and I’m not thinking about it at all – honest – I’m just not. Various doctors from psychiatrists to oncologists have talked about how cancer patients find finishing the chemotherapy treatment the hardest part of it. The reason for this is that the cancer kicking drugs are over and you’re faced with life post-treatment (well mine continues for five years) and a new life with the question ‘will my cancer return?’ ‘Am I cured?’ ‘Am I safe?’

No one can answer this, and I’m guessing that this is what makes finishing chemo hardest for us. I’ll let you know how I feel after my week of nausea and ill-health is over. Right now I’m good; tired, but good.

My body doesn’t digest chocolate, or it seems fried food like chips. A funny thing happened on the way down my digestive tract the other day. Ngaire (Felix’s godmother) spent a week with us for my last chemo session. She did night shifts with Felix, cooked lovely meals and was in all manners a gorgeous presence. Anyway, on the last night she shouted us take away fish and chips. I was no longer nauseous (it takes hold of me for a week now) and wanted something yummy. The fish was grilled, the chips were not that many.

Within half-an-hour of eating said yummy dinner my stomach starting rising and rising until it formed the shape of a semi-deflated football. I was alarmed, but also felt like vomiting and was in a bit of discomfort. Needless to say, it expelled itself in the bathroom – several times. Rise – expell – rise again. My entire meal went the way of the underground sewage system.

I put this down to the fact that chemo’s effects are accumulative and the fast growing cells in my stomach and other places don’t like fat getting in the way or quite simply cannot digest it any longer. I remember a cancer pamphlet saying as much. Now I know for sure.

There’s another side to illness. The heightened thoughts and stand backness from the normal day runnings of life; observing without the fast rush of ‘get there’ adrenalin; the comings and goings are slowed down, so you notice where your feet fall.

Or, as Virginia Woolf said:

“Considering how common illness is, how tremendous the spiritual
change that it brings, how astonishing, when the lights of health go
down, the undiscovered countries that are then disclosed, what
wastes and deserts of the soul a slight attack of influenza brings to
view, what precipices and lawns sprinkled with bright flowers a little
rise of temperature reveals, what ancient and obdurate oaks are
uprooted in us by the act of sickness, how we go down into the pit of
death and feel the waters of annihilation close above our heads and
wake thinking to find ourselves in the presence of angels and the
harpers when we have a tooth out and come the surface in the
dentist’s arm-chair and confuse his “Rinse the mouth-rinse the
mouth” with the greeting of the Deity stooping from the floor of
Heaven to welcome us – when we think of this, as we are so
frequently forced to think of it, it becomes strange indeed that illness
has not taken its place with love and battle and jealousy among the
prime themes of literature.”

(On Being Ill is an essay by Virginia Woolf  that appeared in T.S.Eliot’s New Criterion in January, 1926).

September 8, 2009 article on Breast Cancer and BreastScreen Australia’s decision to restrict the age of free screens.

Janine, from Choices, contacted me asking if I would not mind giving an interview about my experience of getting breast cancer young and my opinion on the decision to restrict free screening to women 45-75 years. I said, ‘Okay’, and the rest is written in this article. I’m not appalled as it says, rather, I think there should be a focus on women under 45years getting tested as well. I don’t want BreastScreen Australia buckling under the pressure of getting all the women on their waiting list tested. Just, younger women wanting to get checked should get a decent medicare rebate for doing so. My regular ultrasound check, plus a diagnostic mammogram and needle biopsy cost approx. $1000. After the medicare rebate I paid approx.$250-300 out of pocket.

Its funny how things roll. The day this article came out Peter Maher from 3AW http://www.3aw.com.au/shows wanted to interview me about my opinion. So, I did the interview. It was on September 8th at 4pm. I can’t find a podcast to put here – sorry. You can hear Felix in the background. Peter Maher made some comments about his strong voice being good for radio when he’s older (you know the kind of familiar, jokey tone radio presenter thing).

N.B//The white ladders in the photo are used for training beans and tomatoes up them. I’m very pleased with how lovely our garden looks. I’m wearing the illustrous ‘Tiana’.

If you want to read a more legible version of The Australian article follow this link:

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,26041544-2702,00.html

Not the same (Dorothy Porter)

When you climb

out of a black well

you are not the same

*

you come to

in the blue air

with a long sore scar

circling your chest

like the shoreline

of a deep new sea

*

your hands are webbed

inviting you

to trust yourself

in water stranger

and wilder

than you’ve ever known

*

your heart has a kick

your eyes have

a different bite

you have emerged

from some dark wonder

you can’t explain

*

you are not the same

*

A book length memoir could have the same weight as this poem; what more can I say? Porter captures my feelings precisely about this breast cancer experience.

