Laura Sinclair, Christie fundraiser
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| Laura Sinclair |
I decided
to fundraise for The Christie because of my stepfather, Bill, who in August
2015 was diagnosed with stage four head, neck and throat cancer. It came as a
shock as he went from a healthy man who would go fishing every week and tend to
his allotment daily, to being in a wheelchair after a spinal stroke and then to
being told he had cancer.
He
underwent radiotherapy at The Christie during the remainder of 2015. The
treatment he received from The Christie was incredible. Everyone from the CALMS
team who helped him feel relaxed and at ease during radiotherapy, to the staff
in the canteen and the nurses and doctors who treated him went above and beyond
what we expected.
I wanted
other families going through this to get the same treatment, so with the
support of my friends and family I have come up with different challenges to
fundraise for The Christie. These challenges have included hiking (the
Yorkshire 3 Peaks, 50km a day for 5 days), a triathlon, giving up alcohol for a
month and in February 2016, I decided to give up social media for a month.
The term
social media actually seems to have a flexible definition to people. What does
it include? Facebook, Instagram and Twitter seem the obvious choices but where
do LinkedIn, SnapChat, WhatsApp, Couchsurfing and Strava fit in? So after many
discussions with people I made my choice to include Facebook, Instagram,
Twitter, Snapchat and any other similar platform. I decided to carry on using
WhatsApp due to having several international friends and not being able to
contact them otherwise, and as a final year PhD student looking for a job, I
decided to keep on using LinkedIn for professional reasons.
Day one
involved the removal of all social media applications from my phone, to remove
all temptation. One positive was that the battery life of my phone increased
significantly. I deactivated my Facebook account as it was the most tempting to
check, and partially because despite my friends being wonderful, I was a little
bit afraid they would spam my Facebook wall with Star Wars memes!
I kept
checking my phone throughout the next few days for notifications which never
came, as an active (perhaps too active) member I would get a lot of
notifications each day. Finding ways to contact people was frustrating and
sometimes I had to ask mutual friends to send my phone number to friends to get
in contact.
When I
went to London
A few days
into my challenge my family and I went to North Manchester
hospital for the results of the CT scan for Bill to see if the radiotherapy had
worked. Anyone who has ever been in this position knows how challenging waiting
for the results can be, and in the days leading up to it I just never felt like
I would be ready to hear the results.
The family
(Bill, my mum, Bill's eldest daughter and her husband and me) were taken into a
room with the consultant and several nurses. The radiotherapy had shrunk the
original tumours but unfortunately, and there was never going to be an easy way
to say it, the cancer had spread to the lungs and is now terminal. Bill
remained strong and positive throughout this, and was determined to make the
most of the time he had.
If
I’d still been on social media that’s how I might have told people of the news
but having given it up it meant I had to speak to people directly and
contacting people to tell them something like that is never easy.
As time
passed during the challenge, I eventually found I was checking my phone less
and less.
My friends
would text or call me, and some sent emails. I began to enjoy not being
connected to the world so readily. Sometimes people would talk about things
they saw on social media, but I didn't really feel left out.
On a
training hike my friends kept asking if I had seen such and such a message, forgetting
I had left the world of Facebook. I tend to organise the hiking trips with my
friends, and a lot of social gatherings via Facebook, so I had to pass on
messages to people or trust them to make plans instead.
The worst
part of giving up social media was realising how much I rely on it to connect
with friends and family, I didn't have phone numbers for many of them as we would
use Facebook messenger or Snapchat. I did miss sharing good news on Facebook during
the month, such as my first job offer, but learning to share less has been
better.
By having
time off social media, I read more books, cooked more meals (I even learnt to a
bake a pie!) and was more productive at work. I set aside time in my day to
reply to non urgent requests and texts, and didn't feel obliged to respond
instantly to messages. You soon lose the fear of missing out on social media
and appreciate the simpler things.
What I
learnt from the challenge was to have back up ways to keep in contact with the
people you care about, although social media is a good way to be in contact
with friends and family. I learnt I needed to be more selective in what I share
on social media, and that every aspect of my life doesn't need to be shared. I
learnt to have more real conversations with people and appreciate my friends
and family in person more. If you give up social media for a month you'll have
more time for yourself and value your time. And the big bonus is that the
battery life on your phone will increase!
If you’d
like to support my fundraising, please visit www.justgiving.com/laura-sinclair5/
Sadly, Bill passed away on 1st June 2016. Our thoughts and sympathies are with Laura and his family and friends.
Sadly, Bill passed away on 1st June 2016. Our thoughts and sympathies are with Laura and his family and friends.
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