Demon Days 6

It's the last of my demon days and I'm off to a poor start.

Day 2: I wake to a sunny morning. I am utterly exhausted after waking at 3 am. I was startled awake by a noise outside my bedroom.

I am woken by Al with some bad news. My friend, Jossy has taken her own life. You know how it is? When your whole body is so unwell you actually don't compute some things?

Jossy is my age. We went to Uni together. I can't get my head around the fact that this beautiful, vibrant and interesting girl has done the unthinkable.

It's the great conundrum isn't it? Me fighting for my life; she ending it. I feel a little angry. Here is one of the few good pictures I have of her and me:

Today I have arranged to go to see what I suspect will be a fairly awful movie with Lee. We go to see "A Few Best Men" and don't laugh once. It stereotypes men behaving badly we reckon, and we can't work out why Olivia Newton John would have wanted to do a movie where she snorts cocaine and gets totally plastered.

Afterwards, and perhaps in keeping with the generally tawdry tone of the movie, we go into the toilets to 'shoot up'. It's novel I must say. It's not quite a scene from 'Trainspotters' but Lee gives me my injection and we cheer the last prick. You know, it barely hurts these days.

Then we go to Harvest to have some lunch. It's about now I notice I have the start of a sniffle.

When I get home I find a home-cooked meal delivered by Pam, Craig's sister. I really appreciate this timely gesture because it's been a hectic day for Al and he gets home late. (George is at the Wesley Hospital for some tests).

Janet rings as usual to check on me. People are still being so kind.

Day 3: Last night was again, terrible, I woke at 1.30 am after taking my knock-me-out anti nausea. I had terrible heartburn and thanked God I'd got Al to get me some Quick Eze. It works so I was able to doze off.

It is a warm, humid day today and I wake suffused in the funny pains I've described before - where my skin hurts to touch.

We have an inspection at 12.30 pm and though I feel vile, I get up, make my bed and before you know it, I'm vacuuming the house. Mind over matter I suppose.

I drop Ben at golf and go to the shops to cool down. When I get home, Al and I go for a short walk. He has to pull me up the hill as I'm barely coping.

I know the symptoms have hit harder and faster this time.

After Ben gets home we all go for a swim. I know I shouldn't because it's supposed to make you vulnerable to bugs. But it's so bloody hot.

In the evening, we order take away. I'm feeling pretty vile so I take my knock-me out anti nausea.

Day 4: I wake relatively early to another hot day. In fact, it's blistering I reach for the anti nauseas first thing.

Today, once again, we have an inspection so I don't have the luxury of lolling in bed.

I find I am physically gagging. It helps to keep moving I think.

In the afternoon we go to my Mum's for lunch. My Aunty Ethel is heading back to Sri Lanka on Friday and Mum has invited my sisters and I over to say our farewells.

After we get home, I notice I'm gagging again. I am also lathered in sweat so I can report, it is entirely unpleasant.

I lie in bed. Al snoozes on the couch. The afternoon has cooled a little and it's not quite so bad.

I text Dr Choo to ask her if I should be concerned. She replies that if a fever develops I'll need antibiotics.

In the late afternoon Jan and Dave pop by. Jan is bearing four little pink-iced 'boobie cakes', left over from a cancer fundraiser she was involved. That, and a memoir written by a local guy who was kidnapped in Somalia. They are such a lovely couple.

We discuss the side effects of my drugs and Dave says: "What a shame the side effects are always so bad. Why can't they be something, like, multiple orgasms." A friend of mine sent me an email to that effect, I say. Why isn't one side effect extreme sexiness?

Craig pops by. (He's poisoning our weeds for us as well and I must say, has done an amazing job. It looks like the aftermath of the Apocalypse in the mess that is our back garden).

After our guests leave, I prepare the surface for my art lesson on Tuesday. I do a drawing. My sniffle has worsened. In fact I can't breathe.

I take a sleeping pill and an anti nausea this evening. I'm feeling miserable.

Al brings me dinner and I vaguely remember eating it but just roll over into a dead sleep.

Day 5: It's sweltering and today I find myself at home alone. Al and Harry have gone to work in town, Ben is at school. My nose is runny and it seems I have developed a cough.

In fact, I feel quite unwell. I lie in bed, suffused in aches, blowing my nose and hacking.

I feel very sorry for myself. I think about all my friends who are at work and off doing things that are important or interesting.

