Myths and Mistakes

It has been so long since I posted I have had to seriously consider whether I should in fact close this blog down.  What happens when you delete a blog?  Can it be found floating around the ether?  It seems a shame to remove it completely.  
 

8 pm Fairhaven beach.  A rare still day. 

It has also been so long since I posted that I am starting to get vast amounts of spam comments to delete. (Why do the autobots target inactive blogs?  Seems counter intuitive to me.)  The other mystery of course is why do I lose followers when I don't blog?   Come on guys.  Hang in there. Surely infrequent posts are better than clogging up your reader with crap? 

I usually ask for no Xmas presents, but my husband ignored me

and this is what he gave me. A giant herb pot.  And still alive, last I looked.

 

So, I thought I would pop in to say, I am still here, alive and well (touches large piece of wood).

I have just had the most wonderful holiday down at the beach. We had a full four weeks away, which is the longest period of time I have had away from Melbourne since 1998.   So long that we returned to a completely dead garden.  Well the trees are fine, but the lawn, lavender, grass trees, jasmine and bay tree are dead or on the edge of death. So sad.  Perhaps we should have planned better.  But I didn't think Melbourne would have four weeks of no rain. 


So long that when I returned I really noticed all the cars and buildings were really close together, and felt cramped and busy all of a sudden.  Amazing what a change a few weeks in a different environment can make.

We spent our holiday swimming in the scary surf, doing Nippers with the children, cooking, roasting marshmallows, watching the tennis and cricket and old James Bond films, eating and drinking and sleeping.  Oh and reading.

Roasted eggplant, mint and pomegranate seed salad. 

 

I read a book every couple of days ranging from slightly trashy to sci fit to classic.   It was completely perfect.  

Wine, driftwood and trashy paperback ('Sister' - I wouldn't bother with it) 

I should say that I am not a particularly beachy person. I burn really easily, and I just had to stand on the beach, wearing hat and SPF30 mind you, for a few Nipper sessions for all my freckles to pop back up again.   And my hair.  Oh dear.   I just had to give up on getting it straight and shiny, and popped it back most days.  At least I have hair to complain about.  I can now finally say, 18 months after it started growing back, that is is almost where it was pre-cancer.  It takes such a long time to get back, much much longer than I had expected. 

540 Nippers posing for the news helicopter to

protest lack of government funding for the surf club 

 

And I also indulged my new addiction to Kundalini yoga, thanks to my Atlantan friend Jenny for the tip. I love Maya Fiennes so much I feel calm just looking at her face:

This book is brilliant by the way.  Easily available on line. 



I cannot emphasise enough how much yoga has helped me over the last few months. I really struggle with meditation - my mind races (yes I know the point of meditation is to control this) and it is very hard to get complete uninterrupted quiet in the house.  Yoga does require quiet but it is so much more doable with loud children around, and I still manage to get into quite a meditative state.   I highly highly recommend it.   And of course, you can do the Maya Kundalini yoga at home.   I prefer this to finding a yoga class which suits me (why are they always on Tuesday mornings or Saturday afternoons?)


I wrote a little article last year for the sometimes maligned Mamamia site.  It is about the myths which float around about cancer patients.  Mamamia annoyingly changed the title to 'Mistakes' which people make around cancer patients, which is the wrong word to use of course.  They have now published it (they didn't even tell me so I have only just seen it.)

I was going to ask you all to rush over and make nice comments about it, but there is not much criticism there, so it ain't necessary. But please by all means check it out at your leisure.  It is a consolidation of a lot of things I have been thinking for a while now.  Link is here. 

Have you been reading the GOMI thread about Aussie Mum Bloggers?  It's getting pretty long!  Leaving aside the 5% which is just very bitchy and malicious, I think there is something to learn in there for anyone who blogs.    And I have to be honest, some of the comments did make me laugh, and others I did agree with 100%.  Just makes me happy to not be a super huge blog with lots of sponsored posts and a gazillion readers. 

Another thing about being away for so long is that I arrived home and decided I am not completely happy with my house colour.  It is kind of this colour (Bristol Flagstone), we painted it 10 years ago.  

I want to paint it white, and give it a door like this.

