3 weeks since my last entry – SO MUCH TO talk about including I have bigger things than that to worry about...

yes i have bigger things to deal with than some of the stuff i'm hearing around me including work related stuff - so im taking time off! YAY!

I’m exhausted…I found my adopted brother AND andd Bootcamp and Angels in my life!

·      One thing i've learned - i'm not taking crap from people and i'm not going to get stressed by them. 

·       I find ppl are so precious now, the way you speak, reading out of context, needy, judgemental and completely oblivious to the things some poeple are having to deal with right now. But how do you teach them? I tend to leave my bald head shwoing and wear my cancer ribbon and plaster a massive smile on my face sot when they see me....i hope they feel something resembling....shame! 

I feel surrounded by cancer right now. Everything around me seems to remind me I have it. How have I lasted months without feeling this yet? I go to the bathroom and I remember…shit I have cancer. How did this happen to ME…I don’t get cancer….34 year olds shouldn’t have to worry about this. Old people get cancer. But the word is everywhere. It’s making the end of my treatment really difficult because I’m thinking about cancer and me 24/7 where I wasn’t before now. I'm trying to distance myself from negative behaviour right now because I’m mentally/physiologically suffering and I have no idea how to handle it. I’m going to have to find inspiration somewhere externally outside myself, books and online blogs/websites. I feel like people are just sucking energy out of me.

I tell you, if I can give you one piece of advice, refocus yourself on having real conversations. The amount of conversations I’ve had where half way through I wish I had the balls to say…”dude just get to the point” or “I have bigger things to deal with…can I have a sleep while you continue on talking about nothing important?” And I don’t mean to be mean.

Exhausted 25^th May – 4 hours’ sleep, eyes are shocking, emotional at why this even happened, I think I’m only now reacting to ‘you have cancer’ news. This is weird I’m only now getting emotional and physically over everything, and over having to do all these blood test and Dr appointments, extra scans, dr appointments, lung function tests and balancing everything!

What’s now keeping me going is the Bootcamp and my Aunty Mieke and Ngaire visiting me and helping with the Bootcamp. Other than that I want this experience over with.  OG I’m so emotionally broken now. I’m starting to break.

28^th May – Bootcamp is here what an amazing and exciting success amazing, the people involved and amazing effort by Deltafit and Frankie’s friends (fitness first trainers but their own time). MMM Catering gave the food at ahuge discount. My ANZ regional director donated $300 of his own money pretty much on behalf of the company due to internal policy meaning we can’t donate to these kind of things. What an amazing human being and human spirit. We raised a total of $1120 making it over $5k in total, crazy insane amazing amount of money i never thought i'd raise.

After the bootcamp I spent 2 hours finding an organisation who would take our leftover food, in the end OzHarvest picked it up and donated to the needy/homeless shelters in Sydney. I had to have an injection for low immunity.

  

I’ve hit my limit…emotionally and physically I’m just tired. Mentally…I’m done! So I’ve decided to take time away from work finally and will entirely switch off from it. I’m deadly serious about NO emails, none. Everything is just for me right now.

1^st June, met Maddie from Leukaemia Foundation for a chat finally, felt it was too late but she assured me it’s never too late. It was an hour of pure passion from her, interest in me, I felt comfortable, I wish I’d had her months previous but I feel like I’m going to need her more than ever now. We have set up another appointment for june to chat. She sent me 40 leukaemia foundation green ribbons, bless her as this will come in very handy for something I have planned J

Can I throw in randomly my vic colleague and friend suggested I drink a green smoothy to get through…. Hahaha I love this because it feels like if I just did this, I’d be cured forever! HAHAHAH love you Claire.

Suddenly, noise is doing my head in people talking too much, I need to not talk – I think my absence from work will do wonders for this alone, no having to TALK to people.

On Friday night 3^rd June Gary and I had dinner with our PT trainer Sun and the gym girls which we almost didn’t make, we decided to take the train to Eastwood Sydney, but half way I felt so horrible we almost turned back, I had no intention of speaking to anyone so we sat at the end of the table. But Sun had planned this orange/pink dress code because they were my favourite colours and even though this was a dinner for someone else b’day not me, she made something special for me. I wore an orange dress, gGary wore an orange polo and everyone had something orange/pink on. One I got there and started chatted I sat at the end of the table with a bottle of BYO red and before long I was loving the entire night. Got back to the city and had a couple of drinks with Gary and cried the entire time J thinking back…I have no idea what I was crying about but Gary was amazing.