I ponder the fact that, this time, as I enter the home strait of my chemo sessions, people seem to have lost interest in my plight. Alas.

I ring Louisa and leave a message.

I have a headache and I do think I have a temperature too which is over 37 degrees but take some Panadol to control it. I can't remember at what temperature I'm supposed to ring the hospital, but I feel so vile, I can't be bothered getting up to find the booklet where it tells you everything. That's my first mistake.

The good thing at least is that the nausea seems to have abated though the foul taste has settled in my mouth once again.

I spend the entire day in bed, dozing intermittently. The fan whirrs at full speed. I think this is the sickest I can remember ever feeling. In my life. Ever!

I try to watch TV but my head is throbbing, I'm sweating like a pig and I have difficulty concentrating.

When I take my temperature, it's over 38 degrees so I take two more Panadol. That's my second mistake.

In the late evening I feel better so I get up to work on a script for Karen. Mark sends me a message to alert me of Jossy's funeral. It's on Thursday. I hope I am well enough to go.

Through the night I ache and sweat. I take two Panadol sometime in the early morning.

Day 6: It's pouring with rain early in the morning. Al jumps up just before 4 am and says he has to waterproof the Manpad. He'll be back at 7am he says.

When I wake I have a headache but I don't want to take any more Panadol in case I poison myself. I wait until 9 o'clock.

Al comes home and leaves for his tennis cardio session and I'm alone again (naturally). The rain has cleared.

I think about ringing Lee and asking her whether I should go to the doctor but I don't. I know she's at work and I don't want to bother her.

About mid-morning Louisa comes over. I lie in bed, flicking at the TV. I am blowing my nose and hacking phlegm (sorry!).

We converse in a desultory fashion. I tell her that I have been reliving the experience of having injections in my skin all morning.

"I think I'll get some hypnotherapy to overwrite that association," I tell her.

I ask her if I should go to the doctor. (Louisa is an EEN. She should know.) Louisa says it would make her happy if I went. I'm thinking I'll just get a script for antibiotics just in case I need them.

Louisa will drive me, she says, and tells me to have a shower and get dressed.

So I get up and I feel kind of okay. After getting into some shorts and a thin top (it's bloody hot and I seem to be sweating profusely), I ring my local GP and make an appointment.

As we are about to exit, Al arrives home.

"You can't just get any antibiotics. Shouldn't you see Poh See?" he says. "I'm happy to drive you."

I'm a bit annoyed, to be honest. I was all primed for this outing with Louisa! But after some argy bargy, I ring Greenslopes Hospital and explain the situation.

They say I have to go in to have my blood checked. How inconvenient! I'm thinking they'll give me some oral antibiotics at the Hospital. Such a long way to go. Such a nuisance.

And so Al, Louisa and I drive to the Hospital. (Al is keen as there is still a lot to do at the Manpad). I feel quite okay and think, briefly, that this is all a bit of a waste of time.

At Greenslopes, I am a bit wary when the concierge directs us to the Cyril Gilbert Ward. A girl call Jessica is behind the counter and I gaily advise her I'm here for my antibiotics script.

When she gives me the same sort of paperwork as she does before a chemo session, I'm on alert.

"What's going to happen to me do you think?" I ask her.

"You'll be taken to a chair and they'll put you on a drip," she says. I'm horrified.

"No! No more needles, surely they can just give me some tablets," I say, thinking 'what would this silly girl know, she's only the receptionist'.

Actually, she knows a lot.

I am greeted by Ursula, my favourite nurse and taken to a back room where there's a trolley bed suffused in that blinding neon light.

Ursula directs me to lie in the bed and as the temperature of the air conditioner has been set to "Eskimo", Louisa throws a towel she has found onto my bald head to try and keep me warm. I'm shivering, she's shivering.

Ursula tells us the story of an aged care ward she once worked at. They used to put pillowcases on the bald heads to keep them warm. So they looked like the Ku Klux Klan.

A blanket is procured for Louisa. As I relate the story of my fever and the Panadol, Ursula makes notes. Then I get a lecture about forgetting my initial instructions which SHE gave to me.

She explains I could have got septicaemia, how once you hit rock bottom after chemo it's very hard to get back up, about how by taking the Panadol I may have gone to sleep and never woken up. She makes cooing noises about how I'm in the right place. (Later I discover, really, Ursula is a bit of a hypocrite because SHE got pneumonia when she had breast cancer. So there).