(via a Beach Cottage)

 

Or this:

 

 

Is a white house really annoying? Does it get dirty and dusty?   I feel it is better for a house to recede than be out there and bright, but maybe a shake up is what is required.

 

I am going to do a juice cleanse for the start of February.  Given I do green smoothies blah blah I reckon it will be quite straightforward.  I wanted to do Orchard Street but irritatingly they only service Sydney.     So I am likely to go with Schkinny Manniny.  Silly name but it looks pretty interesting. 

 

That's all for now.

 

 

 

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Bedtime

(at bedtime)

P (five year old): can I stay in this house forever?

Me:  Of course, how long did you have in mind?

P:    Until I am all grown up and me and Immy (big sister) have fallen in love with different people and we all live here together.  Me, Immy, the person I love and the person she loves.

Me:  What about mummy and daddy?

P:     You'll be dead won't you?

Me:   I bloody hope not.  (Note: bloody is not a swear word in our house as it is authentic Australian slang).

P:     (looks puzzled)

Me:   For example - look at Heddy, your grandmother. She is my mummy and she is still alive and I am grown up aren't I?

P:     Yes.

Me:   So there you go, when you are grown up, I should be alive too.

P:     Why do people die?

Me:  All living creatures have to die sometime. Sometimes they get sick, sometimes they just get old. The trick is to make sure you fit lots of life into the space between being born and dying.

P:    When will the Queen die?

Me:  I don't know for sure.  She is pretty old though. Over 80.

P:     Why isn't the Queen in the Lympics?  It's in her country.

Me:  I think she might be a bit old for running and swimming.

P:     It will be good when she dies.  There will be no one to boss us around anymore.

Me:   Not sure about that.  Prince Charles will become King Charles and unless we become a republic he will be our head of state.  Last time I looked he was pretty bossy.  About organic things. And architecture.  And the youth of today.

P:   What's a head of state?

Me: Never mind. (Note to self: need to better explain way constitutional monarchy works to children).

P:    I don't want you to die.  Or go to work tomorrow. Or leave me.  Ever.

Ever since I was diagnosed with cancer, something has been worrying P.   I know that this is an obvious thing to say, but I am constantly looking for signs that the fear he must have had to begin with is going away, at least a little.  After all, it has been almost two years now. 

In my lawyerly way I tried to pin his worry down to something specific, which I would then try to minimise or alleviate.  Was it losing my hair, vanishing to hospital for days on end, talking about my sore shoulder, being tired, being a bit sick or being unable to lift him properly anymore?   I have never lied to him about my diagnosis, and used my best efforts to explain bad cells and good cells and chemo to him.  I was always pretty vague about the surgery I had, simply because it was such an assault to my body that I really don't think he should be exposed to that at such a young age.

Of course that was just way too complicated an approach. 

He is five.  He doesn't care about any of that stuff.  He couldn't care less about my hair or my surgery or my blood counts or my bone scans or my fear of recurrence.

He just wants me to be alive.   Sometimes the simple obvious answer is in fact the correct answer. 

I understand clearly now that he is in contact with a visceral fear of abandonment or loss in a way that I certainly was not at his age.  I don't think I even thought about death once until I was a moody 12 year old listening to A Forest by the Cure (thank you Robert Smith for giving me some great black clothes wearing/goth/moping around teenage years. You were just the backdrop I needed).  Here's another one to mope to:

On a lighter note, we have been building up quite a collection of ecologically sound bedtime reading, ranging from this classic:

I love the Lorax still, complete with the Truffala trees and Thneeds.   It is compulsory reading for all children.  And I know a new Lorax was released last year, but you can also watch the original animated film on YouTube, here it is below.

To this:

Wouldn't this make great wallpaper?  Just as I knew nothing of death at 5, I also new nothing of climate change\recycling\ endangered animals, all topics my children are Full Bottle on.

This book is about a forest which was chopped down and a city which smothers everything with its smoke,  but has a happy ending.  

Don't you just love a happy ending? I do.   Although I now have a major hankering for the Cure. Time to get Faith out again. 

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Emergency Winter Food for Children

After last year, where I took 45 (officially noted) days of sick leave (which felt like double or triple that amount), it has been very busy at work. I have child care constraints at the moment (is everyone in Europe or is it just my imagination?) so I have had to be creative with the last minute pick up from after school care.  With complaining \ hungry \ tired children, getting them fed \ bathed all in time to go to bed at 7 pm is a bit of a challenge.

