ANOTHER 365 days on!!

Sorry for ANOTHER anniversary post, how boring I KNOW

So yesterday marked another "year since" passed by me yesterday. One year since THE operation. One year since I thought the worst was OVER!! One year since I got Wheeled into surgery, remembering my tongue bar at the last minute!! Telling the anesthetist not to put a catheter in "just to but a bucket under me".  Telling the Drs not to cut all my hair off!
Then waking up! Was BAD I couldn't talk, I wanted to spew, my head felt like cement, I was hot and sweating, I couldn't move my legs!! Brain surgery you're a bitch from hell!!! I prefer to re live my 9'6" son busting his way out of my vagina any day!!!
Tried telling a nurse you're going to spew when you can't talk?! Tried to act all fine when the surgeons come to check on you!? I must of looked like a tard, I swear I was probably drooling!
Shoot me up with something so
I don't spew!!! Yep that worked......oh no a bit more please!!
Pain killers??? Yes please it hurts! I want to cry.....

Off to ICU, excellent.......uncomfortable, take my vitals every 30-1hr, pain killers, can't talk properly!!!! Noise, lights, this is not working for me!!!! finally some visitors allowed in to see I am alive!! Don't know if I could talk? John? Sara? I think I tried.
My head hurts, my legs are uncomfortable and hot!! Stupid pressure stockings and plastic breathing balloons over them!!
Bloody catheter!!!
Aaarrrggghhh there's a tube coming from my head going into a bag hanging next to me! Great a brain fluid handbag!!!!!
Lovely nurse takes pity on me and give me a quick sponge bath, so hot.
I live through the VERY long night!!! Apparently during which panadol was deemed a strong enough pain killer?!
Nurse change over, she is awesome!!! Because? She takes out the catheter even though bloody Drs think leave it!!! Plus she let's me get up and walk and have a shower!!!!!! Bliss!! I look a fright!! Crazy head ware! Juggle  Trendy sack of blood handbag and drip.....but I'm clean! And hungry!!!!!!


Ok so I thought it was over.........

So the next chapter is about to start! Two weeks and I should be a fully fledged full time gerson devotee!!  I've been reading and re-reading over my new timetable etc.......by jingos! I'm excited but anxious!!! Still more supplements to organise but this will all happen. Another fridge to source, but that's easy.  Trying to think how I can make money from home to support my expensive organic requirements, not so easy! So far my top two ideas are being a drug dealer or running a brothel.......apparently not really legal??? I am determined that I will be able to work 12hours to cover boys pre school, just need to find some other magic money.......today I thought I could make nice quilt covers?? Blinds?? Yep I think being a drug dealer is easier.

So I spent my anniversary taking boy to swimming, cleaning, cooking, then going to work. I love that my life is normal!! And I wouldn't want it to be anything but!

Started reading a book today and it stated something so simple "we project our self criticism onto others", which is very true and something I really need to try and be mindful of!
Also "stop blaming anyone or anything for your situation", this I think is so powerful. People don't MAKE me angry, I get angry as a reaction, something or someone didn't make me sick, I got sick because my body could not cope with how it was being treated.

Anyhow, my mind is a mess and rambling!! You'd think surgery was 12 hours ago not 12 months!!  Need to find some balance....

To my fellow captain ;-) "in time this will all pass, and we will toast you all with fresh kale and wheatgrass juice, because we want to"

Flying

Back to reality we head.  Scared. Unsure. Nervous. Skeptical. Excited. Worried. Anxious. Happy. Stressed.
So much to organise and to organise, in not only my head but my house! 
Prepare for less money, less time, less interaction, less freedom.  More commitment, determination, optimism, gratitude, support, juices, enemas. 
How is my body going to react physically, how is my mind going to react......how is everyone else going to survive/understand the emotions? What if they think I'm a lunatic having a tantrum? will I have the support there?  Should I concentrate on enhancing the calm, bottling it all in.  Shut your mouth Margaret, swallow the problem and move on.

I'm only guessing how different life will be, so give me some time to adjust and I'll tell you how much easier/harder it has gotten.
More stress already added to the pot before the hard part has even begun! Swallow it down and move on Margaret.......

