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!!!)