(How amazing is the colour of this camellia? Instagram and its Bad Photography Concealing Filters love my camellias!)

Fast food is a must.   I am a night before person, which means that I try to  have dinner ready to go in the fridge the day before if I am not going to be there to cook it slowly.  So so much easier that way. 
  
But last week disaster struck - my daughter had a friend coming for a sleepover and the food had been prescribed in advance (spaghetti bolognese, white bread only, Tic Tacs and icy poles because she doesn't like ice-cream) and at the last minute I had neglected to defrost the pasta sauce. So I turned to my emergency bolognese sauce. 

Emergency Bol Sauce for Screaming Children


Ingredients
2 - 4 high quality pork sausages or chipolatas (not with fennel or chilli)
some butter
Splash of milk
A cup of tomato passata
3/4 cup of stock

Method

Squeeze the porky meat out of the sausage casings.   Gently melt the butter in a fry pan, add a splash of olive oil and some crushed garlic if you want.   Fry the sausage meat, breaking it up with a fork.   When the sausage meat is lightly browned and broken into even tiny bits, put in a splash of milk (sounds gross but Italians do it and it keeps the meat moist).  When the milk has bubbled down, add the passata and chicken stock. At first it will be runny, that is fine.  Cook it down until the sauce has the consistency you want. I like my bol sauce a bit runny and not dried out.

Serve proudly with spaghetti and Parmesan.

When I first went to Paris in 1992, my lovely friend Penny took me for hot chocolate at Angelina's Tearooms in the Rivoli.  The hot chocolate blew my mind, so much better than the watery cocoa I had previously had.   There are a number of different ways to recreate proper hot chocolate, but I like this the most.  It is quick and not messy.   I have forgotten where I got this from, possibly Orangette.   Only proviso is that you really do need a stick blender to get it smooth and frothy. 

Semi Authentic Super Quick Hot Chocolate

Ingredients (this serves two, can easily be doubled)
2 cups of milk
2 tablespoons of water
1 1/2 tablespoons of caster sugar
a handful of chocolate chips which is about 1/4 cup.  Or more to taste but these won't melt as well. 

Method

Put the milk, water and sugar in a saucepan.  Heat gently.   Watch it, when milk boils over it is horrible and messy.  When it is just about to boil there will be little bubbles around the edge.   Take it off the heat and put in the chocolate chips.   Assuming your pot has high sides you can do the next step in the pot.  Get your stick blender and whizz away.  The movement and heat will melt the chocolate, and the mixture will become frothy and smooth and thick.

Drink and enjoy.  

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Nautical Shelves

So long since I posted! I have been shaken out of my reverie by a kindly follower who emailed to see if I was okay.  Thank you.  

The truth is, I have been enjoying life with a minimum of injections and doctors appointments, so much so I have slipped away from here a bit.   Only one more treatment to go.  I am counting down the days till the 26th of March.  Yes it's true, I have been having intravenous treatment for that long - 15 months.  

But I do realise that if I tell people about the cancer and then don't blog, it may make people think the worst. 

Fear not, dear readers.   Am feeling fantastic.  But am sorry for lack of comments.  Really I Must Do Better. 

I have been doing a little project at the beach which took longer than it should due to delays with the wallpaper samples arriving. 

It is very simple, but makes my son's very plain little room a bit more perky.

Here is his little bed:

Longtime readers will remember I made the boat pillow during a Sunday afternoon burst of creativity.

I have found Pottery Barn and the Land of Nod to be invaluable online resources.  These places probably seem basic to readers from the US but for mine simple reasonable quality children's linen which is not festooned with superheroes or Thomas the Tank Engine is not easy to come by here in Australia.  This cover is an all in one padded doona.  Really easy to clean, and lies flat. 

There are some shelves in this room where we keep books and clothes.

I got some sample wallpaper online and lined the shelves like this:

It doesn't intrude into the zen whiteness of the room, but it really make the shelves a focus point. The wallpaper is by Thibaut and Ralph Lauren.   UK wallpaper sites are happy to send lots of samples to you, sometimes for free, sometimes for a small fee. 

