The Day I Discovered 'the' Book....

It is no secret to my friends and family and anyone within earshot that I have an obsession, all be it a healthy one, with Dawn Porter.

In 2008 I had my first encounter with her. It was whilst sitting comfortably with wine on my sofa, my little kitten Morph snuggled up next to me. I was happily watching The Man Tester on Balls of Steel, which saw her testing men in bars, by chatting them up and then challenging them in various ways that would often see them running away screaming with their hair on fire. My favourite being when she offers some poor unfortunate individual a threesome with her boyfriend, who then turns up in a full gimp suit. 

I was hooked this woman meant business and she intrigued the hell out of me.

Her various documentaries such as Dawn Gets and Dawn Goes, were for me some of the foundations of my understanding of what women have to deal with in their early twenties (a lot).....For me it was a complete minefield of debauchery, diets, why does he never call me, what the hell is fashion anyway, no I dont have an obsession with buying lingerie, oh my god I have no career, do I really have a drinking problem, why is my purse always empty, where did this curve come from, what's this line on my face, I have nothing to wear in this wardrobe and simple lostness and plenty of "oh bollocks" moments. 
I myself was a lost little sheep wondering around in my fresh green pasture of dating, not having a clue why the only magnetism I appeared to have was for wolves rather than friendly rampant rams. I had no doubt the prick in the shiny suit with the sword on the white horse, was more likely to be riding a three legged donkey (badly), wrapped in a silver thermos blanket, carrying a dustpan and brush!

It was not until I discovered her book, Diaries of an Internet Lover, that I really found my own little tour guide complete with reference to all the sushi outlet delights London could ever possibly wish to offer me. It is by all accounts falling to bits and is read thoroughly every year about 5 times (it has also been leant to many girlfriends who have all agreed to its excellence). It has travelled to Israel, Denmark, Malta, Marbella, Cyprus, Australia and of course Ibiza (6 times). It has also been in and out of my handbag more times than I can count (it claims more of my attention than some of my store cards). There is no doubt in my mind that I shall never get bored of it and it will forever sit happily beside my favourite writers such as Lauren Weisenberg and Helen Fielding.

In my bible is an array of dates that Dawn goes on, some good, some great and some down right bloody terrible, all described with the utmost articulation of sarcasm and dry humour. Her detail is paramount and the fact she's not afraid to admit that woman sometimes just need to have a good shag and that it is not a crime for us to actually enjoy a healthy and varied sex life, is thoroughly inspiring. 
She describes one evening in New York having to frantically masturbate, after writhing around like a horny cat on her bed when an insistent horn took over her whole body. Another chapter sees her visit a sex museum and in another she has a threesome with a couple. All this described and detailed without fear of shame or loathing, which unfortunately is still attached to the words '"sex life" and "woman" which is utterly ridiculous in a modern society. 
I remember mentioning the word masturbation to a girl my age at a party, she looked at me utterly horrified and said "isn't that something only men do?" needless to say I looked back at her equally horrified, at the thought someone could be so naive. Why does this attitude that it's wrong still exist? Open mindedness surely is much more fun and less stressful?

Picking from Dawn's various horror stories, she describes one of her dates as the "big bambino" a man clearly mothered far too much, who ordered and sent back her wine several times when there was nothing wrong with it (much to her dismay), acted like an oversized baby, farted in her face during an incident that involved trying to climb a fence and then proceeded to cut his hand open (which was shortly followed by varying degrees of crying and wailing). This complete disaster of a date was only finally completed when she dropped him off in A&E! 

It was so refreshing to hear that other woman do indeed have bad dates, one such for me, being the time I fell out of the taxi that I was trying to board (badly), the date watched on in horror as I basically sat on the pavement completely drunk with no possible means of getting myself up. This delightful occurrence was due to the sinking of two bottles of bordeaux (evil strong stuff), the poor man had endured 2 hours of vino induced garbage being force fed into his right ear, problem was he was so boring the temptation to sit and down "makes everything more interesting" liquid was far too easy to indulge, funnily enough I didn't see him again.

