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Cheap Smokes Only Cost You Two Lungs

7/27/2019

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The powerful and emotive words in the headline of today's guest post come from John D. Allen.

I came across John on Twitter after seeing the amazing story of how he gave up smoking by accident.

Never having smoked myself - I've not had even one cigarette - I can't speak personally about how difficult, or otherwise, it is to quit smoking. Neither am I endorsing the product he uses. I'm simply giving him a platform to tell his story.
 
A Smoker Who Quit By Accident
by John D. Allen
"A Smoker who quit By Accident." Nobody could dream up of a story like this, even in Hollywood.

It all began in 2006, when I, a smoker for around 30 years, had a stroke on left side of my body. I was barely able to call 911, but managed it somehow from the kitchen floor.

I thought I was going to die.

I spent 3 days in hospital. The first day I really didn't even know I was there. But after that I started getting better.  Had a lot of tests,  and 2 MRI scans    I was very dizzy and that is when the ringing in my ear started. I was able to go home, but laying down I would still get dizzy. The dizziness got better but the ringing in my left ear got worse. I went to at least 3 ear doctors and each told me there was no cure for Tinnitus.

However, I was able to function, and went back to work. But the ringing was terrible. On a level of 10 it was ringing on an 8 or 9. It was terrible...but I was able to find a little relief with a small portable radio and earbuds. I'd listen to static from the radio with an ear bud in my left ear, and it felt so good. I carried this radio with me for maybe a year listening to static. 

But later, I found my own solution.


Around 2008 I stumbled upon a newspaper article saying that Campral Acamprosate was maybe a cure for ringing in the ear. I was very excited and took it to my doctor, who gave me a prescription. It was an easy choice to take, either that or suck on a gun barrel. I took the drug for several months, and the ringing started to diminish. It didn't go away but went down to a level of 1 or 2 -- and I could go most of the day and never hear it.

Three months after starting to take Acamprosate I woke up one morning and didn't need to smoke! That was very strange, and scared me. It just wasn't normal. All the rest of that day I had no urge to smoke at all.
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The next day, and in the days that followed, there was no urge to smoke. 

Wow that was wonderful. I went months & months with no urge to smoke. Amazing: not one urge - and that's still the same today - 11 years nicotine free now.

I started telling people. But no-one believed me.  I had no proof, it just my word - hopeless. Then, around four years after stopping smoking, I discovered something else. 
I found out a few more things about Acamprosate: it's used in the treatment of alcoholism; rats were trained to press a lever to obtain intravenous infusion, and these results show that Acamprosate reduced cue-induced nicotine-seeking behavior and suggest that Acamprosate might be efficacious in treating nicotine addiction in humans. Source: Pechnick RN, Manalo CM, Lacayo LM, Vit JP, Bholat Y, Spivak I, Reyes KC, Farrokhi C. Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center Brain Research Institute, UCLA, Los Angeles, California, USA June 22, 2011
I was elated that Acamprosate might be efficacious in treating nicotine addiction in humans. So, I wasn't crazy after all. I was right: Acamprosate may make a person quit smoking. I had some proof now, and thought people would believe me now. But NOOOOOOOOOO. Despite finding other items about it online, it's still no good. People still don't believe me.   
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But I'll keep telling people how this worked for me.

Then, in January 2019 I finally found another person who quit smoking with Acamprosate: Samantha Jones, of Westrern North Carolina, who stopped after being a smoker for 20 years. She and I have become good buddies, and talk almost every day.

There seems to be clear evidence that Acamprosate is used in the treatment of alcoholism, but there's little information about its effects on nicotine addiction. The object of the study was to determine whether Acamprosate inhibits cue-induced relapse to nicotine self-administration in the rats. The rats were trained to press a lever to obtain intravenous infusions of nicotine (0.03 mg/kg/infusion) that were associated with the illumination of a cue light.

​After 29 days of nicotine self-administration sessions, extinction sessions were run, during which responses on the active lever didn't result in the infusion of nicotine, or the illumination of the cue light 

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After 14 days of extinction sessions the rats received twice-daily injections of saline or Acamprosate (50, 100, or 200 mg/kg/ intraperitoneally).

Seven days later the response to the previously conditioned cue was tested, but only saline infusions were delivered. Pre-treatment with all doses of Acamprosate reduced. responding to a cue previously associated with nicotine.

