invite for the ball.

Ideally in an ideal world I would pay a publicist in excess of £3k per month which is the average cost to help work full time on promoting both the site and what I am doing.  Obviously that’s not possible so I have to rely on companies and volunteers to do spare a few hours of their time to help out.

Mum took the car home and I went over to see my dad in his office just off of Regent Street.  I showed me round the building he had managed which was almost near completion and then we headed over to his local pub.  The guy who ran the pub had just finished a course of chemotherapy apparently he was riddled with cancer and he was such a lovely guy you wouldn’t have known.  Dad had told him previously about me being ill so I asked the landlord (John) if I could put a few posters up in his pub too.  He took 4 to put up and was delighted to help out.

Dad and I then went for our usual curry in the curry house.  By the time our main course came I was so tired I couldn’t eat it and even had to call my mum to come and pick me up and take me home.  I hate it when I get like that but I guess it was to be expected as Id been out all day on my feet and that would kill anyone.          

I posted on gumtree last night an ad for poster distributers in all of the major cities around the UK, Ireland, Scotland and Wales and managed to get about 15 responses before gumtree decided to take my posts of for posting multiple ads with the same content.  Trying to get hold of someone there is a nightmare couldn’t they see that they were the same ad for each location is it not obvious Im looking for volunteers for all areas!  I wouldn’t mind but it took me 3 hours to sort it and now they have all been removed!

I was sent an email last night by Felicity Lambert.  Felicity is a media matching manager who works for the Media Trust.

The Media Trust is a dynamic, innovative charity, bringing together the media industry and charities. They harness the skills, resources and creativity of the media industry to help voluntary organisations and charities make a difference to people's lives. Some of the services they offer include Media and Communications training, Campaigns, Media Trust Productions, Community Newswire, Community Channel, Media Matching and Youth Media.

I have been registered with their site for some time now and find their resources invaluable for what I am doing as a company raising awareness and funding for charity.  Id certainly recommend all my charities to join too.

Not long ago Sabrina went on a Media matching event.  It’s a bit like speed dating but instead of dates your end of with media matches.  People who may be able to help you in what you do.  We managed to get a good few contacts last time it was so beneficial.

We have been invited to another media matching event but unfortunately Im swamped under and Sabrina is a little under the weather so we won’t be able to go.

My prize page section of the site has been updated and unfortunately all the prizes were removed so I now need to put them all back on.  It’s so frustrating when things go wrong on the site I feel that everyone thinks Im incompetent.  The site will function how I need it to eventually in fact within the next week so Im not going to let it worry me.  All those who currently use my site are aware that there isn’t a team behind it anyway.

I had a little disappointing news today.  One of celebrities had to pull out of going up for auction on the site due to contracts he had with his employer which is generally the problem I am up against when I try to get celebrities on board.  It’s such a shame as they would be raising the profile of a very worthy cause.

The Trisha show had left me a message last Friday.  I had no idea what show they were calling from but managed to get hold of them today.  Turns out that Trisha would like me on her show!  I was so excited.  I spoke with Trisha’s PA to find out the angle of the show and what they wanted.  Unfortunately they wanted to use the angle of my previous relationships like my current relationship now with my ex Dan.  I really did'nt think that talking about this was beneficial for the site nor the cause and hanging out my dirtily laundry in public isn’t really something I wanted to do so it was such a shame as I absolutely love Trisha and think she is such an inspiration.  They were very understanding though and told me to think about another angle they could go in on.

For some reason Im happy chatting on here about my personal life.  I think for one it’s almost a therapy typing all this out for me and also because I have control on what Im saying or doing.

Nicola Willoughby made contact again today providing us with her agent’s details to make the arrangement for her auction.  It turns out that her agent is also responsible for Amy Bohan another model who came forward to go up for auction not so long ago.

Also today I had an email through from a company that sell lucrative yachts!  They messaged me via this other networking site which you have to be invited onto to join called ASMALLWORLD it’s full of very high profile people both in business and in the celebrity world and sometimes you can really get some good advice on there. 

This company wanted to offer 10% of their commissions to one of my charities.  They also offered to give an extra 30% of the commission on top of that for every lead that we gave them.  They enclosed a presentation booklet and this is something Ill certainly look into.

I posted a couple of threads today all over the different forums looking for help with scrip writing for this radio advertisement that I needed to put together.  I got quite a few responses back one was from a lady called Emily who had previously written radio scripts for Mars, NatWest and various other brands and also runs regular podcasts.  The funny thing is that Emily mentioned that she had seen my site some time ago and said that she raved about it in the Scarlet magazine newsletter which she sends out which was great to hear!

She said that she wasn’t able to help out with the music side of things but said that if I did a search for copyright free music on the internet I may well be able to find something. Apparently it costs loads to use music that's under copyright. The other option she suggested would be to ask a musical friend to write a bed for you and allocate copyright to me.  It’s a good job I have such a friend!  Chris Wilkey from Bath he does his own music all the time and even has his own studio so looks like I’ll be getting in contact with him shortly!

Another person who got in contact was a guy called Scott.  Scott works on the board of Trustees for Haven House and said that he would be happy to help me on many levels.

Scott also works for Sound.  We exchanged a few emails and I am scheduled in to call him on Friday to discuss going forward.

Another lady called Carrie emailed over details about getting copy write to music.  She said that prices varied depending on the rights that I would need.

On checking Getty Images Music, for a short, instrumental song that will be distributed on the web for up to 3 months would cost £120.00!  This costs more if you require rights for a year, for television, radio etc (for example Carrie paid over £650.00 for a video to be shown at a conference and distributed on the internet for a year afterwards).

It amazes me.  I am so naive sometimes unless I come face to face with things I live in my own little world not knowing anything.  I guess you learn as you go along though.  I really should have been born blonde!

I was working on our Celebrity Registration form today.  I wanted to get one made up similar for the charity registration form so that it was easier for celebrities to sign up.  We of course would take full control of the arrangements to make it a more personal experience for them.  So this took up most of my day.

I normally have another volunteer working for me in the evenings.  Noortje Tyrell.  Noortje normally types up all my Blog entries which I normally dictate via my blackberry and send over to her.  Problem is where I have been so busy of late Ive not had a chance to get them done.  So most the posts I am doing now are being done a week late.  Im having to go through my entire diary on outlook and in my filofax to remember what I have done for each day.  I must say if there is anyone out there reading this with a tumour do the same!   Write a diary and keep everything noted down.  It really helps with the memory.  I want one of the brain games on Nintendo I think they are brilliant and they must help with brain training and memory?

Started work this morning on a happy note!  My little inspiration named Rafe Walker had forwarded me a post of himself on ITV Local News.  He is so young and so brave and has a brain tumour.  To see why his is my little inspiration click here.

I also heard from Jodie Colls today too.  I met Jodie not so long ago at an event for Breast Cancer Awareness.  Jodie was up for nomination as a non-celebrity inspirational woman of the year awards.  Jodie is 23 and lives also with an inoperable brain tumour.  I’d seen here details in the programme and was stunned to find out she was actually at the event too.

I was in the toilet with Shelley from Phil Hall Associates and Shelley said she thought the girl standing next to me was Jodie Colls.  When I looked round I was stunned.  I introduced myself who I was and what I was doing for brain tumour awareness the girl must have thought I was crazy.  For once I felt star struck and she wasn’t even a star.  I’d met someone young who was so inspirational too helping to raise the profile of brain tumours.  We were both a big shocked I think.  When Jodie left the toilets I burst into tears.  It was the first time that Shelley had seen me in tears I think she was a little taken back by it.  Lisa Connell the woman who is so brave and tough broke down in public!  Says it all really.  It’s easy to put a front on and not so easy to let loose.  There were a couple of girls outside the toilet waiting for us who said that a girl just walked out crying too.

I had to go back to speak to Jodie but I was too nervous I couldn’t put myself together.  We ended up chatting after Shelley went over to break the ice for me and we exchanged numbers.  Since then Jodie and I have kept in contact. 

Jodie emailed me today she lives in Nottingham and offered to hand out 50 of my posters.  I think it’s great when people who have a connection with the cause get involved it makes it all that more exciting and the amount of enthusiasm behind people like Jodie really helps.

I also had an email from Charles Lister.  Charles is the director of Odyssey which is a charity that enhances the quality of life for people with cancer through imaginative programmes of challenging and dramatic activities using the outdoors.

I personally went on one of Charles’s trips this year where a met so many people who I have made a bond with and will keep in touch with for the rest of my life.  That tripped changed everything for me.  Id emailed Charles as I wanted to help his charity as much as I could but where he had been so busy he hadn’t had a chance to get back to me.  He came back to me today apologising for the delay and asking how he too could get involved so I referred him to our ‘Charity Registration Form’.

