If no news was good news life would be so wonderful. I have paperwork in for both operations in two different Sydney hospitals now with a pre-admission interview on the 11th for the aneurysm clipping operation. I know you all know the importance of this operation as it will save me having a stroke, at least that is the way I am choosing to look at it. With a good surgeon and a lot of prayers it should be fine. I am not looking forward to it but I am no longer afraid of it.
We have ju
I had five days in hospital and got home late Friday afternoon. It was so good to be home. I went to hospital because I got cellulitis in my melanoma affected leg. It was my own fault, I scratched an insect bite and set up a bacterial reaction. Without the protection of lymph nodes to fight off the infection spread and on Monday I realised I was in trouble. I consulted my doctor and then rang the Melanoma clinic and following their advice finished up in the local hospital. Needless to say that
It is always hard to wave goodbye to Trevor and Alice. They live so far away and with all my medical woes I won't be going out to Broken Hill for a while. But we had a good week, no big dramas with Alice settling in. Not as much time together as usual as they went down to Sydney for two full days, one to Taronga Zoo and one to the Royal Easter Show where they met up with the cousins, Tori, Alex and Oliver. Alice is very close to Oliver who treats her as his little sister so she follows him aro
I went to the throat specialist, he said the thyroid operation was the way to go but probably the right side of the thyroid removed would be sufficient. I don't know how I feel about that. Anyway I agreed and now await an operation date, probably in May. He also asked me if I wanted to have the brain aneurysm surgery first but as the thyroid is the lesser recovery time I said let's do it first. This may be the wrong decision but I hope not. I really miss having someone else who can help me make
I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer this morning, my melanoma specialist Prof Saw will find me a throat specialist who can see me locally but who operates in one of the Sydney hospitals. Then the throat specialist will liaise with the neurosurgeon who wants to operate now on my brain aneurysm to see who gets to operate first. Not a good day.
I wrote that to a few friends yesterday. I was in shock, I had gone to the doctor to discuss some options and he read out the biopsy report and
I have a lot to be thankful for. My daughter Shirley took me to see the specialist in Sydney today. Luckily the heat of yesterday was replaced by drizzly rain but as usual that just made the traffic worse and so our two hour journey took half an hour longer. I know why I love my part of the coast so much, it is because I would much rather listen to the sound of waves rolling in to shore than the sound of squealing brakes and the horns of impatient drivers. Or park by the lake instead of t
Every now and again something jolts me back to reality, today it was the post on Facebook by Steve Mallory announcing that our friend Denny (Dennis Jeffries) had died. Denny and I talked frequently during my years when he was a chat host on Survivor Chat and I was chat host for Caregiver Chat. He was also my friend on Facebook. Like so many of my friends on Facebook and Strokenet we never got to meet in person but nonetheless we were friends. In this modern age this will be so for many of our fr
Tracy wrote in a reply to Janelle that it is hard to get her head around the fact that we in the southern hemisphere are in summer and a hot one at that. It makes the Christmas we have very different from what most of our readers are experiencing. And it is hard to imagine unless you can think of the Fourth of July and Christmas coming together. Then add mosquitoes, bush fires, heatstroke and crowds of people flocking to your town from the nearest big city and you are starting to get a picture o
On the whole I think I cope with being a widow pretty well. But as soon as the warmer nights start we have noises outside. As a widow and even before when Ray was living here still but was unable to get quickly out of bed I am the one who goes off to investigate. It may be possums on the roof, dogs overturning the bins out on the road or a group of noisy teens coming home from a party, rarely is it something life threatening. Sometimes I just don't see the cause and I might go back to bed and wo
Last weekend was the Women's weekend of the Stroke Support group WAGS, I think my 10th full weekend although I have sometimes
just gone to the Friday or Saturday night, depending on the circumstances. I remember one year I got my older son to look after Ray so just went from lunchtime Saturday until after the dinner. Of course the past six years I have gone as a widow. I shared with another younger widow this year as I did last year. She is only mid-fifties and still has children in her car
We have just had one of the hottest November days for decades. What a difference a couple of weeks can make. The weather was still fairly wintery when I went out by train to Armidale one of our little inland cities to stay with family friends. The days were warm but the nights were cold and I was glad of the couple of blankets and heavier cover. Then one morning what looked like heavy snow clouds blocked out the sun and it really was cold so on went the winter weight jeans and jacket. I was glad
I just had a few days with my daughter and family, it was nice to catch up with the grandkids as I hadn't seen them since May. My grandson was busy studying as he starts his exams on Thursday. These are the last of his Year Twelve exams and give him his final score important for future employment and access to University entry. He is very focussed but I could see an element of panic which is quite common at this time. My grandaughter is still three years away from that stressful time. She is a
