My Little Surf Lifesaver

Today marks the start of the surf lifesaving season. At the beginning of each season, clubs hold a couple of “Come and Try” sessions. They hold these for children 5 years and up.

A friend is tied up with one of the clubs and asked if H would like to give it a go. H has grown to love the beach and “swimming” in recent times, so there was quite a bit of excitement as we trundled off down to the club. J on the other hand couldn’t understand why he wasn’t able to join in too and wasn’t a happy camper at all! Being 4 seems terrible for him. He so wants to be like his big brother.

H had a great time with all the activities. He gave everything a really good try. Some activities he did quite well, other events, not so well, but we’re so proud of him for giving it a go.

The sausage sizzle afterwards went down really well too!

We’ll see how next Saturday goes, but it looks like we may have to head down to the beach every weekend.

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It's finally done - my blog is now up to date. Now to keep it current, that is my next challenge.


Thursday 21 October 2004

Let’s make Christmas baubles with H’s class! What have I let myself in for?

I got there at around 1.40pm, just as the kids were going into assembly, so I had time to set a few things up. I put my painted twig with some baubles I’d made, on top of some shelves. The kids were late getting back from assembly. One of the other mums was there too, which was great as an extra pair of hands came in very useful.

4 (all boys) decided to foil their styro balls, the others decided to paint. Unfortunately the paint took quite a while to dry, but the kids picked out their decorations while waiting, then glued them on – we were forever unclogging glue pots!

We ran out of time, so the teacher said she’d put the hanging cords and their names on, and hang them on the tree. They were all ready I the morning and looked great!

Wednesday 20 October 2004

Radiotherapy treatment planning session at 9.30am. I assume Chest CT, tattooing etc will be done.

I was there for about 1.5 hours, some of which was in the waiting room before hand. There was a bit of marking with textas, my radio onc checked it, then G tattooed me (5 or 6 spots) which are really skin scratches with ink. One of those on my midline hurt! Fortunately I have no feeling under my arm, so with that I didn’t feel a thing. Once that was done, they took me up to get my chest CT scan.

"They" really don't know!

“They” tell you that you should start feeling better when your last cycle of chemo is done. What they don’t tell you is that it might take a year, or much longer to start feeling something like “normal”, whatever that is. Personally, I don’t think you ever feel “normal” again, or if you do, it’s a different “normal”, although not necessarily better or worse, just different. You have to adjust to what is the new normal. That is the big challenge.


Tuesday 19 October 2004

CMF3 - Day 28

End of Chemo! I made it!

Sunday 17 October 2004

CMF3 - Day 26

Starting to feel a little more energetic. Have been preparing more stuff for Thursday (H’s class – making Christmas baubles). Have decided to find a “branch” that can be painted, put in a pot and used as a Christmas tree to hang the baubles on (even if it’s only temporary).

I looked at the pic of the boys I have as wallpaper on this pc (in the creek on the farm) and I felt very weepy. Damned hormones!

The creature from the black lagoon has risen!

And she ain't pretty!

Mucking out the pond is not my favourite task. Sadly, it tends to get a little neglected over winter. The amount of crap that gets in there, much of it from little anonymous, skyward looking, hands behind back creatures, who shall remain nameless, never ceases to amaze me. This year however, it was limited to sticks, stones and macadamia nuts. I’m sure the mozzy wrigglers would have been well fed. Now it’s time to die you bastards!

When I get on a mission, heaven help any one or thing that gets in my way. It’s a long, messy, sometimes smelly and thankless task, and damned hard on the knees even with an senior citizen’s kneeling pad. 1 scoop of mucky water into the bucket, one careful Aussie salute, as one does not want to wear too much pond muck. Damn those flies, there’s no escaping them.

So now I’ve given the pond it’s first scrub and wait for it to dry so I can sweep up anything unpondworthy that remains.

The sound of water tricking out of our fountain into the pond drives me on. I will not be defeated, I will prevail!

OK, I admit it

I’ve been a very slack not so little blogette. It’s not like nothing has been happening, I have been jotting some ramblings, but not getting around to posting. The longer I’ve left it, the more foreboding it seems to become, but I won’t let it defeat me.