One of the administrators on UKBusinessForums contacted me at the weekend asking if I wouldn’t mind doing an interview with them for a post on their blog and also a mention in their newsletter.   I was delighted to.  I am just so pleased that so many people are helping out with the awareness campaign.

Over the past few days mum has been everywhere handing out my posters Im amazed by the amount of support Im getting I think it’s fantastic who knows how quickly things can progress now.  All it takes is for people to see the posters and then see them again somewhere else and wonder what the hell they are about, logon and then get cracking!  Ive not had any new or used items added to the auctions yet but we only launched this part of it last week so I guess it will take time to pick up.  I just wonder how the hell other sites do it.  They must have a huge marketing budget and launch at the same time as the marketing campaign?  Shame I don’t have the budget to do that but I guess with the rate of growth it wound cripple me if everyone joined up all at the same time especially as we are tying things up only now a year on with the backend of the site.

Spent most of the day stuck on the lappie.  Didn’t get to bed until around 2am and although Id been working right up until this time I just wasn’t tired.  It took me a few hours to get to sleep as usual too.

Woke up relatively early.  Considering I was freezing my butt off all night I managed to get quite a good night’s sleep.  I love waking up to the sounds of the birds and sheer quietness around you.  The patter of birds feet on the top of the caravan I feel at home.

Dan and I went down to the local shop and grabbed some food and Dan cooked up a storm in the kitchen when we got back.  The little village shop even took a poster too!

Straight after breakfast we headed out with Princes for a long walk.  Poor thing was shivering like mad and Id put a jacket on her.

I swear I saw Abi Titmuss walking past us at one point but I was too scared to go up to her.  I’d love to know if it really was!

We spent the afternoon in the local pub The Flower Pot had lunch and then headed back to the van to pack up.

I had a wee nap and then we headed home.  I hate leaving the van it’s like leaving to go home from your holiday.  We could have stayed down another night but decided to opt out it was far too cold and by the looks of things the weather wasn’t going to pick up.

I spent most of the morning working again.  The only email I received today which was a miracle was from Vicki.  Vicki is a lady who volunteered to help out on the website updates whilst my other designer was away working.  Im arranging to meet her next week.

I basically spent the morning catching up on my paper work and printing out my Christmas cards to go to all my clients.  Im slowly learning the whole marketing thing.  The Christmas cards have a picture of me in a Christmas hat and our logo on the front eye catching if you ask me! 

Dan called me today and asked if I wanted to go to the caravan with him.  I was supposed to be going to my mates baby shower that day but had already told them I would come in the evening and I was longing to get out.

Had a really lovely day in Marlow which is where his family have a caravan.  We spent most of the day up the pub.  I did have a couple of drinks but that was it I knew I could only have a couple anyway.

I saw Paige.  Paige is a girl who lives up that way who we have known for years from going down there.  It was good to have a catch up she is such a lovely girl.

In the end we ended up staying down there.  I was shattered and had to have a few of my painkillers by the end of the evening so driving back wasn’t an option.  I can’t tell you how cold it was up there!  Freeze my arse off was an understatement!

I love getting cosy in a caravan.  I’d live in one if I could!  Oh and I managed to get my posters in a pub and one of the locals took a few from me as he had contacts that he thought would put them up too.  Soon my poster will be everywhere!

Today SDBTT Astro Fund had an open day “Low-Grade Brain Tumour Information Day” at the Royal Free Hospital in London.

This free information day was for the benefit of patients, carers, friends and families living with low-grade gliomas (Brain Tumours).

Presentation topics included:

·        what is a low-grade glioma?

·        Living with Epilepsy

·        Treatment Options

·        Latest research

·        Coping strategies

·        Help with Finances

·        Sources of Support and Information

This event was sponsored and administered by Samantha Dickson Brain Tumour Trust, Astro Fund.

I arrived a little late about 10.30 but had Rose (my Psychic) also a good friend, my mum and a little later Carly a girl who is 23 years of age who contacted me via Facebook wanting to help out.  We ended up speaking over the phone for several hours about living and coping with a brain tumour and straight away connected.

The day was spent in and out of the presentations.  I was tired and had all my A3 posters in hand and thought whilst I was in the area I would get them handed out so between us all we managed to cover the whole of Belsize Park and Southend Green.

I found the presentations interesting but only attended a couple.  Ones that I felt relevant to me.  What I found really obscure is that the hospital wouldn’t allow us or the charities to mention anything about fundraising.  It’s ridiculous the charity pays over £1k to host the information day there which they have to find funding for and yet they won’t allow them or me to mention anything about raising funds.  I went there also to hand out my business card to all the patients and supporters it would have been a fantastic opportunity to get to those who really care about the cause.  We managed to make a few contacts and hopefully get the word spread nether the less.

By the end of the day I was shattered and all I wanted to do was to hit the pub!  I did hit the pub but this time without Alcohol! 

I went to my local bar The Hadley Oak in Barnet.  Id given them posters too the day before but they weren’t up.  I went with a good mate of mine Fletcher his mate Matt, Shabana and my brother Andrew.

I had such a good night; I can’t tell you how good it felt to go out without drinking.  Not that the temptation wasn’t there because it was!  I don’t think I stopped going on about how Id managed to stay off the drink all night I must have done everyone’s head in.

We did a mini bar craw still posters in hand with 2 more pubs placing them up by 11pm I was shattered so headed home.  Considering I am so unconfident without the alcohol I managed to do pretty well even strut a few dance moves on the floor!

In-between all the running around and partying I had a few emails to deal with.  John from Headline Promotions got back in contact and said that he needed a 30sec commercial in MP3 format to put on his stations.  One in particular was the launch of Radio Bracknell in early December.  I doubt Ill have anything ready by then but Im sure he won’t mind.

Claire Hope – Is a lovely lady that Im yet to meat who introduced herself through one UKPRESS.  We have been in correspondence with each other for quite some time and she has been working on a launch party early next year for Rent A Date For Charity.

She has been in discussion with one of her colleagues/friends (Liton) and thinks the have found the perfect people to get backers for a mega rent a date event next year. Not only that, she discovered today that she works with Joss Stones sister and said that she wanted to help with the celeb search (she knows Will Young and other peeps like that).

Already Claire has roped in Randy from Big Brovaz who said he will do anything he needs her to do to help out on the event (AKA Michael Brown), and he is going to talk to the girls from Booty Luv for us too.

Claire and Liton are determined to run a kick ass event for Rent A Date For Charity and all we need to do now is meet up and make the plans.

A really lovely girl called Joanne also contacted me today.  I don’t normally have time to reply to all supporter emails but I felt the need to on this one.  Joanne read my story in company magazine and wanted to tell me how amazing she thought I was.  She said that she thought what I was doing was so brilliant and the fact that I had created a bucket list was fantastic.  Although our stories are different she found that my story in Company magazine really helped her come to terms with her own condition.  She is currently at home at the moment all the time recovering from a spine operation that went wrong a few years ago, since then she has had eight spine operations and has been spending most of her time learning to walk again.  She caught a nasty infection which led her to blood poisoning which almost killed her and was in hospital for over a year.

After reading my story she spent her night in hospital putting together her own bucket list.  She hoped that one day she too can start to tick some of them off like me.

It’s really hard for me to read stories like this because to me these people are my inspiration and to be told Im there’s puts tears in my eyes.  Joanne is almost the same age as me.

Had a message today from Lauren Humphrey who was one of the contestants in Shipwrecked 2008 wanting to offer herself up for a date on the auctions.  It’s really great when the celebrities come to you as opposed to begging for their participation.

Emma Wickenden from the Charity Commissions offered to place our link on their resources section on their site which I was really pleased about.  Also Maria from Idealist.org emailed me to say thank you for forwarding details about their website onto my registered charities and asked if I would be interested in being included in their December newsletter which of course I accepted!  Their newsletter reaches thousands of people from charities to volunteers all over the UK so Im so grateful to them for doing this.  She said they would be in touch soon to talk about the contents.

Ross from ThirdSectorForums also added a thread about my site today which was great.  You can see the thread Here

Now that we have CDWow on board Ive been trying to work out all blooming day how to add images with links into the signature on my emails.  It works but every time someone replies to an email they send me the images in my signature come back in their reply as attachments.  It’s driving me crazy I hate not knowing how to do things!  I need to get CDWow’s logo in there too so that we can start getting donations from them.

