Dying For Beginners

Okay, I’ve just broken the first rule of blogging - blog often. But it’s been a very strange couple of weeks.

We have got the painkiller levels right - which means no more (or at least much less) Parallel Universe. Unfortunately the levels are still high enough that I fall asleep if I remain in the same position for longer than two minutes (car, bus, church…) Thankfully Ian understands that I spend his sermons with my eyes closed in prayer and would not dream of sleeping during the service

The pain is a bit weird - it moves around. My right leg will hurt and I will limp badly for a day, and the next day it will be fine but my neck will hurt like mad, then my left leg, then my arms and under my arms. Completely random, really.

Mama has moved to Brisbane for the next few months. She is living in a unit in New Farm owned by her cousin and goes back up to Mackay every three weeks for a week to see Dave and Timbo. It is wonderful having her here - I’ve missed her a lot.

Speaking of Mackay, we were fine - we live in the high ground. Many people lost everything though. Mama was so disappointed to have missed being there while it happened.

So how am I? I am somewhat random. Taking a break from chemo to do the radiation made me pretty sick and the lumps in my neck blew up again. As soon as I go back to chemo (and by chemo I mean the experimental drug Avastin) the lumps go down really well, but chemo only targets soft-tissue tumours. Since I’m also having some issues with the bone cancer, it doesn’t help that. Hopefully the radiation will help there.

We are getting to the point where we will need to make some difficult choices here. If I continue to do chemo to keep things under control, it is a) expensive and b) I don’t enjoy chemo. And do I want to get into a situation where it costs $500/week just to keep me alive? It seems kind of - tacky or something. Anyway, at some point, we need to decide when to stop treatment. I have my sixth chemo next week and then we will scan to see how it all went. And then decide what to do. Difficult decisions.

I had an interesting experience at the Cathedral of Consumerism the other day (that’s Westfield Carindale to most people). Jason, Em and I went to the movies, and after the movie I sort of collapsed - I think it was just really low blood pressure, but I couldn’t stand up. Anyway, security was called and suddenly eight big men in black suits rock up (and I then got the giggles). I didn’t need an ambulance, I did recover, but then I had to fill in incident reports for the cinema, and the shopping centre, and go get a wheelchair.

Anyway, not much news, but wanted to keep you in the loop. Chemo again on Tuesday.

Hope you are well - thank you for the support for the new site! I would love to receive some reviews of books, or alternative treatments, or courses people have read, done or heard about…

God bless,

Jess xoxox

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