In other news, I have joined Twitter.  Not 100% sure why, as I always said I have nothing interesting to say in less than a short paragraph.  But we shall see.  It does allow me to spy on people I have long been a little bit secretly obsessed with like Anthony Bourdain and Bret Easton Ellis.  Feel free to follow me.  I will not be bombarding you with tweets, I can assure you.  


Next on the list, Pinterest. 


xo

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Home Remedies

I have been a most neglectful poster so far this year.  But I have had a wonderful holiday down at the beach, so much so that when I returned to work I forgot my main computer password and even what day it was.   One of those fantastic sandy salty beach holidays where the children tumble exhausted into bed each night, and we watch no television and read books and gaze at the sea for hours on end.   Just perfect.

I promise to post pictures of our bunk room, and some of the house next time round, I just have to remember to take my camera down with me.

Real non holiday life has been a bit of a shock this year, because the Herceptin which is infused into me every three weeks has been giving me some trouble.   You may recall Herceptin is the wonder drug with no side effects, which I am on until April (a year in total).  

 

I have such a minimal kitchen. Every now and then I hanker for a kitchen like my gran's. Like this.

I don't get angry about much these days, at least I try not to, but I was unreasonably enraged at my dashed expectations.  Particularly because I have been on Herceptin for 6 months now with very little impact, so I really thought I was coming to the end of the pain and discomfort.If there is anything worse than a cancer drug with lots of scary well publicised side effects, it is a cancer drug which you are assured has No Side Effects but in fact does.    Each weird ache and pain convinced me I had something unspeakable like secondary bone cancer.  BUT 30 seconds of Internet research demonstrated I am not crazy, and that Herceptin does have some well known side effects.  It is just that those side effects are still denied by many nurses and doctors.  

Pink fridge courtesy of an automotive painter

The side effects vary, and obviously not everyone gets them but mine are constantly runny nose, thin nails, and terrible joint pain.   The first two I can live with but the joint pain, which also featured when I was on Taxol, is stabby and painful, severe enough to wake me at night and particularly bad in my left shoulder and collarbone and wrists and ankles and in my feet when I first wake up.   My joints crack when I move them. It is like being 90 years old.  It is technically arthralgia, not arthritis because there is no swelling.

The last thing I want to do is take more pain killers.  So I thought that before I resorted to Panadol I would try some home remedies.  And whilst I was researching this, it occurred to me that there are a few bits and pieces from my pantry which I now use regularly which have really helped me.  I use these in conjunction with good old nuclear grade conventional medicine.    And exercise.  Being a recent convert to exercise, I feel a bit preachy going on about this, but strenuous weight bearing exercise has really helped me over the last year, and definitely helps with joint pain. 

All I need now is for my grandmothers to come back to life so I can chat to them about what they cooked up in their kitchens. 

Apple Cider Vinegar.  ACV is meant to be a cure all for many things, but particularly good for joint pain (arthritis, gout and all others).  Sounds too good to be true doesn't it?  You take it as 2 teaspoonsful in a standard glass of water, I think warm is the best.  What I am about to tell you will amaze you. I have been taking ACV this way twice a day for a week now, and my joint pain has almost completely gone.   I love you ACV.   If you are interested in the claims for ACV, check out Earth Clinic, which is an all round fascinating site, but you may need to take a big pinch of salt because in my view some of the posters are clearly nutters.
I use this one:

It is also apparently great for hair, you use it as a pre or post shampoo rinse, it gets rid of gunky build up.  Haven't tried this yet. 

Turmeric and cayenne (ie chilli powder) great for sinus and easy to use a lot if you do lots of Indian cooking as I do.  Turmeric is a blood purifier and an immune system booster.  You can make a turmeric tea if you can be bothered, like this: a teaspoon in warm milk, or alternatively, simmer a teaspoon plus some cardamom in water, then add same amount of milk.  You can sweeten with honey.   An Ayurvedic would also suggest you add a couple of spoonfuls of almond oil.   You can also steep ginger, honey and lemon juice in hot water, then add some turmeric powder and a dash of cayenne.  Very good for colds.