The web designer has been working on my gallery pages last couple of weeks.  Im eager to get these complete as there is so much potential there for sponsors and the celebrities.  We add images from the date, links and advertising for the sponsor of the date and any additional information the celebrity themselves want to add.  That way everyone helps everyone.

Manolo (My flash banner designer) sent through the amended updates its taking a while to complete but I want to make sure they are 100% right before sending the adverts onto other websites to help me promote the website.

Linda Sung (a fundraiser) Raised £364.38 today for her Leeds half marathon.  With the Gift Aid on top of that adding an extra £114.70!!  Her money went to Andrea’s Gift in support of Rent A Date For Charity which meant that the funds raised will go towards my £1million target.  That now brings the total amount donated to charity up to £18,104!!  Im so chuffed to know that I have helped to raise that amount of money in less than a year is just fantastic it makes what Im doing all that more exciting.

Anyone can help towards my target by running fundraisers whether it’s a run, ball etc all they have to do is choose a charity from my designated charities list and use our already formed justgiving account to donate the funds to.  If they did this separately opening their own justgiving account the funds would not go towards my target so this was brilliant to see today.

Sarah-Jane had completed our letter which they are sending out to all the celebrity agents so things are starting to roll.

I forgot to mention...  How canning is this!  Yesterday I was out with my mum and her friend Lisa in Barnet and Finchley putting up our new posters.  I bumped into this guy who was drinking his coffee in Phil’s cafe in Finchley Central.  We got talking and it turned out he was a voice over.  Anyway he took my details and today sent over an MP3 mix down for his recordings.  He said that he would be more than happy to help with my radio commercial all I had to do was get a script to him.

Also today I had another direct email from another celebrity.  Nicola Willoughby!

Nicola is a former Miss UK/England and Miss World contestant.  She is also a full time model who has graced FHM, More Magazine, and many others.

Kimmy Holland also contacted me today (a fundraiser) she wanted me to help her find a Bond place through one of my charities to run on behalf of us so I forwarded her details on.  Previously she has run many marathons raising thousands for charity so I was delighted to help her.

Chris (the voice over guy) came back to me today.  I had no idea about licences and stuff to use music in the background of an ad.  You have to apply for the right to use someone’s music which makes sense but it can cost hundreds of pounds.  You learn something new every day!

CDWoW came back to us today with a fantastic offer to help us raise some extra money for the cause. They have offered a 50p discount on CDs, DVDs and Games for all our registered users and, in addition to that – they are giving us 3% on all sales that come through our site!  That certainly picked my mood up today I think I woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.

So all I need to do now is advertise CDWoW on our site and let all the users know about it will be amazing to see how well we do in the first year.

Sarah-Jane from Lehmann Communications got back to me today they will be starting to cal up all the celebrity agents and charities soon to get more confirmed auctions and charities registered on the site. 

Late last night I forwarded details of all the volunteers that have come forward to help me which Ive not taken on to all the charities that are registered with me.  You never know every little helps.  Most of the charities don’t have the room to take anyone on as they all seem to work from home but they were grateful for me passing the details on nether the less.  At the end of the day we are all here to help one another so I also forwarded on details of websites which I thought they might find useful which I am now adding to my LINKS tab on the site to help others.

I had a legal volunteer working on my terms and conditions on my site since we have made some many changes and additional features I need to get these updates.  They came through today I just need to get them put up as soon as possible.  The other thing I totally forgot about was my FAQ’s page these are so out of date now I really should get onto that but you know what it’s like as soon as you make space to do it something urgent comes up.  Im sure everyone will understand so Im not too worried.  Anyway if they have a question they normally email us so not panicking for now but it’s defiantly something I need to get together.

Emma from Bagstodie4.com forwarded me some articles today about how to get the web optimisation up on your website.  I forwarded these on to the other Emma at MyGiftStreet.com as she too has just started and everyone knows it takes a while to get to grips with everything so anything I can do to help anyone I will.

So with that in mind and knowing how much people look for advise and help when setting up websites I added this document to my own Blog.  To find a list of ways to improve and promote your website please CLICK HERE

I thought it would be a good idea to put a forum thread up like an opinion poll to see who people would choose to bid on if they had a chance.  That way I’d get an idea of what TOP celebrities to go for on the site.  I had a good few responses back but it’s made me think that perhaps I should get one to add to the website that people could volunteer to complete to help with our statistics and things.  Knowing your statistics is really important on a site it helps you target the right audiences let along the right advertisers etc.

Woke up relatively early today. The site was begining to take shape again after that horrid hacker!  Id posted another thread today on several forums for help with a radio advertisement.  I’d seen previously a thread offering people some free radio advertising space on an internet based site so I contacted them yesterday.

The offer was from a company called Headline Promotions.  They are a Press and PR company.  John the MD has a small team specialising in manufacturing, retail, internet radio, security, professional services, hospitality, leisure & entertainment sectors and are well-versed across many sectors so I was extremely grateful when he offered to help.

All I needed to do now was get the advert made up and I didn’t have a clue how.  That’s where these handy forums come in!  Couple more posts and already I had people wanting to lend a hand.

www.mygiftstreet.com is an online gift site Id contacted them a couple of days ago and we exchanged banners for our sites.  They are also going to give me something to add to the prize draws so that they can benefit from the free advertising they will get which can last from 1-6 weeks which is great as prizes bring traffic to the site and it’s all about getting your hits up!  God I sound like I know what Im talking about but I haven’t got a clue!

We have another volunteer on board from today a lovely lady called Jenny she is going to be working on our advertising revenue so Ive had to get the rate cards all sorted today which has taken best part of the day.  I think our rates are really reasonable and Im sure prospective advertisers will be interested especially if they know it’s helping to aid a very good cause.  Im just looking forward to paying my mum back for everything I hate being in debt but I guess it’s a worthwhile bill.

Had an email come through from Web Windows who are a leading media advertising resource for buying magazine ads.  They were offering a free advertising space in the Sunday Telegraph Magazine but I had missed the boat for that.  I was sent through a couple of quotes to advertise with 70% off the actual price which really would have been a great deal it’s just unfortunate that we don’t have the funds to do advertising like this just yet.  Can you imagine the response we could get from one ad in the Telegraph!

Still no progress with David Lloyd membership it’s a shame as I think their association with my site and how they helped me would go down really well with my clientele.  Nether the less both Sabrina and Mandy from RPR are on the case so Im positive we should get something from them.

Since the launch of my site I have had about 4 different web designers working on it.  The current designer is working on his own projects so Ive had to look for a new one to cover the time he has off.  I posted an ad for a volunteer to help out and had one come back today which looks really promising.  I just can’t afford to pay any more money out on the website developments right now so any help I can get would be great.

No phone calls or text messages for nearly 24 hours now!  Tough love obviously works.

One thing I need to learn is to not let things get to me.  I do it all the time with work, love and friendships.  I may preach that you need to live to the max and not let things get to you but we are human and things do get to you, I guess the lesson is to get over it!

My friend Gareth came over this morning to measure up for some blinds in the bedroom and living room.  I live and work in my living room and it’s not the biggest space so getting blinds instead of curtains should certainly open up things.

Gareth has a blind company called All Kinds of Blinds based in Totteridge and Whetstone and also one in Woodford they service the whole of South East, Hertfordshire, London and Essex and I have to say I was really happy with my quote!  The quality of the wood and finishes are outstanding.

Work was busy as usual.  Sabrina my PA/General manager is back on board and busy as ever she managed to strike a deal with www.CDwow.com

Not only that we contacted Theo Paphitis from the Dragons Den appealing for sponsorship so fingers crossed we get some kind of response from that too.

Ive been offered a piece of software which will allow me to display my Press page in a magazine format you know the ones where you click the corner of the page and the page turns to show you the next article?  It’s brilliant so Sabrina has been emailing all the papers, magazines etc today to try and get high resolution PDF’s to put on there. 

Had some very exciting news today.  Nicola McLean who is currently in Im a Celebrity Get Me Out of here has agreed to go up for auction as a meet and greet!  The auction won’t happen until the new year but her agents are happy to help with the promotion of her auction and what with the show finishing soon we should generate a lot of interest on the site and in turn awareness and funding.  I love it when we get celebrity support it gives me a real buzz.

Also Gareth from All Kinds of Blinds asked me to send over sponsorship details as their company would really like to help out.  Ive not put anything together yet but will work on that sometime over the next few weeks as this is something Im desperate for right now.  Mum has been paying all the bills and the debt is slowly picking up.

