Live Life without fear

I'm sure you've all heard it before but here's one of my all time favourites. 
I've read it in a religious context,
but i find that it also applies to all people.
If you look beneath the surface of commonplace events you will find that there are lessons and opportunities to develop yourself and your character everywhere,every day,all the time.


I asked for strength,
And i was given difficulties to make me strong.

I asked for wisdom,
And i was given problems to solve.

I asked for prosperity,
And i was given a brain and brawn to work.

I asked for courage,
And i was given obstacles to overcome.

I asked for love,
And i was given troubled people to help.

I asked for Favours,
And i was given opportunities.

I received nothing i wanted but i received everything that i needed.

my wallet talisman given to me by MM.Helps me to remember the importance of each day,even the mundane ones

Manchild and i have had a running disagreement for pretty much as long as we have know each other over whether or not I am Lucky.
Actually,its not really a disagreement as such since we both agree that i am.
However every time this subject rears its head i find myself getting defensive because although i do feel that i've had a wonderful,blessed and fortunate life,i suspect that by 'lucky' he's really saying "you are lucky,everything comes easy to you,it just falls into your lap because you are a Lucky Person". At which point i end up jumping down his throat and saying something along the lines of "has it escaped your attention Darling One,that i am the one who has been battling cancer for the last 2 years?".
And his response? "Yes,but you won didnt you? Any one else probably would have died".
Sigh,its probably a battle that i will never win and the really annoying thing is that i cant really disagree with him too much. I had another close friend (W) who has known me for many many years and she always said that i was called Cat because i had nine lives- meaning something would go wrong and then miraculously come right again.

 The sunrise from my our house always took my breath away.Its hard to deny the beauty in the world with a view like this

The bit that frustrates me (although i do see both of their points of view,after all i was there too and generally it is what happens) is that it seems to negate all hard work that goes in behind the scenes. I feel like quoting that National bank ad,you know the one: Where the couple are saving and saving and sacrificing all sorts of good things in order to get enough money in the bank to get a ticket to travel the world and then when they do a friend comes up and says 'youre so lucky!!!'.The slogan of the ad is LUCK HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH IT.
I feel the same about my life.There have been tough times,I've always been lousy with money,I was treated for anxiety and eating problems for years,before the cancer was diagnosed i was often in crippling pain, my parents split up when i was 3, My brothers all live overseas and i miss them all incredibly yadda yadda yadda.

The thing is,i think that i choose to NOT see the overall negative picture.
it is a choice. I find the biggest difference between Manchild and i on this topic is that if something unfortunate happens he will say "Thats the story of my life,bloody typical.This always happens to me,i dont know why i bother trying"
Whereas i would say "Oh bugger.Thats not good.Still,I'm sure that we can make this work for us somehow.We can figure this out to our advantage. And even if we cant,it'll be better tomorrow".
This is the grey area however as Manchild argues that i can have this sort of faith in my world because things always work out for me, when i say that things always work out for me BECAUSE i have this kind of faith in my world.
Like i said,its probably an unwinnable argument. But i do think that if things are going wrong around you,take a look inside because i think we are all capable of creating our own luck. If you can view whats going on around and still focus your mental energies on a positive outcome,you will create that outcome (or a similar one) for yourself.
like this:
Yes its true that i cant have any more children,but the one i have is a miracle to be treasured.
Yes,i have an imperfect body that doesnt do what it used to but I'm alive
Yes,my brothers live overseas and i miss them all deperately but i can see them on Skype.
Yes,sometimes i wonder where we will get the money to pay the bills but we have a house,our health and each other
Yes,my parents split up but i gained 2 brothers and a wonderful stepmother
Yes,some days its hard to drag myself out of bed but after 24hrs that day will be over and a new one will begin
Yes,Manchild,although we disagree, being able to show each other different points of view is one of the things that makes us so valuable to each other

You get the idea,and my point that generally (temporarily) ends me and Manchilds disagreement on me being lucky and him not?
"if youre not lucky then how did you end up with an adoring  family as wonderful as me and MissK?". yep,its a show stopper,he cant debate that one ....

Lucky Manchild....  ;-)

Oh,and i just have to add this as a postscript:
Last Saturday Manchild had been working all day and had fallen asleep on the sofa,when he woke we were late for some plans that he had made (he made them and fell asleep before telling me about them so i didnt wake him up in time).
He was in a right state about it and 5 mins later we were hurtling down the road in the car,Him looking like his head was going to explode and me with my tongue clenched between my teeth so that i wouldnt comment on how fast he was driving when,from the backseat a little voice piped up:
"Dont worry Daddy" she said "It will be ok,we will get there in time.It will all be alright"
Manchild glowered at me "its obvious who's child she is" he said (i dont know how he managed to make that sound like an insult but he did!)
"I'm a clever child" the backseat piped up again
"Thats right my darling" i replied :You ARE a clever child AND an optimist"
The childs chest puffed out and she said with great pride "Yes Daddy,i AM clever AND an Octopuss"
At which point Manchild burst out laughing and his bad mood evaporated,so positivity is catching and can make a change in others lives (just as negativity can).
Be happy.Choose it.

Something that i really really struggled with when i was waiting for the big surgery date to come around, and still plays on my mind a lot now, was the attempted suicide of an ex girlfriend of a good friend of mine and manchilds.
I'm not going to criticise other peoples decisions or choices for how they want to conduct their own lives. I dont think that you can truely know the path that another is walking on without walking it yourself (and you especially cant know from the outside looking in).
And I know that you cant tell people to appreciate their health,lives and loved ones because its true that you need to experience the negative in order to value the positive.
I just wish,i just WISH that i could have gone to her at the time (I'm ashamed to say that i was too angry with her for attempting to throw away something that i was so desperately trying to hang on to,to have gone to her then) and somehow conveyed to her that the worries and concerns and all encompassing problems that seem too hard to overcome,will pass.
Life does move on,its a brutal fact.Its also hard work,we earn the place that we get.And when you are put in a position where it is completely out of your control and it may all get taken away before you are ready to go- Its like someone has flicked a switch and all of a sudden your life is in HD.

believe me when i say that it is the little  things that you notice first,everyday occurances that on a regular day might just pass you by bacause they are so,well,Mundane.So ordinary and so taken for granted.
I found myself wondering about the treatments not working or the surgery going wrong- would i ever get that double scoop rum n raisin ice cream that i kept putting off for a better day? What about the trip over to castlepoint to show MissK the lighthouse- it was always there (after all,wheres a lighthouse going to go??) so we just kept shelving the idea until a better time.