The lowest dose of Acamprosate (50 mg/kg) reduced responding for the cue previously associated with nicotine infusions, but had no effect on food-rewarded behavior.

​These results show that Acamprosate reduced cue-induced nicotine-seeking behavior and suggest that Acamprosate might be efficacious in treating nicotine addiction in humans.
Which has got to be good news...because, remember: Cheap Smokes Only Cost You Two Lungs. 
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Follow John on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/IQuitSmoking_1

And find more information on his website:  
https://www.campralquitsmoking.com/

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Behind The First Human Footprint On The Moon - PART TWO

7/20/2019

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Click here to read Part One 

In Britain all three television channels (Editor's note...at that time there was only BBC 1, BBC 2 and ITV) gave comprehensive coverage of the trip, and, as for other star-rated events such as the FA Cup Final, the British Broadcasting Corporation and commercial television battled for viewers.

Independent Television News (ITN) used two mechanical "secret weapons" costing a total of £7,500. One, named Solari, electronically calculated heights and distances in relation to time, and took just a fraction of a second to do it. It enabled ITV to give viewers much information that the BBC could not supply, including instant estimates of the moonmen's speed and position as they approached the moon.

The other was a video-electronic brain, and could store thousands of words. These two devices meant that fact-packed captions could be shown on television screens at the same time as action pictures.

Almost 4,000 journalists were registered by NASA as having been sent to the Cape Kennedy launching site. Among them were 700 overseas correspondents, with 111 coming from Japan.

There were 64 reporters from the United Kingdom, and for the first time, a launching was watched by newspapermen from Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Rumania.

Among the dignitaries present were Lyndon B. Johnson, the former president of the United States; Colonel Charles Lindbergh, the first man to fly alone across the Atlantic Ocean; 69 ambassadors; and about a third of the American Senate and House of Representatives.

Included in Neil Armstrong's personal; kit was a small pouch containing three gold and two silver medals. It was the tragic cargo that he left on the moon as a memorial to the Russian and American spacemen who die opening the skyward road for others to follow. The special medals were struck in honour of United States astronauts Virgil (Gus) Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee, who died when swept Apollo 7 during a countdown rehearsal on Cape Kennedy's blast-off pad. Medals remembering Soviet cosmonauts Yurio Gagarn, who died in an air crash, and Vladimir Komarov, killed in Soyuz 1, were also left on the moon.

The launch itself came after a 28-hour countdown, and the weather could hardly have been better. The South-East winds were registered at ten knots, temperature was in the mid 80s, and clouds were at 15,000 feet.

The astronauts had been woken up at 4.14 a.m., and after a breakfast of orange juice, steak, scrambled eggs, toast and coffee, they began suiting up.

At 6.27 a.m. they left in an air-conditioned van for the launch pad eight miles away, and entered the command module.

The craft's access arm was retracted, the first-stage engine ignited, and seconds later the massive ship was on its way. The last words from launch control were "Good luck and Godspeed."

Said Armstrong: "Thank you very much. We know this will be a good flight."

The flight went like a dream, and Collins was left in the commandship as Armstrong and Collins crawled through the tunnel into "Eagle" before dropping down towards the dead and hostile world below them. It was eighteen minutes past four on July 20th when "Eagle" settled with a gentle jolt in the Sea of Tranquility. Immediately Armstrong told Earth: "The Eagle has landed."

Aldrin described what he saw from the window as he looked out on to the scene, by saying: "Magnificent desolation."

It was over four and half hours later than planned, but still five hours ahead of the original schedule, when Armstrong opened the lunar module's hatch and squeezed through the doorway. Strapped to his shoulders was a portable life-support unit and communications system weighing a total of 84 pounds on Earth, but only 14 on the mon due to the weaker gravity. From the second stair, he pulled a special ring that operated a television camera so the world could watch as he planted his left foot on the surface of another world and said: "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind."

That footprint of a lunar boot, which resembled an oversized Wellington boot, will remain there for ever, the surface being undisturbed, as winds are unheard of on the moon. The only way the astronauts could keep the "stars and stripes" flag flying was to thread wire into it. 

Armstrong described the scene as being part of a United States' desert "with a stark beauty all of its own."

During their stay on the moon the astronauts had several jobs to do, like collecting rocks to bring home for analysis, and setting up a variety of instruments on the alien surface.

Richard Nixon, President of the United States, made what he called the most historic telephone call of all time. He was put in direct contact with the moonmen from the Oval Room at the White House, and told them he joined with people all over the world in recognising just what a feat the journey had been.

