Welcome to this edition! Due to a personal issue arising this month I have not been as able to attend to work, and consequently the editorial of the November edition. However, I have managed to satisfactorily put together what in my mind is the importance of family and close and dear friends, as well as feel, deeply that it is important to have learned something eternal from certain experience's in life, for instance when you are touched by such an experience that words are difficult to explain exactly and what I am feeling would be hard to describe. So in this edition I would like to dedicate it to the awareness of lung cancer, as the month of November is Lung Cancer Awareness month.

My role in recent years, not in 2007 however in 2005, I began volunteering for Peter MacCullum Cancer Institute as a volunteer massage therapist. On a Wednesday morning there at the hospital I was fortunate enough, and privileged to care and nurture patients waiting to receive Chemotherapy, in the out-patient area of the hospital. You see when you have been diagnosed with cancer it does not mean that your life has ended, or is about to end tomorrow. Tomorrow can be another day full of hope when you are in the right hands and taking the most beneficial path for some sort of meaningful life. This is helped with plans, loved ones surrounding you and plenty of warm TLC. I make a mention too to the wonderful Doctors in the field working each day around the clock to find better ways, research more methods and cures to prolong a patients life.

There is something beautiful about knowing that you can beat the odds and fight your way through life, when you can share those moments, with the ones you truly love. There is another part of cancer and that is when you cannot fight and you need the help and twenty-four hour assistance those who know and can care for you. Like those at Peter Mac. I am fortunate again to say that in my experience, my ability to massage and give unconditionally through the power of touch, lead me to work on the wards with in-patients. This is one of the most rewarding roles a person can undertake, also one of the most necessary and required roles today.

This is my opinion and if I had the choice to truly follow my heart it would say the experience of giving without expectation is the way to find true and eternal happiness. In life we all experience peaks and troughs, ups and downs, good times and bad and we never stop the roller coaster ride. With time we learn to manage in these circumstances the best that we can manage our emotions, our physical energies and state of mind. What I feel is we need to listen to what our bodies are trying to tell us is right for us. By listening to the body it becomes your powerful vehicle. The driver has to make choices about what fuel to take in, when to book in for a service and generally maintain it well if they want a good and manageable vehicle for a long period of time.

My point is that so many of us take our bodies for granted, but we all know what we "should" be doing, eating, saying, thinking and feeling. We cease to realise until it is too late exactly what we might preciously loose in the name of disregard, or in the form and shape of not really listening. Deep within all our hearts and minds sits a very big miracle and it is you!

I am returning in 2008 back to the precious gift of volunteering at the Peter MacCullum Institute where my mum worked as a volunteer for 16 years. I am looking forward to the process of giving back and would like to see that I can help someone through important times and tough moments during their life journey. Please enjoy this poem dedicated to my mum by the staff of the volunteers center at the Peter McCullum Institute.

All my warmest love to you,

Blanca Perez.