What if i died. I mean, stop and imagine it- you.My reader.
it wont be the 40 inch flatscreen or the hot car that you miss when it comes down to the wire.
What if you were given the news that your time was limited. What are the things that you have always wanted to do right down deep inside? we all have them. And i dont mean climb Mt Kilimanjaro either- i mean the things from your childhood that you had,or wished you had.
Building a fort in the lounge for the kids and eating dinner in it -  they will remember that more than they will remember another dinner time at the table.
Or fish and chips on the beach or taking your child fishing BUT not on a weekend.Imagine it,if you both had a day together when you should really be at work and school.
How special our lives are is directly corralated to how specially we treat each other and the amount of time that we MAKE for each other. to CREATE those amazingly wonderous occasions .
my most amazingly wonderous childhood occasion memory  is of  my Dad taking me and my brothers caving up on Tinakori hill  and discovering 'gold' (crunchie Bars in gold wrappers).We took torches,it was dark inside,there were wetas and it was BRILLIANT.
Some years later i realised that he must have sneaked up to the caves earlier in the day and planted the chocolate bars for us to find...and do you know what? That didnt make the memory any less special.
If anything it made it more special- he went to all that trouble for us. i dont know if he stills remembers it but i have never ever forgotten.
All i can hope is that when its all said and done,that my family will be loaded up with similar such memories of me.

Dad and MissK round the South coast
2009
Needless to say,she adores her Grandad 

i got a reminder to practice what i preach from the 3 year old yesterday evening.
It had been a glorious Wellington day which we had spent catching up with friends in Ngaio,of course time had run away with us and we left a lot later than i had intended to. MissK had missed her day sleep and was looking exhausted so i decided to walk home so that she could have a snooze in the pushchair.
It was about 5:30pm when we reached Karori Mall to pick up some groceries for dinner,and still another 30 mins from there to home. I had $16 in my pocket to feed the family until Friday (financial stress:the burden of being a grown up!), which i managed to squeeze 500g of mince,a kilo of bananas,and a jar of honey out of.
As we left the Mall,dusk was gathering and all i could think (and say) was 'we have to hurry,its almost 6pm (dinner time at our house as missK is in bed around 7-7:30pm) and we're not even home yet.hurry hurry hurry'

MissK on the other hand,didnt want to hurry.She had asked that morning to wear her favourite party dress out for the day and she was THRILLED to be out and about as it was growing dark. She was flouncing along,with a banana in one hand,kicking her knees up as high as they would go with every step so that the dress would whirl about as she walked (or rather,skipped,which she has just learned to do at kindy and is very pleased about).
She was marvelling at the clouds as the sky turned pink and then deep blue and she was chattering about how lucky we were to be on this night time adventure together.
i stopped for a moment to watch her and thought about living in the present,really living in the present and letting the future take care of itself.Lets face it,we would eat at some point,maybe later than planned but it would happen.
So i stopped telling her to hurry and trying to pull her along as fast as her little legs would carry her and started looking at the amazing colours that the sky was turning. I told her how wonderfully she was skipping and her face lit up and she kicked her heels up even higher.I pretended the empty pram was an out of control racecar (complete with zooming noises) and we skipped/careened down the footpath- her twirling and whirling to her hearts content and me,forgetting about being and adult for a while and seeing the world through different eyes than i had 10 mins ago, dodging harassed pedestrians,mostly in rowdy laughter the whole way home.
We ate late,she went to bed half an hour late,and is still asleep now (8:58am) and i feel like I've had a spa treatment for my soul.

The child sleeping as we made our way down Churchill Drive in her flouncy whirly twirly party dress

After the surgery in last October one of my old bosses hired cleaners to come in once a week for as long as i needed them. At the time i remember indignantly saying 'i can look after my own house thank you very much!!' but the truth of the matter was that i couldnt. The cleaners were INCREDIBLE!! If anyone whos reading this is in a similar situation i would so strongly urge you to enlist the help of a service like this right from the start of your treatment.
Once a week they would come in and do window sills,toilets,walls,dusting- all the things around the house that i just did not have the extra energy to deal with. The thing you need to be aware of is how much time youre going to be spending at home (in our case a tiny 2 bedroom flat) and you need your environment to be an organised,positive relaxing place to grow stronger in.

In Feb i had my first clear CAT scan.The doctors are quick to remind you that the scans dont show everything and i have 3 monthly bloodwork so that they can pick up any changes that might be happening. I will be having yearly CAT scans and colonoscopy (a camera down my stoma) as well as seeing my oncololgist and surgeon 3 monthly for the next 5 years. The cancer was all through my lymph nodes (which transport it around your body in your blood) so i definately have that lurking fear always sitting at the back of my mind that it might come back but I have had 2 years more with Manchild and MissK than i thought i would at one point.and every extra day I have is priceless.

Everything has not suddenly become easy.I think recovery is almost as hard and takes as long as the treatments! (I'm sorry to be blunt) but sex is intensely painful but i figure that its better than not being able to have it at all-and you know what they say about practise making perfect!
I still hit that wall of exhaustion where i feel sick,blurry vision and feel dead on my feet. It happens suddenly so i ration myself to planning one event per day and having the rest as down time. I try not to push myself too hard and if i feel frustrated i remind myself how much has already changed since i came home from surgery and that it will continue to do so.
My stoma has NOT prolapsed again (yahoo!) mostly because they stitched it in inside my chest this time.It works great and is a daily reminder of the miracles of medicine and the lengths that people i didnt know have gone to ensure i have the best life possible.

 me and the child April 2009

In March we moved out of our pokey flat and into a proper house in a new suburb.Its been brilliant (and hard) -starting MissK at kindy and going to a chemist and video store where NO ONE knows about my past illness. Its given me the opportunity to push myself (especially in social situations) because nobody expects me to be any different.
I found that between last Oct and March i started to buy into the idea that i wasnt up to coping with things and that i needed other peoples help with everything.Now I try to challenge myself daily,some challenges are small - chatting to the teachers and other parents at kindy,getting the floors mopped or walking the skyline walkway with MissK - but baby steps are still steps.

                               me and the child August 2011


This experience has had so many positives to it. Manchild and i have seen each other through some truely terrible times and have bolstered each other when the other couldnt cope. We've stepped in and done more when the other couldn't and after all the anger,fear and frustration we can still have a laugh and get on with living our lives.I feel very strongly that i've altered my life and his and i have to work hard not to dwell on that because my negative thoughts make waves in our family.
One of my biggest weights at the moment is that I'm not able to cope with going back to work and cant yet see a future where i could and  I see the stress that money has over my manchild.
I frustrate him at times for being too Pollyanna-ish and seeing a rainbow behind every cloud,but thats just my pure happiness to be alive and i dont know that anyone could go through what i have and not feel like that.
I feel very very strongly that i have robbed MissK  of a sibling and that she will always be alone. I hope that we will be able to give her opportunities that we might not be able to give her if we had had more children and that she knows how much her Mama utterly loves her.
MissK has really coped with things amazingly.She knows about my stoma and the catheters and the cancer. When she hurts herself she tells me that 'it hurts but tomorrow it will be better than today' and i want to hug her and never let go. She went through a stage of being really upset if i was in bed during the day but I'm stronger than that now and have been for a while.
I still rely heavily on family and Missk has developed amazing bonds with all her Grandparents that i truely dont think she would have if i hadnt gotten ill. I've learnt to admit when i'm not coping (mostly!) and i hope that if i feel anything go wrong in my body now i would push until someone listened and not hide from the truth of the situation.

i promised myself when i was ill that if i got better i would learn to sew and walk in heels.So far i'm doing both and loving it.I wear heels anytime i want (mostly heeled boots),whether its practical or not -i always wanted to
be the kind of girl who could sway around in them but never thought i could be.Now i realise that i can be anyone i want to be and do anything i want to do.in the past i have been the only thing holding myself back.
And sewing?oh i love the sewing! Inspired by an amazingly creative woman (you know who you are MissRotorua).When i was first diagnosed i brought her handmade blankets for as many of the kids in my life that i could so that they would have something physical from me (just incase,you understand),and when i was mostly housebound i think it was sewing that pulled me out of my funk.
It gave me something to focus on that i COULD do even in a weak and recouperating state (funny how things happen for a reason sometimes) and made me feel like i was still achieving and accomplishing.
So here we are,in August 2011.
Me, a very different person than i was in 2009,a stronger person who can now say to herself  "you've conquered cancer,you CAN do this..." whenever she feels challenged or faultering. Physically i have come out of this experience weaker than i was but mentally I'm so much stronger.
The story doesnt end here but i am so so so grateful to be here to tell it.