I posted a thread on the UKBusinessForums appealing for help to put together a sponsorship package and a guy called Jon from Halcony Appeals got in touch sending over a template for me to go by.  Halcony Appeals are a fundraising organisation specialising in the Charity Sector. They directly raise money for the core and project funding requirements helping people achieve increased levels of success. I forwarded this onto Sabrina as she was going to concentrate on putting it together but it was great to have as I just don’t have a clue how it all works.

Sponsors can sponsor anything from a batch of poster/flyer prints to wages to advertising the possibilities of sponsorship avenues are endless, well so Ive learnt today.

The day ended on a low note.  Someone hacked into the software and changed all the page templates on the auction.  I was gutted.  All the hours and money spent have gone down the pan.  Why would people do something like this?  It disgusts me.  So Ive had to change all the passwords and pay out for the designers to spend time working on it.

Didn’t get to be until very late what with the site going up the wall and the amount of emails I had though today I didn’t finish until 4am.  I know I need to slow down as everyone tells me to every day but people need to understand that without financial backing things have to get done and so that only leaves me and Sabrina to get it done.  God bless her she is as bad as me working all hours!

Had a phone call at 9am this morning from the police they took my statement and told me to log everything from now on.  Im going to look at getting a solicitor tomorrow too.

I thought seeing as this girl could be decent Id give her the chance of facing her parents or facing the police so I called her house first thing and spoke to one of her family members.  They kind of new about the history and knew there was something up with her something more than just the texts. 

So Ive left the ball in their court to talk to her if they can’t stop her then the only way that will is to pursue this in court which to be honest I don’t have time nor the energy for but it seems it would be the only way.  She is very manipulative in her texts and tries to make remarks like “take me to court, believe me you’ll lose friends” as if I mean Im not sure what planet she lives on but Im the one that’s being abused here anyone who knows me knows that and “you know my address if police wanna c me? Got a busy day tomorrow with your friend!” like Im supposed to care?  At the end of the day the reason I am telling you all this is because I want her to read this and realise exactly what she’s been doing.  I know she stalks by Facebook profile as a friend of mine blocked her yesterday after I had blocked her and she spotted that within minutes sending abusive texts about it.  I didn’t know until a bit later but it all makes sense now.

She knows she has a problem but refused to face it well this time she is going to have to.

Ive spent the rest of the day working.  Not much up for going out or doing anything Im too bloody anxious for that.  This way I get to concentrate on what’s important and that’s my site my health my friends and my family.

Who knows what’s going to happen now with this situation but I can tell you Im not lying down easily not this time.

Had bit of an emotional evening last night not sure what was wrong with me probably due on or something but just couldn’t stop crying. 

My mate came over quite late after pub hours with a couple of his mates I managed to get one of his mates to auction him off as a slave auction on the site being the first entrant!  It was good to have a bit of company don’t like being alone when I feel like that.

My mate crashed over in the living room we were supposed to be going fishing together but I didn’t wake up until 12 and was shattered and he was the same.

My step dad Ricky came over with my brother Andrew and his girlfriend Jen.  Andrew had written his car off a couple of weeks ago slipping on the ice on the road so he had left it outside my place since then.  They grabbed all the stuff they needed from his KA and Andrew tried to fix my laptop which had been given to me by a really generous company unfortunately it turned out that the hard drive was buggered and Id already handed the other one they gave me out.  Not so bad though my brother knew how to fix it would just mean that I couldn’t give it to Sabrina until it was fixed which could take a couple of weeks.

They left and my friend Shabana came round with her little girl Layla she is such a cutie!  Within 5 minutes of them arriving so did my mum’s mate Lisa and Nadine my cousin (Luke’s sister).  My mum was in the area looking at houses and dropped the two off to wait around mine.

My aunty Silvia has her own beauty business so she asked me to designing her business cards on Vista using her own design that her husband (my uncle) had made up.  It took me a few hours but I finally got it right in the end.  Mum turned up a bit later so I had a house full.

Typical Greeks!  The first thing my family do when they come to my house or any house actually is head straight to the fridge!  They are unbelievable and eat you out of house and home!  Mind you can’t complaint Im exactly the same...

My mate Alana came round with her littlen Amelia just before dropping her to her grans who happened to live 2 streets away.  She popped in so I could see her and then came back about an hour later.  We headed into Winchmore Hill for a meal at Kampug it’s my favourite Thai restaurant buffet place they bring the food to your table for you too.  We ate our faces off and it was good to have a catch up.  Girls being girls the only subject on the menu was men!

Ive never mentioned any of this before in my blog as there seemed no need but seeing as it’s making a huge impact in my life I thought it was about time especially given the current circumstances.

When I first moved to Barnet I met Dan my earlier boyfriend of 7 years and at the same time met a girl who worked with him.  (I won’t be naming names).  This girl and I became really good friends and for years we were in each other’s pockets.  Until one day something was to happen that really turned the relationship we had around.  This girl confessed that she felt more for me than a friend.  That I wasn’t particularly bothered with but when it started to get out of hand was when she would sent messages after messages and turn up at my door shouting abuse and things when she was drunk acting all jealous and things being very protective.

This girl was such a good person its only when she had drink in her that she would change.  Everyone around me saw it.  Being so close I felt I had to be there for her there was obviously a lot more too it then that and Im not one to turn my back on someone unless I have to.

So to cut a very long story short and there is more than this I could tell I ended up having to call the police on this girl as it turned into a harassment case she was stalking me all the time and she was cautioned. 

This girl and I didnt talk for over 2 years until we bumped into each other at my loco co-op.  We spoke a couple of times and then became friends again.  Id forgiven her and put it all behind me and she reassured me that she had changed and wouldn’t do anything like that again.  This sort of relationship between us, on, off, on, off continued for ages up until about 5 weeks ago. 

We had all been at a mutual friends hen do and warned this person not to drink too much and ruin her best friend’s night.  We all love a drink and we all love to have fun but this person takes everything to extreme.  She ended up getting chucked out for being overly drunk and we all went with her.

In the cab on the way back she got really out of hand, kicking the cabs door and punching the armchairs in the back.  She had to pay her way and we asked her to get out of the cab to get her money she thought we were trying to rip her off or something and ended up getting out jumping into the street without her shoes on stopping the cars coming by going mental in the street!  Im surprised no one got out of their cars and hit her or something the way she was carrying on.  This was typical behaviour of her once she had a drink she was like Jekle and Hyde.

She eventually got back in the taxi and to restrain her I had to pull her face right up to mine all the time wanting to knock her out and shout into her ear to sort herself out!  She retaliated by punching me in the back of the head 2 or 3 times and hitting her best mate in the face for trying to restrain her!  Needless to say we kicked her out of the taxi!

So there you have it this was the final straw for me.  Im not sure why I let it get this far really to be honest she is such a kind and caring person when she isn’t under the influence I always forgive her and go back to being friends.

After this happened I refused to talk to her ever again unless she became T total.  This was the only way I could guarantee she wouldn’t text me text after text when she was drunk which normally then gets abusive.  My friend finally forgave her but it was the first time ever she had done anything like this to her so gave her the benefit of the doubt.  I thought by giving her tough love she would appreciate it and agree.  And agree she did until the following weekend.

The following weekend I was at mine and had a few mates over for drinks this person was out with her work mates and persisted to text me asking to come round I told her no straight away because there was drink here and I didn’t want her making a fool out of herself let alone me.  Because Id said no and because she was already drinking the abusive texts that I received didn’t stop until the Sunday.  All weekend.  Sunday came and I told her to take her things she had lying around and leave.

This girl was apologetic as usual and upset to the point of breakdown.  I felt sorry for her but insisted the only way to help her was to stop being friends.  She left and things were amicable.

Well since then and we are talking 5 weeks ago I have received text messages almost every day.  I told her to delete my number and to leave me alone which she didn’t and every day she was sending me texts.  The were nice texts you know caring kind and sympatric text saying she was always there for me that sort of things but they were almost like she was having a chat with herself.  Each time not replying the texts just came and came.

Last night was the finishing touches for me.  I finally text her back and told her in no uncertain terms to F*** off and leave me the hell alone and that she had been warned.  Nothing was stopping her not even a phone call from her friend.  She kept texting me telling me to block her number I didn’t know how and thought why should I do that it’s her that’s needs to stop texting and this wasn’t a game!

I finally called the police.  She had already been cautioned before I knew that this time it would have to stop if I involved them Id tied everything else and this was what I had to resort to.

Having text her to tell her she’d been reported the texts still came through.  It was a busy night for the police and she didn’t stop texting to 2.30am remembering Ive only been out of hospital a week and this is what Im having to deal with I got my cousin Alex to call her he was also a police officer.  I thought if he calls her to tell her to leave me alone as it was just making her case worse it would help things but oh no that didn’t stop her either.  It was obvious she was under the influence she wouldn’t have the guts to do this soba.