Next week the kids are back at school so I hope to get this place up to date. Err, that’s from 28 August to the present. That’s almost 50 days ago - YIKES! It’s very sad indeed.


Thursday 14 October 2004

CMF3 - Day 23

Attended a lunch put on by the hospital for women, who had been through there diagnosed with breast cancer in the last 9-12 months. There were bras, forms, people from the Cancer Care Centre, Look Good Feel Better and the Dragon boating teams. It was good to be able to talk to others about their experience, although I’m not looking forward to radiotherapy (burning, blistering of the skin – I don’t call that fun at all).

Wednesday 13 October 2004

CMF3 - Day 22

Took J to Kindergym and on to the play cafe. When I got home, DH asked me whether I had forgotten something. I said “no”. He asked whether I was sure I’d not forgotten something, to which I replied “no”. Evidently, I was supposed to have my treatment planning session for radiotherapy this morning. I was sure it was set down for the 20th. Luckily it was able to be rescheduled for the 20th. Do I feel like an idiot? YES!!!

A Blue Moment

I had a pity party for 1 last night and cried myself to sleep. I suppose it’s partly, this bloody disease and ensuing treatments, the very unseasonal stinking hot, dry weather that descended upon us, the lack of sleep, I don’t know. I was just totally pissed off and a blubbering mess. No one notices or if the do, they ignore it.

Oh well, I’d better pick myself up, dust myself off, pull myself together and get on with it…

Buckets, bowling, burying, boulder hopping boats and boys

This goes some way to summarising our day, well, morning at the beach.

We met up with my girlfriend and her 2 daughters, aged 9 and 5. The kids have all known each other since they were babies and always have a great time together.

It was a lovely sunny day with a forecast top of 28C, and an offshore breeze. We have a whole metropolitan coastline choose from, so we chose something a little away from the usual “hot spots”. On the way there, we noticed a boat in the marina, probably aptly name “She Got The House” – I wish I’d taken a pic!

The tide was on the way out, there was plenty of sand and more shells, many intact, than you’d usually see. Ahhh, perfect!

We set up our beach shelter that we bought 2 summers ago and hadn’t yet used and settled in.

DH set up some sandcastle “pins” which the kids took to with great gusto, trying to knock them down with fashioned “balls” of sand.

The rock sea wall was a huge attraction with kids clambering all over it trying to find their way up and down. There were plenty of kings and queens of the castle!

Burying the legs became a popular game and we had some “mermaids” stranded on the beach.

I don’t think there was anything the kids didn’t like. They weren’t too happy to leave, except for the bribe of takeaway for lunch and at that stage, their food/energy gauges were bouncing on empty – oh the boys and their stomachs!

So we packed up and headed off.

Now to get the sand out of everything. Boy I hate the beach, well to be honest, sand! It gets everywhere.


Thursday 7 October 2004

CMF3 - Day 16

Took the boys out shopping and they were completely possessed, wouldn’t listen, would not do as they were asked – the kids from hell! Bought them skinny dogs from Wendy’s for lunch and we ate them in the park. The boys weren’t impressed when I said they couldn’t play there as it was WAY past rest time.

I took H out while J was asleep and he was very well behaved.

Told the boys that if they were well behaved, they would get a surprise tomorrow.

I cleaned H’s school sandals as I think he might get this term out of them, with luck.

I’m very tired as I haven’t had any daytime rests for a while.

Wednesday 6 October 2004

CMF3 - Day 15

I took my last cyclophosphamide tablets this morning. It’s great to have that part of the treatment over. Now for the recovery.

I feel vindicated!

My Mum calls them “senior moments”, which is alright if you’re a “senior citizen”, but sucks big time when you’re, dare I say it, in or approaching “middle age” (did I really say that and do I actually (want to) believe it?) I’m referring to that totally frustrating lack of brain function resulting in short term memory loss.

Well, what I have suspected the last 2.5 years has now been confirmed, although the timeframe is still a bit of a fright!