Around this time last year my much much much loved uncle died suddenly of cancer. I was incredibly glad that MissK,manchild and i had traveled over to Masterton a week earlier and had some time with him and my Auntie and cousin.
The funeral was beautiful ,very much a family,extended family and people-who-weren't-really-family-but-might-as-well-have-been affair filled with warmth.
When i got home i was filled with a massive rage at his death and the cancer that had eaten away at him until he wasnt the person that i remembered and,of course,finally, a white hot anger at my own diagnosis.
I picked a huge fight with manchild and fueled with the need to destroy - kicked a hole through our lounge door. Once all that energy was spent i embarrassingly had to correct everyone who visited that,no it wasnt manchild who did that,it was me. I think it was the suddeness of it all that set me off.How quickly my Uncle was taken from us and how quickly my life had changed into something i barely recognised.

I was also preparing for my next lot of surgery- to correct the prolapsed stoma and also to remove some of the scar tissue from the entrance of  my vagina (although they had managed to reconstruct the passage there was too much scaring to make any sort of penetration possible).
I had thought that this op would be dead easy compared to the other one - and i guess it was but there was no morphine to ease the recovery pains and my bodys energy was still depleted (i had only finished chemo 4-5 months earlier) from the previous treatments. No more food for 24 hrs beforehand again *sigh* and back into hospital.
My experience after this op was crazy- i didnt know it at the time but the hospital must've been full because i stayed the night in the recovery section of the hospital (i think thats what its called). Not an actual ward but where patients usually wait after surgery until they get assigned a room. It was the worst night because people were coming and going all over the place. i had the added complication of having to catherterise (not easy when you cant bend over from the pain of abdominal surgery!)
In the morning they tried to discharge me but (much to their annoyance i imagine) i refused to leave. I told the dr that last time i was in i was really ill after about a week and that there was NO way that i was going home until my new stoma had done its thing (besides i was still in a lot of pain and going home to try and recover with MissK would've been utterly impossible).
So after some hours of waiting a room came available. It was a lovely light room with its own bathroom (i really lucked out!) and after about a week the stoma produced and i was shunted out (by this time the nurses were itching for the bed.) Infact from memory they had me out before i had even got anyone to collect me,they just wheelchaired me downstairs to the waiting area and left me there with my bags. Moving was still a problem (it feels a bit like someone has bashed your insides with a meat tenderiser) but on the whole i was ok.

  
Me and Muttley number 2 Sept 2010



2 weeks later my stoma prolapsed again.
more surgery was organised for October and we started all over again. i hate waking up after surgery and this time was one of the worst yet. i think that the two surgeries being only 2 months apart was much harder on my system.i was so ill and groggy when i woke,i remember saying to Manchild 'i never ever want to have surgery again'- however i seem to remember saying that to him after the last lot aswell,yet here we are...!
Contrary to the last surgery (when the nurses gave me food as soon as i woke ,even though I was telling THEM that i didnt think i should be eating) i was back on a liquid diet and was very carefully looked after,which was great.
I spiked a fever after a few days during this stay and my bloods went whack.i think i was just run down,its very hard to recover when your body has taken the hits that mine had. I was on liquids for about a week and then they slowly introduced foods,it all went fine. I was in a shared ward and slept most of the time.
My bloodwork was still not right but,once again,they needed my bed so i spent half a day in one of the conference rooms waiting for bloodwork results (bec they said they wouldnt send me home till my bloods came right). What do you know,my bloodwork wasnt right but they sent me home anyway (what else could they do?My bed had been given to someone else!!) with the instructions to come back in two days time for more bloodwork.
At home,i was utterly exhausted.i felt like the last two years had caught up with me and then run me over repeatedly with a steamroller.i spent a lot of my time inside,mostly just feeling like that was easier than trying to cope with a life of having to catheterise and change stoma bags at public facilities. I was getting frequent migraines (having not yet sorted out my HRT) and everything was just too HARD Dammit!!

Luckily for me i had a 2 year old who needed looking after and i had already promised myself and her,that my illness was going to impact her life as little as possible. So,after reminding myself who i was doing it for (several times) i started making small trips on my own (with MissK) out of the house.
Its hard to explain how fearful i felt at this time.I had no confidence left in myself or my body. I was second guessing how i parented and my ability to (physically) look after MissK.I was weak and when i got tired i would just suddenly hit a wall of exhaustion accompanied by headaches and nausea where all i could do was sleep. I was so scared that this would happen while i was out with MissK that it just seemed easier to stay at home all the time- and i have to admit,some days i did (and some days i still do).

                          One of my goodnight videos from MissK during one of my hospital stays

*if the video doesnt load try refreshing the page - mine seems to show the vid sometimes and sometimes not!!

it was a strange thing after the surgery,because the scary event that i had been dreading for so long was over and i think that i had thought that life would suddenly get easier but the truth of it was that the long haul was just beginning.
i was far weaker than i had been anytime previously and was getting repeated infections (before they introduced me to the GEN) and of course i was back in the swing of the nausea and tiredness that the chemo brings.
I recall spending literally weeks (2 or 3 weeks at a time) inside without leaving the house for anything other than hospital visits. Life was much more of an effort for this last leg and i was exhausted with a capital E. The fuss of my diagnosis had died down and my family and friends who had rallied amazingly for the last year were now returning to their own lives so i was doing more at home (childcare and housework) on my own which,depressingly, was harder than i thought it would be.I'd sometimes get that fluttery,hard to breathe feeling in my chest when i thought about looking after busy MissK with no help- terrified that one day she would cotton on to the fact that her Mama could not keep up with her.

One good event and one bad event stand out particularly for me at this time:
My surgery had been so successful that they could take a month off the length of my chemo (joy!!!!!)
About two months after my discharge my stoma prolapsed majorly again, so after the other treatments had finished there would still be more surgery to come (not joy at all).

