Karen Ward Optimum Health

21/12/2025

A very full circle moment for me on Winter Solstice as we say goodbye to darker days and welcome in the light ☀️

I had a lovely conversation with recently about my journey with IBD.

I haven’t done any interviews for almost 10 years as clinic has been busy so it is such an honour to be able to share my story of hope and surviving against the odds.

So today after all your lovely heartfelt messages a lot of thoughts and feelings flooding back.

If I cast myself back to December 2008 as my health was declining rapidly and I’d lost my dog one of the great animal loves of my life. The future looked so uncertain and I was entering one of toughest periods of my life.
I’m blessed and so full of gratitude to my body to still be here today and a heartfelt thanks to Paula for sharing my story 🥰

Wishing you and yours all a very Merry Christmas and here’s to a 2026 full of hope and healing ❤️‍🩹

Love Karen 💕

https://allaboutcork.ie/cork-woman-who-lost-much-of-her-bowel-to-crohns-now-helps-others-heal-through-nutrition/

21/10/2025

No !! It’s not a Turner painting this was the sky here tonight 🤩Absolutely epic 🙏
Hope you all got to enjoy it wherever you were ❤️

25/09/2025

My most recent beautiful rescue Molly ❤️
Finding it hard to believe she’s 7 months already🥰

27/04/2025

15/02/2025

Me and the gang out for our morning constitutional.

They are as unimpressed with the weather as I am
The joys of coastal living. 🙃

🌧️🌧️🌧️🌧️🌧️😶‍🌫️😶‍🌫️😶‍🌫️

18/01/2025

There will be days my friend,
When you feel like you just can’t go on.💔
Just keep swimming.
Breathe in and breathe out and wait for the light of a new day to dawn.

There will be days, my friend....
When nothing seems to be making sense.
It’s not supposed to.
Clear your mind and open your heart, the answers will come in time.

There will be days, my friend...
When the pain rises up and engulfs you.
Be kind to yourself.
Lay low and let the tears flow like a river, release, open the floodgates, let it out.

There will be days my friend...
When it feels like the whole world is against you. When it feels like you cannot do right for doing wrong.�Just sit it out. �Tomorrow is a new day and these feelings will pass. I promise.

You see, life is all things, from one day to the next.
It is beautiful at times, wondrous, amazing and joyful - then it is awful, miserable and heart-breaking.
And the cycle goes around.
It is as it should be.
Everything is as it should be and you, you will be okay.
Have faith.
Keep hope in your heart.
Tomorrow is a new day.

R.I.P my beloved friend 💔

❤️

13/01/2025

My dear beautiful friend and colleague Patricia tragically left this world yesterday.
Our community is utterly heartbroken and devastated at her passing.

Patricia was the most inspirational women Ive ever met and feel so absolutely blessed to have had the privilege of being her friend.

I’ll miss our long chats putting the world to right while she bounced on her trampoline while I walked my dogs.

I just can’t imagine a world without her 💔she She certainly left this world a better place having helped so many on her path. She was a warrior, a thought leader and brave beyond words.

Here’s to the amazing legacy she leaves behind and sending strength, love and courage to her beautiful family Johnny, Conor and Leona 💔

Rest in peace beautiful Angel 💕
https://www.instagram.com/share/_yHjIprU-

06/12/2024

For the most part, grief is not a problem to be solved, not a condition to be medicated, but a deep encounter with an essential experience of being human.
Grief becomes problematic when the conditions needed to help us work with grief are absent. For example, when we are forced to carry our sorrow in isolation, or when the time needed to fully metabolize the nutrients of a particular loss is denied, and we are pressured to return to “normal” too soon. We are told to “get on with it” and “get over it.” The lack of courtesy and compassion surrounding grief is astonishing, reflecting an underlying fear and mistrust of this basic human experience.
Whether for a human or a pet I hope you find a place where your grief can find a quiet corner to lay it’s weary head 💔

— Francis Weller, The Wild Edge of Sorrow

18/11/2024

Our new kittens only here 2 weeks and my beautiful koko as expected has adopted them as her own ❤️as she always does 🤗
I’ve been absolutely 💔since Ben my gorgeous Tom disappeared at the end of September and up until today finding v little reprieve from daily floods of 😢but seeing this tonight must admit felt a pang of joy for the first time in weeks 🤞


💕