My Unplanned Sabbatical

Shades of the 18th of May

Had to happen. Slipped off the cliff today into the usual processing you position. At least I am consistent.

Terrible day. In bed, dealing with the body heat, the head aches, sore membranes, nausea, irritability, aching veins, etc. not much fun. Very heavy fatigue. Collecting the mail was a major mental and physical effort.

Trying to read, sleep, drink and eat a bit. Just have to let it pass through me, again.

Hope tomorrow is better. Can’t see me making the girls sport or much else.

Manageable day

Today has been manageable.

I have kept my drugs up and drank heaps of fluids to help flush this through. I have been feeling not to bad. Body is hot as my immune system fires up under the influence of the rituximab. I like this fiery feeling, it’s the body working hard to destroy the tumors. Not passive.

Nausea under control at the moment which is a bonus. Veins in my arms are really sore and they have just about had it. One more cycle left in them. They have “chorded”. Hard and sore and feel like chord. Not good.

Have been eating heaps of fresh fruit and vegetables and this helps with other bodily functions.

I worked a little till midday and then relaxed all afternoon reading and listening to music. Had a Nanna nap around 4 pm before family dinner. Dinner was quiet and relaxed. We listened to music, sang a bit and talked. Nice.

In bed early tonight and watching the football. Hoping for a similar day tomorrow.

Round 5 in the bag

All done. Feeling ok but I know the drill, tonight should be ok.

Last chemo session scheduled for 12 July and then that is it! I am looking forward to the month break and hopefully 2 weeks of feeling good.

Time to try and go with the flow for while. Now where is that dog?

Day one, round five

Day one round five is over.

I did not feel great this morning before I started. Like I was pre flu or similar. Nothing unusual to report.

Some more positive news from the specialist. She came to visit me in the chair and do a consult and said she could not have hoped for more. Response to date is as good as she has seen. She told me she is very confident we will put this cancer “to sleep”.

That lifted my spirits.

I am feeling tired and a bit spaced out. Body burning a little and stomach churning a bit.

Home now and will relax tonight before this cycle is completed tomorrow.

The pre game ritual

Pretty low key day enjoying my own company and the dog. Petra and Siena went shopping. Lily and Alessia were at the sleep over and the house was mine.

I had to work and complete something before I slip into the zone tomorrow so I did that till about 3ish. I went for a walk with the dog and then exercised hard for an hour or so. My last bash for a while. Felt good and strong although I have not exercised enough this month.

Family reunited around 4 ish. We had an early dinner and a few laughs. Siena modeled her shopping with great style and took great delight in telling all how much “mum spent on make up”. All pretty harmless.

I have a process the night before chemo where I make sure all our bills are paid, I pack my bag, charge the ipads, iphones, put the girls to bed and drink heaps of water. Well I try and do that all day.

A quiet night planned tonight. Will do my best to think of a witty tweet for Q&A. Julia Gillard on tonight so it should be interesting!

Not looking forward to the next couple of days then the week or so that follows at all!! I know only two to go.

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We left Merricks this morning to celebrate my mothers birthday at the Tea House in the city. It was good to get together and the food was excellent.

The rest of the day was low key. The twins have a sleep over tonight at friends and Siena and I went to the movies. Petra is not feeling great with the flu threatening to take hold and stayed home to rest.

Watched the end of the Eddie Mabo story on TV tonight which was worthwhile. Staying up to watch the French open final.

Clearly I am more sensitive to this but I have noticed a reasonable number of ads on the TV recently dealing with cancer. There is one where a father waits in the Drs waiting room saying to himself “please not cancer” and another of a young mother washing her baby in the bath wishing she could live long enough to see her child grow. This is on ovarian cancer. I was watching TV with the twins over the weekend when the first ad I described came on again. Alessia looked at me with a knowing look of compassion and fear. I told her mine was a better cancer, not lung cancer. She smiled. Not sure I convinced her. Hard.

Anyway, watching the Eddie Mabo movie tonight and he to passed away from cancer. It’s in our face a bit.

It is proving difficult to always deal with it on my terms.

Anyway, this week will see no. 5 come and go and there will only be one more to go. I have been starting to contemplate the what next, but that still appears a little uncertain at the moment so I will let that rest for a while longer.

Merricks day two

Another good day at Merricks. Family woke up slow. Long walk on beach, bike rides, school projects, reading and general “slothness”. Girls love it here.

It’s cool and rain showers have made outside activities a bit of a lottery. We have released at least 1 ton of carbon into atmosphere as the fire has been roaring all day. Worth the $23.

Nothing planned tonight, a low key family dinner, nice wine and early to bed.

Tomorrow is my mothers 78th birthday lunch. As the Italian matriarch she has certainly embraced multicultural Australia as its yum cha! My father will turn in his grave! How things change.

Feeling ok.

Dog loving life!

Merricks Beach

After this weeks activity we decided not to send the girls to school on Friday and head down to the beach house for the weekend.

It’s cold, around 11c and good weather for a fire, a book, tea and maybe a board game or two.

The girls are all recovering from mild winter colds and slowing down will do them good.

If the weather clears will walk the dog on the beach and take the girls for a ride.

It’s very quiet down here and we like it as much in the winter as the summer. Actually, it’s probably a better winter place.

On the drive down the hospital called as I forgot about my blood test this morning. Lucky it was in the same direction so a quick detour was necessary and I pulled into the hospital car park, with dog, bikes and family. It was like national lampoon road trip. Zipped in, offered an arm and zipped out!

I can hear the girls playing monopoly and I am listening to the fire crackle with the dog. All good.

A good day

Great day today with committed team of professionals. All did their best and it was a real pleasure to participate in the delivery and observe their craft.

Still some real work to be done but I can do more of the review and less of the doing. Funny how much I enjoyed working again.

Chilling out tonight and relaxing. Petra out watching Siena sing at the Winter Concert. Tomorrow I will have some friends visit at home and I will do some training. All good.

Partners

Worked pretty much all day today. I am pretty shattered. It happened to be the Victorian office partner meeting today so I dropped into the meeting/lunch. It was great to see everyone and it was a really positive experience to see and reconnect with people. Lots of hugs, back slaps and a few kisses!

Partnerships are such an unusual thing, so different to a corporate. Our sense of ownership, common purpose, stewardship and support is unique I believe. It has given me and my family great support and strength when I am at my most vulnerable.

Great to read Petra’s blog today and her perspective on things. The kids are coming down with winter flu’s which worries us somewhat. I can’t afford to catch it when my immunity is low as it is. Not much I can do about it really as it is that time of year.

To bed early tonight as tomorrow is another biggish day. Pens down Wednesday night for awhile and back to my sleep ins, breaky in bed and rest before next week juice up!