Last night I was given the privilege of representing the
BCRT at a fashion show, hosted by Life Styled By Us at the Bel and The Dragon in Cookham. And I must say that it’s really made me very
proud of myself to see how far I've come. I’ve grown from a person who couldn’t
even say the word cancer without it being stifled and forced, to someone who
can comfortably stand up and speak about their experience. I know that I write
a lot about it on here, and I'm used to people asking about my leg/limp, but
this was quite different. I was asked to present my story to a room full of
guests, in order to really connect the charity they were donating to with the
event itself. And I feel like this was such a wonderful idea, as we often just
buy raffle tickets etc. for the sake of it, without realising the actual cause
we are helping.
I was a little emotional when writing the speech, but I was
fine when reading it aloud. I think it helped that I didn’t know anyone there
(other than my Uncle, who accompanied me), and that it was only about 8 minutes
long. It seemed quite difficult to assess which parts of my story were the most
important, especially considering the fact that my perception of it is very
different to everyone else’s. It was also a bit of a challenge to write an
upbeat, engaging speech about the hardest time of my life, but thankfully my
positive approach to everything seeped through into this task as well.
What I think struck me most about the night was meeting the
chef, who suggested the charity because his brother is currently battling Ewing’s
Sarcoma. He thanked me, and told me that he was humbled by my talk.
And that’s really made me realise that all of this makes a
difference. I feel so inspired to become more involved with the BCRT and to
personally focus on reaching out to people on here, and also face to face. I'm thinking
of possibly starting a vlog where I would pretty much discuss the same as I do
on here, so that I can reach out to people who possibly don’t have enough time
to read long blog posts or would prefer to watch and listen rather than read. I
feel that this would also be a good platform to match a name with a face, and a
face with a story, so you could all get to know me a little bit more. (Any
advice on this would be truly appreciated!)
Sophie Louisa xo