Lemon in hot water. When I can remember, which I confess is less often than it should be, I take this first thing in the morning, as a nice way to cleanse the body before the rigours of the day.  And on the days I remember I definitely feel better inside.

Green smoothies.  I have talked about these here.  Unfortunately kale is out of season at the moment in Melbourne. I have asked my mother who has a green thumb and a fantastic veg garden to try to grow some so I have a ready supply.  In the meantime I am using lots and lots of spinach as a substitute.

Tea tree oil.  I dab this on chemo related spots.  I also use this in my home made anti lice conditioner (one bottle of cheap conditioner, half empty out, put in small bottle of tea tree oil, small bottle of eucalyptus oil and small bottle of lavender oil.  Mix and use weekly in place of conditioner.  My daughter has not had lice for 5 years now!).

Coconut oil. I use this on really dry foot bits. And also use lots in cooking. And on my cereal when roasting it to make it a bit crunchier.

 And finally, whilst not a home remedy, here is some Eyelash help.   Another nasty surprise from Herceptin was my eyelashes falling out 4 months after I finished chemo.  For the second time.  But just in one eye.  My eyelashes have always been rather pale, and not much to brag about, but this really annoyed me so I went off to Mecca Cosmetica and bought this, by French brand Talika:

So far it has really helped, my lashes are definitely thicker and longer.   Do you have a cure all from your pantry?

(Images (1), (2), (4) Country Living, (3) House and Hem (5) Eva Kylland)

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Bunk

We bought a beach house a couple of months back. (Kept that quiet, didn't I?).

I will post some pictures at some point. 

The house is at Fairhaven, on the west coast of Victoria.  An English friend described this area to me as like Cornwall, and the northern beaches of Sydney as like the Mediterranean. I think this is quite apt.  We have certainly had some blustery grey blue weekends down there.     

The house doesn't need really any renovation, which was one of my pre-conditions.  I have hung some new curtains and that is it.

However there is one room which needed a lot of work. It is the downstairs bunk room, which was used by the old owners as storage.  We need it as occasional accommodation so that we have enough room for the children plus guests. 

I mentioned in a previous post that I love the Scandinavian grey and white and wood beach shack style.  Of course not all of that is really suited to the Australian summer, which does get hot, even down here.  And I think pure white walls are can be an issue when you have lots of sun glare. 

So, here is the plan for the bunk room. If I could do a mood board then I would, but I can't, so I am laying it out old style. 

One wall to be wallpapered in this:

(Ralph Lauren from the Family Places range) 

Other walls painted in Chalk USA:

(thanks A-M - I found this on your blog!)

Bunks along one wall maybe like this:

Curtains like this:

(from Pottery Barn)

Floor coverings like this:

(from Freedom Furniture) 

Other furniture is completely undecided.  Although I have bought this lamp from Ikea because I liked the colour:

And I would like some ticking stripe linen like this:

(via Toast) 

I love stripes in children's rooms. 

Oh, and here is a shot of the room itself just before we bought the house.   This room has a Few Issues.  It has a very very low ceiling, less than 190 cm.  And a triangle window!   And a strangely positioned woodenly pole.  And the tiled floor is not ideal but I can cover that.  Arrggh...

So far it has taken me four coats to paint out that blue stripe. I am by no means an expert painter so that might be why. 

The wall to be wallpapered is the black one.   And what oh what could I do to cover that triangle window? The best I have come up with is a plantation shutter, but it would have to be custom made. 

This is where I have got to. 

Wish me luck! 


(Images (1) and (5) from My Scandinavian Retreat (3), (10) and (11) Pinterest.)

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A Morning in The Life Of...

6.45 am - Small Ironman son runs into our bedroom shouting 'Is it morning is it morning is it morning?'  My usual response: 'It isn't morning until mummy says it is' doesn't cut the mustard anymore. Small Ironman climbs into our bed for a cuddle.   Lies on his back wide awake asking questions about his day and telling us about Tom and Alex and other little friends in a loud non-morning voice.   

6.50 am - Run to Pharmaceutical Cornucopia (PC) on kitchen bench and take one tablet of PSK (which is otherwise known as Trammune or Trametes Versicolor (a kind of common mushroom) and must be eaten 30 mins before food).