So most of my night was spent being woken up by that d*** head I refuse to change my number and didn’t see why I had to turn my phone off what if something were to happen what then?

I had a phone call from my cousin last night at about 10 o clock. He lives in Sunderland, he’s been promising me to come down and he always said that he’s going to come last minute and never arrives. So when he said to me I’m driving down tonight to see you I didn’t believe him until I got a knock at the door at 3am. He’s crazy! I haven’t seen him in absolutely ages, not since his sister’s wedding (my cousin Joanna). So he got to me at about 3am, I’d probably had about a couple of hours sleep. We both crashed out and woke up at 10am with Princess was barking her head off at some random person walking past my door. She absolutely drives me insane, she’s normally quite good but I’ve had to put some frosting on my window to try and prevent her from seeing people walking past the windows, let alone people seeing in – just to prevent her from barking all the time.

As soon as I woke up, first thing I did was go to my laptop; James sat on the other computer and started showing me bits and pieces on his new business, Bronze Eye Beach. He has a sun bed shop in Sunderland and said that he’s going to help promote rent a date by putting posters up all over the place and hand out flyers all round the industrial estate there which is full of people working in all sorts of call centres and office environments, so that should be great.

I called Emma; I normally call her on a daily basis, probably about 5-10 times a day. She probably gets sick of me but Emma and I exchange business ideas all the time and help each other out as much as possible. She’d told me about a website UKbusinessforums, she’d emailed me previously about this website but I didn’t have the chance to look it up. Well, when I checked it out today I couldn’t believe my luck, it was perfect for what I needed to do. The perfect place to get solutions and ideas from people all over the UK regarding any business issues or questions you have it’s a great site to network on. So what did I do? I posted all over the forums asking for all sorts of help. One was calling all charities asking them to register on the site to help us fund their cause, the other was asking for prize donations and free prize giveaways to add to the prize draw pages which are currently being updated at the moment and another was for a contra deal, where you exchange advertising banners. I had quite a few responses, three of which came back wanting to do contra deals. The main one was a new site that’s going to be launched in November called www.thirdsectorforums.co.uk. The guy there who ran it, Ross, had checked out one of my forums posts on rent a date for charity and loved the concept of my site and wanted to know more about exchange of advertising space. Ross is due to launch his site on the 20th November in tandem with the UK’s social enterprise day, their site is 100% free and volunteer led with some support from private sectors. Ross currently volunteer's for the Scottish Community Foundation and works for Family Support Partnership Lanarkshire.

Ross was willing to offer me a top space banner which would be on all of the pages of his site – which is brilliant for me! So in return I’ve offered him 2 months advertising space with a review after this. Ross’s site is basically a networking forum site where people can share ideas about ways to market and fundraise that sort of thing. It’s absolutely brilliant for what Im doing and for any charity out there who are in need or advise or support in a number of areas. I’m guessing that all charities and press and media and everybody else wants to get involved on this site so do register on the 20th November if you get a chance – especially if you’re in the charity sector. I’m sure it will be a really good site to go to.

I also had an email through from Sarah-Jane at Lehmann Communications she had been to the director of her company with the proposal for helping me out on the site and they put together some really great things – not only will they be getting a volunteer in to help me out but they’ll be working on things like getting celebrities on board for the meet and greet or dinner dates or just to send memorabilia and also trying to get more charities involved for me.

Some good news...  Mum told me today that Sabrina was coming back on the 17th to work for me – I’m so excited, I can’t wait. We work so well together and I just need that extra push to get me going again. It’s really hard when you feel so tired everyday and you want to crack on with things, because it’s your baby and you want to do what you do best but when fatigue hits you there’s just no controlling it. So I took a bit of time out this afternoon, had a long hot soak in the bath and bathed Princess as well. My web designer had done a few amendments on the home page and things and we got a couple more auctions on the “coming soon” section on the main front page such as Jon Snow, the channel 4 news presenter and signed memorabilia from “The Feeling”. So if there is anyone out there reading all this and you can help out by getting celebrities on board to do some auctions from the New Year when we re-launch please get in touch because I desperately need to get some more people on board and like I said it’s for a great cause and they can choose any charity which they would like to donate their proceeds to. My mum’s got the car this evening and I totally forgot that I didn’t have my car and I was planning on going out for the first time without alcohol. It was going to be such a disaster I know because the temptation of having a drink is just always around you but it turns out that my car wasn’t there and I couldn’t go so I’m chilling out for the rest of the evening, relaxing. I’m hoping to go away for the weekend, tomorrow or at least for the day for a bit of fishing. There’s nothing more relaxing than sitting by a river with a nice hot flask of tea, catching all the trout.

Last few days have just been boring; all I’ve done is take it easy at home while mum waited on me hand and foot. Bless her, I know she’s so tired and yet I couldn’t do anything for myself. My headaches have completely eased off now in fact I’m almost back to my normal self apart from feeling extremely tired.

I’m planning on taking up the gym next week, I’ve been going to David Lloyd for quite some time, my dad and Zoe kindly bought me membership there as a Christmas present. Because I’d been so busy I hadn’t been going and now I’ve realised it’s time to actually take time out for myself even if that means going for a swim once a day, just something to take things off my mind and to get me back into a routine, not to mention to get me fit and healthy again. I’d been trying at the beginning of last week to get my membership free at David Lloyd. We’d filmed our brain tumour awareness DVD at David Lloyd and at the time they did say that they’d be able to sort out some kind of membership for me so I’m hoping they’ll give me a free one. I’ve been in contact with them, I’ve not heard anything so far but I’ll chase that up next week when I’m feeling more together.

I went out last night for the first time to the cinema, I went with Dan, and we went to see Quantum of Solace, the new James Bond movie. I absolutely love Daniel Craig!  Mum had gone home with my dad last night, they all came round for dinner but she had gone home and came back this morning. She didn’t get here till about 11 o clock, I was supposed to be up and ready so that she could drop me at Barnet, she was borrowing my car for a few days to go and see my Aunty Sylvia in Norfolk, with her friend Shirley. Sylvia, so you know is the mother of Luke, who is my gay cousin and he couldn’t be any more gay if he tried. He’s hilarious! And although I probably haven’t mentioned him loads in my diary, he’s been around for me and we’re always on holiday with each other.

The phone went this morning and I went to grab it, the phone switched off; it’s been doing this all the time. I went to the bedroom to grab that phone and that too was off. What I didn’t realise, me being me and how stupid and thick I can be sometimes – I swear I should have been born blonde… I didn’t realise that the handsets took batteries as they sat in a charger, charging. So when I did realise that they took batteries I exchanged them, but I exchanged them for normal batteries. Anyway, cut a long story short, they should have been rechargeable batteries so all the batteries have melted inside the phone handsets - breaking them, so I knew I had to get a phone straight away, which would hold my mum up.

Mum took me into Finchley and I went to Argos and bought a new handset. Then she dropped me off in Barnet, I had to get my blackberry changed because it had been playing up on me as well and this was the second time in two weeks I’d changed it. I changed the Blackberry and then went and got my nails done and treated myself to a couple of bottles of nail varnish – what girl doesn’t have nail varnish in their house? Well that girl’s me. So I thought I’d treat myself.

I was about to get the bus home it was going to be the first time I got on public transport in a long time, well, saying that I do get the tube now and then but that’s not so bad – I hate buses, especially waiting around in the cold and rain. Then my friend Piers and I remembered that the day before I had promised that we’d go out for dinner or something, I hadn’t seen him in absolutely ages; in fact, we hadn’t seen each other for absolutely years. He used to be one of our clubbing partners when we all used to hang out at Eros night club in Enfield; I heard its shut down now?  It was like our local hang out and he was one of the guys we used to hang around with. Anyway this year I put an event on facebook for my birthday party and invited everyone and he turned up with my mate Steve. I couldn’t believe it, I hadn’t seen them in years, and it was such a great surprise. Anyway he ended up coming to meet me at the nail shop and we to Chopstick Exchange in Whetstone for some food. I was absolutely shattered. I hate feeling tired I actually feel like I’m on a different planet. But the food was great and so was the company.

