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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Singing in the Rain

Life isn't about waiting for the storms to pass

It's about learning to dance in the rain.

A kind stranger emailed me this anonymous quote.   I have been thinking about what it means quite a lot.  

I was blessed during the days I spent in hospital by some suprisingly acceptable television.   A few Hitchcock films, some Grey's Anatomy at 3 am and then this, my favourite film, Singing in the Rain.  When was the last time you stood in the rain like this?  I hardly ever did it, mostly from vanity to stop my hair going frizzy.   Well, soon enough I will have no hair, so standing or singing in the rain will present no vanity issues at all.
 

So two operations (with Christmas in between), a New Year's Eve in a hospital bed, countless scans, x-rays, tests, and lots of poking, prodding and painkillers and a full 8 days in a small room later, I am back home.  And in case one needs any proof that home is better than hospital, here goes:

(gardenias from home by my hospital bed, which did scent the room very nicely for days)

(the real thing on our front verandah)

(chair and window in my second hospital room.  You can just see the corner of the Chinese water torture style ticking clock which my husband had to remove from the wall on the shelf)

(chair and trees at home) 

It has occurred to me that we spend a lot of our lives waiting.  Waiting to finish studying, waiting to meet the right person, waiting to fall pregnant, waiting to get that perfect job \ promotion \ deal \ opportunity. 

For me, I will try living in the now.  Within reason of course. It is absurd to suggest that you cannot think of the future, or plan or look forward.  If I were to only live for this minute, I would be very overweight, and possibly an alcoholic. 

But you can go to extremes.  Part of my old life was full of lists, plans, projects to manage, things to do, tick off, complete, arrange, sort out.  I would lie awake at night thinking of the things I had to do the next day.  I don't think I was stressed about this.  But I liked to have things clear in my head and it was becoming a dreadful self perpetuating habit, which meant that I was over thinking absolutely everything constantly.   I still have this habit.... But I am hoping that my brain can be trained to calm down.  

I have received some amazing things from generous friends, aquaintances and complete strangers.  Your words and thoughts have buoyed me.  Which is strange, because as I have said to several people, I don't particularly care what most other people think.  So who would have thought that so much positivity could help me?  But it does.  Interestingly, in one of the many guides to cancer I have received, one of them is a little pamphlet to help friends and family.  One of the things it advises friends and family not to say is 'be positive' because it may make one feel as if one can't complain or articulate how one really feels.  I think this is a bit extreme.  One of the problems with a diagnosis like this is that it can be tempting to obsessively think about it all the time. That cannot be healthy. And if you have to think about it, think about it, to the extent you can, as a challenge and opportunity.   That, I think, is good advice from anybody. 

So, thank you all, again.

(this arrived from Seymour, a country town north of Melbourne, from a friend of my mother's)

(this turned up from a friend in Paris) 

(this was part of a wonderful bundle of things from Maxabella)

(this came with many other items from Jennie at Posie Patchwork)

I re-read this book over two days last week.  

Of course when I last read this book I shuddered at the chemo and surgery descriptions and thought thank God that will never happen to me. 

This time around I read it with an eye to tips, coping mechanisms and some perspective from the great survivor himself.  When Lance Armstrong was diagnosed with testicular cancer in 1996, he was toast.   Even his doctors, giving him survival percentages of 40% privately thought those odds were generous.   It is tempting to think his extreme fitness helped his fight. Or his determination.  But as he says, brave and positive people die from cancer every day.  Whilst not so nice negative people survive to complain another day.   Go figure.  Life is a great lottery.   The being positive I think is perhaps not so much about survival, but about making the experience more manageable, and giving one skills to deal with the post treatment phase, which I believe can be just as challenging as chemotherapy.  

Lance's foundation, Livestrong, fights to improve the lives of those affected by cancer.  Looking at this very well resourced and clearly set out site, it is quite amazing to see how far it has come since it was first established in 1997.  

Every day I learn about the amazing people, volunteers and professionals, who work to help cancer sufferers.   It is a whole new world for me but one which is not dark and grim, but life affirming and uplifting.  

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Being Brave and Feeling Scared

I have thought hard about whether I should write this post, but I don't like it when blogs I enjoy reading just drop off the face of the earth for no apparent reason.   So I feel I owe you, dear readers, some courtesy and explanation.   I would also of course like to be able to stick to the happy stuff, especially at this time of year, because really, who wants to read doom and gloom, but sometimes things don't work out that way. 

So, here's the thing.  My week started normally, on Monday.   Just the usual work and a client lunch where we discussed the weather in England (-15 in Yorkshire!), the new Victorian government, holiday plans and the merits of roast goose v roast turkey. 