"Because of what you have done, the heavens have become a part of man's world. As you talk to us from the Sea of Tranquility it inspires us to redouble our efforts to bring peace and tranquility to Earth," he said.

About 21 hours after it touched down, "Eagle" prepared to lift off, using its base as a launching pad.

The astronauts took with them their soil samples, film, certain flags, other mementoes, and an aluminium foil used in one of their experiments. Several items were left behind to reduce the weight from the 15,897 pounds Eagle had taken to the moon, to 10,821. Included in the lunar junkyard were cameras, tools, portable life systems, lunar boots, the American flag, experiments which would continue working, and a host of other devices which had been useful to their adventure on the moon.

"Eagle" redocked with the orbiting mother ship, nicknamed "Columbia," and while making the 31st orbit the vessel began its homeward course.

"USS Hornet" was the recovery ship used to fish the module out of the Pacific Ocean, 825 nautical miles South-West of Honolulu. The astronauts emerged from the spacecraft in isolation suits and were sprayed with disinfectant as a guard against any possible contamination of Earth with "moongerms."

Their journey to Houston's lunar receiving laboratory was spent inside a mobile quarantine trailer.

A sense of relief swept the world as it was confirmed for millions to see that man not only knew how to land on the moon, but also how to get safely home again. It was just one hour and 17 minutes from splashdown to the moment the three heroes, as they had so obviously become, walked in to their mobile unit and were medically inspected by space physician Dr John Carpenter.

The President told them it was the greatest week in the history of the world since the creation, and because of their voyage mankind could now reach out for the stars.

Russia, who lost the race to the moon after blazing the trail with Yuri Gagarin's first Earth orbit, quickly conceded victory, and not only congratulated the United States, but sent good wishes to the astronauts themselves.
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So ended man's first mission to the moon, 195 hours, 18 minutes and 35 seconds after it started. A three-man team had been, seen, conquered and returned. They came back to a well-deserved heroes' reception, albeit through windows of a quarantine unit for three weeks, but then emerged back into the glorious Earth sunshine, stepping straight from the pages of history to rejoin their families.    

 

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Behind The First Human Footprint On The Moon

7/20/2019

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I'll never forget that moment when my Mum woke me up on the morning of July 21st 1969, when I was 13 years old, with the words: "Amazing pictures from the moon."

Given the time difference between America and the UK, it was actually still the 20th in the States, but early morning on the 21st for me.

Shooting downstairs, I sat glued to our little black and white TV with its tiny screen, to witness history in the making.

A part of history that is now celebrating its 50th anniversary.

I kept a scrapbook with cuttings from a variety of newspapers and TV guides. And when I dug it out today, I also found, amongst its pages, an article I'd written about Apollo 11 and some of the background work that had gone on to bring us Neil Armstrong's iconic quote: "That's One Small Step For A Man, One Giant Leap For Mankind."

So, here it is...in all its glory. The totally unedited original words my 13-year-old mind had strung together a lifetime ago.


Man was destined to land on the moon sooner or later. He did it sooner. In the early 1960s, United States President John F. Kenedy pledged that his nation would land a human being on rthe desolate wastes of the moon before the decade was out.

That dream became a reality on July 20th 1969 when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepped from their space-craft on to the surface of the new world, while Michael Collins circled high above them.

A lot of hard work down the years had gone into that historical moment, and although the three astronauts earned their place in the history books, they were merely the frontmen of a massive team.

It's also interesting to note that the day Apollo 11 lifted off for the moon, July 16th 1969, was the 24th anniversary of another technological milestone - the explosion of the first atomic bomb.

The following pages attempt to look deeper than the surface story reported in newspapers all over the world. I am indebted to National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Washington DC, for part of my research material.

American astronaut Neil Armstrong's first step on the moon was seen or heard by millions of people all over the world.

Mission commander Armstrong and astronaut Edwin (Buzz) Aldrin flew a four legged ferry craft down to the moon's surface for a stay of 21 hours 27 minutes, while the third crewman, astronaut Michael orbited the moon in the parent ship.

The insect-like lunar module touched down on a clear place in the boulder-strewn Sea of Tranquility on July 20th 1969. Its occupants spent about ten hours inside, resting, and checking the machines, before they emerged in their spacesuits and set foot on the surface OF THE MOON.