Other beautiful delights that occurred, included the wonderful episode whilst in fits of giggles, when the entire contents of a martini glass was thrown not just all over the table (no that would have been mildly acceptable) but the poor unsuspecting date as well, who then sat opposite staring in disbelief, that he would now have to walk around wearing my cosmopolitan for the remainder of the evening. 
This I realised does actually happen to other people!! It is amazing I AM NORMAL and everybody has those horrendous moments when all you need is a JCB to come along, dig you a nice big hole and then be awfully kind enough to pick you up in the bucket and deposit you straight in it.

So there I was at 23, thrown into London like a mouse being sent on a field trip to the Cats Protection League, as ever looking and longing to find 'the one', which I now know is some evil fairy tale, told to delinquent hormonal teenage girls in a bid to fool them that dating is all about finding prince charming, I now want to sacrificially burn all my Disney videos! 
I am in no way saying dating isn't about finding the one, but when so much emphasis is edged on such tight guidelines it makes an already tough journey through your twenties that little bit more challenging right? Surely you should be able to freely enjoy dating and also being single! Who needs a stinking rule book anyway, and why is that concept even valid? Who even knows the RIGHT way to date anyway, show me the expert and I shall show him where to put his rule book.

At 24, I was on a daily basis being continually jostled by the bullying big city of London and with a new job to contend with, the thought of having to navigate the dating scene alone and in a still fairly new city that no way resembled a home yet, was fast becoming a vomit inducing thought process. But as I sat on the tube every morning, practically digesting the book and eagerly gobbling up its pages full of insight and loveliness, I began to realise that actually having fun dating is a possibility and there is nothing wrong with saying "I'm single, but that is ok", plus I now had knowledge of Nobu and Roka so obviously I had to find myself a willing chaperone! 
I spent the next few years enjoying my new sense of self freedom and discouraged the usual routine and self doubt, analytical bullshit and down right wailing "oh where is he" moments and I can honestly say I spent the rest of my early twenties in pure enjoyment and relaxation in the full knowledge that I wasn't missing out on anything just biding my time and staying happy along with it.

Dawn today is now in her early thirties, engaged, thinner than ever, highly successful and appears by all accounts to be very happy and here I am now at 28, no longer single, but happily coupled up with a gorgeous new man and about to embark upon a brand new city adventure to Manchester. I have only just returned from a beautiful holiday, where I again merrily finished my favourite book, whilst I lay enjoying the sun's kisses. Arriving home with my favourite piece of literature tucked into my handbag, I sadly placed it back into the gap left for it, where it now sits proudly on my bookshelf until the next time I feel the need to read it.

Thank you Dawn Porter, you really are someone I will continue to be inspired by and I hope that my book will continue its travels into the various friends handbags and overseas to be placed carefully next to my sun lounger or in my handbag should the time arise when I feel the need to dip into its tasty contents.

Donation Life in Another Person’s Heartbeat

As far back as the centuries BC humans were of the mind that somehow transplantation was an achievable milestone. The first known description from 4th Century BC Chinese texts of a heart transplant was by a surgeon named Tsin Yue-Jen, they state he successfully switched the hearts of two soldiers, no reason was given for this operation but both survived. We have no proof of this amazing surgical advance by the Chinese or whether it was truly successful, however one man in 1967 was to become famous for performing just that operation, his daring work would lead the medical world on in pursuing the feat of heart transplantation. Years later the world would witness the implantation of artificial hearts and animal organs, all in an attempt to combat one of mans biggest killers, heart failure.

“It’s going to work!”

The first acknowledged successful transplant of a heart was not achieved until much further into the history books, when after much preparation Dr. Christiaan Barnard made the breakthrough. Denise Darvall, a 23 year old was to be the first ever heart donor after dying in a road traffic accident on 3rd December 1967, her 

recipient was Louis Washkansky who was told he was dying from heart failure.

