Life in abundance

The flight of fantasy continues and we bought a gorgeous MG for James. He and I went on a wild and glorious adventure together with the soft top down, the music blaring and all amounts of crazy whooping and delirious happy behaviour. What a thrill. I was marginally concerned for him that his freinds might catch him with an old babe in his car, but happily noone we knew saw us.

The packing and moving out of the CT house had nightmarish potential, but it went smoothly and with much good humour with the help of Nicola, James and Nicola and Anna Bashall from the UK. The latter sorted out all the keys and Nicola was seen up to her eyeballs in Handy Andy and Vim, doing the big clean up. I was proud to hand over our special home in good condition. Having anticipated great sadness, we were suprised to feel as if we were handing the baton on to another good team and know the O"Mahoneys will be able to enjoy the house as we have.

I had a very special evening at the school where I worked, Wetpups. It was the reunion of boys who left 5 years ago and are now in matric. What a thrill to see the boys, who were my very first grade 3 class, all beautifully grown up and to meet up with my dear colleagues.

Cape Town was so beautiful and it was hard to leave, but I am so grateful to have had the opportunity of living there for 10 years and for the wonderful friends we made over those pivotal years of child rearing.

We've just come back from a lovely weekend with the Leiths at a game farm in the Waterberg. The bush was magnificent, and its striking distance from Joburg a pleasure.

Nic has been enjoying doing the training in Mpumalanga, James is fully engaged with 21st and taking people on joyrides in his MG with the odd tutorial thrown in, Ali was great company in the bush, suprising us with all kinds of knowledge and good humour.

Big Nicola and Anna are with us until tomorrow. I'm not sure how we would have managed the move without them.

Chemo looms. If the white bloods are recovered enough, we will go ahead with treatments tomorrow, Wednesday and Thursday. Hmm.. the devil we know.

We all need to normalise now we are over the initial shock. The children and Tim feel exhausted by what they call "cancer eyes" i.e. people who view them with intense pity and it feels as if we are redefined by cancer and some see us in terms of the illness, rather than who we normally are. They have been accosted by demands for information, which at times, have been inappropiate and insensitive. "What's the prognosis? How do you feel about this all?" We all appeal for normality, business as usual, and communication which is not dominated by the cancer.

Knocked down, now up again but wobbly

The huge, peculiar sleeps seem to have done the trick and I'm relatively normal again.

What a thrill to go out and escape the tedium! Cancer just has to be the most boring subject ever. I had a wonderful morning, calling and visiting high schools which may be able to accommodate the Grade 7 children from Salvazione next year. Yvonne Kane and I were lucky to meet some interesting people and among other schools, we may be able to arrange for some of the children to go to John Orr School and have the fees waived. We popped into Salvazione and just the sight of those children, so gainfully engaged with their work, and hearing their sweet greetings was a tonic.

We're so looking forward to seeing James. I confess that I've indulged in a youthful fantasy of mine and encouraged him to replace the ancient Merc with a gorgeous, two seater, soft top sportscar instead of a sensible Golf or Yarris (same price, strangely) so there's some fun to be had on the weekend looking at suitable candidates.

More of the same

The brain fog seems to be lifting at last and simply doing very little, albeit tedious, seems to be the solution. Each round of chemo seems to present with its own challenges and this time, I was disappointed to realise that, while I had blithely assumed that my white blood cell count was recovering fully between rounds, this is not the case. It has come down progressively from a normal, strong 5 to a weak 3, which impacts on my ability to fight infection and my sense of well being and energy flows. This was probably all clarified at the outset, but there is just too much to absorb at any one time.

It also transpires that the side effects of the experimental drug, Ipi, may be too dreadful to make it a viable alternative.

Nicola, in her inimitable way, has been filling every hour with productive activity. Her positive energy is a tonic. She is finishing her 6 week course in French at the Alliance Francais on Thursday. She has almost finished writing a training program for Phakamani Foundation http://www.phakamanifoundation.org/ a Micro Finance Organisation in Mpumalanga and will go directly from CT to White River where she will train the loan officers to run the training with the new clients.

Ali has finished exams at last and has been commissioned by Nic to do the artwork on posters for her training program. They have chosen giraffes as the theme, as the beautiful stadium at Nelspruit (coincidentally designed by my Mum's godson, Michael Bell, architect) has giraffes as major supporting structures. The posters need to be very bright and offer clear messages as the people taking loans, in most cases, are illiterate.

We're still planning to go to Cape Town for the weekend and make sure that the house is emptied and in good working order for the transfer to the O'Mahoneys. Nicola is going ahead on
Friday morning and she will work with the movers and Big Nicola, Anna and James to get the packing done. The actual move happens on Monday and we'll fly back on Tuesday evening.

It may well have to be a quieter weekend than we had in mind, but it will be wonderful to see James and to be in Cape Town regardless.

Unnerved for a bit

We were all delighted to have Nicola Bashall snr, fondly known as Big Nicola, to stay for a week and Anna for a few days. Nicola stepped in and was helpful in so many ways; chief cook and bottle washer for (little) Nic's birthday party on Saturday evening, pastry chef creating an extravaganza of a birthday cake, ambulance driver, resident micro-biologist and translator of medical articles and general raiser of spirits. Anna fits in happily as a regular member of our family and her resemblance to Nic makes it easy to forget to give her special treatment.

I had a nasty serious lung pain at 1am on Thursday morning, which seemed ominous. We decided to have a CT scan to ascertain the effect of the chemo so far, as it seemed unintelligent to proceed with the chemo if it was not working.

The CT scan was done yesterday amidst anxiety, and we approached Doc Mafafo with trepidation this morning. Thank God, the scan revealed that the chemo is preventing further spread of the cancer, although not actually reducing the size of the many lesions (cancerous growths). This is medically considered to be working, so I have decided to go ahead with the devil I know and have 3 more rounds of chemo before reassessing the situation.

The pain was caused by pleuresy, which was appropriately treated with anti inflammatories as appropriately prescribed by Tony, our GP, at 1am. I was very grateful for his sage advise to stay at home in our own bed, rather than rush off to hospital and be put through unnecessary tests and emergency procedures. It was a relief to know for certain that it was not cancer at the top of the lung. The imagination becomes fertile and irrational in the wee hours!

So, on we go, I had the first chemo dose this morning and have tried to do as much as possible with the day before the nastiness sets in. It helps to know what to expect, so it'll be a slow and quiet week. For one so accustomed to perpetual activity, this is a somewhat strange opportunity for introspection, which I intend to embrace, however, the familiar brain fog might distract from the core purpose.

Thanks for all the prayers, calls and messages. After prayers, sms' are best. We know we're not facing this alone.