After thousands, maybe millions, of years, Man had conquered virtually eternity and landed on Luna while the Earth looked on with bated breath.

All the time we were only one-point-three-seconds away from the astronauts - the time taken for the sound and pictures to travel the distance it took Apollo 11 over three and a half days to cover.

Almost a miracle, is it not, when you compare the two and a half days it took us to hear that Sir Edmund Hillary and Tensing had had the quiet, lonely and private triumph of reaching Earth's highest spot, Mount Everest?

That miracle only came about thanks to the hard work of many men down the years, starting perhaps with Russian schoolmaster Konstantin Tsiolkovski, who wrote the first of his scientific articles on space travel in 1895. In 1903 he showed that a rocket engine was able to work in a vacuum, and a few years earlier had designed a space-craft to run on liquid propellants. He realised at the start of his experiments that the powder propellants used in war rockets and fireworks for at least seven hundred years were not sufficient for space flight.

It was October 4th 1957 that the space age really began when Russia sent a 23-inch satellite, Sputnik 1, into orbit, and launched the first man into space, Major Yuri Gagarin, four years later.

Although astronauts' space suits look in many ways similar to those used by fighter pilots, they are much more expensive and elaborate -  necessarily so to protect the wearer from extreme cold and heat, and keep him healthy and comfortable during flights of many days...and maybe in the future, for many weeks, inside cramped capsules.

Launched by the big Atlas and Titan rockets, the Gemini and Mercury spaceships paved the way for the exciting Apollo series and the eventual journey to the moon. For early unmanned testing of the Apollo range, America used the 190-foot high Saturn 1 two-stage rocket; and the three-stage Saturn V that sent the moon landing crew on their way was far larger than any other. It had an overall height of 362 feet, and launching weight was well over 2,700 tons. The five liquid propellant engines in the first stage developed a total of 7,500,000 pounds of thrust. No voyage of discovery had ever demanded greater courage than the journey of a quarter of a million miles to the moon.

Wednesday July 16th 1969 was the day the historic journey began, and the astronauts were said to be calm, cool and collected as they waited aboard their craft for blast-off. Flight Director Donald Slayton said they were ready to go to work the same as any other morning.

But even those men of steel, who must have felt greatly honoured, were frightened by the possibility of being stranded on that alien world. Christopher Columbus Kraft, Director of Flight Operations, said Michael Collins would have been powerless to help his colleagues if their moonbug failed to lift off for the link-up.
"There were no rules about that, I did not think there needed to be. I did not even like to think about it, because there really was nothing we could have done about a tragedy like that. We ran every test we could think of to detect any possible failure and make sure it could not happen again. The men did not carry any suicide aids, but they could have opened their space suits or landing craft cabin to the vacuous atmosphere on the moon. But I think they would probably have spent their last hours trying to learn what went wrong, for the benefit of astronauts who would have had to follow them."

What sort of men would National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) send to the moon? First, applicants had to satisfy basic requirements of being aged under 40 years, less than six feet tall, have a basic A1 physical condition, a university degree or the equivalent, and be an American citizen. From the hundreds of applications that poured in only 65 people survived the gruelling physical and mental tests. For seven days they filed through a maze of laboratory tests. Heart, liver, kidney, brain, spleen, eyes, teeth, ears and nose were all checked and double checked.

Heart function and lungs were found to be perfect after a more detailed examination, and the men went on to their next test - stress.

They were whirled inside a centrifuge until they blacked out. Then, with a task of keeping their chairs upright, they were blindfolded and put in vibrators until their teeth rattled.

Several more stress tests were used, but neither NASA nor the United States Information Service would comment, other than say they were being kept secret for security reasons. One they would divulge was that the men had to sit with their feet plunged in ice for unspecified periods.

Also, the mind and emotional breaking point of each man was tested to its limits, and those who broke first were out.

The three who won were Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins. In brief notes abut them, NASA described Armstrong as a pleasant, ordinary-looking man who would not attract a second glance if you met him in a crowded street. He tends to talk briefly and to the point, and the only thing he wants to talk about is space. In training,  the technicians who worked with him said he was mission-orientated, and was more air force virtually than the Air Force itself. He distinguished himself as a fighter pilot in Korea and was "probably the best jet test pilot in the world."

He was selected as an astronaut in September 1962, and before the historic moon flight had been in space only once, as commander of Gemini Eight, launched on March 16th 1966.