Barnard decided that the time was right and gained permission from Denise’s father to go ahead with the operation. When her heart began to beat inside Washkansky’s chest Barnard shouted “It’s going to work!” This was by all accounts a successful transplant; however Washkansky died from pneumonia eighteen days later due to his compromised immune system that was being suppressed with azathioprine and hydrocortisone to stop his body from rejecting the new heart.

Even though this may seem to have ultimately been a failure it did not deter Barnard from persisting in his quest to perfect the heart transplant. It was only with the approval of the immunosuppressant cyclosporine in 1983 that an often lethal and experimental procedure would become routine.

The waiting game

Today the biggest obstacle facing patients needing heart transplants is no longer the risk of rejection or infection; it is simply that there just aren’t enough hearts available. According to the Transplant Activity Report 2010/11, 206 people needing a new heart joined the transplant list; there were 131 heart transplants and 126 donations.

As of the 26th January 2012 154 people were recorded on the active heart transplant list. Transplant patients in the UK rely solely on the general public to join the organ register and pledge to donate after their death, however current figures in March 2011 showed that only 17,751,795 people are on the UK Organ Donor Register which is only 29% of the UK population, unfortunately not everyone who is on the donor register will go on to be a suitable donor at death so this considerably cuts down the number of suitable donations made each year.

Sadly every year many people lose their fight for life whilst on the transplant list, during 2010, 19 people died waiting on the transplant list.


Bridging the gap

Artificial hearts are now being introduced to bridge the gap that many patients awaiting transplant face. This is not altogether a new technique; the first recipient of an experimental device was Haskell Carp, it was implanted by Dr Denton Cooley in 1969 at the St Luke’s Hospital, Houston, the patient survived for just 3 days. This did not deter other ambitious surgeons and in 1982 another artificial heart designed by Dr. Robert Jarvik, the Jarvik 7 was implanted by William DeVries, the recipient was a Seattle Dentist, Mr Barney Clark who volunteered simply because he wanted to make a contribution to medical science, he was fully aware he may not survive for long after the operation, however he survived for 112 days. The next recipient Bill Schroeder would survive for 620 days.

These early breakthroughs were another lifesaving gift to the heart transplant patient, and although the early attempts required huge pneumatic power sources and carried a high risk of infection, they paved the way for the future. Current devices include the AbioCor Replacement Heart and the SynCardia temporary Total Artificial Heart, over 950 implants of the SynCardia device account for more than 230 patient years of life. The longest a patient has been kept alive using the SynCardia is 1300 days and counting.

In August 2011 Mathew Green, 40 became the first UK person to receive a SynCardia device and be discharged from hospital, he has since been able to return to an almost normal life. Without this device it is almost certain he would not have survived the wait on the transplant list.

Reasons for Heart Transplant

There are many reasons for needing a heart transplant; cardiomyopathy, cardio vascular disease, congenital heart defects, coronary heart disease, heart attack and obesity are the leading causes.

In 2009 45,000 people under 75 died from cardio vascular disease making it the main cause of death in the under 75s. In the overall population it accounted for 1 in 3 deaths killing over 180,000 people in the UK. Coronary heart disease accounted for an estimated 1 in 5 male deaths and 1 in 8 female deaths killing 82,000 people in 2009.

Cardiomyopathy affects the heart muscle itself, causing a deterioration in the hearts ability to function normally, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, is the most common cause of sudden cardiac death in young people, it is estimated that this condition affects 125,000 people in the UK.

Congenital heart disease is another contender for the cause of heart transplant. Hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS), kills 95% of babies before they reach 1 month old if they do not receive treatment, before 1983 parents were told to take their babies home to die.

A prominent case in 1984 was that of Baby Fae, who after being born with this condition received the heart of a baboon, the procedure known as a xenotransplant was subject to ethical and legal debates and caused a media frenzy with some labelling the procedure unethical. Baby Fae died 21 days after the procedure of a kidney infection; however, her body had not rejected the heart.