In September we received a letter from Manchilds work making him redundant - they couldn't wait any longer for him to come back to work. He sat down and rang every contact in his cellphone,asking if anyone had any work going and by the end of the day he had a job on a trial basis- i will never forget the gratitude i felt that day for his friend (J) for taking a punt on someone in need,who had broken his back 4 months earlier but really really needed to work to support his family.
i literally broke out in a cold sweat when i thought about Manchild not being at home to rely on anymore but it had to be done and he was fighting his own challenges as he battled to make his broken body work for him in his new (very physical ) job. We used to joke at the end of the day that at least one member of our family was healthy-missK- and she was running rings around us at this time.Both of our bodies not being up to the physical level required for an active toddler....having said that though,we pushed ourselves harder to meet her needs which i think was beneficial. Its so easy to just sit around when youre feeling sore but even small amounts of movement do help.


with all the antibiotics that i was taking for infections at this time i would sometimes be having up to 18  pills per day (all with different instructions about when i could eat and when to take them!) and they were one of the bits that i couldnt WAIT to be done away with.
So the year progressed,Christmas was lovely. My Dad was here for Christmas day (first time I'd had Christmas with him since i was about 16) and it was especially special to have reached the end of the year - Feb 26 seemed like a lifetime ago and it was astonishing to think of all the things that we had accomplished since then.

 Dad and Miss K on Christmas morning


On boxing day Manchild,MissK and i took a roadtrip up to New Plymouth to pick up a new pram. It was really just an excuse to do something that no one thought i was up to doing (and yes,i did pay for it in tiredness the next day but it was worth it at the time). The feeling of being together (we 3) on our own,away from all the responsibilites and worries that Wellington held (well really it was me that held them but Wellington represented them)  for us was brilliant. And although a massively long (we drove there and back in a day) ,hot,tiring trip it was a day that no doctors,nurses,friends or family knew anything about. It was a day for just me and my two favourite people (making a trip that we would've once done without a second thought) and is actually one of my highlights of the entire year.
I was also aware that the chance of the cancer re-occuring was 50-70% but believe me when i say I'm not going to dwell on that until it happens (IF it happens).

The Christmas morning sunrise from our deck

My deadline was to be finished with the chemo by MissK's second birthday - which i just managed to do. The after effects of the treatment do hang around in your body like a delayed response but knowing that i was done with that was amazing.
The following Feb i had my first whole month in a year without a trip to the hospital (of course i had appointments at the end of Jan and the beg of March but thats beside the point!!!!).
I still had two more operations to come but for now i had more pressing matters- i had thought long and hard over the last year about who and where i was in my life and what i had accomplished and what i wanted to accomplish.
I've never had very high goals above family and 8 years ago i was told i wouldn't be able to have kids,almost 3 years ago i was diagnosed with cervical cancer and operated on to have that removed,and unbelievably, two weeks after that i got pregnant.My pregnancy was very hard and my contractions stopped during labour because MissK was in distress.
My midwife had to cut the cord from around MissK's neck while she was still inside me bec it was wrapped so tightly and i had to push her out without contractions to help.When she was born she was bright blue and not breathing and a year later the doctors told me they dont know how its possible that i carried her to term with the cancer through my uterus.
MissK,you are the light that shines on my life.I know how hard you fought to be in this world and i could never let you down by not fighting as hard also.Every day that i wanted to stay in bed and feel sorry for myself i got up and fought the good fight for you. Its not my strength that kept me going,its yours. I feel so privilaged to have you in my life and to able to watch you grow whether it is for an extra year,10 years or twenty years.

We all have our challenges in life and i dont think that anyones is harder than anyone elses,they are all just different circumstances and by the same vein we all have different reasons to keep going.
I feel blessed that my reason is a bubbly cheeky long haired tolerant understanding little monkey, who has all too often seen her parents faults and loves us anyway.

The rest of my hospital stay was split into two halves.
I had been moved to my own room with a shared bathroom and for the first week i was really doing very well- eating,sleeping (when i could),feeling pretty pleased with the state of things. I even managed visitors and was super happy to see my other family brother and sister before they left to go back overseas.i was doing so well they even took my friend Morphine away,although truth be told,i would've liked him  to stay and play for a bit longer.
Then,after about a week i lost my appetite and went quite rapidly downhill.Sweaty,greasy,incredibly thirsty,i couldn't eat and got weaker and weaker. I know the doctors and manchild thought that i wasnt eating and was therefore feeling bad and it took me a long time to convince them that i wasnt eating BECAUSE i was feeling bad. Finally they examined my stomach and realised that it was very swollen and they took me for an ultra sound to check that there was no fluid pooling in the surgery site (which there wasnt). Later the next night i was violently ill (the most physically ill that i remember being in my life!!) and up came food that i had eaten a week ago.
It seems that after trauma like major surgery your body sometimes rebels against what has been done - which is what mine had done. Instead of processing my food and putting it through the new stoma,it was just stacking up and stacking up until it came back out. The nurses changed my bed and gown (it was truely a disgusting mess). I was humiliated and ashamed that i couldnt clean myself. I went back to bed with vomit all through my hair and the smell of it on my skin. In the morning i took myself to the shower (no small feat given that my body hadnt processed any food/energy for the last 11 days) washed and told the doctors (somewhat tearfully) that i wanted to go home TODAY.
I was lonely,depressed,exhausted and i missed manchild and missK more than i would miss my legs. I told them that being in hospital was detramental to my spirit and that if it was just a case of me getting stronger then that would happen much faster at home.
Needless to say,the doctors weren't too thrilled with the idea but (one in particular) saw where i was coming from and as a compromise said that if i ate,the stoma worked and i self catheterised he would discharge me.

So i guess here i have to go back to the bladder issue.Because it had been manhandled during surgery my bladder had no nerves left. That means that it had no feeling whatsoever and that i could not tell when i needed to go to the toilet.It also meant that i couldn't pee when i wanted to ,i would be using catheters (a skinny tube with a funnel at one end.You poke it up your urethra and into the bladder and then the urine drains down the tube) from here on. It also means (although i didnt realise it at the time) that i was now mostly incontenant and would be prone to chronic urinary tract infections.
While i was in the hospital i was on a permanent catheter which filled up a bag - so i had to learn how to do it myself before i could leave.

It took a few more days but  i ate,my stoma pooped, and i went off in my wheelchair (still too weak to  walk) and had one lesson (lying down) on how to use a catheter.Then i got myself discharged.
Looking back i think i must've been crazy thinking that i could cope at home when i couldn't even walk down the hall at the hospital but i do remember how soul crushing it was being in that grey walled cubical of a room on my own 24/7.
It had occured to me that lying down to go to the toilet was not terribly practical but i figured I'd cross that bridge when i got home.
I was also under the impression that my bladder would just hold on until i was ready to empty it....not so,as i found when i peed all over the kitchen floor on my first night back.
I rang the hospital in a panic but it was after hours on a Friday and there was no one that would help me.I rang the nurses,i rang medical centres.I thought that something was wrong with my bladder surgery but i couldnt get an ounce of help.
In the end i sat down and cried,actually from memory i was on the phone trying to get some assistance when i started crying- poor person on the end of the phone. The best i could get was a nurse to come a visit on Monday.
The next morning,after realising how ridiculous it is to try and lie down every time that you pee,i texted my stepmum and she came and made me a cuppa and cleaned my house for me while manchild took the daughter out.she bathed me and listened while i cried and admitted my fears. She didnt judge or offer advise and when she left i thought "right.thats enough of that,lets figure out a more practical way of managing myself."
I taught myself to use the catheter sitting down (but that doesnt effectively empty the bladder so i then taught myself to use them standing up (its now just second nature and a piece of piss (haha!) ).
I'm looking forward to the day that MissK tells her  teachers that mummy pees standing up like daddy.

me and MissK shortly after my hospital discharge,although i had lost another 10kg i stayed puffy like this for months afterwards. I have very few photos of me around this time- mostly because i was in bed or at home most of the time. Pathetic really!