6.52 am - Have shower.  Showers are quite fun at moment, with almost no hair.   I don't have to worry about getting it too wet.  Or washing it hardly ever.  And the water feels lovely on my head.  Son sits and talks to me in non-morning voice whilst I shower.  Son has no volume knob, it seems, so I have given up asking him to use inside voice.

7.00 am - Get dressed into clothes laid out night before.  Son very concerned I am dressed before him. 'Are you going to work today?' I tell him going to hospital to have more bad medicine.  'Oh' he says, losing interest immediately.  'Can I watch some TV now?'

7.05 am - Return to PC and take 3 tablets of Reishi, another kind of mushroom.    This is in tablet form because fresh Reishi not cleared to come from Japan yet due to earthquake.  Get son milk to drink whilst the Avengers is on.
 
7.08 am - Make peanut butter on toast for son.   Present toast to son.  Son cries because toast not in exact square shape.   Cut crusts off to make squarer.   Present for second time. Son says he has changed mind and now wants Vegemite and 'yellow butter' on an exact square toast shape.  I ask 'are you serious?' Son laughs demonically, his little kiss curl hanging over his forehead in manner of nursery rhymne boy.

7.12 am - Gargle with some Maldon salt dissolved in water.  This is to prevent ulcers.

7.14 am - Go into daughter's bedroom.  Daughter sound asleep and spread out across bed with bed coverings all askew, university student style.  Daughter is only 8 though.  Tell her time to get up.  Bribe her with toast and raspberry and vanilla jam.  Daughter moans and says not hungry and really really tired.  Wonder what daughter will be like as 13 year old.  Or 18 year old.

7.16 am - Take one tablet of green conifer needle oil.    I take these three times a day.  They prevent thrush and so far have worked really well.

7.18 am - Give Pepper the cat breakfast.    Pepper smells his breakfast disdainfully (it's too cold) and walks away, tail held high.

7.20 am - Ask son why he has not eaten second breakfast.  He says he has changed mind again and doesn't want his square toast.  I say 'I am not a restaurant.  Or a cafe.  Or even a greasy spoon type place desperate for customers.   No more breakfasts'.  Son's bottom lip starts to stick out.  I offer him Greek yogurt with passion fruit. Son smiles and says 'Yummy yes please'.

7.22 am Take Codonopsis.  This is a Chinese herb known as poor man's ginseng, which can strengthen the immune system and help white and red blood cell counts. I take it as an extract dripped into a glass of water.

7.25 am - Re-enter teenage style daughter's room and turn light up really bright and tell her it is definitely absolutely time to get up.   And breakfast is on table and getting cold.

7.27 am - Eat cereal, half heartedly because it doesn't taste of much, just a cardboardy texture.  Drink beetroot and carrot juice.  Appreciate again the magic of the pointless huge juicer my mother gave me 4 years ago which now gets lots of use.

7.30 am - Take little homeopathic ball thing. Suck slowly.  Not sure what this is for, to be perfectly honest. Stare a little resentfully at husband sitting in relaxed fashion at kitchen bench reading IPad.

7.32 am - Do makeup.  Cover freckles with lots of Nars foundation.  Use really excellent Chantecaille magical skin creams for chemo skin.  Think again how much I love Mecca Cosmetica and the lady who has sold me all this great stuff.
7.40 am - Hear husband asking daughter to get out of bed.   Hear husband forcing her to get dressed.  Hear husband spending lots of time picking correct cream socks for her, and getting the seams around the right way and the shoe buckles done up tight enough (otherwise they 'hurt').

7.45 am - Put wig on, ruffle it and smile.

7.50 am - Dress son.  Persuade son that he can't wear Batman, Spiderman, Soldier or Superman costume to kindergarten. Son says loudly 'I am NOT wearing long sleeves ever. I am NEVER cold'.  Allow son to wear shorts and short sleeved T shirt even though quite cold outside.  Grab small backpack shove in lunchbox and dump at door.    Grab daughter's lunch box shove in school bag and dump at door.

7.52 am - Drink lovely coffee made by husband.  Think about how looking forward to sitting down for three hours during chemo.  Notice daughter has not touched her breakfast.  