Still, I feel sheepish. I grab Louisa's hand and say: "Oh, so I guess you may have saved my life."

Ursula explains I'm to be on IV antibiotics. Yes, another cannula. That's all I need to hear because it's like a button has been switched. All that retained memory. Immediately, I am gagging like a seal, spitting into a sick bag and saying "excuse me" in between.

At one stage I miss the sickbag entirely. It's so disgusting, phlegm everywhere, I'm actually laughing.

"You'll never be jealous of me again, Louisa," I say. (Because I know, sometimes she is). Gag. Hack.

But before the IV I need a chest x-ray.

A man arrives with a wheelchair and for some unknown reason, he makes me put on a hospital gown that seems designed for a 7 foot Samoan footballer. As I am wheeled away in fact the gown keeps getting caught in the wheels. I take my sick bag with me,

After the x-ray, I am returned to Ursuala's care. I jump in the bed with the gown still on and there's the towel on my head again with the sick bag at the ready.

"What's that you've got on!" says Ursula. "You look like the flying nun."

"But it's keeping me warm," I say, "I'm freezing." I dutifully get out of my Samoan's gown and get back into bed. Two blankets is barely enough.

And so, eventually, after I've provided samples of sputum and pee, another cannula is inserted into my hand, and okay, it does go in at the first attempt. It doesn't really hurt but it doesn't matter. My stomach churns. I feel really sick now.

Blood samples are taken. Before I'm seen by the registrar, Ursula has started me on fluids. My hand hurts badly. Gagging. Spitting.

Al and Louisa leave at 3 pm. I tell Al to let my Mum and Dad know where I am.

The registrar comes and asks me a hundred questions not including "What is the capital of Colombia". I'm told my chest x-ray is clear, no pneumonia. Hooray.

Ursula wheels me up to Ward 31C, the cancer ward.

I am in room 22 which has a nice view of the City and is really a rather huge room.

My nurse this evening is a lovely looking black man called 'Robbie'.

After a disgusting dinner with enough inedible food to feed two people, I watch TV. I try to sleep. I throw up. Violently.

Then I request a sleeping pill and fall into a dead sleep.

Day 7: I wake to the most horrible experience of my life. At 5.30 am someone barges into my room and switches on the light. She barks that I'm to have my bloods done. I blearily open my eyes as, within minutes, a strange woman from the pathology lab bustles around me, finds a vein, tells me she can't see and she'll need the spotlight.

Bang. I'm blinded by a light and then she's jabbed one vein, then another.

"It's no good. I'm a taker, you have to be a giver," this stranger says loudly. "I'll have to get Kathleen."

It's like being woken by a kind of shorter, chubbieir, curly haired version of 'Bea' from Prisoner. Shit. It's like being in the Gulag!

And then, another softer, kinder lady arrives, "Kathleen". Seeing as Bea has had two goes, only one go is left and the only vein presenting itself is on my hand.

"Unfortunately, this is going to hurt," says Kathleen. Well, that's an understatement.

Cue sound of muffled scream as the hapless prisoner bites on her blanket.

No go. In the end, the blood has to be squeezed from a prick in my finger into some teensy tiny vials.

I watch the news of Kevin Rudd resigning as Foreign Minister.

Al rings and I give him instructions as to what I need. Like pyjamas!

My nurse today is I discover a Russian called Tatiana. Actually she's from Siberia and when I practice a sentence of my chemo-brained Russian on her, she gives me a look that says 'deluded fool'.

I don't have a mobile phone and I can't ring a mobile phone from the hospital, and I only know a few numbers off by heart. I have to tell Al when to come. In the end I ring my Dad who knows I'm in hospital but guess what? He hasn't told my mum! (Well, why would he? I'm only in hospital, Dad!!)

The nurse comes in and says I need an injection of anti-coagulant. But I refuse because frankly (as the prostitute said to the bishop) I've had enough pricks for one day.

Mum rings and I can sense some panic in her voice. She's coming to visit.

I watch an old episode of 'Green Acres' and crack myself when Lisa, Eva Gabor's character discusses 'reincarceration' with Oliver ('reincarceration' as in you come back as someone else'. "You mean reincarnation," says Oliver. "No dear, that's when you come back as a flower.")