NASA said Aldrin was outwardly the same as his commander, a competent pilot who hardly ever made a mistake. He, too, had been in space only once after becoming an astronaut in October 1963, and that was as second pilot on the November 1966 trip of Gemini 12.

Michael Collins was of Irish descent, and totally unlike his Apollo 11 colleagues, spending a lot of his time smiling and joking. His only trip in space before the historic flight was as second pilot on Gemini 10.
After selection, came the intensive training period, years of learning to live and work with a battery of machines, a multi-unit process of inter-related electronic, telemetric communication and computer systems, and a horde of sub systems.

One computer controlled training simulator put the astronauts through the whole moonflight mission, and monitored human error. Another simulator was of the lunar landscape, built by geologists according to known facts about the landing point, the Sea of Tranquility, where the team repeated their movements until they could almost do them in their sleep.

The moonbug that took the three chosen men to the moon  was nicknamed "Eagle." It was one of the most complicated and costly machines ever built, being constructed from over a million separate parts, and costing £30-million. Its window cost £3,000 each, and were double-glazed triangles with sun-blinds and chemical coatings to reduce glare.

Inside the seatless cockpit were more than 200 controls, including switches, dials, levers and gauges, all of which were used and checked during the 22 hours the astronauts spent on the moon. Seats had been done away with to save weight and give the men a better view outside.
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The moment "Eagle" touched down Armstrong and Aldrin had to check every piece of equipment to ensure it was fit for an emergency blast off in an emergency. The two main engines underwent minute scrutiny, as did the 16 minor engines, five radio sets, 11 aerials, computers, telescope,  radar machinery, tape recorder, air-conditioning system, hatch pressure seals, and water supply. These checks lasted about six hours, and then the men slept.

 
CONTINUES IN PART TWO - click here to read
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My Life And The Doctor

7/8/2019

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Regular readers of my blog, magazine column, and indeed, my Twitter account, will all know just how much Doctor Who means to me. The show got me through a hard time in my childhood after my Dad died when I was 11, and it was the inspiration for me becoming a professional writer.

Doctor Who means so much to so many people, including my guest blogger today, Simon Pearce. His story is particularly emotional and moving. So, over to Simon, and his article: "My Life And The Doctor."

by  SIMON PEARCE
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My name is Simon Pearce, and I’m 43 years old. Born in Woolwich, South East London, but have moved around and lived in a number of different places. I’m disabled with a number of medical conditions, and have been a Doctor Who fan since childhood in the late Tom Baker days.

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Doctor Who has been a huge part of my life since childhood.
​
I started watching around 5 years old, in Tom Bakers last season. My mum was a big fan, and allowed me to watch it with her. The first episode I really recall, is Full Circle. Although I may have watched earlier stories cuddled up on my mum's lap. 

As the years went on, The Doctor was my escape. I was bullied incessantly at school, and coming home to watch Doctor Who on the television (the scheduling changes in the 80’s meant I was able to watch on weeknights thankfully), or one of the few VHS tapes we had, allowed me to forget about the hell of school.

Peter Davison’s Doctor became one of my favourites because of this through his few years in the role. His optimism, his coin-flipping decision making, and those three words. Brave Heart, Tegan. I keep them with me to this day. I looked to the Doctor whenever I felt low. And he kept me strong.

I enjoyed the Sixth and Seventh Doctors too, but not as much, and I began to look at other things. As you do when you’re growing up. And I barely noticed when it was taken off the air.

Through the early 90’s I enjoyed reading the novels at the library, and the continuing Doctor Who Magazine, but it didn’t feel the same. And I drifted further from The Doctor. That said, I was ecstatic when it was announced it was coming back in 1996. I hoped, as we all did, for a new series. The TV movie was great, but sadly the series was never commissioned and again I let The Doctor go for another 9 years.

By the time 2005 came around, I’d spread my wings and moved from London to the North East. Finally we got a new series, and I fell in love with the show all over again. I started collecting again. The DVDs of the Classic era, as it became known, books, figures, all sorts.

Then Facebook happened. Lots of Doctor Who pages and groups were created. I joined a few and made many friends. Some I’m still friends with to this day. Some, are as close as family.

I even met my wife on there. Because of Doctor Who. At the end of 2011, I took over the running of a fan page dedicated to the Classic Years. In August 2012, Lucy found the page. Started submitting lots of photos for me to use.