Keeping on track of the worst part of my day being fickle......my skin has gone absolutely crazy from treatment!!! And it's two weeks until my friends engagement party! I have a strapless dress to wear!!! With a cardigan now it would seem, as pointed out by my mother!! So life is pretty good, I'm annoyed with crappy skin! But me having crappy skin won't ruin her night or mean there's any less love in that room. Me having crappy skin won't make me have a bad night.  
So I'm happy that my biggest issue today is something as petty as crappy skin, because even with my crappy skin my plane will land, my son will be happy to see his father, my over weight bag will be unpacked, my bed will be warm, my house safe, my too many possessions will be there waiting, my little life on my island will remain fairly simple. Safe. Not ripped apart by war or famine.  Not shaken to the earth by earthquakes, not swallowed up by the ocean.  So to crappy skin I say thank you for giving me the worst part of my day because the rest of it is pretty good from where I sit.

So I fly towards the next of my journey and I can't predict what it's going to bring but I hope i learn some grace, gratitude, compassion and composure! And I cross my fingers I'm not too hard to deal with, but I guess only time will tell. 

Danger in feeling "fine"?

Somedays it's crap to be a "cancer patient" because I don't feel sick. I don't look sick. I guess a lot if the time I don't believe I'm sick. Which is good!! It means that, usually, I don't feel too sorry for myself.  But it makes me think, is this dangerous? Like I'm letting my guard down to an invisible army waiting to burn down my village and steal all my corn.

I feel the same I've always felt, apart from some headaches but that's life when you get it cracked open and fiddled with, I wonder.....do I really have cancer? If I was letting them poison me with radiation and chemotherapy then I'd KNOW I was sick! I feel like I was! And I'd probably look like I was.  But I don't want that! I don't want to gamble my memory, glands and cognitive functions with radiation that will probably result in cancer later in life and probably won't stop the "the perfect cancer".  I don't want to gamble my immune system and general health on being a guinea pig in a chemotherapy trial! They've said, it will come back no matter what, worse. These guys aren't very good salesman!!
"the perfect cancer" because it's up there, romping around like it owns the place with no rules.  But here is the GOOD thing, brain cancer doesn't travel to your other organs like other cancers, yay.  But maybe that's because there is already enough vital operations happening upstairs (though I wonder with me at times)......apparently it grows and starts to damage things. Squishes them. Damages nerves. Fits. Strokes. Hhhhhmmmmm answer........work on not letting it grow!!!

Alkalinity.........if your body is alkaline cancer can not exist.  So this is the basic mission I'm on!!! In a nut shell!

So I don't feel "sick" and I hope I never do!!! My path may make me very anti social but I'll feel good while being locked in my house drinking juice and doing enemas! Learning to just be.  And thinking myself healthy.  So each day we feel fine is not a wasted day!  Some people don't have the luxury of feeling fine and moaning about traffic and their jobs.
So I hope my biggest worry each day is whether my bum looks big in my shorts because that's a good day!!

Be present in the moment and that moment is a present 

Poor me day.......

This was my day yesterday.  And I hate it.

It didn't start off like this, but it sure did end up like this!!
Treatment is hard this week, the intensity has been turned up and it's making me tireder than usual. Add that on top of already feeling emotional and exhausted from everything else and I'm not in a happy place.

The cell was hard yesterday as I had silence, as the nurse was a twit and had my music turned down so I couldn't gage how long I had to go in there.  My visualisation for the day was the world REGRESSION, picturing the day that the Dr has to tell me there has been disease regression.  I didn't realise it was just going to turn into my life regressing!  As usual outside factors are my fault!  Obviously I'm not supportive enough, don't try hard enough.  Why the hell try so bloody hard to please everyone when I'm so far off base it's ridiculous.  Regressing to when I'm always wring, even though it's not my interests I have at heart!  When my efforts have absolutely no benefit for me!
Maybe I expect too much from everyone, yet give so little myself.

When do you give up and realise you have failed?  When do you stop fighting to keep the wheels turning when they have probably already fallen off?  I am stubborn and usually don't like to admit failure but maybe I need to start identifying when I can't win.