Dr Choo arrives and tells me it's not good. My blood counts are low. She emphasises the point with a sweep of her palms toward the floor. It looks very dramatic and for the first time since we started our relationship, she's not smiling. She says I'll have to stay until "at least" Friday. It's "too dangerous" to send me home."

Al rings and I'm able to give him the news.

When he visits he brings everything I told him to bring including my Kindle. I tell him about my Gulag experience and when he leaves, I ask him to make a complaint to the Registrar. (I'll get you, Bea!)

Mum visits bearing magazines and vadays. Almost at once I see she is trying to stop herself bursting into tears so I rally myself. My parents are worried. She tells me Aunty Una has been trying to ring and brings me some fruitcake and Love Cake Aunty has despatched especially for me. (Una is 94 and has glaucoma). I eat a vaday because I know the sight of anyone eating her food is all Mum needs to feel one with the world. We have quite a good conversation.

After she leaves, I read my magazines. There's a story in "Who" about a Channel 9 entertainment reporter who had breast cancer and went through chemo twice in eight months. And she had a 4-month old baby. I count my blessings.

Al must have put out some information about me because I receive more texts and a couple of phone calls.

In my head I devise a game called "Nationality Bingo" for hospital patients.

Nim arrives in the afternoon bearing lychees, blueberries and raspberries. Unfortunately, the timing of her visit coincides with Tatiana's bed check. Tatiana glares icily at Nim. We are told I can't eat any food that isn't hospital grade.

That's because I'm officially 'neutrapoenic'. Cancer patients who hit rock bottom can become seriously ill from even the smallest paper cut. (They can get even sicker from watching too many close ups of Kevin Rudd licking his lips.)

I can't believe I can't eat this fruit and then remember the vaday I ate. Eek! I hope I don't end up a corpse by 6 o'clock.

When Nim leaves I tell her that if I die, we can blame the fucking lychees.

I send a long text to Mark about Jossy. (It's hard work as I am doing everything with my left hand.) Her funeral is tomorrow. I want to share a couple of stories about her just in case there's an opportunity for other people to contribute.

Craig rings.

Lee texts me to say she's on her way, do I need anything. I ask her to bring a small notebook (it ends up being minuscule, designed less for 'War and Peace' (like this blog!!!) and more for, I don't know, alphabet practice? Well, she's a nurse!). She arrives quite late and I wait up until she arrives. We have a long talk.

My nurse in the evening is Mari who is Finnish.

I'm so hyper after all the visitors today I have a terrible night's sleep. All night I think and I think. I think about how people live their lives, the shit they worry about. I think what would happen if I die. I think about the friends who have stood closest to my side through all of this, so far. I think. I think about thinking. I think.

Eventually I must sleep, but not much.

Day 8. I'm woken by Bea again but she seems quieter. She takes one look at me and says she'll go directly to Kathleen. Kathleen fails twice so says she'll fetch Nadine. Nadine does strike it lucky with one vein but unfortunately it coagulates because it takes so long to come out. In other words, it's unuseable. It's like getting blood out of a stone, yet again, and once more, I have to have my fingers milked.

I've had a headache all night. I start imagining I've got brain cancer too.

When I'm offered the needle, at first I say no. But after I ring Lee to see what she thinks, and thinking about my headache and the coagulating blood this morning, I relent.

My nurse this morning is from the Cook Islands. She thinks giving the needle slowly is better but I think it's worse. It stings like crap and buggery all rolled into one. In fact, it stings afterwards for HOURS! From this I think I could never be a spy. If anyone caught me and threatened to torture me, I'd just spill the beans. No, have the damn secrets!

Fiona visits in the morning. I know she's upset but especially because she only found out I was here from some passing Facebook exchange. My family sucks at communication.

Shortly afterwards, Al also arrives so we all have a good chat.

Through the day Lyndal rings, Lindar rings, Tracey rings, Janet texts, Karen texts.

I pass the rest of the time reading, playing 'Chicktionary' on my phone, playing brain training games. Shit, what did hospital patients do before iPhone? It's a shame my Facebook App does not work.

I find out the cleaner is from Brazil (she's very fair!) and she will be starting her MBA in June.

In the afternoon, I call Mark. Jossy's funeral should be over. I find out that she hung herself. Last Wednesday. Such a waste.

I'm so bored I look for the Gideon's bible which is cling-wrapped for cancer patients. (The sheets are also changed daily in the cancer ward. We humans really are putrid).

