Thank You

I just thought I would like to dedicate a post to all of you who have followed this blog over the past few years day in day out and thank you for continuing to do so.

In recent months , you may have noticed that I have been posting fewer poems but that is because something exciting has come out of the original reason for posting a poem a day which I will share now.

As you may be aware, I started this blog on the back of a challenge to post a poem a day for a year at the same time raising awareness of cardiac arrhythmias and syncope.  This was a very personal challenge for me, having been diagnosed with PoTS after a 30 plus year struggle of passing out in the most bizarre situations yet never getting a diagnosis until 2008.  But true to form, when life gives you lemons and you choose to make lemonade, truly remarkable things can happen.

The poetry challenge was well received and the statistics showed just how many of you read it but more importantly just how many were finding out why I was doing it.  From this, Ginz and Tonic started to raise awareness just as I had hoped and to this day continues to do so.  But it also led to the formation of a specialist support group for patients in our area who also have an arrhythmia or suffer from Syncope.

As a psychology student with special interest and a background in Positive Psychology and coaching, I set about working with dedicated clinicians from our local hospital, Grantham Hospital and together we formed Beat-It Grantham.  This arrhythmia and syncope support group facilitates a programme of education, a platform of shared lived experience between members and much needed social support.  We also go into the local community to raise further awareness of these conditions and last night were delighted to be recognised for our work at the United Lincolnshire Hospital Trust Staff Awards evening as we were presented with the working together award for 2016.

Life is a collaboration and when we work together we can truly benefit so many but then doesn’t the blogging community know that already!?!  So my message is one of thanks to all who have supported this venture from the beginning.  I don’t think I ever thought that the beat in poetry would translate into the beat within that is our heartbeat but there you go – remarkable things happen with a little innovation and a lot of help from your friends!  Life is good!  Life is inspirational!

Many thanks

Gini

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Take A Break

Just stop and for a minute
Imagine in some way
The stuff that’s going round our brain
Is like a clogged highway
Full of traffic at a standstill
That can’t move from a to b
Mind congestion in the making
That’s so frustratingly
A mental defunct process
Where time is all too short
Too much to fit in too few hours
That leaves us over wrought

Or maybe it’s the hard drive
For instance call it RAM
Crashing from system overload
Or flood of too much spam
That clogs up the working software
And slows it down a pace
To stop our peak performance
And halt us in the race
The race that we now call life
That wears us all right down
For headaches and brain fog chapters
To inundate and drown

But there’s an epiphany
A way to pass the test
A simple and effective thing
That gives our brain a rest
To sojourn for a few moments
And maybe take a nap
To reboot – clear out the hard-drive
And traffic somehow zap
To renew, enthuse and prompt
For light bulb moments bright
Advocating mental downtime
To turn all things out right!

For downtime is a pre-set
And neurally hardwired
A need for functionality
For all to be inspired
A way to empty out our minds
When cluttered they’ve become
And open up a higher plane
That lets us then succumb
To ways most ingenious
To means of mindfulness
That whets the mind to come alive
And leave us all less stressed

If you’d like to know more about this you like to check out this article http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=mental-downtime which was signposted to me by Brendan Dobrowolny.  And of course, if you suffer from PoTS or Syncope that can deliver a payload of brain fog as part and parcel of those conditions why not visit stars.org.uk for more support.

Syncope

In trepidation
At the threshold of the unknown
Fighting fate
Refusing to step over the precipice
Where darkness beckons
And light waxes and wanes
Life clutches on tentatively.

Evading escape
Yet slipping out of reach
Rebelling arrest
Consumed in heart pacing spasm
With perspiring palpitation
And trembling pallor
Towards a chasm; a gulf.

Then quite by stealth
Engulfed by muffled echoes
Heaviness succumbs
Misted in blurred confusion
Overwhelmed by silence,
Before capitulation, subjection
Syncope.

Postscript:  For anyone who is affected by syncope on an ongoing basis may be interested in STARS, a charity that helps ensure that anyone presenting with unexplained loss of consciousness receives the correct diagnosis, the appropriate treatment, informed support and sign posting to the appropriate medical professional.  Further details can be found on their website http://www.stars.org.uk/.  NB:  This poem and website has no affiliation to STARS and is not meant to be a recommendation but some may find the link helpful if they so chose.