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