I watch American Idol. I get into Keith Richard's "Life".

Dr Choo arrives late with the registrar in tow. She says that she will allow blood to be taken from my other arm if it's done by an experience phlebotomist. She says if we don't have blood, I can't go home. She says I should be able to go home on Saturday.

Day 9. My nurse in the morning is from Korea. The blood is taken first time from my good arm with no pain by Bea.

My nurse this morning is Indian.

Linda rings.

Not long after breakfast Dr Choo comes down and tells me I can go home today. I have oral antibiotics for the next few days.

When the cannula is taken out it gushes and spurts (thank you anticoagulant). In fact it bleeds so much I briefly wonder if I could bleed to death. It takes a good two minutes of pressure to stem the flow.

I shower, dress and leave the room so quickly, I know how inmates must feel when they're released. That, or trapped ferrets.

Harry picks me up from the lobby and Al drives us home through the thickening traffic.

When I get home there is one freshly washed and fluffy individual who is ecstatic to see me. Spunkeeeeeeeee.

I jump straight into bed. My own!

Aah. I'm glad to be home.

Chemo 4

It's an overcast day and slightly drizzly when I leave for my fourth chemo session this morning.

I need to pick up Nim from Cleveland and get there in good time to reach the hospital for T-Time (Toxin Time).

I'm 66% of the way through this series of frankly unpleasant experiences, and I've been channelling the spirits of the Anzacs. Each new phase is a new attack on that dark Gallipoli beach, out of one trench, across the bullet drenched landscape, ducking and weaving the potential shells, the barbed wire lines, bayonets fixed at the ready until the safety of the next trench.

I'm now just two trenches away from safety, having so far withstood the enemy fire by Adriomyacin, Taxotere and Cyclophosphomide (the Axis of Evil).

Just think what the Anzacs did for Australia? That is what true courage is. This business of beating cancer is nothing in the scheme of things.

Today, only Harry is able to accompany me in with Nim, where we meet Lindar and Tracey and once again, I am embarrassed by the orgy of gift giving. Do my friends ever stop?

Nim has also brought food including a Belgian Chocolate Cake especially for the nurses. This woman knows how to win friends because later, we will discover the cake has gone down a treat :)

As I am called into my suite, I feel nauseous already and before I sit down, I can feel the burn of reflux in my gullet.

What's going on? You see, I'm told the brain when routinely exposed to experiences - good or bad - begins to engineer itself to predict your responses. It's really amazing. If only we could channel this capacity to other parts of our lives. Lacking motivation? Feeling anxious? Then retrain your brain!

Today my toxicologist is a pretty Korean nurse called Sun Yee. She is young and sweet. I learn that her mother and brother still live in Seoul. She has been here four years. Her father died at 61 of a heart attack. Kim Jong's Death has unsettled the people of Seoul. Any day now they could go from Shreddies for breakfast to Shrapnel.

I told you already: different shit, different mountain. We all have a hill to climb sooner or later.

Nim has made chicken rolls and delicious fruit salads in enormous proportions. There are also ginger bread cookies.

Later Janet arrives bearing coffees and with her, some memorabilia to help take my mind off things.

I decide to give out the belated Chrismas presents that I have bought. I give Lindar a bracelet and scarf, Tracey a recipe book, and for Janet, some earrings plus a book called "Naughty Origami". (There's a story there but basically, now Janet and her husband Bob can enjoy hours of fun making origami boobs, vaginas, 'French Ticklers' (illustrated with the use of a banana) and I believe, even what looks like a threesome. It's appropriate. Trust me.

To oversee my cannula insertion, I have a nurse I've had before, Mel, and I have to say it hurts rather badly when it is inserted.

At one point she observes my tiny veins and says: "It's not size that matters."

"I tell my husband that all the time," I say.

"Well we won't tell him and embarrass him," Mel laughs, getting my lame attempt at innuendo.

"Aah no, it's the other way round for me, Mel," I say, "You know he eats a lot of hay."

With such banter, some anxiety lifts. The good thing is that it takes just one go with the cannula and eventually the pain subsides as I practice some brain reengineering muttering "It doesn't hurt, It doesn't hurt." It seems to work.

The girls chat sweetly around me. Janet has brought some photos to show us of the many, many good times we've shared over the years.

One is a photo taken on my 41st birthday. There is Lindar, Tracey, me and Janet and dammit, we all looked so hot! Time, that incompetent fool has left us with someone else's saggy jowls.