Sometimes I take the hard decisions and accompany someone on the journey to death. It is something that I was trained to do as part of my Chaplaincy training. This time it was more difficult though as it was someone I knew well, the man I went out with for a while. Lyn and I broke up in November 2016 and four months later started a friendship that lasted till last Thursday when he died. He had twelve weeks in hospital and it was hard to see him slowly deteriorate and probably during the last two
I went to see the neurosurgeon on Tuesday. I was interviewed by a young Asian associate doctor and sent for a 3D MRI and angiogram, a brand new way of showing the blood supply within the brain. The results were given to me by the associate and then I saw the specialist. It appears the aneurysm is larger and deeper than previously thought but at my age they are not going to operate as it would mean a full brain surgery. Coiling, one method of dealing with an aneurysm, is not an option. I think I
Just plodding along, hoping for better days. I have a head cold so feeling down and this is another of those times when I want to scream: "Where is the person who is supposed to take care of me?". It is hard not to feel resentment after looking after Ray for so many years. I seem to have few days like this in winter every year. Yes, it is hard to be on my own when I am feeling sad and shaky but there are no money back guarantees in life and I have to remember that. I can please myself when I go
Once a year the Stroke Club I belong to gets together with four other clubs and we have morning tea with a guest speaker. Today instead we had a group survey as a charity fund has given a donation so that the Sydney based group can supply two coordinators to help the other groups extend their services. It is a great idea and addresses the problem of resource poor clubs going out of business for lack of new members. Our club is a flagship club as we have a lot of people sent to us by medical prof
I am surviving winter, in five or six weeks Spring will be here. This has been a cold winter but today was mild and most people seemed to appreciate the day, even saw some out in short sleeves. I am in my busy week, hospital visit today, birthday morning tea tomorrow, church women's meeting on Friday I still like to be busy just not too busy.
I have started a new course called " Better Heath - Self Management" It is a free course, a government health initiative to tell us to meditat
It is the colder, darker part of winter. Rainy days have been and gone, now it is blue skies but bitter winds. This mix is the setting for my usual dose of mid-winter blues. I haven't had any visitors for a while now, just a few phone calls, the ones I dislike are the ones telling me that another dear old soul from church is in hospital with a broken arm or hip or a bad dose of flu. I want to scream: " Give me some good news." But good news is in short supply.
My daughter has been
I have just been to Broken Hill for a week with Trevor, it is cool and dry inland so on the sunny afternoons
I sat on his verandah and read and I'm always happy to do that. When he and his girlfriend were available (they are both busy doing training courses) we went places, some new, some old favourites. On my birthday we went to Silverton, a former mining town now a popular place for artists and went to a couple of galleries. There are some wonderful paintings of that wild desert country
This afternoon I went to the Lymphoedema Clinic for the first time, I was anticipating getting some of my most pressing questions answered. I had done what everyone does, gone to Dr Google for my answers about the relationship between lymph node dissection and lymphoedema. Most of what I found related to breast cancer but that is understandable as the breast cancer girls pioneered the use of lymph node surgery. I am very grateful for that and the surgeons who pioneered the treatment.
From time to time I have a melt down, at five years out from Ray's death it is not frequent but sometimes intense. Tonight I was watching a travel program and there they are, that older couple walking hand in hand along a beach and before I knew it I have tears streaming down my cheeks. Darn! I don't want to feel like this, like I am lost and alone and yes even deserted and abandoned because that's what being a widow feels like sometimes. As if that special person who like you said "till death u
I had my operation to remove my lymph nodes on the left side of my trunk seven weeks ago, now I am finally healing. With my usual routine unavailable I was glad I found a few new things to do. I also had a lot of visitors, some of whom had never been to my house before. I am not a very tidy person and was a bit worried that some of my friends might judge me on that. I soon realised that most of the people I call my friends love me just the way I am, a very comforting thought.
One
My blog has been since 2006 a partial record of my life, fiirst as a caregiver and now as a widow I have never worried about what I wrote or who read it as it is a personal journal but one that might always resonate with others. Sometimes it is like a holiday journal, it may be about my family or what is happening in my life, I don't think it matters. The benefits have been that I have had a way of recording what is happening from a personal point of view.
I am now 70 and for the pa
I'm back home again after five days in hospital. I still have a lot of healing to do but it is nice to be home. I had a good sleep last night, the first in a week, it is great to be back in my own bed again. I wasn't in the Melanoma Unit this time so learned a lot about other forms of cancer. Whenever I feel sorry for myself I need to remember there are a lot of suffering people in the world dealing with whatever life has thrown at them as well as they can and be glad I have the power to overcom
Today was another two medical tests, one more to come on Monday and then a week without - me time. Church events start up this week too. Coffee and Playtime on Friday morning so it will be good to hear what the little ones have been up to through the holidays. I have seen several of the families shopping through the Christmas period so have not entirely lost contact. There may be some new families too as some of the little ones leave to go to school or preschool, others come to take their place.
