NCD Alliance – My brain stroke blog

Workplace wellness: how your job could be better (thoughts after the conference)

Luty 12, 2018 Published by: admin

Again, after 2 months (sorry, these were really busy and difficult) I’m back to Sharjah Forum and it’s theme.

I participated in the workshop about workplace wellness.

What is it? Wikipedia says

Workplace wellness is any workplace health promotion activity or organizational policy designed to support healthy behavior in the workplace and to improve health outcomes. Known as ‚corporate wellbeing’ outside the US, workplace wellness often comprises activities such as health education, medical screenings, weight management programs, on-site fitness programs or facilities.

and these words depict pretty well what we were discussing for quite a few hours but not quite what I was expecting. My thoughts on data I got bit chaotic but frustrating. Frustrating, because for me term workplace wellness and its representation aren’t really present in Polish reality. As a society we manage diseases easier, but get unhealthier, so we need something attractive to have a will to keep our bodies in a good shape. Implementing wellness programmes is a great idea. Which limits us, but on the other hand, saves us. Welcome to the modern world.

Leaving aside all philosophical divagations, my thoughts are simple.

For start: I can’t really recall many companies which would implement workplace wellness. In my Polish reality, it’s just not present. Sorry.

I admit that I’m not familiar with big corporation’s policies as I haven’t worked in one.

But still I have friends and I listen to stories. And how many examples I found? Right now, I can think of like 2-3 that could have been counted. A few days ago, for example, I had a chance to speak to a woman from Amazon and she mentioned such practices. To which extent do they care? I have no clue. It was a birthday dinner, not a work, so we left the topic quickly. But I know that they have, for instance, competition in losing kilograms between teams. Group one, which, in my opinion, makes it healthier*.

On the forum, there were people from organisations and companies who try to promote that or start such programmes. That’s a nice approach. There was a woman from HR department in a big company and she shared briefly their story. They started with nothing and people wouldn’t even care to know the new opportunities and possibilities. Only when they started with fun stuff. First, company parties with healthier food and attractive things to pull out people from behind the tables. Darts for instance. Then they started such things in office hours, implementing workplace wellness programs with very good results. Continue reading

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I hate my birthday. But it’s a good time to wrap up the year

Styczeń 22, 2018 Published by: admin

Every year on 3rd of January I wake up in an extremely bad mood which doesn’t leave me until midnight. Typical birthday blues. I try to have a full agenda, but this year… I had a migraine again. Vomited in the medical laboratory, the world was more painful than usual.

However, my birthday is the perfect time to share with you successes and failures of 2017. I’m gonna use numbers.

My first hero is 2:

2 amazing months: July and November, when I felt well. They were full of joy, warmth and peace. Sources of their awesomeness were very different from each other but in the end, I spent two months almost without pain and depression, cherishing normal life
For the past two months, I haven’t been rehabilitating myself and exercising. I can’t explain it. It’s about being extremely busy and extremely lazy.
I started doing two cool things. I opened my business an started volunteering for poor people and against food waste. Shop gave my unemployed life bit of meaning, work for less fortunate made my need of helping others less meaningless.
Two things I’m actually proud of: my Lewaczka.pl blog (this one too;p) and first money earned since the stroke.
Two job offers. Nothing worked out of it, I have no clue why, but still: someone believed in me enough to offer me a place in his team.
Two brilliant blog entries from a guest star:) In Polish only, sorry!;)

12:

Pills I’m taking daily,
months since last birthday blues,
months till my 30th birthday

3:

three new diagnoses. Lupus: most likely I’ve been living with it for the past 10-15 years, not knowing about it, carotid artery dissection – could be the cause of strokes. Lupus, dissection, hole in my heart, I have many things to choose from;)
three hospitals I was admitted. All three admissions were planned.
For the third time, I was guaranteed social security money. Yay. I’m kind of covered till September.
3 amazing trips. Denmark with a friend, Cyprus with family, Emirates for NCD Alliance conference... All of them were really great. Denmark was like completing lifelong dream, Cyprus nice time with my beloved people, Emirates: oh wow, it was my blog-wise achievement. Big one. I can’t stress enough how I enjoyed the time there.

