I am still on the planet

Life goes on, even if my blog seems to have fallen into an abyss.

After my yearly mammo, I neglected to make my next 6 monthly appointment, which is due this week. The earliest I could get in is November!

On the subject of my March appointment, everything is going well. My surgeon still wants me to stay on tamoxifen for the full 5 years (this will be up in October next year). I’m OK with that. I’ll have some hormone tests done in March or October 2009 and if they come back to say I’m truly in menopause, then he’ll put me on an aromatose inhibitor. The down side will be joint pain – not at all looking forward to that, but if it increased my chances of my cancer not returning, I’ll take it and deal with it.

After three and a half years of a yearly spike, the last year and a bit has been spike free, I’m pretty confident that I’m am indeed there now. I just hope I haven’t jinxed myself.

We had a record breaking heat wave in March this year, with 15 consecutive days above 35C including 13 consecutive days above 37.8C (100F). Previous records were 8 and 7 days respectively. We created new records for an Australian capital city, for any time of year. The nights were hot as well. All this put my menopause symptoms into overdrive and did nothing for my sense of humour.

This winter has been relative good as far as those horrid menopause symptoms are concerned. I was brought back down to earth when we had a couple of days over 25C this month and my internal thermostat blew a fuse.

As usual, I’m not looking forward to the approaching summer.

I recently “celebrated” my 48th birthday, something that seemed impossible four and a half years ago. Being the geek I am, got excited about my new 1tb external hard drive from all my boys. The plan is to convert our digital video tapes to dvd, a very space hungry process.

Oh yeah, I’m heavier than ever. This really has to stop!

Now, on to my family. DH started his own business earlier this year. They are doing OK and have plenty of work coming in. I designed the company logo, business cards and other stationery.

The boys? H is in Year 4 and J is in Year 1. Both have fabulous teachers. They continue to enjoy school. Both boys are doing 10 pin bowling. H chose soccer as his winter sport and will go back to cricket next term for his summer sport.

There’s 1 more week of Term 3 and then 2 weeks holidays for the boys. Term 4 is short, at 8 weeks. It’s hard to believe how quickly this year has gone. I’ll soon have a Year 5 and Year 2.

But hey, let’s not wish our precious lives away.

Wake Up!

Kind of reminds me of the Bond film “Goldeneye” where Natalya Fyodorovna Simonova is yelling at James Bond to wake up and do something before the Tiger helicopter they are restrained in is blown up by it’s own missiles.

Yes, I had a real wakeup call yesterday. I know I have a weight problem. It has slowly crept on over the years, stacked on with 2 late in life pregnancies and really went totally haywire during chemo. I had taken steps to start dealing with my problem in early 2004, only to be diagnosed with breast cancer. My main focus changed. It had to. My first priority was to get through chemo, then deal with the aftermath. One can never predict how they and their body will cope with and react to chemo and other cancer treatments. You think that once a certain treatment is over that you will start to feel “normal” again. Well that depends on your definition of normal. After a cancer diagnosis, nothing is ever “normal” again, or if it is, it’s certainly a different kind of “normal”. Your body is changed, aged, battered. Your brain is fried...

Anyway, back to the subject at hand. I was trying on some long shorts in a department store yesterday and caught an eyeful of my scantily clad deformed reflection of what my body has become, in the mirror. I don’t have a full length mirror at home. I suppose if I did, then I may not have gotten into such a disgusting state.

…
"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--
Of cabbages--and kings--
And why the sea is boiling hot--
And whether pigs have wings."

"But wait a bit," the Oysters cried,
"Before we have our chat;
For some of us
are out of breath,
And all of us are fat!"
…

Excerpt from "The Walrus and The Carpenter". Thank you Lewis Carroll.

Strangely, I feel like an icky, fat, out of breath oyster right now.

The question beckons, what am I going to do about it?

My diet is fairly healthy, it’s the night time snacks that have done the damage.