Janet has also brought some unusual memorabilia to share. Some ancient artefacts, 2000 years old, gouged from an archaeological site in Rhodes, and courtesy of some drunken archeologists she and her husband Bob befriended by bibulous banter behind a bar. What an unusual experience, one I could really dig! (boom tish).

As it happens today's conversation does graze over a wide array of topics: beginning as you do in ladies' circles with the vexing issue of vaginal dryness - at some stage ladies, I will have to discuss this subject with you - one of the several and somewhat disconcerting effects of menopause, one of the side effects of my treatment which will be discussed in depth in a later blog.

The conversation is candid as we move onto discussing the sex education of our kids, comparing notes of our 'bad mother' moments (the ones you usually have when hidden under that handy cone of silence: the family car - when you can blithely threaten murder and bombard your children with crushing vitriol and sarcasm, possibly scarring them for life, just because you are ready to explode with frustration). We all feel a lot better sharing these stories: just knowing you are not alone in allowing "Psycho Mum" to show her ugly head.

But for all the joviality, when the Adromyacin is being inserted I feel a bit anxious and my friends work really hard on keeping my eyes away from the syringe full of red fluid. If only it weren't coloured red, I'm sure I'd cope a lot better.

However, by the Taxotere I am really felling quite unwell. Nim and Janet stroke my hands. Soo Yin offers me the anti nausea tablet that has a sedative effect and I decide to accept it. I feel hot and vile.

In an effort to perk me up, Nim hand feeds me some home made fruit salad because my hands are in the oven mitts.

"I would hate to be a seal," I observe as the lack of fingers is really quite a handicap.

Then she feeds me a chicken roll she has brought for each of us, with a bit of the chilli both she and I love. What can I say. This friend is just a gem. She was probably Florence Nightingale in a previous life. Of Nim I have discovered she is the Yin to my Yang, a woman who continues to teach me about opening up other parts to the person I am, and vice versa. Nim is open, passionate, competitive, driven, emotional, giving, generous, and operates on about 400,000 KW of energy. She assesses most people from the heart and will lavish love and affection on people without a second thought.

I on the other hand have a Virgoan's natural caution with people. I am an observer and in many cases,gravitate toward those I wish to be friends with based on a fairly cerebral assessment of their personal qualities and how they mesh with mine. As I found myself saying just yesterday: Life is to short for cheap wine, bad coffee and boring conversation. May I emphasise Good Conversation. It really seems to be a dying art and when you find it with someone you meet she or he is a keeper. Good conversationalists are rich in life experiences, many are highly educated and/or well read, they have an ear for listening, they usually have lots of interests, and they show an interest in others. In short, like cancer-free left breasts, they don't grow on trees so if you find them, hang onto them.

I imagine that, as time goes on, Nim and I will adopt the best of each of us in our efforts to some balance in our interactions with the world. From this, who knows what could grow in the future?

The point is, I choose my friends wisely, and I hope that this is one reason I have four such wonderful women by my chair-side today.

So, after being spoon fed, I don't feel as ill and, once the cyclophosphamide is doing its work, I feel kind of okay but a little woozy still.

Janet, Lindar and Tracey finish off Nim's fruit salads and are very thankful.

After we leave, Lindar drives Nim and me to the Manpad under construction in Merivale Street. I manage to get home without falling asleep, dropping Nim home safely.

Today I have managed a few laughs although I can tell that the intensity of my bon homie
is plateauing.

I anticipate that over the remaining two sessions, I will find it quite a struggle and I'm hoping my friends will have the energy to see this through with me to the end.

I did not see Dr Choo today as she is on holidays. I will see her later next week.

Dr Choo has said that after Dose 4 is when the true menopause symptoms should start to raise their cheeky little heads from the tundra of my own Antarctica. Global warming it seems has already commenced and I have started to spend most nights lathered in a veil of sweat.

I have also started to notice that I am as sensitive as a hand grenade when dealing with vexatious situations - like not being able to find something unimportant - and the poorly educated halfwits who want to argue politics.

What other unpleasant experiences lie ahead this week time will tell.

All I know is that I'll be ducking and running as fast as possible through the explosions across that battle field until another 3 weeks when my next trench is claimed.

In the meantime, Al is battening down the hatches. And my Mum is making me my favourite spicy fish balls as I speak.