So today I start my day feeling like a failure and a waste of space.  And I want cheese!  I wish I could have cheese.  And I'm sorry to anyone who I don't please all of the time.  Sorry for the poor me whinge today, I hate to write it and I'm sure a pain to read.  My problems I know are trivial to most!  But jeepers my goat is up today and I wish I could put it into words and spew them out and be free of the virus of self pity.

So 3 days and 87minutes to go in the cell.  Off I go.  To dream of cheese.  I wonder if I'm allowed music today!

If you can take the worst moment out of your day and turn it into a lesson maybe it was worth it

Another year on

So I wake up today and it's been one year since the bomb was dropped......usually I do this blogging at the end of my day but today I'm getting it out of my way.
So it's been a year since my life and my family's has been turned on it's head.  I think it's changed us all in some way, some of us have become closer, some more understanding of one another, whilst some of us still don't grasp how important family is.......but that's another whinge!!

So one year ago I went to bed with J and X snoring on the couch, normal.  To be woken in the early hours by a frantic J, telling me to stay still (on the floor) and an ambulance was coming.....what the?!  I needed to pee, but he was like no stay still, NO i needed to pee......
He looked really quite terrified, I hope I never see him like that again.  I came back in and sat on the bed and then I started to freak out as I had NO idea what was going on, and he was telling me I had a fit.  I started to freak out a little then as I knew nothing!!  Anyhow the ambulance came and John told them what had happened and they bundled me up and took me away, they did ask if I had wet myself!  NO NO phew as I would of been embarrassed!!  So they bundled me off on my first ambulance ride and J was going to follow with X......
On the way the paramedic was lovely, asking what I remembered etc it was then in the ambulance I remembered being in bed and "the fit" it was scary and I was trying to call out to J but my voice would not work and I was trying to move but my body was doing it's own crazy dance.......and then that's all I remember.....
My elbow that I had a pin put in at Christmas time was ACHING!!
The paramedic asked a few other questions, and then I remembered my weekend two weeks previous........my good friends fathers 50th where I, in usual booze hag mode, had annihilated myself with his encouragement of getting us all to do shots!!  We were all a mess!!  I broke my dress, a mosquito lamp and possibly my nose!!  I had fallen FLAT on my face in the dark!  How much simpler life would be if the seizure had just been from that!!! 
It never crossed my mind it could be something more sinister, was thinking maybe hemorrhage from the drunken antics or epilepsy.........did not think the lovely little English Dr would come in and say they had found a substantial "lesion" on my brain......what the heck is a bloody brain lesion?!  So in that moment our lives changed.......

I was shifted to a ward, this was shit, surely a bad dream.
Then they sent off my scans to the "neuro gods" at RBH where they looked at them.......and it was then they decided it was a low grade benign tumour, with it's clear lines blah blah blah, we know how that story ended!!  But this was the beginning.......
So we thought, ok this is bad but it could be WORSE!
I was then shifted in to RBH, another ambulance ride!!  Where I went through MORE MRI's and tests, and told AGAIN and AGAIN how it was a low grade benign tumour and should be fine after surgery........
SO I was trapped in hospital, BORED!!!  Thank god for angry birds on the iPhone!  Mum drove in everyday!!  Big effort in the dodgy frustrating Brisbane traffic!!  I had two of my friends make trips from hours away to see me, true friends.
So here I sat being prodded and poked and dosed with anti seizure pills and steroids for a week waiting for them to decide when to operate........I did get released for one of my best friends weddings the day before surgery!! (that's what you get when you suck up the nurses bums!!) Though I did need to attend with these funky stickers on my head that were required for surgery in the morning, so needed to wear a scarf!  Story to those photos.
So on the Monday morning I was up early, and hooked up to the stupid drip and the wait began..........wheeled off to surgery, checked on by the good hot Dr, made me feel good knowing he would see me, passed out, head cracked opened!!  Was NOT impressed I needed a catheter, I told them to just put a bucket under me.......apparently this is not in hospital guidelines!  And then I was out........
Waking up was BAD I felt like I was going to spew, so they injected me, I was hot, I was sore, I couldn't TALK!! (Freaked me out as the tumour was near my speech centre and at the time this was the biggest worry)..........never again I thought!
They eventually took me to ICU, another place you don't want to be!! I was sweating and sore and uncomfortable.  My head was all bandaged up and I had a drain coming out of it, my blood handbag.  They eventually let J and S (basically my sister) in to see me, not sure I made any sense to them but it  was good to see their friendly faces.  So in ICU I stayed for the night, hot and monitored all night, not sleep.......never again I thought!!
The nurse the next day was an angel!! Because she took the catheter out even though the Dr wanted in left in!  And then she let me shower!!  My god I looked a site, with my head gear and blood handbag! 
Things they could of told me though; you will have a sore head (not from cracking it open) from where we are going to CLAMP your head down so you can't move,and you are going to have an incredibly sore back!  As we are going to divert all of the fluids that usually go up your spine and they will settle on the base of your spine.  Thanks for the heads up.  NOT.