On Tuesday I had a mammogram and an ultrasound. Routine I thought.  I had never had either of these before but something did not feel quite right to me so I thought I should take a precaution.  I knew the results were not routine when the ultrasound operator told me that I needed to go back to my referring doctor that very afternoon. 

On Wednesday I saw a breast surgeon, had 7 biopsies and an MRI.

On Thursday I was told that I had multi focal invasive carcinoma in my right breast.  

Today as I write this I am preparing to have surgery on Monday. A mastectomy actually. 

I feel strangely light-headed, which I put down to the shock.  I kind of expected I would be wailing and howling.  But maybe that is still to come. 

It's empty in the valley of your heart

The sun it rises slowly as you walk 

away from all the fears and all the faults 

you left behind

(The Cave by Mumford & Sons)

Like all illnesses, cancer is a process.   There are many options, many possible treatments, particularly so for breast cancer.   I am taking things one day at a time, because that is the logical thing to do and also because if I think too far ahead my heart will break. 

I have been so so impressed by all the medical people I have dealt with just in the last few days.  Their compassion, their calm and their professionalism has made me feel very fortunate to live here, in Melbourne, with such great medical care.  

And strangely, I actually feel lucky.  Lucky that my doctor ordered an ultrasound as well as a mammogram (because the mammogram revealed nothing).   Lucky because it is on my right side, and I am left handed.    

Once you have children, as everyone tediously says, everything changes.  And that includes they way you view yourself and your role on this green and blue planet.    

On a trivial level, I found I could no longer watch war films because I kept thinking about my son going off to war.   

More positively I started to feel that I owed my children an obligation to stay alive and healthy for as long as I could.   That is in part what was behind my decision a year ago to start training three times a week, from a standing start of never having exercised.   So, at least, ironically, I can comfort myself with the thought that I go into this at a reasonably good level of physical health. 

Before all this happened, I was going to do a little post on children's Christmas books, because to me Christmas is not complete without them.    Here is just a little excerpt, from my very favourite book, the Snowman, by Raymond Briggs.  This is a magical book, which reminds me every time I read it of the fragility of life and how you should make the most of everything (in the case of this story, before it melts).

All the images in this book are divine but I particularly like this one, of the little boy and the snowman flying over the onion domes in Red Square in Moscow. 

There are so many things whirling around in my mind.   I still have so many basic things to sort out.   Work.  Christmas lunch.  What do I tell the children?   What do I tell the children? 

So, dear friends, as you may have gathered, I need to take a break from this little blog, to face my demons and have my battle.   Don't think I am going away any time soon though.  

Today I want you all to tell at least one person you love them, and stop, just for 30 seconds, and put your face in the sunshine (or snow), and smile. 

Update: (19 December 2010) 

I just wanted to say thank you all, from the very bottom of my heart for your kind thoughts, suggestions, wishes of love, whimsical quotes and compassionate messages.  To my fellow travellers, family members of cancer sufferers, occasional visitors, complete strangers, regular commenters and dear dear blog friends: thank you.   One day soon I will get around to visiting each and every one of you.   

And thank you all for the emails.  

And thank you to Ness Lockyer, Jane, Kerry, Amanda, Martha, Anita, JMW, Maxabella, Kerri, Ann, Caterpillar, Posie, Anita, Millie, Natasha, Anna and AM (I hope that is everyone) for posting about this. 

I have always been terrible at asking for help, because I am one of those people who thinks I can do it better and quicker than anyone else.  I still think that is true!  But I see now that such an approach has to change.   I have great friends and family and they are already amazing me with their support. 

I feel utterly buoyed by all your thoughts.  My over imaginative son told me on Friday that he could see real Transformers in the clouds.  Well, I can see other things. Love. Support.  Positive thoughts.  And quite a lot of white fluffy stuff.   Which reminds me of something I have often said, which is that blogging brings out that all that is great about humanity.


xoxo








(first three images from SarahKaye.com)

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Salmon Ceviche and Babushkas for Christmas

Although my family is not large, this year I am having 20 people for Christmas lunch.   This intimidating number (for me) has had the rather nice unintended side effect of forcing me to get organised in advance.  

I have therefore had rather a lovely time looking at all the Christmas food magazines and pulling out my old Christmas cookbooks to plan the menu.  

My sole criteria is that at least half the food be able to be done ahead of time.  And I always do turkey.   And never an entree.   And given the insane variances of Melbourne weather, I want to have a menu which is traditional with a modern twist (ha, what a meaningless phrase) to allow for the possibility of a 40 degree day (as happened in 1999) and a 12 degree day (as happened in 2007 I think it was).