Emma had called me last night and told me that she had gone to the psychic fair. What basically happened is that she was sitting in the audience and the guy at the front, the psychic, says things and he picked someone in the audience, he had picked Emma, who was absolutely shocked, she grabbed the microphone shaking, she told me, and when he was asking her questions about where she lived - he got the door number right, he told her the name of her the road, he mentioned about her grandparents who had recently passed away from pneumonia. He even went so far as to say to her, which completely shocked her and Carly and Clare who were with her and both good friends of mine… he then turned round and said, “You’ve been looking after someone recently, haven’t you? Someone very close, I’ve got the name Lisa”. Well apparently Emma was telling me she couldn’t believe it and that all of them looked each other in shock. I’m really into psychics and tarot cards and angel reading, this is something that a friend of mine introduced me to and since then I’ve never turned back. Every reading I’ve ever had has been spot on. Remember the woman I told you about, Rosy, my tarot card reader? She gets it spot on every time with me, for example when I went there and she had no idea what I did or who I was and said that she could see me in a glossy magazine?  ELLE?  Well I have to admit I thought what a load of crap!  (Sorry Rose) but you know what she was right!  She was right about everything! So I wasn’t surprised that he’d done this but I was surprised that he’d picked her out. But maybe it’s because three of my friends were there. I don’t know. Anyway, the good part of it is that he said that I may have a few months where I’m going to be unwell but that I was going to recover and I was going to be absolutely fine. Positive mind, positive outset!  That’s two psychics that have said that now?!

Pierce dropped me home after lunch and installed my phone for me; he works for Sky so he’s handy with wires and then headed home.

I started work about 4pm today which is an amazement I can’t believe I actually took some time out for myself and although it felt good I felt bad.  I had a few emails (Under 100) to deal with but nothing major. Healy’s printers had agreed to print off 5,000 posters of A3 size for me for absolutely nothing; in return I give them some advertising space on the flyers and on my site.  Not a bad deal!  So, they sent me an email to say that they will be sent to me by Wednesday. I’m so excited, this is the first lot of stuff that I can actually get out and start putting around in windows and shops which will help get the word out there about rent a date and it hasn’t cost us anything – which is great because we’re absolutely in dire straits at the moment. So hopefully by the time we get these posters out next week, there should be a lot more interest in the site and a lot more auctions taking place.

Neha popped over this evening for a cup of tea and a chocolate twirl!  Was really good to see her we were both shattered though.  We spent the best part of the time looking for ideas to create Christmas cards from Rent A Date For Charity and I thought I did quite well considering Im self taught on Photoshop.

Oh yes, I completely forgot!  I had a call yesterday from a girl called Sarah-Jane she works for a company called Lehmann Communications Sarah-Jane and I had been in contact after I sent a message on a website which Im signed up to called UKPRESS which is a tool for all journalists, PR, Agents to source information and request for media things its actually really good.  So I put out a message that I was looking for PR/Agents to lend a couple of hours of their time a week voluntarily to help with the promotion or Rent A Date.  Anyway Sarah-Jane called to say that she was putting a proposal over to her boss and really wanted to help out.  Turns out they have a couple of spare desks and she was happy to employ people to work there for me with training from them on a voluntary basis which has to be one of the best opportunities for anyone out there wanting to get into the world of PR/Marketing, they said they would even cover the travel cost.  So I put Satish forward.  Satish worked for me for a while from home and I know with a little bit of support and a push in the right direction he could work wonders, plus he knows the ropes which helps!

I can see this being the start of a beautiful relationship!  I knew faze to Rent A Date and a new start…

Overall, today I would say that I’ve been extremely tired but apart from that, pretty much ok. Headaches seem to have worn off all together (Fingers, legs and toes crossed!).

Don’t think I woke up till 12 o clock today. I’ve noticed already that just by sleeping my headaches have died down. It was so good to be back home in my bed and snuggling up to Princess.

I had a few visitors today, later on in the afternoon. Emma came up with baby Jake; he was so funny, cute as ever. I gave him a big teddy bear which he calls Connell, just the way he says it, and the teddy bear was as big as him. He looked so cute when he came out of the house wobbling with the teddy bear between his arms. He models for Marks and Spencer’s; he’s got to be one of the cutest 2 year olds I’ve ever met.

Then Alana came up, she came without Amelia and Dave, they were at her mum’s having roast dinner. I wondered where my roast had gone hmm… next time I’ll have to pick her up on that. I could’ve done with the meals on wheels that day! Shabana popped over too. Although there were quite a few visitors it was good to see their faces. By the time they’d all left I was quite tired and ended up having an early night and yes, guess what? I didn’t work ALL day.

Again, headaches seemed to be easing off more. I would imagine it’s because I had three doses (via a drip) of my antibiotics which were quite so they should be kicking in by now? Although I didn’t notice for the first couple of days I was in.  I hope to God they go for good though this time...

I was woken up this morning again at 6 o clock by one of the nurses. First thing I did when I looked at her was burst into tears, I had been in so much pain all night and normally every three hours I was prescribed with my next medication trying to ease the off the pain but last night they had an emergency on the ward and there were no nurses to be seen and trust me and my bad luck to have the only bed which the nurses’ buzzer doesn’t work. So I’d been up and down to the toilet to check where the nurses were at the same time almost collapsing and no one was around. I don’t blame them whatsoever they were really busy. I just wish it wasn’t last night of all nights when all things were just getting worse and not better. So there I was crying to the nurse, not knowing what to do with myself, I was an awful state and every time I cried it hurt. First thing I did was ring my dad and burst into tears on the phone to my step-mum, Zoe, she couldn’t understand a word I was saying, bless her and she’d recently just got out of hospital herself. I put Zoe onto the nurse as she’d previously been a nurse before and knew all the terminology and asked her to confirm what tablets I’d been taking. I was so desperate for more tablets, anything to reduce this pain would’ve done right now. Another doctor had been round last night and told me he thought I should give up drinking, he told me that when you drink you dehydrate and your brain swells, which obviously is no good for me seeing as I haven’t got any room left in my brain anyway. So it looks like all those years of partying and going wild and lifting my top up have all gone astray because drink was the only thing that got me going to do it all. Yep, I know, crazy girl.

I guess that’s not to say my fun has stopped because it’s only just begun as far as I’m concerned, I aim to have as much fun as possible starting right now. What I have realised with being here is that I am lonely and that I do want to settle down. Who with? That’s a good question. I’ve always had a flame for a certain person who in return loved me for a while but has stopped and although I still have that old flame in my life he doesn’t want to know too much water under the bridge and all that. At least we can still be friends. Then I was seeing a guy, a tiny bit younger than me, who works full time and also has his own business, he was lovely, really nice and we’re still good friends and have a bit of fun now and then. But he’s off on his travels at the moment and I’m not so sure he’s ready to settle down. When we first started seeing each other, we were both happy to have a casual relationship but as you get to know someone these things change.  Well they did for me anyway.

I got sent home later that evening, there wasn’t much else they could do for me at the hospital and I knew I’d be better off at home, sleeping. I didn’t get an hour kip in this place, so my step-dad, Ricky, came to collect me with my brother Pete. Pete has just turned 13 and he’s just dropped his balls!  Speaking to him is like speaking to my dad it’s so deep!  Mum had been saying in my place for a while and was planning on staying for a whole week, just till I got myself back on my feet again. I’ve been told that my remission period could last up to 18 months and that it’s probably only just begun, so I’ve got a lot of relaxation to do. Saying that, everyone knows what I’m like, I can’t rest easily. My mum had brought me round my laptop in the morning so I managed to catch up on a few emails. Nothing urgent, thank god, but some good ones at that. A couple more printers had come forward offering their services in return for advertising space on flyers and on my site.

Here’s me still going on about work, what can I say? That’s me. I can’t help it. But at least it gives me something to concentrate on and think about oh yeah and not to mention talk about! I have to say if there is any other brain tumour sufferers out there, right now, who are stuck at home, doing nothing, bored out of their minds and really want to get their teeth stuck into something, something really worthwhile, then please get in contact with me. What better way to support our cause than getting involved together. I’ve already been in touch with one girl through Facebook who was planning on doing a touring event next year with the Girls on Tour so check the group out and add them to your favourites! I’ve got some really great ideas on how we can work together and having already sourced a lot of information, I think together we could work well in doing one of the biggest events of the year … roll on!!  What inspirational people!

It’s now Monday night but I’m trying to catch up on myself with my diary entries so you may find that Im repeating myself a little or missing bits out but I have a tendency to forget what happened 2 minutes ago so this is a fantastic exercise for me.  Also since writing these diary entries I have to admit that it’s almost like a source of counselling.  I mean Im not talking to anyone or getting advice but it feels bloody good to get things out and not to care what’s said or what you do because that’s just the way...  Therapy on a whole new level.

Went to bed early, mum stayed over, I really enjoy her company. Although we argue like cat and dog I love her to bits. We’re too alike, that’s the problem.