Those snacks have to go and I’ll up my water intake. Portion size will also be closely watched. Exercise is a huge problem for me at the moment, partly due to my weight, partly because of tamoxifen and its effects. My feet are a mess, even with orthotics. The only thing that is likely to alleviate that is weight loss. Tamoxifen’s side effects have been well documented. It causes hot flushes to be more extreme, especially in warmer weather. Sometimes the smallest exertion brings on tremendous body heat and profuse sweating. My face lights up like a beetroot and looks and feels ready to explode after only a couple of passes of the lawnmower. This worries DH, not to say I’m totally unconcerned about it, but I don’t think there’s much I can do about it either.

I know there is no quick fix. It took years to get like this, it will take a lot of time, and sustained effort to reshape this bod, and no jokes about “round” being a shape, please. I know I’ll never have a bikini bod, but that’s not the aim here. Being able to do what I want to do, improving my chances of a long, healthy life and having a wider choice in clothing are important to me. Larger sized (or the more politically correct version, plus sized) clothing is difficult enough to find. When you throw a mastectomy into the equation, the choices veritably dry up almost completely. Larger sized clothing tends to come with deep v-necks, scoop necks, no sleeves, all the things we lopsided ones generally try to avoid. ARGH, the frustration!

My motivation?

That image from yesterday which is etched into my brain. I need to do it for my health, myself, and my family.

Rain dance aficionados!

It has been so dry here, probably the driest winter on record and it’s continued. Over the last several months, they’ve forecast showers in the 7 day forecast. Every time, without fail, as the “day” has approached, it’s gone from showers, to possible showers and then downright impossible showers – they’ve disappeared into thin very dry air.

Last night, we had the most rain we’ve had in over 6 months (a whole 13.8mm – 55 points – ½ an inch). That may not sound like much, in fact it isn’t much, but boy, it was soooo nice to see some rain at last. Everything smells so fresh, the dust has been washed off the trees, plants, houses, roads…

Accompanying the rain was a magical light and sound show put on by nature. It would have to be one of the best storm series I’ve seen probably since I was a kid sitting on the front verandah on the farm, watching the light show make its way far across the plain. I loved it then, and they still hold a fascination now.

Here’s 10 minutes worth cut down to 15 seconds, at Henley Beach, an Adelaide suburb, last night.

Nature's Light and Sound Show

I do want to thank you all for your efforts so far, but we’re nowhere near breaking the drought yet, so keep on dancin’!

He’s gone!

And I helped him leave.

After 4.5 months on the sick list, yes, it’s been that long, I took DH to the airport this afternoon. I even had to steer the car this time as the autopilot was a bit rusty. DH is spending his first week back at work interstate – he’s self employed and only works interstate or overseas, so that’s no biggy.

The last 4.5 months have been filled with hospital, resistant infections, 13 different combinations of antibiotics, pain, swelling, doctor visits, lymph damage, muscle wastage, physio, compression socks, gym rehab, limb elevation, rest, head defogging...

It’s only been during the last week that he’s done the afternoon school run, and only because J was home sick.
So today is a very important milestone.

Standing and sitting have been his worst enemy – they cause pain and swelling – I won’t even mention flying. His job entails that he travel and stand all day for the 5 days he’s working.

He thinks he’s still around 2-3 months off being back to where he was in June, but progress is progress.

It was with a little trepidation and a hint of excitement (I think not) that we said our farewells and left him on the footpath on the elevated roadway outside departures for the first time in 4.5 months.

I have to get back in the saddle, although I don’t think I was truly out of it anyway, and get used to “doing it all” again, although it’s a bit like riding a bike, you never forget how.

Giddy up! Yar mule!

Grandpa

DH’s father passed away in September 1993 aged 77 years. Sadly, he never got to meet his youngest grandchildren. If he had, he would have loved to spend a great deal of time with them.

He was a man who grew up in the tough times, times when supporting your brothers and sisters came before education. He loved cowboy stories. He worked very hard and could and did turn his hand to anything. He was a man of endless stories. His grandsons have inherited his curious nature, having to know everything that’s going on all around them.

We dropped by the cemetery yesterday and DH took the boys to visit his memorial. H became quite emotional. I captured this moment through the bushes.

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.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~

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!