One more night of not sleeping until I will have my very own bed in at Peter Maccallum cancer institute. I have no idea what is going to happen, but should be out early next week - apparently even as soon as Sunday night or Monday morning. My Daddy is coming down to babysit my darling children while I'm away, so they're going to have an AWESOME time, and I'll be back before you know it.
Love n hugs everyone - will log back on when I get home.
Thursday 17 April 2008
Sunday 13 April 2008
An Update
OKay, so I know I'm supposed to update this thing regularly and really I promise I will... one day. I suppose if you actually have enough interesting stuff going on in your life that someone would want to read about, your probably don't have too much time to say it, hey? That's certainly been my life of late.
For those of you who don't know; I was diagnosed with melanoma when Lydia was only a few weeks old. This has been a bit of an on-going saga since then, with treatment and surgery and all manner of stress attached to it. It continues to provide the greatest stress in my life, and I have just recently been diagnosed with metastatic melanoma. If you don't know what this is, basically, the original cancer (melanoma - which is a type of skin cancer) has mestasticized into my lymph nodes. The way I understand it, mestasticized is a big long word which means moved into. So this means I now have cancer in my lymph nodes, and we have spent a great deal of time over recent weeks trying to find out how much I have and how far it has spread. Unfortunately there is no cure at this point for metastatic melanoma, other than cutting it out, so if it had spread through the lymph system this would be BAD BAD BAD news. Luckily for me, it doesn't appear to have spread. I have 7 tumours all localised underneath my right armpit, and will be heading on in for surgery as soon as my oncologist organises it. All up, it's not really such a big deal as we have made it, I have stuff in my body that needs to be removed, so the surgeons will cut it out. Fairly simple really. But heavens, the last few weeks have been anything but. It has been frightening and emotional and just plain awful. I haven't been able to think straight, sleep well, or go a whole day without bursting into tears. I am seriously partying now that I know what I am dealing with. That word - cancer - really does strike fear into your heart.
On another equally emotional note, it was with an incredibly heavy heart that I bid farewell to my beautiful friend Marian last month. Maz was an amazing woman, with strength, compassion, dignity and the most wicked sense of humour. She was a wonderful friend, and my life is so much poorer for having lost her. I guess you never really know how much you will miss someone until they are gone, but I will forever miss Marian, a great scrapping buddy, a strong shoulder to cry on, and the kind of person who would never judge you by how you looked, how well kept your home was or how much money you had. I think that so many people could learn so much about love from Maz, as she was so eager and willing to share her love with everyone around her.
So how's that for a completely miserable post? I bet you're all wishing I'd stayed away now, lol. Uni is keeping me incredibly busy - it's hard work!!! But I am loving it, and making some awesome friends. We actually start placement in a few weeks, so hopefully I'll be up to it, and well and truly post-surgery by then. I've also been getting a little more involved at church; I started the Alpha course, which is a great way to meet people of the same faith. Thanks goodness I don't sleep, I really don't have time :)
Anyone still reading?? I'm impressed. I have started my BOM - and will share at some point, but for now I think that's enough from me.
For those of you who don't know; I was diagnosed with melanoma when Lydia was only a few weeks old. This has been a bit of an on-going saga since then, with treatment and surgery and all manner of stress attached to it. It continues to provide the greatest stress in my life, and I have just recently been diagnosed with metastatic melanoma. If you don't know what this is, basically, the original cancer (melanoma - which is a type of skin cancer) has mestasticized into my lymph nodes. The way I understand it, mestasticized is a big long word which means moved into. So this means I now have cancer in my lymph nodes, and we have spent a great deal of time over recent weeks trying to find out how much I have and how far it has spread. Unfortunately there is no cure at this point for metastatic melanoma, other than cutting it out, so if it had spread through the lymph system this would be BAD BAD BAD news. Luckily for me, it doesn't appear to have spread. I have 7 tumours all localised underneath my right armpit, and will be heading on in for surgery as soon as my oncologist organises it. All up, it's not really such a big deal as we have made it, I have stuff in my body that needs to be removed, so the surgeons will cut it out. Fairly simple really. But heavens, the last few weeks have been anything but. It has been frightening and emotional and just plain awful. I haven't been able to think straight, sleep well, or go a whole day without bursting into tears. I am seriously partying now that I know what I am dealing with. That word - cancer - really does strike fear into your heart.
On another equally emotional note, it was with an incredibly heavy heart that I bid farewell to my beautiful friend Marian last month. Maz was an amazing woman, with strength, compassion, dignity and the most wicked sense of humour. She was a wonderful friend, and my life is so much poorer for having lost her. I guess you never really know how much you will miss someone until they are gone, but I will forever miss Marian, a great scrapping buddy, a strong shoulder to cry on, and the kind of person who would never judge you by how you looked, how well kept your home was or how much money you had. I think that so many people could learn so much about love from Maz, as she was so eager and willing to share her love with everyone around her.
So how's that for a completely miserable post? I bet you're all wishing I'd stayed away now, lol. Uni is keeping me incredibly busy - it's hard work!!! But I am loving it, and making some awesome friends. We actually start placement in a few weeks, so hopefully I'll be up to it, and well and truly post-surgery by then. I've also been getting a little more involved at church; I started the Alpha course, which is a great way to meet people of the same faith. Thanks goodness I don't sleep, I really don't have time :)
Anyone still reading?? I'm impressed. I have started my BOM - and will share at some point, but for now I think that's enough from me.
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