7.55 am - Assemble handbag must haves including Kindle, IPhone, wallet, book with cancer notes, cards, invoices, receipts, referrals etc.  Put nail polish in bag.  Take nail polish out again, concerned doing nails during chemo might appear flippant.  Decide do not care because never otherwise sit still for long enough to do nails.    

7.57 am - Go into daughter's bedroom to check she is ready to go.  She is sitting on the floor counting her pocket money. 'Mummy will the shops accept pence? What about Bali money?  What about Singapore money? Where can we exchange it?'  Then she shows me the rearrangement of her wardrobe, with lined up shoes in rainbow order.  Then shows me her redecoration of the dolls house, with a new piano room, and an outdoor camping area. Then remember we have forgotten PE bag and Library bag and cello and piano books.  Feel pleased am not dragging all that to school.  Wonder about possible deterioration of daughter's back when she is older.   

8.00 am - Gently heat up one cup of Chinese herbal drink, painstakingly made by me every three days.  This needs to be drunk half an hour after food.  My Chinese doctor has told me the ingredients but as he just wrote out the Chinese names they don't mean much to me.   Helps my digestion no end, however. Drink it quickly because doesn't taste very nice.  Feel pleased taste buds not very effective at the moment.

8.01 am - Kiss all and sundry good bye and drive to East Melbourne for chemo.   

(This morning was brought to you by my homeopath and Chinese Doctor and Percy, Imogen and Martin.)  

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Red Poison (and some Swimming in the Sea)

My oncologist gave me a leave pass to go on our long planned summer beach holiday in the Central Coast of NSW where we rented a house for a week.   

Although it was a bit shorter than we had planned, and meant driving 843 km in one day so we could return in time to start my chemo on Monday, it was worth it.  (Important note: such a drive can be challenging when one's son says 'Are we nearly home' after 5 minutes in the car but I was sensibly advised us to buy little portable DVD players - they are cheap now - and this fixed the problem and produced silence for most of the journey).   

It was worth spending a week gazing at this view:

To sit on this beach (more of Jane on The Beach below) and watch my daughter, far braver than I, master the art of the boogie board, and my son, previously with a visceral fear of the sea, master that fear and begin to love the water, was worth it.   There is something so fundamentally pure about the feel of sand under our feet, and the warm wind in our faces.  It is truly medicine for one's soul.  

I may have mentioned here before that I have pale burny skin.  Skin which burns even after SPF30 cream is slathered all over it.  I have spent many summers in my childhood sitting on a beach covered in towels to mask my bad sunburn of the day before.  Now of course, every child, including ours, wears a Lycra top thingy (called a rashie I think) to prevent that.    

The upside of my pale burny skin is that I might have fewer wrinkles than I otherwise theoretically might have had if I had spent the last 25 years in the sun.   The downside is the sitting on the beach thing.  Which I did during this holiday, sitting fully clothed, like a strange Edwardian person possibly transplanted in a time machine who doesn't understand she is at the beach in 2011.   It was however worth it, again, to watch the children frolic and scream with delight.  

I had to include a picture of this hilarious sign which is still making me laugh as I type this:

If you click on the picture you can see that this pleasant flat beach with reasonably low key surf is in fact a Den of Danger, potentially filled with neck breaking hazards, sharks, jellyfish and extreme wave action.  Oh and there may even be a giant exclamation mark out there waiting to trip you up.   This is what we lawyers call a disclaimer.    It did not of course put anyone off going into the sea.   I wonder if other countries have things like this?  I have only ever seen them in New South Wales.  

Today I started my first round of 'dense dose' chemotherapy.   I sat in a lovely comfortable chair in the lovely comfortable oncology suite listening to Boz Scaggs on the piped music and received my dose of bright red and clear poisons plus enough follow up anti nausea drugs to stock a pharmacy.   This first round goes for 6 or 8 weeks (can't remember at this point in time) and is the worst in terms of side effects.   Second round should may be a bit easier.  

It is quite surreal sitting here waiting for those endlessly explained side effects to kick in.   But I have been doing some reading.  Quite a lot actually.   

I have been given a lot of wise counsel, as you would expect.  And it is a bit repetitive I know but I thank you all.  I am slowly working my way through emails....... still... 

In terms of advice, simple is good, I think, and as a kind man said to me in an email last week:  'Jane, be calm and strong'.  And that works for me. 

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