The mercury is at 36 degrees, humidity at 75 percent. Felix and I just returned from my Echocardiogram. Two hours ago I plonked down in a waiting room seat wet with sweat. My son bottom shuffled up to all the other people on chairs and in turn plucked at their shoes, looked up at them or gave big, toothy smiles to anyone who engaged with him. Twice now I’ve been asked my daughter’s name. Zoë – I think would be my daughter’s name. But of course they don’t mean my future (not possible) daughter’s name, but my son’s.

Felix has strawberry-blonde curls, a cherubic face with the high colouring only Caravaggio knows how to deliver. In short: he’s gorgeous. The first time I was asked ‘her name’ was last weekend. It probably had something to do with my son wearing a pink bond’s singlet. It was cute.

Why are we still correlating pink with girls and blue with boys? I thought second wave feminism put that one in the garbage bin. Apparently not.

I digress.

It’s hot, and on days like this you have to fill up the water glass often: one for you, one for your head then one for you again.

Weeks ago my ovaries were turned off. Since then I’ve started getting menopausal symptoms with a vengeance. The hot flushes are the worst of them. However, it has to be said that after chemotherapy these kind of bodily discomforts are manageable. When the hot flush comes on it’s like molten lava oozing out of a volcano. The heat is red hot, and consuming. My heart goes from thumpidy thump thump to boom boom in an effort to manage whatever’s happening internally with the rushes. A nurse informed me the other day that her Aunt named them ‘power surges’. They are powerful.

The hot flushes combined with the moist heat of a Brisbane summer make for many showers and changes of underwear.