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.