Harry is working on a DJ mix as he's been secured for the launch of a new 'Scooter Magazine' down the Gold Coast next week. (He's quite chuffed about it, actually).

Tonight we are going to Ethel and George's House for dinner.

Everything seems pretty normal.

And I will continue to work as hard as I can to keep things that way.

Chemo 3

The half-way mark for my chemo sessions arrive and today Al and I wake to a rain sodden world where the loud thuds of rain have been unrelenting through the night.

I wake several times, partly because of the large water intake that is recommended the day before chemo - you'd think I had prostrate problems! - and partly because I'm an easily disturbed sleeped and the rain drops on our wooden roof can sound like crazy marsupials on the chase.

Consequently I'm unrefreshed when I awake at 5.30 am, much earlier than I have been waking more recently. I'm not feeling afraid today. Earlier this week I had an epiphany. I decided that the only way to get through the shitty bits of life is to replace fear or anger or denial... with curiosity. If this is a 'journey', the true adventurer goes forth with a desire to know how it will be, how it all turns out, and importantly, what story I will have told when I reach the end. That final full stop. Fear on the other hand, achieves nothing.

While my fatigue is not a great start to the day, it's also not auspicious that last night, just before I went to sleep, my little laptop threw a hissy fit. In the morning Al gives me the bad news that my hard disc is unretrievable. We need the Mac doctor! So my machine, with my life's creative and professional outpourings of late also need medical attention. We are both off for some professional troubleshooting today. Hope the news is good for both of us...

Today the two boys, Harry and Ben are coming with us, the three of them to continue onto the man pad in town where hopefully further progress will be made on the tardiest refurbishment project we've had. With any luck it'll be finished in time for his new Uni year.

We leave a little later as intended and in the car, Nim texts to say she's already arrived. You see, today, my little entourage of supporters has increased by one to 4. So my special new friend is to meet my special old besties. Given the squeeziness of the booth, Janet offers to ditch if space is an issue. But its not! We can make space.

After I arrive, Lindar and Tracey arrive early too so the whole team including Al, and the boys chaperone us to the tiny cubicle. I think the nursing team are relieved that 7 are not to be squeezed in. Maybe we could arrange a Guinness Book of World Records session one time. Just to push the envelope? Anyone in?

Once again, Lindar and Tracey give me a gift (Soap and perfume!), and Nim has already delivered a store of her famous Baklava for the staff. Janet will arrive a little later, also bearing gifts. She will give me some lovely lotions but especially, she will give me a medallion dipped in the waters of Lourdes and was given to her years ago by a kind lady found Janet feeling sad about some events in her life. She had said that it had served her well, and gave it to Janet with the words that 'whatever her problems were would disappear' and that 'one day she would pass it on to someone else in who needed its helping powers'. So you see, even before we learned the words 'pay if forward', this is exactly how the kind and the humane have worked among us. Paying forward their good fortune, their answered prayers, the support they had. How good are my friends! I chide them and say they will be banned from my next chemo session if they keep bringing me these presents. I think my threat falls on deaf ears. But boy! I'm getting lots of presents!

Once I am seated, I am immediatley approached by a lovely nurse, Mel, who started nursing in 1968 and seems confident and professional. The cannula is inserted almost painlessly (after 2 goes). She is calm, positive, soothing. She demonstrates her caring nature immediately when she lugs 2 additional chairs for my friends. (That's all that can fit, so one must use a stool). I apologise for the clan but she says they welcome visitors.

Mel wastes little time in getting down to business.

This time when the Adramyacin enters my veins I start to feel a bit teary. I'm remembering the negativity and depression I briefly encountered in this phase last time. It is not a space I want to return to but what to do? I am reliably informed that emotional health is a lot less resilient than physical health. Joy.

After the Taxotere, I realise I'm feeling nauseous. I am told that, since I was one of those pathetic suckers who endured NINE MONTHS of non-stop morning sickness, this is quite a common scenario.

A call is made up to my oncologist and voila! Two pills (desolved under the tongue) and one injection are produced.

I am also told I will now have to come back on Saturday for another injection and some saline. Later Dr Choo will explain that this is to break the brain's association of the treatment with nausea. Apparently, it can be mind over matter, with the sneaky inclusion of some drug therapy.

