I am continuing to feel better and better. My hair is sprouting at a rapid rate, which I hope is due to the very expensive shampoo I bought to encourage hair growth. I went to the hairdresser last week to get my hair coloured and cut! At least now I no longer look like a koala with hairy grey ears and it looks like a hair cut that I had done intentionally. I do miss my long hair and get a little cranky when I see people with long hair who do not appreciate it. I saw a girl at West End yesterday who had very long blonde hair which was matted, dreadlocked and had different things sticking out of it. I thought to myself that she didn't deserve such long hair and it looked like it needed a good wash.
I spent last weekend in Sydney - which was awesome. Great friends, great food and great rugby (apart from the fact that Giteau can't kick and the Wallabies lost by one point) - it was the perfect weekend for me. My friends took me to degustation at Quay, which was the most amazing food experience of my life. I would recommend to anyone to ignore the price and just do it! Between my trip to Tasmania and the Sydney getaway, I am starting to feel like myself again more and more. The Sydney trip had been planned during my treatment and it was great to have something to look forward to after radiation. For me, it has been a great way to mark the end of the horrid part of the treatment and the start of new beginnings. I would recommend to anyone who is going through treatment to plan something to look forward to, it doesn't have to be a decadent weekend away (although mine was fantastic!), even a nice dinner somewhere or a night away, just something that you can say after this - is the rest of my healthy new life.
Whilst in Sydney I caught up with a very close friend of mine who is currently going through dialysis. This is for six hours, three times a week. I had lunch with her and then went to the hospital for her treatment. I miss the days when we had lunch and then went shopping. I felt fine walking into the hospital with her, we were just chatting and laughing as we always do. She was shown to her chair and asked me to get some blankets for her. When I returned the nurse was there with the tray of needles and tubes. I stopped in my tracks and realised just how my mother would have felt on that first day of my chemo and every treatment after that. It hit me like a punch in the face and I burst out crying. It is a horrible feeling being on the other side and watching someone that you love so much having to go through that, and you feeling so helpless to do anything for them. I feel fine with how I coped with the treatment and how I feel at the moment, but now I have started to think about how it was for the people who are closest to me. I am beginning to understand the different reactions people had to my treatment.
The young women's group continues to go well. Yesterday there was much discussion about fertility. I didn't find this topic as confronting or draining as the last group, as I feel that fertility isn't an issue for me at the moment. Having children is so far in the future for me, it isn't even in my realm of thinking. At this point in my life, I am aiming at a first date! As for kids, I am an Aunty to nine great kids and the best thing about them - is I get to give them back to their parents at the end of the day!
Monday, September 13, 2010
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Spring has sprung....and so has my hair!
I am not sure whether it was my time away, the time of year or that I am feeling better, but something has definitely changed. I am starting to feel more and more like myself, which is great. I have more energy and best of all - I have more hair! I am now able to put mascara on my own eyelashes and have had to start using hair product to control my unruly hair! My hair is just long enough to be messy (in small parts) in the morning. Who would have thought that I would be excited over having bed hair????? It is still very short, and my sister says that I look a bit like a koala because it is hairy over ears, but I am not inclined to get it cut yet as I want to avoid looking like Dr Spok. There is quite a bit of natural highlights in it (ie. grey), and it was pointed out that there is a bit of silver fox - but I like to call it silver foxiness. I will do some hair grooming before commencing my new awesome job in a few weeks.
Whilst I have been thinking about the future and making plans in the past week, today I started thinking about the past and how far I have come since the beginning of the year. I remember those days when it was an effort to get out of bed and get off the couch. I will never take my health for granted again. I hated that feeling of helplessness and having to rely on another person to help feed me, wash me and dress me. However, I am very fortunate to have had people who were there to help feed me, wash me and dress me. Well actually, the unhappy task of having to wash and dress me was taken up by my mother. She has been there every step of the way and I think she has felt it more than I have. She is one of the most amazing people I know and I will never take her for granted again.
Although I have been feeling optimistic about the future, I still have my poo-poo moments. I had one of these on Saturday. I was attending the wedding of a friend on Saturday afternoon and I was thinking about how I was going to another wedding alone. I knew the bride, had met the groom once and had met only one other wedding guest once. In the past, this wouldn't have been an issue for me, but I didn't feel I had the energy to make small talk with strangers for hours. I have started venturing out without anything on my head and was feeling self conscious about my hair (even though I am super excited to have it return), I still don't feel quite like I used to. I was feeling flat and sorry for myself; and I watched a documentary about people with dwarfism. They had a story about a woman who had a particularly rare form of dwarfism where she was less than 3ft tall and her joints were fused together. She was very independant, lived by herself, drove a car and was a teacher. I thought if she can do all this alone - then I can go to a wedding alone. It was then that they showed her celebrating her 28th birthday at her mother's house - where her boyfriend proposed to her!!!! I felt that this was the universe slapping me in the face and telling me to stop being such an idiot.
On the subject of being single, my six year old niece asked me why I didn't have a boyfriend. I told her that I didn't know the answer to that question. It was at this point that my four year old nephew raced in and said 'I know why you don't have a boyfriend Aunty Karen, it's because you use all your love on me'. He is very insightful for a four year old.
Whilst I have been thinking about the future and making plans in the past week, today I started thinking about the past and how far I have come since the beginning of the year. I remember those days when it was an effort to get out of bed and get off the couch. I will never take my health for granted again. I hated that feeling of helplessness and having to rely on another person to help feed me, wash me and dress me. However, I am very fortunate to have had people who were there to help feed me, wash me and dress me. Well actually, the unhappy task of having to wash and dress me was taken up by my mother. She has been there every step of the way and I think she has felt it more than I have. She is one of the most amazing people I know and I will never take her for granted again.
Although I have been feeling optimistic about the future, I still have my poo-poo moments. I had one of these on Saturday. I was attending the wedding of a friend on Saturday afternoon and I was thinking about how I was going to another wedding alone. I knew the bride, had met the groom once and had met only one other wedding guest once. In the past, this wouldn't have been an issue for me, but I didn't feel I had the energy to make small talk with strangers for hours. I have started venturing out without anything on my head and was feeling self conscious about my hair (even though I am super excited to have it return), I still don't feel quite like I used to. I was feeling flat and sorry for myself; and I watched a documentary about people with dwarfism. They had a story about a woman who had a particularly rare form of dwarfism where she was less than 3ft tall and her joints were fused together. She was very independant, lived by herself, drove a car and was a teacher. I thought if she can do all this alone - then I can go to a wedding alone. It was then that they showed her celebrating her 28th birthday at her mother's house - where her boyfriend proposed to her!!!! I felt that this was the universe slapping me in the face and telling me to stop being such an idiot.
On the subject of being single, my six year old niece asked me why I didn't have a boyfriend. I told her that I didn't know the answer to that question. It was at this point that my four year old nephew raced in and said 'I know why you don't have a boyfriend Aunty Karen, it's because you use all your love on me'. He is very insightful for a four year old.
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