The biggest challenge about using the catheters has definately been the UTI's.They didnt tell me before i came home (or if they did it didnt make much of an impression) that the tract infections can flair up in a matter of hours and that they can come straight after each other.
When you put a catheter into your bladder you are introducing bugs into a previously sterile part of your body. Once the bugs tip the balance an infection starts up. All good and simple until you remember that i have NO (and i really mean NONE) feeling in my bladder and as all of you unfortunate enough to have had a tract infection will know,the first warning sign is pain when you are peeing.
I dont get that pain so i often dont know i have an infection until its full blown,fevers,nausea etc etc. I didnt understand any of this and i was sick in bed for a week and getting worse before my lovely GP made a house call and put me on antibiotics and explained what was going on.
Of course post surgery i was also weak and my body was trying to recover from what had been done to it. I was just one UTI after another for about 6 months after surgery until they put me in an antibiotic in saline solution called Gentimicin. Its quite new in NZ and works a treat. Once a day you put 40ml up your catheter after you have peed. At that time i was having to have it daily (and even then i would still get UTI's at times). It gave me back a level of normality to my life and gave the bladder time to recouperate.

6 weeks after my discharge i was back at the hospital because they were hoping to start chemo. They decided i was still too weak (given the tough nature of the treatment) so they waited another two weeks. When i went back the second time they were still hesitant but i pushed them,i really wanted to get it started.
The sooner it was started,the sooner it was finished.
The idea of having chemo for months and months was overwhelming (6 weeks was bad enough- and i was alot stronger then) but i figured that it would be overwhelming no matter when it was.
My wonderful Oncologist finally agreed and it was back on the chemo i went.

So finally we've reached the blog about the surgery,which i know I've been putting off writing as the whole experience still is just one long bad memory for me.
Obviously i dont actually remember the surgery itself but i do remember the weeks and weeks of dreadful anticipation and not being able to eat anything other than jelly for 24 hours beforehand.Getting up at half 5 and heading off to the hospital in the dark and shaking with fear during the car ride.
Once we got to the hospital i dug deep and found that eerily calm centre that we all have within ourselves. Events took a surreal turn and it stopped feeling like it was my life.
Manchild stayed with me as long as he could but when i  was called through to theatre we said our goodbyes,truely not knowing if we were saying goodbye for the last time. I remember all the surgical prep before they put me to sleep with perfect clarity and i still get that lead feeling in my stomach thinking about it.Getting swabbed up and injected (the staff were lovely),undoing my  gown and lying down on the gurney,looking around and thinking 'this is where its all going to happen' before they put the mask on and the anaesthetist saying 'now I'm just going to make you very sleepy...'
And then BANG my eyes opened and i was in ICU 13 hours later.
I had been on the operating table for 10 and a half hours and had lost a lot of blood (and received several transfusions). I felt terrible,i cant even describe how terrible i felt.The first person that i saw was an old close friend of mine from high school (who i hadnt seen since i  was 15) which was brilliant.I was so happy to see her (shes a nurse at Wellington hospital and an amazingly uplifting person). I remember introducing Manchild to her when he was allowed in and thinking 'well,this is weird'.

 

two of the photos i remember best that Manchild brought to me in ICU

The thing about ICU,i think,is that everyone in there is in critical condition so the staff have to exercise a degree of tough love to get things done. I remember them wanting x rays and they tilted my bed almost to standing because i couldn't move at all and me thinking 'oh for *%@!!'s sakes cant you take your blimmin x rays tomorrow?' and then being hastily injected with anti nausea drugs by the nurse as a started to throw up from the movement of the bed being rearranged.
 I remember that they keep putting more and more fluid into me (because my blood pressure refused to rise) until my fingers were like sausages and i could hardly open  my mouth to speak.
I remember my hard ass nurse (who was just doing her job) bullying me out of bed and into the chair next to the bed bec i should've been mobile (according to her),looking at the machine that was keeping all my vitals steady- i swear in was 6 foot tall and looked like something out of transformers and thinking 'no wonder Manchild looked so freaked out when he came in here' and then falling asleep in the chair and hearing the doctors say 'just let her sleep'and then waking up in bed again 24 hours later.
I remember refusing to eat (i cant explain how tender your insides are after this kind of surgery!)and only drinking once they threatened to put the tube back down my nose to feed me (bring on the fortisip!!)
I remember too,after a couple of days there was a problem with the drip incision on my neck (the mainline i think its called) from memory a bit of it had come off in my neck or the skin had sealed over it or something and they had to do a minor operation without any extra pain relief.It was 2 in the morning (but time doesnt really have any meaning in ICU) and i was thinking 'ouch!'
Most of all i remember seeing manchild again for the first time and the feeling that all was good and safe and secure in my world with him in it.
He told me that my brothers baby had been born (J texted from Australia to tell him that labour had started literally 10 mins after i had been admitted to theatre) and the next time he came in he brought photos of my new nephew with him.
I remember thinking that the circle of life just keeps on trucking and how wonderful it was that during this scary time in our lives my brother was celebrating such a miraculous event as meeting his new son.
And i remember Manchild telling me that they had managed to save my bladder and me thinking 'uh oh' because i had been briefed on what would happen if they left the bladder in place (my surgeon was very keen to take the bladder out but my urologist was at odds with him about that idea) but thats another post because thats about as many of these memories that i can cope with without overloading and now i need to go and sit and drink a nice hot cup of coffee and chill before MissK wakes up.

Just another quick note before i get off the topic of radiotherapy is that its very harsh on your skin.You cant go in the sun (pretty much at all) - the same when you are having chemo -because you burn very easily. If you are having either of these kinds of treatment i would recommend starting a really good skincare regime before treatment begins. I did and several drs/nurses remarked on how good my skin was holding up and how good i was looking considering what treatment i was having (its all about the small victories).

My surgery date was set for mid July but in June i got menopausal and let me tell you ladies,its NO picnic!!! I remember asking the doctor once how i would know when menopause had started and he (yes:HE) said "oh,you'll know!" i thought to myself "oooookkkkkkaaaay if you say so" but when it started i knew!!
I've been told that my symptoms were likely to be more intense than usual because the menopause had been 'induced' early (but i really have nothing to compare it with),but Holy Moley! I spent the whole of that winter stripping my clothes off  because i would be bright red and dripping with sweat every 10 minutes.You (well,I) also get this weird,hard to describe feeling like your skin is all prickly and not sitting right on your body. And the sudden flashes of anger and irritation,oh-and did i forget to mention that you start growing gnarley beard hairs on your chin??!!!!
They left dealing with the menopause until all my other treatments had finished (it was about july the following year when i started HRT) due to all the other medications i was taking and Its likely that i will be on HRT for a long time (til I'm at the natural menopause age).
two years later (thats right TWO years!!)  I'm still getting all the same symptoms...all i can say is :thank goodness for hormone replacement therapy!!I started out on half dose patches which you apply to your skin and change twice weekly,only half dose because i've been prone to hormonal migraines since i was 12. They later increased them to full dose,as thats what my body really needs but i do find that i get more frequent migraines so i mix and match a bit and dont put them on quite as often as i should (instead of 4 per 2 weeks i use 3). It took a bit of tweaking but its good at the moment.