So I missed bonfire night and although I was on the 14th floor of Guy’s Hospital I couldn’t see a thing, not a firework to be seen. The weather was absolutely horrid. I’d been awake most of the night, being woken up by the doctors and nurses every three to four hours so I hadn’t had much sleep and my headache was even worse. I’d been taking all different drugs throughout the night and none of them were even touching the pain. It was becoming more and more depressing. Knowing that the tumour hadn’t grown was of consolation, but unfortunately not knowing what the cause was, was causing me even more worry. 2pm came and visiting hours started, my mum came up with Lisa her friend with a back from Primark.  Lisa had bought me some pyjamas and a whole stack of knickers!  She’s got good taste Ill give her that.  Clean toothbrush and facial cleansers.

Most of the day was spent crippled in pain, in and out of sleep. The hospital food was absolutely disgusting; it was my dad’s birthday today as well. I didn’t remember until later on that evening when he planned to come up and visit me. He works in London so it’s easy for him to get to whereas most of my friends are all the way in north London and have families, so coming to visit me probably wasn’t an option but to be honest this is probably the best place for me during this time. I actually managed to rest, although I didn’t sleep I was resting and I wasn’t working, for a change! It did make it hard on me but I knew there was nothing I could do. The doctors came round again in the evening, they said they were going to keep me in for a good few more days; I probably wouldn’t go home till Sunday/Monday. I was a bit upset, I knew I had so much to do and with Sabrina having to leave, I had so much on so things were a little bit worrying especially as I had people working on the web design and I wasn’t able to check what they were doing. But on my mum and dad’s orders my laptop was allowed. Not until I had to anyway.

It was good seeing my dad, we hadn’t been getting on that well recently. I’ve been a bit of a pain in the arse towards him. That’s just me; my temperament goes up and down all the time. I feel really bad that but I can’t control myself. I guess I’ll just have to try and learn. They know me too well anyway and are used to my mood swings so they tend to just brush it off.

Woke up this morning in even more pain, it was so unbearable. I had an appointment in the afternoon at Guy’s Hospital with Professor Gleeson which my mum had booked yesterday as a cancelation appointment.  I made my way to the hospital with my mum feeling worse than ever and arrived dead on time. Normally, we have to wait a while before we’re seen but we were taken straight in. Professor Gleeson wasn’t available to see me so I saw one of his registrars. She was really helpful and caring. I love this place; they treat you as a person not as a number. I felt a little bit embarrassed that I was coming in for headaches but it turns out I was lucky to have gone in, they admitted me straight away.  I didn’t know what was going on all I knew is that they were going to do some blood tests and put me on some antibiotics for any bugs that I might have. I have been having problems with my left ear as I’ve said previously and it’s almost like it’s been infected for months, I’ve never been able to get rid of it. They thought that perhaps the infection had spread to the brain. Mum was with me and as I wasn’t expecting to be admitted, I hadn’t brought anything with me. First time without my laptop, what the hell was I going to do?

I was still waiting in the waiting room waiting to be taken up to my ward; the pain was beginning to become unbearable. They laid me down in what seemed looked like the old style dentist chair, took my blood and inserted a dreaded tube thingy never know what they are called?  You know the one the put in your arm so that they can put you on a drip and feed you with medicine! They dimmed the lights down in the waiting area for me because the lights were really affecting the pain in my head and my neck was too stiff to move, any movement and shooting pains would go through my head. I’m explaining this to you in detail and it sounds like I’m really exaggerating but if anything, if the truth be known, I’m not exaggerating enough. The pain is excruciating, it’s almost like being pushed between two Lorries and not being able to do anything about the pressure. I was on co-codomal before and these still weren’t doing anything. The plan was to get me onto a higher dose of antibiotics and also for some tablet management. They put me in for a CT scan the same day, they weren’t able to get an MRI scan as quickly so the CT scan was the best they could do. Luckily the CT scan came back and from what they could see there hadn’t been any noticeable changes. The area in particular that they were concerned about was by my left ear as previously the scan didn’t show that the tumour had grown inside my ear and it wasn’t until I had my grommet fitted earlier in the year that they did a biopsy and found that it was in fact growing inside. I was wondering and so were the doctors if the pressure behind the ear was caused by the tumour or not. I’m yet to find out.

So I spent the rest of the day in bed in the ward (on the Blundell ward) at Guy’s Hospital on the 14th floor. I was amongst other people all of which were really friendly. There was

Elizabeth, she was sleeping straight opposite me and she’d been recently admitted for a tumour which was in her throat. She had stitches all the way down the side of her neck, I felt so sorry for her. She was in her 70’s, retired as an old English teacher, a really lovely woman and pleasant to speak to. The other girl in there was Tina; she was a mature, Thai lady, absolutely wonderful. She really reminded me of my best friend, Jane, in Thailand when I was living out there. We spoke lots about Bangkok and she spoke lots about her religion Buddhism and how she wanted to take me to the temple somewhere in Surrey where I could work on meditation. I was actually really looking forward to it. I could’ve done with a meditation session right there and then to be honest but we had our talks and it was great and they were all good company. Then there was the woman right next door to me, God bless her, she was really old, probably in her 90’s or something but she sounded like a gremlin, every time she spoke it was as if a gremlin was speaking and every time I tried to talk to her, she just blanked me, turns out she couldn’t hear a thing and could only lip read. Well, I embarrassed myself a few times trying to get through to her anyway.

Amongst the pain and everything else I settled down after my family had been up to visit. I had the worst nights sleep, they kept checking on me every 3 to 4 hours, taking my blood pressure, putting the thermometer in my mouth, checking my pulse, asking me my date of birth, my name and where I was and each time having to reply with the same answer. Very peculiar, but apparently they wanted to keep an eye on me just in case anything worsened, no one knew what they were dealing with.

I’m lying in my bed right now writing this diary entry and all I can think of is how bad my headache has been. For the past week I’ve suffered so badly with headaches and it’s come on all of a sudden. Last time I had a headache was during my remission period after my radiotherapy, it was so severe that it was unbearable and now it’s all starting again. I’ve no idea why it started; the only thing I can think of is that it may have something to do with my left ear. My left ear has problems all the time since I had a grommet fitted to help me hear more clearly as the tumour was growing inside of the ear and it’s always been infected, I can’t see that myself although I’m saying this. I’m a little bit paranoid; anything like headaches or anything where my balance is impaired I get really worried. Anyway, I know it’s not stress because I’m not stressing out anymore I’m just trying to keep myself calm and collected … trying to be a new me.

I had a phone call this morning from my full time employee Sabrina. Sabrina’s been working for me, voluntarily, for the past few months. I can’t tell you how much of a godsend it was having her on board. She’s just brilliant - PR marketing, secretarial you name it, she can do it. I learnt a thing or two from her, unfortunately due to the Christmas period and the credit crunch and everything surrounding it Sabrina had to resign to look for paid work, although that said I’ve only lost an employee but not a friend. She will always remain such a good friend.

So, my morning started off with chasing up emails and working out what to do next. Luckily from out of nowhere, I had an email from a lady called Lisa, she’d recently put herself up on the auctions and informed me that she worked in HR and really wanted to help out and if I needed any help to get in contact. So what did I do? I got in contact and it turns out this could be just what I’m looking for. I’m looking for volunteers from all sorts of avenues to help out with the running of the site; I know it’s really hard to find paid full time volunteers, so I’m going to go for part time employees now on a volunteer basis. Simply because people would rather put in a few hours than all and I need some dedicated hours to help me run this site. At present, I don’t take an income from the site but I’m hoping that will change in the New Year. I want to be able to be making an income on the advertising revenue so that I can pay employees and I can pay people like Sabrina or Lee, who works on my web design, to work full time for me. It only takes a few full time people to be able to get the site to where it needs to go and I just need to be able to cope with that. I’m slightly worried because it’s taken a year and although I’ve made quite a lot of money for the charity, I’ve not made any for myself and instead all I’ve done is borrow money from my mum to be able to pay legal bills and site fees for website design and it’s still continuing. I’m a little worried because of the credit crunch, but what can I do? This is what I live for and this is my baby and I have to persevere with it, no matter what.