We got talking, and eventually I asked her to help me out. Lucy agreed and became co-admin. Because she was in London, we were at opposite ends of the country at the time, so that’s all we were, Facebook friends.

Towards the end of 2012, I fell ill, problems with my asthma initially. And in all the time I had off work because of that, I started getting really depressed. Almost to the point of ending my life.

The one thing that stopped me? The Doctor. Re-watching old episodes, old stories. Reminded me there were people out there that love me. That I wasn’t alone. That I’d hurt them immensely if I did that. And I couldn’t bring myself do that. I felt like I would let them, and The Doctor, down.

I felt so alone, but there was one line Sarah Jane said in Journey’s End - “You know, you act like such a lonely man. But look at you. You've got the biggest family on Earth. “ - that made me sit back and think. Made me realise I wasn’t as alone as I felt.
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So once again, I leaned on the Doctor to get me through the dark times, as I had in my school days. Doesn’t matter which Doctor I watched now. Had more choice and more ways to watch 20-odd years on.

They all helped. They all provided the crutch I needed to carry on. The Doctor’s morality. The constant fight of good against evil. The love between The Doctor and his companions. The fun of a lot of the stories.

My illness carried on all through 2013, and into 2014. I was eventually diagnosed with COPD and diabetes type 2. The Doctor saw me through some tough times those 2 years.

In late 2013, I came back to London for a few days to visit my mum for her birthday. Lucy and I decided that as I also had some spare time, that would be a good time for us to meet up for the first time. Which we did. And we sat and watched Tomb of the Cybermen. A day I shall never forget. The first Doctor Who we watched together.
​
But then I went back home to the North East and thought that was it. Didn’t know when or if I’d see her again.
May 2014 came around. I was still off work. My depression got worse, and after an intervention from a friend, my family eventually moved me back South to live with my brother in Kent, so they could look after me.

I’d quit work so I could move back. My brother lived in Dartford. And there were times I was bored while he was working, so I’d go wander round the town, and I found a great tattoo artist.

Over the next few months I had him tattoo a TARDIS design on me, a Dalek and a Cyberman, so in a way, the Doctor would always be with me.
​
By August 2014, I was feeling a little better and Lucy wanted to meet up again, as I was now living a lot closer. So we did. And we fell head over heels for each other. I started spending more time with Lucy than I did back at my brothers place!

We started dating, but only a couple months later in October 2014, Lucy was diagnosed with terminal bone cancer. The hospital staff took samples for a biopsy, and I said to Lucy if it comes back with the worst possible diagnosis, we’re getting married - and she agreed! It did, so, we did. ​
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We arranged it all in less than eight weeks. And in December, we had a Doctor Who themed wedding (what else!). Me as the Season 18 Fourth Doctor, and Lucy as Mary Tamm’s Romana (Romana’s white dress was a perfect inspiration for a wedding dress).

My wonderful step-mum even made us a Doctor Who wedding cake.
​
Over the next few years, we merged our individual items, and built up a huge collection of Doctor Who merchandise together. This included every DVD that’d been released, every Target novel, various figures, Big Finish audios and even a near life size plaster cast model Davros head!

We attended conventions and signings together. Lucy was an amazing artist and put together a great gallery of Who artwork on the Deviantart website, and through Facebook we continued our Classic Years page.

Sadly Lucy passed away in February this year. We had 4 and a half great years together. The funeral program had a TARDIS design. And of course, Lucy had asked for a piece of Murray Gold’s Doctor Who music at her funeral! We even agreed before hand that I’d have a Doctor Who memorial tattoo in her honour - the Tom Baker diamond logo, as that was the era we both started watching.

Since then, life has been hard. I’ve been struggling to cope with her passing. But again, as before, The Doctor has provided a light in the dark. Sometimes I’m ok, but when I’m feeling low, I’ll stick Doctor Who on, and remember the good times.

I’ve been involved with a couple of other fandoms over the years, Star Wars and Batman. But I’ve pretty much walked away from them since Lucy passed. Fell out of love with them. Somehow, it’s only been The Doctor that’s managed to keep me going.
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And through Jodie Whittaker’s new Doctor, I believe she will continue to do so.
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    Stewart Bint supports mental health charity Lamp Advocacy.

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    Author

    Stewart Bint is a novelist, magazine columnist and PR writer. 

    He lives with his wife, Sue, in Leicestershire in the UK, and has two children, Christopher and Charlotte, and a budgie called Sparky.

    Usually goes barefoot.

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