I know i mentioned earlier that they were looking at reconstructing the top of my vaginal passage but as we went into surgery that was a bit of an unknown (whether it would actually work etc) and the other option was to sew my vaginal passage shut (goodbye sex life) and that was a REAL struggle for me.
I felt that they were slowly taking away my womanlyness, and of course i didnt understand why manchild would want to stick around.After all was said and done i was not what he signed up for (he says:this is not what i signed up for either!!) and i could hardly blame him if he wanted out (although it would've absolutely devestated me)
The most amazing gift that Manchild and i were given at this time by two very special friends was a night on our own in the top floor of the Duxton (oh lala). It was fantastic and exactly what we needed to centre ourselves and be together before everything changed yet again,with the surgery.
Its very easy to lose yourself and your relationship within an illness,especially with a toddler thrown into the mix. (so thank you so much EandI,i know we thanked you at the time but thank you again.It was perfect and the most wonderful generous thing you could have done for me but also for me and manchild xx).

Then,Murpheys law being what it is,right before the surgery MissK got very very sick from something that we suspect she picked up at the hospital. Her gums went all rotten and black and she was in a lot of pain (understandably). When i was admitted her doctor was also talking about admitting her if she didnt start eating/drinking within the next few hours. I was so scared for her and feeling so guilty that i wouldnt be home for the next 2 weeks to look after her. From memory she was the first thing i asked Manchild about in ICU - and he,knowing me as he does, had actually brought the camera in with him with photos of her smiling and looking happier so that i would stop worrying.

 Me and poor sick child a week before i was admitted for surgery

there was two things that were really hard to adjust to over this stage of the journey.
The first being the loss of identity that inevitabley seems to go along with this sort of illness.I often wanted to yell  at the top of my lungs "I'm still the same person i was last week,last month and for the last 32 years dammit!!!!!!!" while some little voice whispered in my head that this wasnt strictly true. Its hard to suddenly become so dependant on others.I couldn't lift MissK or really tend to her needs at all,i couldnt vacuum or clean my home (you who know me know how much that would have irritated me!!) and where i used to walk for 2-3 hrs a day i could now hardly walk up the steps to the letterbox. It was very humbling. I remember saying to my Dad that i didnt know how to talk to people my age anymore because all of their concerns seemed so trivial and he told me  that i needed to accept that things were never going to be the same again and that i was never going to be the same and that i needed to be ok with the new person that i was going to be. It took me quite a while to be ok with the new Cat,some days i still struggle with liking her and her new limitations ...but to be honest some days i felt like that with the Old Cat too.
The second thing was watching my daughter turn to other family members for comfort and to fulfill her needs,which i knew was a necessity but it was a necessity that i REALLY didnt like.It was/is really important to look at the long term situation wherever possible. At the end of the day i had to remind myself that the best thing for MissK was to have a mother and whatever i had to do (or not be able to do in the short term) to make that happen was in her best interests. That didnt help all the time,but a lot of the time it did.

In April my friend from Geelong (I'll refer to her as MM) flew over,though i knew her family could ill afford the ticket.She, like me, had not appreciated the gravity of the situation until her lovely husband (who has medical training) told her otherwise and insisted that she come back for a visit. It was the best thing that could've happened at that time. My family backed off and left me in her capable hands and her and MissK (and MM and Manchild) all got to know each other. We had long talks about where my head was at with everything that was going on (which i hadnt talked to anyone about til that point).  i gained an enormous sense of strength and wellbeing from her visit and from spending time with someone who'd know me inside out since i was 13 years old. Obviously my biggest fear was still that the treatments wouldn't work and so her visit had the beautiful bittersweet feeling of saying everything that you need to say to someone you love alot,just incase...
(I love you MM)

 We three at Karori sanctuary during MM's visit

All too soon she was heading back over the ditch and the operation was fast approaching. I was having talks with the Urologist about the various options once they had removed my bladder and the best one (in my and his opinion ) was to have another bag on my chest (the same idea as a stoma bag) but with the bladder coming into it and a tap on the bag so it could be emptied without being changed.About now (feeling like the bride of Frankenstien) i was drawing strength from my earlier resolve to do WHATEVER it takes!
They were also talking about taking skin from my thigh to reconstruct the top of my vaginal passage. Apparantly it was a method that has been trialled in Canada but had not yet been done in NZ.In the end they decided to do it with a piece of bowel (icky huh?! Seems that bowel is actually multi purpose!). I just filed the idea away in 'lets not think about that right now' and got on with preparing for the Op.

Then in May Manchild came off his motorbike and broke his back in four places.All of a sudden i went from being looked after to looking after as he was in a full back/chest brace and couldnt move without agonising pain.It was a nightmarish few months during which we mostly concentrated on him so that he would be fit to run the child and household while i was gone. He was very very angry at himself for having had this accident right when his family needed him and (thank goodness for ACC) our already tight single income was now down to 80% of what it was. His migraines (which he suffered from previously and were extremely debilitating) returned with a vengence and he started a gruelling regime of physiotherapy.
There were advantages though,him being off work during the time i would be in hospital meant that he would get to spend two weeks on his own with MissK and also during one of his physio sessions he was given a trip about rolling a towel and supporting his neck during sleep to deal with the migraines (so simple!!) . It worked a treat ( i later invested in some really good quality feather pillows) and we've never looked back in that regard!
The other advantage (and i use the term loosely!) with him being injured was that we were now eligible for an hrs home support (a cleaner) per week. Weirdly we weren't eligible before even though Mike was working long hrs full time out in Tawa. Now that we were both at home someone could come and take care of the vacuuming,toilets and other things that neither of us could bend over to do.

I took part in an interview for one of my training radiotherapy nurses thesis while i was having treatment.
she asked me what i would advise others in my situation to do and i found it a very tricky question to answer,especially without sounding like a cliche. What i came up with is that if you feel something is wrong with yourself and you are getting told that everything is fine but you know its not dont accept what they are telling you just because the alternative is too scary.
I went and saw GP after GP after GP and in the end was told i had a mental illness that i didnt have (because all my problems were in my head,you see).If i had been honest and true to how i was feeling i feel that i shouldnt have accepted what they were telling me.deep down i KNEW there was something wrong and i feel that i shouldve made them see that too. Just because they are professionals people,DOESNT mean that they know you better than you know yourself.
Always keep in mind;human error.