Folks, what a ride it’s been. I thought it would go smoothly like last time. Alas, the last chemo week went rather awry. In summary: I was intensely nauseous with a bit of a virus for five days. Brett (partner) and Felix (son) got the Norovirus the day after my last chemotherapy session. They were really ill. Felix was hospitalised on the Tuesday for a few days.

Our friends from over the border Sara and Ian were with us for the four days after chemo. They did the night shift with Felix, so Brett and I could rest. But, by the time the virus really kicked in we were up like ghouls of the strange bumping around the house throughout the entire night. Brett was in the toilet, bent over. I tried to help him by getting some water; so I tiptoed into the kitchen to get a glass, as Sara was asleep in the dining room. I fumbled around in the cupboard; and smashed a champagne glass on the floor. Sara was up now. Then, Ian was up changing Felix’s diarrhoea nappies. So, of course Felix was up. He had a fever, was projectile vomiting like his father and crotchety. When Felix is tired or not happy he rubs at his eyes and the tape on his face (which holds his tube in); he pulled part of his tube out. So all four adults were up with the Felix settling him, putting his tube back down, fixing his tape and checking that both Brett and Felix weren’t getting worse. Later on when Sara and Ian returned home they too got the norovirus, Ian got the worst of it as he’d done a lot of the nappy changes. Pooh!

16.08.09

Breathing in is like opening the door of your rented 4wd and sniffing a Canadian icestorm outside: the sensation is sharp. I stand in the middle of my chemo regimen fascinated with the stripped down effect on my body and self in general. First with the body. The chrome dome and return to just skin look from losing most of one’s hair content makes me resemble I, Robot (from the movie with Will Smith). My ears stick back thank god. I’m used to it now. I even kind of like it – it’s easy. There’s no hiding, anything. Same with myself. I have no career at present to hide behind or define my self by. What do you do? I’m a mother: check. I’m a cancer patient: check. I’m a person with interests/ of interest? check. Query – How do you define yourself when the usual trappings are sliced off? By how you conduct yourself through the world … and with others (?)

Breast clinics are attached to hospitals as a support for women going through breast cancer treatments. It’s a follow up centre to get drains removed, queries answered, and referrals to counsellors/psychologists and much more. My nurse from the Mater Private Breast Cancer Centre http://breastcancer.mater.org.au/ has arranged to throw some private funding from the Breast Clinic my way for a Nanny. BUT, there’s more … she randomly met some women she knew out and about on the weekend (it’s shrouded in mystery, I’ll never know their names) who had a successful fundraiser on the weekend and wanted to give a portion of money directly to a women with breast cancer in a difficult situation (well, we all are) – and – I am officially on a tricky, muddy, tight-rope of a path with a son on the same said path so they donated the money to Felix and I. And now my lovely nurse has put me in-touch with a Nanny service and she’ll organise the payment side of things with my pooled funds. How wonderful is that? Bloody wonderful in fact. Thank you world.

Didn’t need to take anithistamines today. I am flushed face, but not in a badly allergic way. Wacked with tiredness, low-lying nausea, but nothing that’s rocking my world. Taking it easy.

Oncology day unit: (mid-point)

The first two rounds were horrible. I’m hoping that the next three after this one will go smoothly. With the first cycle I was hospitalised for five days.* With the second I was ill with a septic shock reaction and so far with the third chemo I haven’t gone septic (crossed-fingers). May the anti-emetic drugs (anti-nausea) + post-chemo cocktail of steroids, bowel control tablets, GCSF depot injection (triggers bone marrow to make white blood cells) and antihistamines hold me – them drugs baby they do appear to work.

The first two cycles remind me that I’m beholden to my chemistry. When physically ill with medical mishaps I’m the child who ignores the practical joke of a sheet over a sand pit. I walk straight into it and the sides collapse – my emotional life plummets to lack of hope, I become skinless and words with any hardness or edge go straight in and twist. With the first sign of returning health my normally robust nature draws back on like a much loved jacket – reassured and comfortable inside myself again, hope returned.

*One good thing about being in hospital was I got a complete rest. The staff were lovely to their youngest person on ward.