Spread the BEAT message via FACEBOOK

[Whippit]

I thought I'd try to spread the BEAT message to my Facebook friends and posted up a pic and the BEAT words. One of my friends who's very IT savvy suggested I click on the 'Share' button at the bottom of the post so that just that particular message is visible to everyone. It doesn't compromise your other FB posts.

I clicked the 'share' button on my BEAT post and asked my FB friends to do the same. You then receive messages each time your friends have shared your message with all their friends. Within the space of 24 hours my little message has been passed to thousands of people all round the world. What an amazing idea.

This is the message I posted into Facebook:

BEAT helps us recognise the symptoms of Ovarian Cancer:

B - Bloating

E - Eating becomes difficult - Loss of appetite

A - Abdominal Pain

T - Talk to your Doctor!

Please tell your friends and pass on the message. Go to Ovacome.org.uk

[Hidden]

Hi Annie,

Haha there is no stopping you now is there? Well done have a good day love x G x

[Whippit in reply to Hidden]

well I'm in competition with you to be the Top Blogger but I don't think I have a chance of that! Loads of love and creative thoughts coming your way. xx A (still trying to do your smiley) ): xx

[Hidden in reply to Whippit]

Do you know what I like about you Annie ?... ( or one of the things ).....

you support people who are upbeat as well as the people who are not...you have somehow realised that "upbeat people" need supporting as well....and I thank you for that ...I hope you win your battle for your extension neighbours can be so petty... sending you my best wishes...love x G x

[Whippit in reply to Hidden]

Oh that's so kind of you Gwyn. I realise on this site that the most formidable women as well as those who feel less confident all need friendship and support. OC is a great leveller. You write such lovely things in your poems to cheer us all up. One day I shall write one for you.

I've been out of it a bit for a couple of days. The incident with my neighbour really shocked and upset me. I've had quite a bit of pain but my husband says that it's just worry and to go away and forget about it.

I went to a brilliant lecture by Professor Hani Gabra at Imperial at the Hammersmith Hospital today. I've taken notes and wonder whether to print them here when I get back from France. I'll be away for a week visiting my pen friend.

Xx love, Annie

[Hidden in reply to Whippit]

Hi Annie,

You do get around haha...have a good break in France...the weather might be better than here (I hope)and it will do you good..I hope you will feel better.... we all get the odd twinge...I know I do...sometimes I take two steps forward and three steps back...it doesn't help having upsets.. .but it is distressing..I hate bad feeling.....one of my friends did that...(object to their neighbour's extension)... and even though they are my friends we couldn't help but think they were petty...and they didn't win so common sense prevailed in the end...as it will with yours..

Love x G x (wishing you sunshine)

[Hidden]

I tried clicking on like at the bottom of your message but nothing happened on my FB, where have I gone wrong?

[Whippit in reply to Hidden]

wow - you've seen my FB message! That's brilliant. Just shows it works. I'll have to ask my friend Ern why you can't like my post. Perhaps it's because it's visible to everyone and you're not on my FB list? Ern will explain all. In a way it's reassuring 'cos if it's flying round the world to 1,000s of people my FB inbox would get clogged up with al the likes.

You could try putting your own BEAT message on Facebook.

Crummy old day here in Cardiff. I'm still in bed playing on my laptop. I should really get up and walk the dog. Had a beastly day yesterday as my neighbour's objecting to a 2 m extension we're adding to the house. It was part of my plan to arrange a 'bungalow downstairs' for when I'm very poorly. We wasted the whole day replying to a senseless letter from his solicitor. It makes me feel ill as we've been friendly enough for over 18 years. Perhaps it's just a bad weekend as quite a few of the ladies are having a bad time.

xxx

[Hidden in reply to Whippit]

weather no better in Caerffili, I'm up but not dressed yet, we had the grandchildren stay last night so it was early ish wake up call this morning. I will type my own beat message, I have some cards and posters via Ruth that I will be putting in the surgeries and chemists, have also asked friends who work in in organizations with mainly female workers to put one up. I work in the NHS so will be annoying them to put some up around the place xx

Hope you get the result you want with your building plans, if the planning permission has gone through then surely the are too late to object? Good luck xx

[Whippit in reply to Hidden]

Hey you sound busy and very energetic. Those cards and posters from Ovacome are great. Sounds as though you might enjoy the ROCC training. Can't have enough Ovacome Rockers.

I was a bit worried about the poster as it's English only and Cardiff's become very fiery about the Welsh language. I work at Cardiff University and we're not allowed to put up English-only posters. One of the first things I thought I'd do was to approach Merched y Wawr to see if they'd raise funds to have the BEAT cards translated into Welsh. I don't speak the language myself but know from experience how much it means to people. They raised over £10k a couple of months back and then gave it all to Ovarian Action. Ovacome deserves a bit of support as it does so much to help us and really makes a big difference to our lives.

Re the building plans it's a long tale. Both neighbours were fine when we asked if they'd mind our having a 2m single-storey extension. When the architect's plans were drawn up one of them became very difficult. The architect redrew the plans several times to fit in with his requests but they became more and more bizarre. Luckily we've gone through the correct procedure and have been granted planning permission even though it wasn't technically essential. The extension is half built and we've had a solicitor's letter telling us to stop the building work immediately or face a challenge in court. Our neighbour wants us to dig up the foundations of our extension to have an inspection of the ground beneath our joint boundary wall. I don't see why he can't dig up his side if he really wants to look at a pile of earth and concrete.