Two other things before i end this post- i was prescribed Metoclopramide for the nausea and vomiting. Its the government subsidized drug and it has (reasonably common) side effects of anxiety,sleeplessness,restlessness etc etc. I found that Domperidone although more expensive (but not too bad) was fantastic. You can also take it in advance (for example if the motion from travelling is making you ill take it 15 mins before you get in the car).
Also- Radiotherapy causes scar tissue to form around the vaginal entrance (at least it does if youre a girl!). they will provide you with dialators at the hospital.Theyre painful and a bit embarassing to use but stick with them if you can- its better than the alternative.
Loperamide works great to deal with Chemo induced loose bowel motions. Take it immediately,dont wait around. Being able to control your own body is vitally important in feeling in control of your illness x

So with that attitude in mind i started the 6 weeks of radiotherapy combined with 6 weeks chemo (the chemo was 2 weeks on,one week off to give the cells time to regroup before being attacked by the chemo again).
This meant daily trips to the hospital. To be honest the Radiotherapy wasnt too hard to start with,the actual treatment itself is quick and the staff are wonderful. The hardest part was combining it with the chemo (which has strong side effects of nausea and diarrhea (no fun at anytime,esp when youre pooing into a bag on your chest!!) and having to travel across town and back each day when you feel ill.
Also as the treatment went on (bec they are effectively burning cells inside your body with a machine) i got severe blistering on my  *ahem* girlie parts so peeing, sitting etc became very painful. I was prescribed codeine for the pain, which was increased as the treatment went on. I found that worked ok but i would get blinding headaches and tiredness as it wore off so after a while i stopped taking it and would just soak in a tepid salt bath several times a day. I was also prescribed solosite gel for the blistering but soon after switched to saf-gel mostly bec the solosite gel was expensive even with a script whereas the oncology district nurse can provide the saf-gel when she visits (and its in a much bigger tube!).
Later on when i did the 6 month stint of Chemo i got a side effect of cracked raw feet (no fun to walk on!!) and i used to rub the saf-gel onto them also which helped.
Your oncology dept can also provide you with these amazing blow up kind of cushions which really help with that catch 22 of being too tired to do anything but too sore to sit down.Of course post surgery they dont like you lying down for extended periods either (all these rules obviously made by someone who's never had to live by them!!!).
 DO make use of everything that you can. I hadnt realised going into this that fighting cancer is a LONG road! You need all the assistance you can get.
One of the amazing things about it is that you become part of a community and for the time that you are at the hospital,in the blood and cancer centre you can almost take your mask off and relax because everyone in that waiting room knows exactly how you feel. And you are all in it together,although in slightly different ways. No one- not even your family- really gets it but everyone in that waiting room with the hovering uncertainty hanging over them truely understands.
On the personal front some interesting things had happened.My family were amazing (and by that i mean mine and Manchilds),amazingly amazing. My dad and stepmum even moved up to Wellington to live for the main year of treatment (see:amazing!!) but i found that a lot of my friends had been scared off by the big 'C'. At the time i was quite hurt, i was literally fighting for my life (drs had told me that it would be months not years if the treatments didnt work) and it felt like i had dropped off the face of the earth.Now,i understand more- its a really hard thing for people to talk about and even now i dont often  mention it. Its pretty freaky being reminded of how uncertain life can be.
And then on the other hand i was also suprised by people that i hadnt seen or heard of for years turning up with meals and to sit and talk. The ones that i leaned on the hardest were friends who had lost someone close to cancer,one been touched by it in someway. They seemed to know exactly what was going on and it was always very easy to be around them (you guys all know who you are xx).
About three weeks after surgery my stoma prolapsed,and i dont mean a little. It prolapsed a LOT!! about 15-20cm of bowel was now outside my bady and thats when i started to struggle.it was painful,ugly,scary and hard to imagine how life would ever resemble anything normal again (but of course it does at some point!). I was wearing the baggiest tops i could find and mostly the prolapsed stoma was filling up my stoma bag to the point where it felt as though it was the bag stopping it from pro lapsing further. The stoma nurse thought it was probably because the bowel had been so stretched as a result of the tumor that it had no muscle strength anymore and they would make a new one at the upcoming operation.Which also meant that the remaining bowel would now be too short to reattach and that i would have my stoma for life.
The next 8 weeks till then seemed extraordinarily long!!!!

Me and the hairy child at home at the end of April 09

* sorry anyone who's following this- for some reason the newest post has gone down the bottom of the page instead of the top(?????!!!!)  so keep on scrolling down..........   xx

26 Feb 2009- When my first and much cherished child was thirteen months old i received the news that no one ever wants to hear- After being rushed to the Emergency department at our local hospital i was diagnosed with extensive,advanced and very aggressive cancer in my pelvis/rectal area (bowel or rectum cancer). It had been growing for around 10 years but (despite numerous visits to doctors due to the increasing pain) they had only just discovered it now.
I had just turned 32 years old and 1 week previously felt as though i had everything i could ever want for in the world.
The doctor gave me the news that they had bumped the other patient off the waiting list and i was going into theatre immediately as he didnt think that i would last through the night if i didnt have surgery. I then discovered that even harder than hearing the news that you have cancer,and are about to receive your first ever surgery,is ringing the people that you love most in the world to let them know whats going on.
Its something that i never ever want to repeat, wishing that i could do anything to take away the pain and anguish in Manchilds voice while at the same time knowing that i was the cause of it. Equally as hard was not being able to see MissK before theatre (the operation was being performed at 11pm), and infact not having seen her since 11am as i left for A&E.
So in i went,terrified.
And out i came,nausious,weak,with a brand new scar,colostomy and a temporary (7 days it lasted!!) liquid diet.
But also absolutely determined that i could and would face whatever was thrown my way in order to keep my family together.As i hope none of you will ever discover,when the chips are down you either give it all you have or take your gloves off and go and sit in the corner... And as the Manchild will tell you,i always have liked a good fight.
Unfortuntely the new stoma was only the beginning,and from my vantage point of two years down the track I'm going to try to recount as much about my journey as i can.
Some of it is good,some not,some is probably way too much information but its all part of the same story so I'll try to retell it with as much honestly as i can (i find it desperately humiliating to air personal details about my life but no doubt I'll get used to it).
The reason I've decided to do this now is because i know i am NOT alone in this.Everywhere i turn i meet someone effected by this disease. I was completely blindsided by my diagnosis.COMPLETELY. I went from little Miss Heathly Girl,who watched what she ate,never smoked,exercised very regularly and loved my fruit and veges to bedridden within a matter of days.
And, for me, once i was diagnosed the massive amount of information that i was receiving about my condition was very very hard to handle- but  i  didnt really want to be talking to a therapist or anyone else who had "been there" (one of the reasons my cancer went unchecked is that it is usually a cancer that affects the elderly) because they were somewhat older than i was. So i very much just learned things as i went along.
So here's hoping that this may provide something useful to someone else in need ....and to all those family and friends who never wanted to pry - here's your chance!  I will also be detailing the remedies and products that i used along the way to help deal with the treatment, and of course,there is life AFTER cancer (you better believe it!!). not at all the same life that there was before it but life all the same (blissful,blessed,wonderful life). I made promises to myself of things that i would do once i was well enough- some of them I'm doing,some I'm not yet but I'm working on it.
I plan to fill this in each day that i can while MissK is at kindy or napping so please sign up if youre interested. It's my first webpage so please  bear with me and the numerous technical difficulties that i will no doubt run into...
And for all  those who dont know me personally- this is being written from the little slice of paradise that we call New Zealand (home of the boys in black).
 So...not the greatest of photos but the one that i could find of me and MissK  closest to my admission date. This was taken at her first birthday party (as you can see,scoffing handfulls of cake!) and its funny because looking at this photo i can remember the amount of pain i was in that day and how hard i was working by this stage to hide it from everyone. 
I think by this point i had figured out that whatever was wrong with me was serious, despite what the GP's said, and i was pretty scared and was hoping that if i ignored it it might go away (NOT a good plan...it doesnt work!!!)
Hindsight being what it is- i look at my skinny arms in this photo and wonder how i could've possibly thought i was fooling anybody!