So I survived!!  And they told me how it was "textbook" and couldn't of gone better..........we all know how that ends but that's for another day.
I managed to con the nurses, again, into letting me out for Easter!!  Oh how I wish I didn't need to go back for the news they wanted to tell me.

So here I sit, one year on, still alive, still fighting.  Reminding myself how WRONG they were once and will be again.
One year on since my life changed, maybe it's been for the better?  It surely is a gift in the shittiest wrapping paper this cancer, it's made me try harder to love, harder to forgive, harder to achieve, harder to appreciate, harder to live.
So thanks for everyone who got thrown into the passenger seat of the crazy cancer train with me!!  Your tickets are non refundable as you're stuck with me!!  And next year at the 2 year mark I'm sure there will be bigger and better stories........and to cancer I say bite me.

The only thing better than sleep is knowing you're going to wake up

365 days.......where's my badge?

Letting go.....
So today marks 1 year sober, which as I wasn't an actual alcoholic maybe doesn't mark as big of an achievement as it may have! But I did like to drink! And I liked me better with a drink!! I thought I was mucho more amusing! And probably that you all were too!! I thought I liked dancing and being outgoing! Well for 365 days now I have been considerably less amusing, interesting and fun! But I am alive so I think I'd "rather be sober and alive than drunk and dead".........
Up until the last scan incident I think I really thought, "yep I'm going to do this, I'm going to beat it and by 2012 I'll be Margaret again" well it seems I've got to reevaluate this!! I knew that, obviousl,y I would never be able to live the same way again, as evidently something was NOT working with that path! But I did think, yep I'll get to drink at my best friends wedding! And I won't have to get married sober!! SAD FACE the "two year plan" is starting again in April 2011 and even after that I may never get to skull like a bogan from a bottle of oyster bay (thanks Jem! Circa my sons 2nd birthday)!! I may never get to "reclaim" granite from peoples gardens as you "can't own a rock" and dump it on my brothers bedroom floor at 3am proudly awaking him to his present, and I may never actually have any excuse to sit on the floor in front of my parents fridge eating what I thought was the worst pea and ham soup my mother had ever made with my fingers, turns out it was steak and kidney.  So now I'll be sober. And boring. But alive.
With this new found constant state of designated driverdom my family are thrilled!!! As they know they'll all get home!! Also probably just as thrilled I'm not out embarrassing them!
This sober Sally routine also does result in certain things for me to be thankful for:
1. I'll never swim half naked in front of half a rugby team again
2. I'll never swim in a stanthorpe creek again in the middle of winter
3. I'll never swim at south bank in my underwear at daybreak again
4. I'll never swim at night in wynnum resulting in infected oyster shell cuts
(seems I was not only silly and dangerous drunk I was also under some illusion I was a seal!)
5. I'll never spend a day spewing from alcohol poisoning until 5pm
6. I'll never wake up worried who I may of offended the night before.

So maybe being sober will work???
I'd much rather be dancing and climbing palm trees, badly, but for now I'll just sit and drink my juice and watch everyone else for a change and life vicariously through them. Even though I'm considerably more boring, hopefully I will have a lot more time being boring than I would being loud and boozed!!

It's probably not a big thing to most, but anyone who knows me will agree I'm sure that I was more fun drunk!!!! Not everyday, but I'm sure I'd brighten up your party!!

