Bernie Martin
October 25, 2017
This week The M Word would like to introduce Bernie Martin. Bernie’s writing inspiration comes from a tsunami of emotions brought on by her children and the fact she herself is an emotional person. Inspired by others around her Bernie is an avid watcher of peoples behaviours their psychology fears […]
October 18, 2017
There’s a sentence I thought I would never write. I’ve always been an annoyingly responsible person, gainfully employed since I was old enough to reach the washbasins at the family hair salon. I’ve worked as a writer in advertising agencies since I finished my Masters in 2012. Having reached the […]
October 1, 2017
Now let’s be clear from the outset – I friggin’ love Facebook. I love how it has helped me reconnect with people from my past. I love how it has helped me fund raise sizeable sums of money for Cystic Fibrosis Ireland and Temple Street Children’s Hospital. I love how […]
September 8, 2017
Back to school is upon us which means that back to bugs isn’t very far away either. For us Mums of little people who are vulnerable to complications from coughs and colds, the school year is dark and full of terrors. But rather than sitting rocking backwards and forwards in […]
August 11, 2017
For a few months every year we get to experience something resembling normality. Every second person hasn’t got a cold or cough, I stop seeing other children as walking bio hazards and our Cystic Fibrosis routine stays at preventative. This still means nebulisers and chest physiotherapy at either end of […]
August 7, 2017
Being a Mum is the most challenging thing any of us will ever do. It pushes us to the absolute edge, whilst also soaring us to unthinkable highs. That massive brief at work? Easy! That big presentation? Peasy! That business trip you’ve been dreading? Lemon squeezy. Giving birth to and […]
July 21, 2017
I’ve finally done it! I’ve put my big girl pants on and moved my lovely little lady into her own room. I won’t lie – there were a few tears, a sizeable amount of separation anxiety and a few sleepless nights (you’ve guessed it, they were all mine). Ok ok, […]
July 20, 2017
On the never-ending quest to find balance as a mother, I have to admit, I am completely and utterly lost. No matter how many ways I’ve tried cutting it, I’m consistently cutting one area of my life short. The way I see it, I can either choose to have a […]
June 25, 2017
To my darling baby girl, On the day you were born, it wasn’t just my world that changed forever. I changed forever. My heart, my mind, my being; they are all unrecognisable since. You have touched, enriched and changed every single thing about me as a person. When I went […]
June 12, 2017
I am the worst offender for this – if someone bumps into me I’M sorry, if I’m early I’m sorry, if I have an opinion I’m sorry, if I’m hungry I’m sorry, if I’m busy I’m sorry, if I didn’t read your mind I’m sorry, I’m even flipping sorry when […]
June 6, 2017
Like others, I find myself regularly ranting about our healthcare system. And with bloody good reason. It’s slow. It’s dilapidated. It’s out-dated. It’s broken. Some of the stories you hear are not only embarrassing, but downright terrifying. The system is meant to protect us, yet we often feel at our […]
June 4, 2017
I’ve been lucky enough to travel a fair bit with work over the years. Shooting tea ads in Thailand, beer ads in New Zealand, chocolate ads in Prague…you name it, I’ve done it. It was always one of my favourite things about my career as an advertising copywriter. And why […]
May 31, 2017
We’re off to the sun For some family fun But I have a secret confession… It’s not just four of us flying, We need space for my trying Germ avoidance obsession. My germaphobe is not new But it’s also quite true That it’s gotten a whole lot worse, Since […]
May 10, 2017
Like lots of people, I’ve found myself fixated by Netflix drama ‘13 Reasons Why’, binge watching when I should have been binge sleeping. The show tells the story of Hannah Baker, a high school student suffering from depression thanks to being the victim of cyber bullying, stalking, sexual assault and […]
May 10, 2017
I think everyone understands on their wedding day that not every subsequent day will be spent gazing into each other’s eyes, thinking how the person opposite you is your moon and stars. But when you project ahead to the arguments you might have on your journey together, you don’t really […]
April 18, 2017
Last week was an historic and monumental one for the Cystic Fibrosis Community – after over 10 months of relentless campaigning, a deal on the breakthrough drug Orkambi was finally reached. The deal means that around 600 people with the ‘double delta’ version of this life-limiting condition will get access […]
March 28, 2017
I find writing about my experiences as the parent of a child with Cystic Fibrosis incredibly therapeutic. To get your feelings down on paper, you have to process them and somehow make sense of them, and that brings with it great comfort. It’s as if by confronting them, you’re only […]
March 27, 2017
In most houses, parents can’t wait for their children to grow out of the love of co-sleeping. They long to stop clinging perilously to that couple of inches at the edge of the bed, while a little person holds the rest of it hostage. But in our house, I think […]
March 18, 2017
To my one and only son, I wanted to write you a letter for you to read when you get a little older. I’ve said these things to you in my head a million times and thought it was time to put them down on paper. Right now you’ve just […]
March 13, 2017
When you’re childfree and overflowing with fuzzy dreams about how your shot at motherhood will go, you never expect to find yourself with a child with additional health challenges. Statistics are something that happen to other people, right? Don’t get me wrong, you know that nothing is a given. But […]
March 6, 2017
So a few weeks ago I was scrolling through my Facebook feed and spotted a post with that godforsaken phrase ‘Special children are only sent to special parents’. I had been mulling over what my ‘Calling Bullshit On…’ article for The M Word might be about and as soon as […]
February 21, 2017
People mean well when they reassure you that ‘special children are only sent to special parents’. Or worse, ‘God won’t give you more than you can handle’. (If this is true, God is making a lot of misjudgements of late!) As a ‘special’ parent of a ‘special’ child, I’ve tried […]
January 31, 2017
When we were told our baby girl had Cystic Fibrosis four years ago, I distinctly remember the reassurances offered by the Nurse Specialist on D-Day (Diagnosis Day) – she’ll go to school ‘as normal’, she’ll do sports ‘as normal’, she’ll do everything ‘as normal’. But this was five minutes after […]
January 27, 2017
I’m meant to be looking at a much more serious blog topic, but the whole course of my afternoon has gone distinctly belly-up/sideways/to shit thanks to one lost piece of Lego. Said nuc-lego bomb is yellow, with a cross on its side, and the world is about to end if […]
January 20, 2017
Another year, another sick CF Christmas ‘break’ for my little lady. Thanks Santa for your second-year-in-a-row delivery of Parainfluenza and your ‘surprise’ gift of post-bronch pneumonia for a little extra, unexpected excitement. You arrived at exactly 3.30am on Christmas morning, bang on time for ‘Christmas fever’. If we are, in […]
December 30, 2016
Your child is diagnosed with the life-shortening, life-limiting, chronic illness that is Cystic Fibrosis. You’re told that your child’s life expectancy is early 30s, the age you are when you receive this punch-in-the-gut news. The median age of survival in Ireland is only 27, YOUNGER than you are at the […]
November 11, 2016
One of the hardest decisions I’ve ever made during my 14 working years is the decision to take a career break. A break that I’m currently almost half way through. Now I’ve done it for a very specific reason, in a very protected way and thankfully, with a very supportive […]
September 29, 2016
Perhaps you know us, but don’t like to ask too many questions. Perhaps you’re afraid of saying the wrong thing, or of upsetting us. Please don’t be. I think most families take comfort in you enquiring after the health of their child (or children) with CF, in our case our […]
September 1, 2016
I’m not the first (and certainly won’t be the last!) mother to write about how emotional they’re feeling packing their butter-wouldn’t-melt little beauty off to playschool. But it’s virtually impossible to explain just how big a deal starting playschool is for the Mum of a kid with CF (or any […]