Anyway- I'm regressing...i was in hospital for 11 days the first time in the old Grace Neil block,in a shared ward.Which was interesting and eye opening.There's nothing like being in a hospital surgical ward to make you realise that no matter how bad you think you have it,someone is struggling more.
I also met a middle aged lady whos bed was across the isle from mine (i will call her M.). She had also been admitted suddenly and was actually from out of town,a spot on her lung that couldn't be identified. She was as loud and bolshy (sneaking out the fire exits to smoke- I'd never have the guts!) as i was agreeable and complacent but we really hit it off.
2 weeks after i was discharged she passed away from cancer of the lung,having never left the hospital and i was devestated that she had gone and also got struck with the shocking clarity that this disease was a killer,and it really didnt care if you were a nice person or not.
M. called me and MissK her 'angels'  - i wish that i had had the presence of mind to tell her that she was also my angel who stopped me from crumbling during that first hospital stay.
It was also during this time that i really realised that my whole life was changing- up until this point i had thought that they would operate,i'd have a few bad weeks and then life would return to the way it was before. No such luck.i was browsing through one of the radiotherapy pamphlets (by this stage i knew that the basic outline of treatment would be 6 weeks daily radiotherapy,followed by 6 weeks chemo, follow by a BIG operation, followed by a further 6 months of chemo) when i read the paragraph that stated, to put it bluntly,the radiotherapy would affect (cook!!) my overies and they would no longer produce any eggs -
 GULP,tears,breathe,more tears.our family just shrunk from the four children that we had wanted to the one that we already had with that one line. It was followed up with the fact that the radiotherapy also brings on premature menopause - so that was something else to look forward to.
Now,on the children front,dont get me wrong- MissK was everything i could ever want in a child.It was just the shear shock of it all,the sudden changes,the redefinitions of my life and  how i had it already mapped out in my head. I thought that i already knew how to roll with the punches but it turns out that i was just learning!

 Here's another photo that i recently dug up of me in July 07,about 5 months pregnant- not looking particularly well! Very hard pregnancy (as i later found out the cancer was all through my uterus and the doctors are baffled as to how i managed to get pregnant (manchilds super sperm!!) and carry MissK to term. One even said that if i had been diagnosed while pregnant they would have forced a termination...NOT happening,i can tell you right now!!!)

Ok , so i left hospital the first time not believing that this was my life or that anything bad was going to happen and generally enjoying the fuss. My dad had just rushed back from a trip to Australia which i was mortified about - i didnt have a lot of info from the doctors as they were still going through scan results etc and hadnt thought to share what they had found yet.
I'd lost 12kg and couldn't wait to get home. It was coming up to Easter and Manchild had brought me tons of Easter eggs to spoil me but we found out that chocolate is a no,no (which really sucked as i REALLY REALLY wanted to eat those Easter goodies after enduring the hospital food).
On the  food front- my diet had to change completely,i couldn't eat all the healthy stuff that i used to love but instead had to have overcooked veg,boiled potatoes (no lovely crunchy roast ones),no nuts,seeds or raw fruit. No corn,peas,pineapple or Mango at all (Mango is dropped from heaven as far as I'm concerned but I dont think i've eaten it since then-not worth the end result!!).
What else couldn't i have?? As Manchild will tell you i'm a bread fiend but from now on it was white bread only, no chewy meat....well.i'm sure you get the idea. Everything stodgy and overcooked and no added roughage.
Basically the stoma works so that you have a bit of your bowel attached to your tummy (sewn on to the outside) and a changeable bag that sticks to your tummy around the outside of the stoma so that when you poo it doesnt travel down your bowel,it comes out this loop and into the bag... As you can imagine it took alot of getting used to and i was still pretty sore.
I wouldn't let Mike see me without a top on at all. And i think that i was so good at focusing on getting well because i stopped caring about how i looked altogether. I mean anything tight fitting was pretty much out- or even anything fitted. The bag lay flat when i was empty but would swell right out like a balloon when it was full or gassy.

Me and MissK enjoying an ice cream at the Oriental Bay beach a few weeks after my first discharge. Check out those baggy size 8 pants!! (I dont think that they were ever that baggy again!)
Going out like this for an hour in the morning would end me up in bed for the rest of the day 

About a week after i got home i received my discharge notes which stated that the cancer was CIN 3 and 4 and that they had also found the tumor had spread through the rectal walls into the uterus and the top of my vaginal passage.

I was in shock. I had been working on the ignorant assumption that there was a tumor,they would remove it and life would be dandy.

I cant quite remember when i first met the surgeon but it must've been close to this time.  He impressed upon me how unusual it is to have this kind of cancer when you are young AND have no family history. He told me about the surgery that they would be performing (i had to concentrate very hard not to faint or hurl- i was so scared of what he was saying). Basically they would be fully removing all the internal organs in my belly/pelvis and lymph nodes. They were not sure at that point whether the two lots of cancer were different or the same (it turned out they were the same,thank goodness!) and at this point they would be removing most of my bowel,my uterus,my bladder,most of my vaginal passage and at the same time taking fat from my stomach lining to fill the cavity that would be left behind.

It was going to be major and i had to start letting more people know so that they could process the news the way that they needed to.

I went home and sent two emails- to my two oldest best friends,one in Geelong and one in France to let them know. I couldn't believe that i had wasted so much time in my life. I had a child that neither of them had met,they had children that i had never met. I've never seen where my brothers live in England and my oldest brother has never met his niece and we have never met his wife.

I was shocked at how much i wanted to be surrounded by my oldest bestest friends and also my brothers and brothers and sisters in law. I was so scared that things were going to go drastically wrong and i would not get to see them again. I spent two days in bed crying almost non stop about the idea that i might not see MissK grow up and (selfishly) even worse,what if i died and Manchild remarried and MissK grew up with another woman as her Mum. 

Then i sucked it up and decided it wasnt something that i could afford to think about as i WASNT going to die,i WASNT going to let any mutated cells get the better of me,i'm no quitter and i wasnt planning on either Manchild or MissK growing up without me and that was the end of it.

Whatever the doctors asked me to do,i would do it without fighting,whatever bad news they gave me i would shoulder it without complaint. My decision on how to handle the whole situation was basically whatever i had to do it would be worth it to be alive.

Infact i felt very fortunate in a lot of ways- many people die suddenly and with no warning. I felt a bit like i had been given a 'get out of jail free' card and i planned on making the most of it.