All the while my four beautiful friends cover a litany of subjects that may exhaust the unprepared. Julia Gillard, Kevin Rudd, Celebrity Apprentice and that cow Deni Hynes, pet dragon lizards who are loyal and loving we're told, pet mice who bite, why my best attributes are my nice bald head, and my very large uterus (but I don't like to boast). We talk about casesarians and the relationship to large fatherly heads, births, deaths and marriages. We discuss my mum and dad's latest invention: a silicon steamer. We discuss Metropole, Goerge Orwell, and Leni Riefenstahl. We talk about travelling. We talk about how people can be surprising. We discuss cross cultural communication: Nim's mother who had no word for 'collander' but managed to get what she wanted by saying: "Round thing take water away, spaghetti stays" and was less successful when she wanted that Lamb Leg and slapped her hind quarter to indicate said meaty cut followed by a gesture that may been construed as 'How much you got'. Instead she scored a wolf whistle and an appraisal of her assets.

And I shared the time when my sister Nicky, me and a friend Sue, spent a couple of weeks in Andros, in Greece, where Sue had some evil intentions with her newly discoverd beau - er hem - Adonis. (I later hung out with Hercules and Sophocles). We found a dinky little pharmacopia where first Sue attempted somewhat pathetically to indicate she wanted some condoms. "Condoms' Con-Doms" she attempted uselessly varying pitch and tone. It wasn't until Nicky went to work that cut-through was achieved. She adopted the lascivious pose of a dirty old man and proceeded to demonstrate 'Man' - a left finger thrusted energetically in a right finger hooked in a ring to indicate a hole which she labelled 'Woman' - a move that left so little to the imagination, I had to scream, "No Nicky, it's too much". At which point the little old storekeeper, foraged among his stores of several products past their use-by-date - produced a small packet and yelled. "Aah! Prophylacticos!" Further embarrassment was therefore avoided as the next stage in this interaction was surely going to be me taking the missionary position on top of Nicky in a bid to furhter dramatise the normal situation for the product we so desperately wanted, Sue by now slinking outside so mortified we did feel a little mollified. But only a little.

Our tales draw peals of laughter when one nurse pops her head into ask what we've put in our coffees, as they want some :)) Not quite "Harry Met Sally" but real laugher is better than those fake orgasms, Sally. Yes, yes, yes! It is!

So next time, I'm going to take my guitar and Janet and I will give them a rendition of the only song we can sing together, that old chestnt, "Wooden Heart". Perhaps I can convince Nim to rock on her smooth bellydancing moves. Just you watch out nursies, you ain't seen nothing yet :)

The nausea abates after I eat some (hospital supplied) sandwiches and have a ginger ale. I wonder of the wisdom of these choices until I finally realise I do feel much better.

Later I go off for my ritual meeting with Dr Choo who is heading back to Penang for a family holiday and will miss my next chemo session. I'll have to see her again afterwards so she can check my neutrophils (apparently a little low today).

And so in this way my day concludes, in much the way as did my last chemo session. Good friends taking my mind off the bits I really hate about it all. The needles, the drugs and what they will do to me in the next 10 days.

And again, there is that mysterious alchemy, of how bad experiences are transformed, by the people you choose to have around you, their attitudes affecting mine, and just being comfortable enough with them - all four - to be able cry if I need to, knowing one if not all will hold my hand at some stage because they know that under my jokes and humour, I am now anxious about the next 10 days when I will be largely horizontal, bored, retching, angry, fatigued and alone.

Al and the boys pick Nim and I up from the Hospital. I find myself drifting off to sleep on Nim's shoulder as one of the drugs causes drowsyness.

It is just a good thing that I have made the most of the good days behind me.

I'll be focussing on those bright spots I have mentioned before.

For they are the things that illuminate my way forward: these are the things I focus on - a normal life, the support of my friends and family, walks with my dog, a nice home cooked meal and those thing I have been grateful for all my life: how lucky I am to be me! I won the lottery the day I was born - and with all the shit and pain and disappointment and struggle, all the closed doors, the near misses, the death defying moments, the cul-de sacs, the bad decisions, the losses and humiliations - how great it's been, all of it.

And this evening, another bright spot sparkles. Harry has invited 20 mates over for his own Christmas do. This means my children are living a normal, social life. It's another thing to be grateful for: healthy, happy, confident kids who can host a party like their Mumsy on a whim. That's the spirit!

Already I'm a winner, so chemo - do your best - you won't bring me down.