In between cookbook reading, I have had to attend to the important matters of the Santa List. 

This list was eventually produced by my daughter who initially said she didn't want anything at all. Nothing at all morphed into two pages of hilariously detailed requirements, including a babushka with 11 inside (12 total) (if you want to know where to find these, go here - you are looking at $380 for a babushka of this size) to lots and lots of Sylvanian family items.   

These creatures are called Calico Critters in the US and are made in Japan.  You can buy furniture for them, and houses, and cars, and food, and boats, and a windmill and a tree house. It's endless.   And they just keep creating new families, so it is impossible to keep up.
 

My son had some help with his list.    Somewhat scarily, he has put things on this list he already has.   This may be why the 'Santa won't come' threats are not working that well on him.    He knows that it doesn't really matter either way.  

We are having a small related problem which is that growing up my husband only received tiny things from Santa and presents from his parents.  My situation was reversed, a big present from Santa and nothing from my parents.   I prefer it this way because how can you use the Santa Bribe on the children if they know they are only getting a sparkly pencil or some other rubbish from Santa? 

In this time of rampant consumerism, you should take the time to read this story, about a little girl in the South of the US who received  a pair of shoes and an orange for Christmas.  This story has stayed with me ever since I first read it last Christmas.   

So, to food.
This is what I have in mind so far:

Canapes (all do-ahead)
Salmon Ceviche (see above image but not in those glass)
Corn and chilli cakes with avocado salsa
Blinis with sour cream

Main course
Roast Turkey with chestnut stuffing
Potatoes (plain roast or hasselback am undecided)
Chipolatas wrapped in pancetta
Ham (my mother does this)
Green beans with lemon
Some kind of green salad maybe asparagus with feta

Dessert  (all do-ahead)
Nectarine and Vanilla Trifle
Plum Pudding with Brandy Butter
Icecream Plum Pudding









Look at this trifle, on the cover of the Donna Hay Christmas magazine. Isn't it  divine? 

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Salads for Madame Bovary

Whilst looking for some Christmas table inspiration I came across this wonderful French dining room.

And I thought - I know just the woman for this room: the highly imaginative, but unhappy, Emma Bovary, the heroine of Gaustave Flaubert's beautiful book, written in 1854, which I am re-reading at the moment. This book was listed in the top two best books ever written (along with War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy) in a poll of contemporary writers in 2007.   

This was an excellent book for backpacking around the regional cities of France as a young girl, accompanied only by some mournful New Order music on my 'Walkman' (these large plastic portable tape decks seem so dated now don't they?) .  

This room looks like just the place Emma, enticed by the money lender Lheureux, may have excitedly spent money she didn't have decorating, in an effort to make things and in particular, her life, more interesting.    Really, who needs Eat Pray Love when you have a book like this to delve into a complicated female psyche?  After all, Emma Bovary tries all the same things that that woman does from Eat Pray Love (am I the only person on the planet to have found the EPL woman appallingly self indulgent?*):  turns to religion, has affairs, meditates on the meaning of life and indulges in romantic fantasies.

(Isabelle Huppert as Madame Bovary in Claude Chabrol's adaptation from 1991)

For Emma Bovary, in this dining room, I would serve salads.    Something delicate but well flavoured. 

Which coincides nicely with the no 1 item on my Christmas list this year, Salades by Sydney chef Damien Pignolet:

I really am very easy to buy for at Christmas.  Just a few cookbooks and I am a happy girl.  And this one looks to be a cracker.   So Santa, if you are reading this, please can you oblige me? 

Here are some of Pignolet's salads to entice you into summer (or winter!)

(cauliflower, beetroot and celeriac with horseradish cream)

(nicoise salade)

 

(goats cheese fritters, baby beetroot and figs)

(warm salad of scallops, sorrel croutons, grilled red pepper and witlof)

 

I think I could pretty much happily live on salads for the rest of my life.

(* I am aware I have probably made some enemies by this comment.  Please don't judge me by my loathing of this book..... I am of course just a lone voice struggling against the tide).

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A Fuchsia Pinata Party

If I could have conveniently timed my babies I would not have had one at the end of November (too close to Christmas) and end of March (bad timing in terms of school start resulting in him repeating 3 year old kindergarten).  But of course you can't plan these things.  At least I couldn't.   And for me the Christmas season can't really start until we get my daughter's birthday done and dusted.    I thought it would be pretty straightforward to do her 8th birthday party at home this year. 