The medical history books are filled with drastic and questionable attempts to save the lives of people with heart failure, animal transplants have so far been abandoned due to the failure to understand immunobiology and the risk of zoonotic infections and artificial hearts are only a temporary measure, however each year the transplant list adds yet more people to its pages. The best and last option definitely still is the ultimate gift from another human being, a heart donation.

HIV, AIDS and the Stigmatic 80s

On 5 June 1981, following an unusually large outbreak of pneumonia amongst gay men a case study was launched......the world was soon to be alerted to AIDS.

In 1981 a new disease came into the spotlight. No one knew where it had come from or even how it was spread. Professionals feared it and the public stigmatised it, yet even today after 30 years people still fear it and people still stigmatise it, however back then it was a death sentence and the early treatment was fraught with severe side effects and viral resistance.

This disease that by 2009 had infected an estimated 33.3 million people worldwide would come to be known as AIDS.

Several vaccine trials have been tried and failed but due to the HIV’s enormous variability no vaccine has yet been found. Today we have come to understand HIV and how to live with it, the drugs used can offer most people a ‘normal’ life, however the health systems biggest barrier is trying to get the people of today to get tested, there is still fear among people about having an HIV blood test and yet this could be the one factor that could lower the 25% of people who still die from AIDS.

AIDS came to light following a large number of cases of Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP) and Kaposi's Sarcoma (KS) both of which were relatively rare. KS a disease generally found in the older generation, and usually a benign form of cancer, was presenting itself as a much more aggressive malignant skin cancer. Many people were unsure of what to call this new disease, some referred to it as GRID (gay related immune deficiency) or “Gay Cancer” others referred to it simply as AID (acquired immunodeficiency disease), it was not until realisation that not just the gay community were affected, but heterosexual people and drug users as well that it was given the official name of AIDS.

In 1983 the first isolation of a retrovirus from an AIDS case occurred. Dr. Luc Montagnier of the Pasteur Institute in Paris isolated LAV retrovirus (Lymphadenopathy associated virus). This was quickly followed in 1984 by Dr Robert Gallo of the National Cancer Institute when he isolated HTLV-III (Human T-Cell Lymphotropic Virus III retrovirus). It was not until 1986 that the term HIV would be coined after it was found that LAV and HTLV-III were the same virus and the cause of AIDS. Along with this discovery came the first blood test to screen for HIV, it was called the Elisa Test.

The media would come to be involved heavily in the evolution of HIV. During the 80s famous faces began appearing and by the mid 90s several of them had succumbed to AIDS.

2 October 1985 - Rock Hudson, died of AIDS shortly after making his diagnosis public on July 25, 1985, thus becoming the first major public figure to announce that he had AIDS.

4 February 1987 - The pianist Liberace died of AIDS.

1989 - Amanda Blake (Miss Kitty of Gunsmoke) died of AIDS related throat cancer.

24 November 1991 - Freddie Mercury died from bronchopneumonia induced by AIDS a day after announcing to the public he had been HIV positive for 'some time'.

1992 - Anthony Perkins (Norman Bates of Hitchcock's Psycho) died of pneumonia brought on by AIDS.

1992 - Robert Reed (Mike Brady of The Brady Bunch) died of intestinal cancer and complications of AIDS.

1994 - Dack Rambo (Jack Ewing of Dallas) died of complications of AIDS.

It was during 1987 that the UK government decided to stand up and make people aware of the dangers of this deadly disease possibly in the hopes of containing what they anticipated to be an impending epidemic, it was by way of a public information poster and leaflet shock campaign, leaflets were sent to every home and posters entitled ‘AIDS – Don’t die of ignorance’ were on view to the public everywhere. The BBC and ITV broadcasted a short public information film in nearly every ad break and television was to show programmes dedicated to the use of condoms.