Chemo-Brain Lasts Years
Chemo has long-term impact on brain function -study

Oct. 5, 2006— WASHINGTON, Oct 5 (Reuters) - Chemotherapy causes changes in the brain's metabolism and blood flow that can last as long as 10 years, a discovery that may explain the mental fog and confusion that affect many cancer survivors, researchers said on Thursday.

The researchers, from the University of California, Los Angeles, found that women who had undergone chemotherapy five to 10 years earlier had lower metabolism in a key region of the frontal cortex.

Women treated with chemotherapy also showed a spike in blood flow to the frontal cortex and cerebellum while performing memory tests, indicating a rapid jump in activity level, the researchers said in a statement about their study.

"The same area of the frontal lobe that showed lower resting metabolism displayed a substantial leap in activity when the patients were performing the memory exercise," said Daniel Silverman, the UCLA associate professor who led the study.

"In effect, these women's brains were working harder than the control subjects' to recall the same information," he said in a statement.

Experts estimate at least 25 percent of chemotherapy patients are affected by symptoms of confusion, so-called chemo brain, and a recent study by the University of Minnesota reported an 82 percent rate, the statement said.

"People with 'chemo brain' often can't focus, remember things or multitask the way they did before chemotherapy," Silverman said. "Our study demonstrates for the first time that patients
suffering from these cognitive symptoms have specific alterations in brain metabolism."

The study, published on Thursday in the online edition of Breast Cancer Research and Treatment, tested 21 women who had surgery to remove breast tumors, 16 of whom had received chemotherapy and five who had not.

The researchers used positron emission tomography scans to compare the brain function of the women. They also compared the scans with those of 13 women who had not had breast cancer or chemotherapy.

Positron emission tomography creates an image of sections of the body using a special
camera that follows the progress of an injected radioactive tracer.

Researchers used the scans to examine the women's resting brain metabolism as well as the blood flow to their brains as they did a short-term memory exercise.

Silverman said the findings suggested PET scans could be used to monitor the effects of chemotherapy on brain metabolism. Since the scans already are used to monitor patients for tumor response to therapy, the additional tests would be easy to add, he said.

Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women, with some 211,000 new cases diagnosed each year, the statement said.

REUTERS@ Reut22:50 10-04-0610-05-2006 02:50UTC / (RE.ny-reu1.am-nyny-inwcp01) /

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=2530832&page=1

It doesn’t solve anything, but at least I know I’m not going totally bonkers.

Sunday 3 October 2004

CMF3 - Day 12

I decided to do something about the constipation I’ve had for a couple of days – made worse by the ondancetron.

I took 3 teaspoons of Mag Pelegrino in half a glass of water (as the directions state) before going to bed last night. Well, I was awoken at 4am with a desperate need to go to the toilet. I didn’t quite make it. I’ve ended up “going” 8 times today, none of which were pleasant, but I have cleaned out my system! Told DH that if I want to take this stuff again, to remind me of the latest consequences.

The washing machine decided not to pump out, DH looked at it and found that the thing that should turn easily, wouldn’t, so a spray of WD40 and it seems to work again – cheaper than $200 for a professional to fix. I helped him out a bit – it was nice, back to the old days, temporarily. I then decided to give the inside of the washer a good scrub (the top) and it looks quite good now.

As far as treatment is concerned, it’s made me quite tired, not helped by me not getting a daytime rest. My nights have been so-so re getting to sleep and staying that way.

Saturday 2 October 2004

CMF3 - Day 11

We went to a local aquarium shop and bought 4 guppies (1 male, 2 female) and a bristle nosed catfish. We also had to buy a heater and some food. Might get some more fish in a week or two, depends on how things go.

Friday 1 October 2004

CMF3 - Day 10

Dropped into Big W to buy a folding table and J was a nightmare, wouldn’t do as he was asked and screamed blue murder all through the shop when I put him in the trolley.

Took the boys to the playground in Churchill Ave and to meet up with the parents’ group girls. All H wanted to do was play with J – he was frightened that someone might hurt J, I think. Couldn’t get through that J was quite able to look after himself. It was good to catch up with the girls and have a chat. Didn’t leave there until around 3pm, so J did not get a sleep.