1:

neurolupus, new kind of lupus thrown into my face. It’s about to be confirmed, now I imagine it as a little worm eating my brain and leaving me with depression, dementia and meaningless life,
one participation in an event of a big importance;) well, at least for sick people,
new, brilliant psychotherapist,
one physiotherapist who has left me for the man. But I can’t be upset about it. I wish her best of luck with him, they deserve perfect life:)
One pronouncement saying that I’m disabled. It’s official. It’s good. It gives me a discount for a train. Twice a year;)
One magazine cover my face was on. I’m a cover girl;p
One sport I started to practice. I’m lousy. But Olympic games are once every 4 years, no worries here;)
Foreigner, I’m helping in settling here. He’s a friend and we are very happy to see his life easier from time to time.
Epilepsy attack. unexpected. Adding two years to my auto-ban;) (do not mistake with autobahn;p I mean I’m banned from driving for 2 additional years).
Website about spasticity I’ve consulted,
Day of the retired people I was celebrating,
the brother whom I love. But my love starts to be conditional. I don’t love him that much when he puts glass full of water on my back.

15:

kilos I’ve lost,

million:

of series that I completed,
hours in bed,
smiles and pleasant things that happened to me,
litres of water I drunk,
hours of not moving while I should move,
interviews I gave. It feels like a million anyway.
Minutes of escaping the reality.
of good, kind people I have around and I’ve met.

115:

texts for my polish blog (!!!). Only…

26

texts for an English version of my strokie blog. Poor result.

Zero:

of new strokes! None!
plans for that years. Many dreams though;)

It was a weird year. Horrible in many ways, but still kept finding reasons to smile. But dear my 29. and dear 2018:

by the way… one of the first songs I learned to play on a guitar. very bad. But for now it’d be perfect. Gotta try!:)

my stroke Uncategorized

Sharjah – Dubai. NCD Alliance Global Forum 2017. Turistic entry;)

Styczeń 4, 2018 Published by: admin

I was telling people that I had been a participant in the conference of sick people in Dubai, but it wasn’t the conference of sick people in Dubai. It was the NCD Alliance Global Forum 2017 which means it was a forum of professors, NGOs, politicians, people advocating for patients and sick people themselves.

I came back. Now I’m able to tell you how it went;) Of course, I have plenty of thoughts on a subject of the conference – NCD Alliance Global Forum 2017, but I have the feeling that my readers are equally interested in the basics. how did I handle the trip? Was I very tired? Did I skip classes?;) What did I see in Dubai?;)

Warning: it’s gonna e a long entry, so I divided it into few parts so that people having difficulties in reading could read it part by part.

Trips

Plenty of you was asking me about flights and journey itself. Of course, I had to fly to UAE. Two flights each way. I didn’t experience any problems connected to flying. I mean none. Nothing hurt, even my ears weren’t hurting me during landing. After coming to the hotel I got a headache, but I bet the reason was exhaustion, not change of height:)

I know that plenty of people who suffered the brain stroke has huge problems with flying. I feel much better in a car than on a plane. In this case, it was the same. Sorry mom, the drive you gave me to the airport was much worse than the flight itself. Taxis, cars, buses were my nightmare. No exception in UAE. Sorry about that. Continue reading

my stroke

Sharjah, NCD Alliance Gobal Forum, day 1 (noon;))

Grudzień 15, 2017 Published by: admin

As I was informing you on a stroketales facebook page, I was attending the NCD Alliance Global Forum 2017.

This is the translation of my polish text with some small amendments. Keep in mind that I wrote this text on a first day of the conference, after a whole day spent in planes, now it’s a week later.

My question is: do you even know what NCD is? Well, until I was invited to this conference, I had no clue what this term means.

NCD is an acronym for non-communicable disease. What is it? It’s an illness which you can’t catch someone or something. So stroke, lupus and depression fit the term, but AIDS, plague and flu don’t.

Actually, even Wikipedia doesn’t say ow wide this term is – it can be used only to chronic diseases, but it doesn’t have to;) But, for the sake of this blog let’sBut basically, that’s it. (by the way in polish we have term ‚choroby niezakaźne’. But it’s rather used only because we use term ‚communicable or infectious diseases’. ‚non-communicable ‚ is just waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay to wide. But who I am to judge all of it;)

Let me go back to the main translation ( text from Dec 9th)

As you can suspect being a part of NCD Alliance Forum 2017 is, on one side an honour, on the other adventure, both for personal and ‚professional’ (stroke survivor’s;) causes. My blogs are the most precious thing for me, therefore being recognised for them is rewarding. Continue reading