Still catching up

Goodness, Monday night I was talking about how I had been relaxing all day so I would be like a box of budgies for work the next day. I had meant live budgies, but instead when I got to work thats defnitely not how I felt! I’ve seen lots of perky happy budgies, all chatting away to each other, yep definitely not me! I was feeling heavy and just generally yuk, and just felt I couldn’t cope with work, so finally at 10.30am-ish I gave in trying and came home, where I crashed out to sleep. I find that really interesting and wonder why I felt like that. On Monday I had fallen asleep about 3pm, waking up at 5pm so then it was after midnight before I could go back to sleep for the night. Thats one thought of why I felt so crap. The second is that yesterday I touched on how my eating habits had changed slightly. For a long time, I was doing the keto thing, high fat, low carb and loved it. Then we went away to Melbourne for a week or so in July last year where I didn’t bother trying to keep up with it and ever since then found it ridiculously hard to get back into it, just generally being bad, bad, bad!!!! But my boss had recently talked to me about some reading up on veganism he had done and how since the introduction of eating animals, dairy foods and eggs has made people overweight and ill. Apparently eating plant based food only is supposed to be good for you, give you more energy etc and so we came to an agreement that we would give it a try for a month. We were about 2 or 3 weeks into it before I went to Sydney and I was feeling great! There were times when I was so tempted to go back to normal eating as it was easier but I could feel the benefits pretty much straight away. While I was away, I decided to eat normally, its easier to do so, but now I kick myself. I wasn’t being ridiculous with it, I would never say I am a vegan, or trying to be one...I am simply cutting my meat consumption down, along with dairy and no eggs. I still have milk in my tea or cream in my coffee so long as it isn’t numerous cups each day. I was feeling so much more awake, I was staying at work from 8.30am to 4pm Mon to Thurs, I couldn’t get over it! The one draw back was that man was I passing a shitload of wind and man was it putrid. My boss said he was doing the same thing and we both hoped it was simply due to the change in eating habits. I had even lost a bit of weight with it.

 I am so annoyed at myself that I am now having to start again. At first when I got home I thought maybe I wouldn’t go back to it, as it does mean I have to really give thought to what I am going to eat compared to the rest of the family and they don’t really like chick peas, or brown rice or brown pasta etc, but after being at work yesterday morning feeling the way I did where everything is so damn hard and not an ounce of energy, I just don’t want to go back to feeling like that on a constant daily basis. So I started again.  I have stayed home today also, as I just feel heavy and yuk, quite tired as well so I hope this changes soon. My pain has been so minimal for the last 4-6 weeks, I don’t really know why but this is what it does. It comes and goes. So now it has come back, probably started just before I went away to Sydney. Its been a lot worse in previous times before, but its definitely pronouncing itself more now than recent times but thats what good painkillers are for, right? So hopefully just another phase which will simply pass in time.

I have received my CT scan appointment. It is Thursday 20th June at 7.50am at our local hospital. This is great! I’m pretty sure it’s just before my next oncology appointment, so results will be in and we can discuss them. They are supposed to be scanning my head this time to make sure the cancer hasn’t travelled into my brain. Apart from the constant nausea, there doesn’t appear to be any symptoms to preclude cancer may be there but its always nice to get the ‘all clear’. So never fear, I shall update you once I get the results.

My girls and I are doing a breast cancer fundraiser here at home at the end of June. It will be like a mid winter Sweet Louise afternoon tea. May was what they call pink ribbon month. They advertise fundraising pink ribbon breakfasts and the money goes to the NZ breast Cancer Foundation for research and helping those with primary breast cancer. They do a tremendous job and the pink ribbon is so well known, but Sweet Louise is the only organisation which helps those of us with metastatic, secondary, terminal, advanced, incurable and any other word that describes it, breast cancer...those of us living and dying with it. 

So I wanted to raise funds for them and I so want people to know more anout who these wonderful 

people are. I’m looking really forward to it! We will also be celebrating the finishing of our back patio area where hubby has done an awesome job of putting up our patio blinds and enclosing it to 

keep dry!!!! We will have a wee bit of alcohol along with lots of nibbles and a few raffles. Haven’t had many people say they will come, so will have to push it a bit as it isn’t too far away and time gets away from us so quickly!

Oopsie, my eyes are starting to droop considerably so must be my queue for a nap. 

Wednesday 5th June 2019, 3.12pm

Bit of a catch up

Its Queens Birthday weekend, public holiday today - yay! I have been away in Sydney for the weekend, flying out early Friday morning and arriving back in NZ 11.30pm last night. I’ve decided I don’t like the travelling part, airport, putting baggage thru, going through customs, the actual flying itself but how else are you going to do it! Anyhow, I’ve had an amazing weekend away catching up with a very close friend. She follows my blog and always always sends me positive feedback once she reads it. She has mentioned to me maybe I should put this into a book form, but in actuality, she should be the one who writes because her writing is always so beautiful. The words flow beautifully. But we had a wonderful catch up, got a ton of things done and with wee rests in between for this nana who needs them. Awesome, awesome, awesome!

Its been a month since I last wrote which tells you its been a fairly quiet month, but thats great. I had another catch up with someone I care very much for. My cousin in law, she had driven up for a work conference and so we stayed at the hotel where her conference was being held and I went to work from there. My girls came and had dinner with us and then came home again. Another wonderful time catching up. 

I had my latest treatment Wed just gone. They had a hell of a time finding a vein, finally getting it on the fourth go. Little round plasters dotted all over my hand. 

Doesn’t help you can only use one of my hands. I think my next visit with the oncologist is next month. Hopefully they can confirm my CT scan appointment to check my brain. I am still feeling nauseous quite often, not necessarily just in the mornings either. The oncologist told me they thought it was due to the constipation I suffer from. But I have changed my eating habits slightly and the constipation seems to have disappeared, so why am I still feeling the nausea. They told me if it was due to cancer, its because the cancer will be in my brain, hence doing another CT scan. While I typed that, my gut kind of did a twirly filled with dread but I quickly try and make it go away. I can’t live in dread constantly. I’ve always lived the mantra, don’t worry until you have something to worry about. Most of the time anyhow. 

I am so proud of myself, I have been working from 8.30am to 4pm mostly. A couple of days I’ve had to leave early but weeks ago I was struggling to make it to 2pm. I wonder if it is the change of eating habits. Been cutting down on meat, dairy foods and eggs. I have felt a lot more awake, its been great. I was horrendously naughty this weekend, but what the hell - I was on holiday and enjoyed every mouthful! Back to basics this week...

Not too much else has been happening that I can remember. Time and live plods along as usual, moods are up and down. I think that is just a part of life. I think I’ve always been like this, I’ve probably always had a chemical imbalance like my dad jad, perhaps not quite so bad. Its just that I voice it here and you cop it. I often wonder if I should make this private but then it defeats part of the purpose of it and thats to keep family and friends who want to know, how I am doing. 

I have a three day working week which is absolutely delightful! I’ve had a super lazy day today resting up so I can be like a box budgies as my mum used to say (live ones at that!) at work tomorrow. 

The Sydney Harbour Bridge

My lovely friend & I ❤️

Monday 3rd June 2019 - 9.05pm