I felt sick with worry yesterday and spent the day writing a letter in response so that's helped. It seemed such sensible planning to make my house wheelchair accessible. Our neighbours everywhere else are wonderfully supportive and think he's a bit bonkers. The building inspector says ours is the smallest extension in Pontcanna.

There I've got it off my back. I'm going to pull myself together, get up, take the dog for a walk and get on with life. The building work is going ahead as before and I'm off to France for a week. It'll be good to put a bit of distance to think about it. xxxx

[Hidden]

That's the best idea, forget all about it for a while, there is always one fly in the ointment.

My 2 daughters are welsh speaking and my grandchildren are in Welsh school. A lot of the teacheres are in Merched y Wawr, I may approach them to see if the Caerffili branch would take up the challenge. I have a friend who has raised a lot of awareness for Autisim through facebook since her daughter was diagnosed and that has taken off big time in the past year, so hopefully you will get the same response, she has got Real Radio involved and has held a ball in Cardiff these past 3 years. I was going to ring Asda and other chain stores to see how to go about gettting OC merchandise into there shops like they do for Breast Cancer. My mind is buzzing I think it's to blot out the other stuff, you'll be fed up with me by the end of the week lol xx

[Whippit in reply to Hidden]

I'm never fed up with an ideas person, or someone who's so full of energy. You've got so many wonderful ideas we should get together. I'm off to France Tuesday but back Thursday week (5 Oct).How about it? xx

[Hidden]

That would be a good idea, I'm starting my bad week, had chemo on Friday will be wilting by tea time. have a great time in France and relax. I'll pick some brains over the next couple of weeks and see how it goes. I know ovacome don't have the funds breast cancer do but what do they say about oak trees. xx

[Whippit in reply to Hidden]

.... from little acorns grow! Absolutely right. We'll sow some acorns for Ovacome. x

[Hidden]

Hi Annie. I clicked the FB Like button above so it's shown up on my profile. And I also tweeted it. I'll let you know if it gets retweeted.

Love

Linda

[Whippit in reply to Hidden]

that's brilliant Linda. I'm not very confident with Twitter yet and need to get better with it as it's a great way to pass on the BEAT message. If you click on 'share' the post will be circulated to all your friends too.

The worlds getting smaller and smaller! xx

[Hidden in reply to Whippit]

2 retweets. That's over 1000 followers all in all

[Whippit in reply to Hidden]

That's incredible. Did you include the website address for Ovacome? Just think if you showed all of us ladies how to get on to Twitter we could have 10s of 1,000s of followers all looking at the BEAT symptoms. That's surely half the world! xxx

[Hidden in reply to Whippit]

I did include the web address in the original tweet, but then retweets use some more characters so I fear part of the web address dropped off the end. But we can do it again when I get home from holiday. To sign up for twitter just go to twitter.com and follow the instructions. Then you can look for me @twetingasme and follow me if you like. Or you can look at who I follow; still quite a lot about libraries but also some cancer related tweeters. But no celebs!

On my iPad I tend to use a twitter interface called Hootsuite.

Have a go

Love

Linda

[Whippit in reply to Hidden]

I'll definitely follow you when I get back from France. Xxxxx

[wendydee]

Great idea! Well done, Annie xx

[Whippit in reply to wendydee]

The thing is how do we proselytise to the GP's. there was a lot of criticism at the lecture today about a lack of awareness of the symptoms of OC. It's a bit worrying. Xxx

[wendydee]

It is a real problem, I agree. I sent round a poster for GPs and a covering letter and brief questionnaire in March 2011, to all GPS in our local area, as part of my ROCC awareness raising. I sent out 32 of these packs. I got one reply only (not even from my own GP!). I asked women in my area, informally and through our local Gynae cancer support group, if there were any posters up. There was only two that had seen one in the surgeries. I don't know how we can get through to the GPs. I sit on a couple of groups as a patient rep. Maybe it's time to start asking questions!

Love Wendy xx

[Hidden in reply to wendydee]

Hi my GP already had an OvaCome poster in our surgery.. and have had it up for a number of years..I think they are very aware of OC there...when I was first diagnosed with OC I went to my GP on the Friday and was in the hospital on the Monday...talk about speedy I can't fault them love x G x

[Whippit in reply to wendydee]

I was thinking of asking a couple of friends who are a man and wife couple of GPs how to tackle this. Another thought is to approach the local university hospital GP Training Team. I understand from Ovarian Action that they lobbied 10 Downing Street and talked to Sarah Brown about this. Haven't the Government made some commitment to raising awareness of Ovarian Cancer? Mind, there's a world of difference between a pledge and some action. xxx

[wendydee in reply to Whippit]

I talked to my CNS friend about the GP training talk. Will resurrect!

W xx

[wendydee]

That's great! I wish the ones in our area were as proactive!

W xx

[wendydee in reply to wendydee]

She's absolutely wonderful! I was one of her first patients and I meet her regularly at the Gynae Onc support group. Xx