Yesterday:
I’m EXHAUSTED right now. Liam had a big day at school. They did an Easter play and morning tea, then I came home for one hour to ring all and sundry up about financial things, medical things etc; went to the Neighbourhood Centre where I used to work to get some assistance with stuff; went to the op-shop for cool things to wear to hospital, the chemist to put in my receipts for all the medical stuff to get the refund back, back to Liam’s school for an easter hat parade and easter egg hunt. And then to the accountants to sign for my tax returns to go in.
Oh yes, and blood tests in there somewhere. Where I was told I was going to become best friends with the girl who sticks me with the needle. As I would have to go in there the day before every single chemo treatment.
I’m amazed at how incredible even the medical people are with this. With cancer patients, the blood test place take you in before anyone in the morning, whenever you turn up. I’ve been told from now on all of my x-rays and ultrasounds will be bulk-billed (meaning the government pays for the lot) and my surgeon is kindly doing that also!! As is my normal doctor. Thank GOD. Nice to have some good news.
And within the next two weeks I should have a nice amount back from my tax returns plus my superannuation which I am drawing out (which is only 8000 but going to be taxed at 21.5% the bastards!) so I will have money to pay for Liam’s school fees for the year, pay off everyone I owe, buy myself a decent bloody DOUBLE bed (because I’m pretty sure bed is going to be an important place haha!)
Today:
Still feeling good. Though my breast never stops aching. It’s a kind of hot, low ache that migrates.
It’s Good Friday, and it is, applicably, overcast and lovely and cool. I should be cleaning. The place looks like a bomb hit it, but here I am still sitting in pj’s catching up with online stuff. And enjoying the peace … both Liam and I got to sleep in this morning which was lovely. Easter long weekend. No school until Tuesday.
I am thinking I might take Liam up to Ellenborough falls tomorrow, maybe. It’s a long drive there, but he has just been watching a documentary on tv and saw a waterfall and got all excited. That is, if I can get up the energy. We are having a family bbq get together on Easter Sunday, which will be nice.
I am overwhelmed, totally, by the love, caring and support I am getting. In 3d live and here in the ’online ether’. I feel kind of swaddled in it. Offers from friends for transport, childminding, cooking, all sorts of things. The outpouring of love is humbling, very humbling. I think we all tend to take each other so much for granted, but then something ’like this happens’ (so cliched) and turns your thinking on its head. Cancer Lesson No. 1 … treasure the people around you. Don’t take anyone for granted. Look how many people genuinely care for you. It is love, love that will get me through this.
By the same token, it is the pain I see other people going through because of this that is causing me most angst. At dinner after the art gallery exhibition opening the other night, my father’s eyes looked so very, very sad. My mother’s face seems constantly red, like she is constantly weeping. My niece, oh God my niece. (Rowley on my friends list, Natasha is her name). She is 15, and it is not just familial love and pride when I say she is an extremely talented ballet dancer and will go far. She is auditioning for the Australian Ballet School this year 🙂 She is my god-daughter and I have always said ’daughter of my soul’. When I rang my sister Christine in Western Australia to tell her the diagnosis Tash got on the phone bawling her eyes out. That did me in. That was too much. It breaks my heart to see others hurting because of me.
And just as it is still taking a long time to sink in for me (I keep having to tell myself “I have breast cancer” and it still hits me like a surprised slap in the face) I know other people that care for me deeply are also having the same problems coming to terms with it. That it is even more unreal, perhaps, to them. As Dr Phil says (snicker) *Everyone* is a cancer ’patient’, not just the person who has it, but their loved ones as well. Maybe I’m more aware of it because of having been on the other side when my sister Natalie had her brain tumour and how devastating that was for the rest of us.