So time to move on and work out how to like me. Like me sober......
Unless we get through the next two year plan without my miracle, then I tell you what you probably won't want me at your party! I'll be a maniac, luckily failure isn't an option so sober Sally it is!!

So today I celebrate letting go of my friend the drink!! I'm pretty sure I should get a badge for the effort but I guess being alive will do for now.  Next time you have a drink think of me and appreciate it that little bit more for me! I'm not at the stage where I'm going to dazzle you all with the evils of drink! But you never know maybe one day I'll reach those levels of self righteousness!

If you never try you'll never know just how far you could go

Shower yourself healthy

There are certain things everyone tries to avoid........drinking draino, eating green chicken, licking battery acid. But do you take any notice of what you are washing yourself and your family with in the shower, in the washing machine, in your mouths?
We grew up with certain things we weren't allowed, one notable one being fluoride. Fluoride free toothpaste and the "no fluoride" on the school dentist forms.
So I thought I could share a wee list of things I would like all of my family and friends to avoid, if you want to protect your health. It's fairly easy to substitute most of these things....

Use fluoride and SLS free toothpaste;fluroride is used in PESTICIDES and is more poisonous than lead, builds up in your kidneys, causes fluorosis, can damage your BRAIN causing damage and impairment to ecspecially the dveloping brain, impaired thyroid function, skeletal fluorosis.......need anymore effects???
SLS and SLES free; Lauryl Sulphate and Sodium Laureth Sulfate are used as foaming agents (surfactants), this sucker has about 180 other names as well, it's a dioxane.....known CARCINOGEN!!! OUr skin is our biggest organ and absorbs everything we put on it!! Would you rub battery acid on your skin? These babies cause skin irritation, hormone imbalances, eye irritation and formationdeformities, cancer causing......enough reason to change to natural soaps and cleaners?? It doesn't need to cost you more either!! Natural cleaning products are FAR cheaper and you can make your own laundry powder for a fraction of the cost
Aluminium free;  this includes deodorant AND cooking utensils; alzheimer's!! It's a nasty metal that gets all up in that brain of ours! And messes with your wiring, fun fun hey. It has not beneficial function to living cells (so a great idea to rub that on your armpits everyday). It crosses the blood brain barrier and is now linked to breast cancer......and if you have read my previous blog it can be a bitch to find a good alluminium free one, I have tried so many in my life (especially during the last 12 months!!) but going on my latest friendly deodorant the mineral crystal ones are a winner!!
Aspartame;artificial sweetener, it has over 90 identified different health side effects......effects your eyes, ears, brain, psychological being, chest (blood pressure, shortness breath), gastro problems, skin and allergies, metabolic changes.......can CAUSE/mimic/trigger: Chronic fatigue, epstein-barr, grave's disease, MS, alzheimers; epilespy, lupus, fibromyalgia; non-hodgkins lymphoma, ADD........is this not enough reason to BAN 'sugar free' in our households?? If you don't want to get 'fat' from drinking soft drink, don't drink it! It's bad enough in it's "normal" form far less in "sugar free/diet"  There is SO much more but I think this wee list is enough for anyone to start with.......I can't think of any reason I would want my family ingesting any of these products. SO do yourself and your children a favour and try to AVOID things that can harm you.

I used to avoid everything like this, and then over the last few years for one reason or another I did lose sight of what was important and cost and convenience did play a factor, but our health has no price, so I am now putting my foot back down in my household and standing by the things I had always believed in. I think being with someone who had a very different upbringing and views on health etc made me to relaxed about the danger fed to us each day. So I am reclaiming my position as QUEEN of the household, and unfortunately it's got to be my way now or no way! Otherwise I may as well feed the family rat bait for dinner with a side of anthrax and fresh roundup.

SO today I had a special treat, it is coming up to 12months since this C bomb was dropped, so my mother unit, my sister and my brother in law organised for me to have a special hands on experience here at the Perth zoo with the organg-utans!! I was the only one on the tour so I got to throw them apples and learn about their different personalities and the hierarchy......and then I got to go and feed one of the girls and her baby some grapes!!! And the baby was holding onto my arm!! SO cute and so clever!! So IN LOVE!!

Sometimes I miss you, and then I remind myself why I lost you.