I didn't count on having the flu at the same time.  Which made everything take 10 times longer to organise.  And whilst I usually forget something critical (like the date on the invitations or buying lemonade) this year it went off without a hitch. 

A tip if you are planning a party at home: don't.  Seriously, this is what I have learned over years of these events.    You can read and then make an informed decision!

(I am getting good use out of my pink tablecloth. 

This is the one I used for my Family Argument Lunch a few weeks back.)

First off, the games.  

Rule no 1: a game you spend ages preparing for takes 5 minutes to happen. Blink and it is over.   Even if you stretch out the pass the parcel to Lady Gaga for as long as you can, it still only takes 7 minutes.   Simple arithmetic tells you that if you have an hour to fill in, that is a LOT of party games (although technically musical statues and musical bobs are two different games, aren't they?)   This means that you need some activity which  takes up lots of time.  See Rule no 5 below. 

Rule no 2: every one's a winner.   So in pass the parcel, which in my youth was fiercely competitive because there was only one prize, is now a bit of yawn because there is a gift in every layer.

Rule no 3: 8 is a hard age.  They are not little girls and not into fairies and glitter.  But they are too young still for many types of parties.  Still, a couple of the guests turned down the offer of a balloon on departure.  Too  childish, I guess.  

Rule no 4: treasure hunts take 3 minutes and consist of Lord of the Flies style carnivorous screeching around the house looking for the little hidden packages.  See rule 1 above.  I think my treasure maps took maybe 20 times longer to make than the game took...

Rule no 5: everyone loves a game which involves bashing something half to death with a stick.  In this case, a flower shaped pinata.  These girls must have some stress going on in their lives, because the pleasure they took in beating this thing to a pulp was a sight to see.  Even when all the lollies inside had spilled out, they kept hitting and hitting until it was in tiny pieces.

(I strung up leaves and lamps from the maple trees. This is also where the pinata massacre occurred)

Now to the all important food.

Rule no 1: the food you have proudly taken ages to prepare will be of least interest to the party goers.  This year my meringues went weird (I blame the humidity) so I crushed them, mixed with strawberries and cream and made mini Eton Messes in shot glasses. They were amazing.  And no one ate them. 

Rule no 2:  simple and sugary is best.    Caramel popcorn (see above image) is universally loved.  And at the other end of the spectrum, chopped up watermelon is always gobbled up. 

Rule no 3: don't bother with the elaborate cake.  In my time I have made a Miffy, a giant cupcake, an echidna, an Ariel mermaid on a sea bed and a dinosaur.   This year I went round and simple (from Feast by Nigella Lawson).

Rule no 4: there is always one girl who complains there is not enough food and another one who eats nothing at all. 

Rule no 5:  serve frankfurters.  I know that these are barely food but how they love them. 

Finally.... have the party in the late afternoon so you can pass out conveniently when it finishes without having to get through the rest of the day.....

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Dark and Moody

Dear Mother Nature

I know it must be challenging having one planet with two hemispheres and reversed seasons. Are you confused? I think you must be, as I sit here staring out the window to yet another day of rain.

I feel a bit pushy for reminding you of this, but today is 1 December 2010. In Melbourne. It is the first day of summer.   Where is the sun?  

I do want my heart to skip lightly to bright whites and lobster, and sarongs and sun hats but instead I find myself attracted to this:



because who needs windows when its always dark outside.

and wanting to sleep more than usual, here:  

 

and here:

to nurse my flu \ cold.  Did I mention my cold?  Oh, I think my cold, and the cold and flu that half my office has, have come about because it is the first day of summer and it is still raining and cold.  Just like it has been since April.  Sorry to mention it again. 

Anyway this weather is making me turn to boho Dickensian dark and moody interiors, like this: 

and this, which has given me quite a lot of pleasure lately:

And also I have a hankering for a bit of 1940's wartime to get me through this wet spell,  wearing of course my new Persol spectacles from the man section at OPSM.

I now have something suitably wartime to watch on DVD, the film of the wonderful book Enigma by Robert Harris about codebreakers at Bletchley Park in the UK during WWII.  

Here is a code breaker Kate Winslet style.  This is what I would look like codebreaking:

And here is the real thing. I probably wouldn't look so much like these women, clever and brave as they are:

Last year these amazing women were finally recognised by the UK government.   If you have not seen or read Enigma you really must.

Perfect for this grim, rainy weather.

(Images: (1)(2) Scanlon & Theodore (3) (5) Airspace  (4) Bodie and Fou (6) Michael Paul (8) via Daily Mail)

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