During the noughties the battle of stigma, discrimination and the legal rights of people living with HIV were tackled head on, the first trial for the reckless transmission of HIV was held in 2001 and Global Campaigns were set up such as NAT’s 2003 ‘Are you HIV Prejudiced?’ campaign.

In 2005 Royal Assent was given to the Disability Discrimination Act giving Legal protection to people who were HIV positive to stop discrimination in places such as the workplace.

However the number of people living with HIV in the UK continued to rise and was estimated in 2006 at 73,000 this climbed to an estimated 91,500 by 2010.

During the early 80s AIDS was a death sentence, only time would tell how long you could survive, no drugs had been found to fight it and the best therapy was palliative, this changed however on 20th March 1987 with the approval of a new drug called AZT, however it was found to be unpredictable and caused severe side effects and long term use eventually lead to viral resistance. it would be another 8 years before another drug known as a Protese Inhibitor was found that would make a substantial difference to an infected person.

Throughout the 90s the number of people contracting HIV in the UK was on the rise it was to go from 1,000 in 1987 to 10,000 in 1995 with over 25,000 living with the disease. In 1991 10 million people worldwide were HIV-positive. Death rates due to HIV were not to fall until 1997 with the advent of HAART (Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy) in 1996 where a minimum of three drugs were combined lowering the chances of viral resistance.

The HIV infection destroys the CD4 T-Helper Cells, diagnosis of transition to AIDS is usually confirmed by CD4+ T cell counts and also the level of HIV RNA in the blood, when CD4 levels drop below a certain amount (decided by health advisor) determines when treatment can begin.

Most patients fall prey to the opportunistic infections that HIV infection allows into the body, simply because the immune system is not alerted to their presence these include:

PCP (Pneumocystic Pneumonia)
KS (Kaposi Sarcoma)
Toxoplasmosis
HIV Encephalopathy Tuberculosis
Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma
Peripheral Neuropathy
Herpes Simplex
Candidiasis
Cytomegalovirus
Myobacterium Tuberculosis

In a patient with a normal functioning immune system the majority of these diseases would not occur or could be dealt with efficiently.



Living with AIDS is not all about disease management and control it is also about the cost of living with the status of your illness. The social stigma can leave people isolated with no one to talk to, thus leading to depression and feelings of being an outsider and many people associate HIV with a negative stigma such as drug users and the gay community. There is also physical and mental debilitation, the immune system being severely compromised can leave the patient severely ill after a simple common cold.

The Red Cross and NHS interviewed HIV patients and broadcast videos online in a bid to bring knowledge of what being a sufferer really feels like. These are a few of their words.

“When the Dr told me I was HIV positive, it was terrifying, it was like dying but not being dead, I haven’t told my family, I don’t think they could deal with it......I just feel...so completely on my own”

“The words you’re HIV positive, there’s nothing manageable about that...I hadn’t come out to my family as being gay so that made it even harder, cause first of all my parents knew I was positive and then I’ve got to tell them I’m gay...I’d only been in 2 relationships at the time...it can happen to anyone it’s not just a gay disease”

“I discovered I had HIV by chance in 1985 back then it was death sentence...I had a two minute appointment with the consultant, who said “You have got hepatitis B and HIV. Go away and enjoy yourself but don’t have sex” I was just 18 and it didn’t seem real...I met my wife Caroline in 1989 and we married in 1990...Having HIV is not the end of the world, although I do have dark moments, especially if things go wrong...the more people are open about HIV, the less stigma there will be"

It is important to remember that HIV is not always a death sentence, it can be managed and controlled and the support available is better than it has ever been. There are today many charities and campaigns set up such as the Terrence Higgins Trust, National AIDS Trust, Red Cross and World AIDS Day, all there to fight the anguish, loneliness and hopelessness that many HIV patients feel.

Hopefully we will eventually stamp out the memories of those stigmatic 80s when simple ignorance and misunderstanding left the AIDS sufferer alone with no hope. 

"if you hide your HIV status in a dark corner, that’s where you’ll feel you are"