Having spent most of the day with a major headache, my fridge was absolutely bare. I’ve been meaning to go shopping for the past two weeks but just haven’t had the time. So I set off at 3 ‘o’ clock to get my routine shopping, I almost thought I was going to collapse whilst I was shopping round for all my bits and pieces. The headache was just unbearable. I felt I was going to pass out at one point my headache was so severe; people must have thought I was crazy – because I kept stopping and holding my head in all the aisles. I eventually made it home, unpacked, put the shopping away and sat back down at my computer to finish off some bits of work. I couldn’t concentrate for the life of me. I’ve spoken to Mandy today at RPR Media, Mandy has been a great support through this. She works in PR and marketing and gave me a lead for a managing agent called First Artist Management. I emailed them today and they got back in contact with me and it looks like I’ll be meeting up with them next week I’m not sure how it’ll work though because they only work on monthly fees rather than commission only, all I know is that if I have an agent or a PR now working for me, to help promote both myself and the website it would take a lot of pressure off what I’m doing now. Most of the magazine deals I’ve been in so far have been ones that I’ve managed to get myself. I’ve had a little bit of help from my previous agents Phil Hall Associates and also from word of mouth but most of it is from pure hard work.

So, here I am, it’s Monday and I’m back to square one, working on my own again. I still have the guys working on the site but I’m having to pay them and that’s really a struggle for me at the moment or should I say my mum seeing as she is paying on my behalf. I still have Sabrina, she will always be there helping me out as and when she can but it’s no good; I really need to get people on board. I don’t think people realise that it’s just me that works on the site and with all the little flaws that it does have, people seem think that there’s still a team behind all the administration - but there isn’t. People, it’s just me.

I’ve been getting some poster and advertisement designs done and I had a look at the proofs today, there are a couple of amendments to make. A girl called Laura Cumming is making the actual poster which is a fantastic design; I absolutely love it so I put it up on the auction today. I’ve had to put each one up for £1.95 each not for the poster cost but for the postage A3 posters are hard to send without bending unless you use hard A3 envelopes or tubes which in itself would have cost the same as the posters its madness!  At least now people can start ordering them although I have emailed lots and lots of printers today to ask if they want to do a contra deal. A contra deal is where someone gives us something i.e. a service for free and in return we give them advertising space and mentions on the site. A couple of them have come back with interest so I’m hoping, fingers crossed, that tomorrow we’ll be able to secure a deal to be able to print my posters. I think it’ll be absolutely fantastic once these posters are done, that way people can order them individually and I can send them out to people to put up in their workplace, their shop or anywhere really and then I can go round all of the major towns and hand them out in shops and get them all over the place so at least then we can start getting my site seen. I desperately need more people putting things up for auction let alone themselves, I think it’s been a very slow process but things should start ticking away nicely now once the posters and advertisements go out. I’ve been really lucky although the credit crunch has hit us all I guess it’s helping me in one way because I’m being offered free advertising space in magazines and newspapers. I’m shortly due to have some space in three issues of a hair magazine - which I can’t wait – a full page for nothing, it’s absolutely brilliant, these opportunities I just have to grab while I can.

So it’s 11.30 and I’m in bed and I’m absolutely shattered and my head is still pounding I’ve taken the last of my tablets co-codamol they’re so strong – you’re not supposed to feel sleepy but I always do and it makes me feel like I’m waffling all the time and I’m mumbling my words. I’ve taken about six so far today and I think you can take eight in a day. I don’t want to be going on like this, so I’m definitely going to have to get checked out this week, I just need to pull my finger out my arse and get on with it. One thing I’m not good at is keeping up with my medical stuff – I try to brush it aside and hope that everything will get better but it never does. So, there I’ll be, back in the hospital again sometime this week. Great – I can’t wait, really looking forward to it!

I’ve still not been keeping you all informed about my previous diary entries. There’s so much to tell you, I just wouldn’t know where to start. So I think the best thing for me to do from now on is to start doing my daily entries and perhaps filling you all in with a little bit of my past, little bit of my secrets and a few bits about my love life flings and more.., let’s face it Im single living my life and well Im only human, Watch the space I have quite a bit to tell!

I’m sorry it’s taken so long. I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to actually put a diary entry together. A lot’s happened in the past couple of months, it’s all happened so fast that I’ve barely had time to think.

I had my radiotherapy (gamma knife) in the beginning of June. A boy I'd met on holiday in Portugal came over in time to support me during radiotherapy. In the time leading up to my surgery I became very anxious and emotional everything was happening so quickly I didn’t realise that was really happening was happening to me it was almost like I was living in a different world. The day of the surgery my mum accompanied me with my my then boyfriend and we sat waiting in the waiting room, unsure of what was to happen next the lady sitting next to me told me she was in first when she went in I didn’t hear any noises I didn’t see anything and I was none the wiser. The lady came back out wheel chaired through to the waiting room she had a massive metal contraption drilled to her head by looking at her she seemed fine I asked her how it had gone and she replied it wasn’t as bad as she thought. So it was my turn Dr. Plowman sat me down. He asked me if I knew why I was here and what the outcome would be. I replied and said I was here to have gamma knife surgery to hope that it would stop the tumour growing he replied back, to my astonishment, “No, you’re here to have radiotherapy and it will stop the tumour from growing”. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, was he right? I really don’t know, no one actually knows but he seemed to be quite certain so I felt more comforted. With that the first thing that came to my mind was children, I asked him does that mean that if my tumour was to stop growing altogether I could then have children he replied well we can’t say for certain yes but what I can tell you is that after a five year period, providing all my results show no improvement on the tumour then that he would see no reason for me to start my own family. My first reaction was just to burst into tears, this had been the best news I had ever heard and every time I go to a hospital appointment I never get good news so this was a first and I hope this will the last time I ever have to come back. 

I went to through to see the radiotherapist and his consultant they told me that I would feel a small jab in my forehead; they had four to make, two at the front and two at the back, I sat there anxious while my mum filmed I was getting so anxious I had to ask her to stop, I burst into tears hysterically and started shaking. I was uncontrollably shaking, my nerves had got the better of me. Next thing I know I was being jabbed in the front of my head by a huge needle it wasn’t just pricked into the skin as ordinary jabs are it was literally hammered into my head. I think just from the pure shock I burst out into more hysterical crying but the pain was absolutely unbearable I don’t think I’ve ever felt anything like it and I’ve had tattoos.

My mum was anxiously holding onto me, trying to calm me down, telling me everything would be alright and at the same trying screaming out to everyone, has anyone got an asthma pump it was quite a scary moment I’ve never been in shock so much where I’d shaken and literally couldn’t move or talk and all I could do was cry. Then came the second jab, they said it wouldn’t be long and it would soon be over then the third, then the fourth jab. On the third jab I couldn’t bare it any longer I really felt like I was going to pass out I’m really bad when it comes to needles anyway but this was really taking the biscuit. The doctor looked on and as they mopped up some of the blood one of them said to me, ok it’s not a major issue but you are going to feel some discomfort, we’ve hit one of your nerves in the back of your head so it will bleed for quite a while and you may be feeling uncomfortable when you go in for your radiotherapy but it won’t be long and it’s bearable, we just can’t take it out.

I was then taken back into the waiting room where my boyfriend sat waiting, within minutes the porter came and picked me up and took me down in a wheelchair into an ambulance I was accompanied by the lady that had been in the room beforehand I made a bit of a laugh and joke and said to her thank God you went in first ‘cause if I had gone in first I would have scared the crap out of you, my screams from the room could have been heard all the way down the other side of the hospital. We were transported from St Bartholomew’s hospital by ambulance to the London Gamma Knife Centre where we sat in the waiting room and were given teas, coffees and biscuits. I was sat speaking with the other lady in the waiting room for a good hour or so. My mum and friend had to get the tube and the bus to get to where we were they weren’t allowed in the ambulance I was a bit anxious by this I really didn’t want to be on my own, not after all the pain I’d just gone through all I wanted was my mum beside me but she wasn’t there. An hour later anxiously waiting in the waiting room she turned up with my boyfriend armed with food. I was absolutely starving but at the same time I couldn’t eat because I was feeling so sick, anxiously waiting to find out what the treatment was all about.

The lady in front of me was in first she was due to go in for a twenty minute session after the twenty minutes had gone by she back into the waiting room looking a little worse for wear, she was tired but although she was tired she put on such a brave face.

Then it was my turn. Mum and I walked through into the radiologists’ room where all I could see were big screens, lots of equipment and the big machine which I had to go in. My memory is absolutely rubbish so whilst writing this I can’t remember for the life of me what the name of the machine was all I know is that I was going to have gamma knife treatment.

Cut a long story short, I was in and out of the machine for three and a half hours; whilst I had the metal contraption on my head which was sitting on a nerve the pain was absolutely unbearable, where I’d worked up my anxiety prior to going in my headache was really bad I hadn’t taken any tablets and I had my helmet put in place and was straight into the radiotherapy room. Whilst I was going in and out every 2-3 minutes; three minutes on the mac