Stop telling me I look so great I am sorry but will people stop telling me I look good. I’m starting to think I need to just slap people now. That’s a TV campaign right there….stop telling people going through poisoning cancer treatment they look good and just give them a coffee or muffin with chocolate. That’s more valuable than your stupid words you think are helping.

I have decided if was prime minister that I would create more leave opportunity for people going through this type of serious treatment, I have now been using unpaid leave at work now for quite a while, sick leave exhausted and keeping annual PTO for future holidays planned – something should be available for people going through this type of thing. I actually suggested to my HR Director that I use maternity leave because I’m never having kids, she took me seriously and raised it with my manager in all seriousness. Opps. I was justjoking (kind of not really but oh well)

Can’t sleep – I can’t sleep all of a sudden.

Intense pain in body with shooting pains, I’m crying every couple of hours with this, just nerve pain so endone and lyrica are helping but it’s a reminder hourly that I’m living a new normal.

6/6/16 - Oma in hospital I found out my 99 year old Oma (Dutch Grandma) is in hospital with a broken bone in her hip from a fall – we have just booked flights to go there for her 100^th birthday in Jan2017 but now is the dilemma that if something happens do I get on a plane?

6/6/16 – Lung function check up  I saw DrTimmonds today after a lung function test and she said it all looks good on the lates CT scan but my lungs are struggling with transporting the protein around on the lung function test. She things I’ll recover but suggested take it super easy! And see her again in a few months.

7/7/16 Tonight Sez came with me and we saw the Andy Whitfield Story ‘Be Here Now’ – thy could support the charities hugely if they sold tissues at the theatre door.

Chemo#11 – feeling sick on way to airport, purpose of trip is to switch off relax, enjoy time with sarah, give back time and friendship to sez who helped me through a lot. #11 present CHEMOTHERAP… a new Nexus 5X Phone. Sooooo love it! Thank you beautiful and thoughtful husband.

Funny, sez said to me ‘I don’t think I’ve ever asked you how you are” to which I responded, you never got the chance I told you everytime I spoke to you. Gary and Sez are probably the only 2 people I’ve been honest and open with to the dirtiest of details.

Leaving gary in ‘stressmode level EXPLODE’ and happy to be getting away from the norm. Routine. Sadface atmosphere it can be in the city sometimes. I see it every time I walk through the city, unless you are surrounded by tourists, the faces of people are either dismal, numb, on a mission don’t get in my way or you cant see it because it’s looking at a phone in front of them which you have to dodge not taking them out by moving sideways cleverly last minute amongst the other people looking at their phone.

I always get paranoid on the train which I get every chemo to st Leonards. They look at me a like I either am contagious or ‘what the fuck would someone dye their hair bright pink?’ I feel sorry for them actually. Just accept everyone. We all have a story – well that’s what SBS says J or i need to stop reading into it so much. Although I remember last year I dyed my hair light pink, inspiration from Ke$ha. My boss was horrified, I think she expected my work ethic would change…its just HAIR! More important things people!

So I’m on a flight to Perth right now, by now Facebook is showing 3 posts, me in Qantas business lounge with sez drinking a red after chemotherapy. Upset because Gary was so tied up in work I had to kiss him goodbye while on a work call,

Kelly and Antonio. My Qantas homies, as always, Qantas bring out the best in business class – adding in lay flat bed I might use if the wine runs out J or my energy runs out first J I hate watching moves on flights, I get bored, feel like it’s a waste of time when I have music to listen and be inspired by!

Music is a combination of Q playlist – (country of course) and my mp3 player.

Keith Urban – ol’ fav and always good for inspiration on some level. “These are the days” from the Gravity Album. Lyrics like this that inspire me “Life’s for living child can’t you see, these are the days we will remember, these are the days that won’t come again, the highest of flames become an amber, and you’ve gotta live them while you can…drums and guitar getting faster………these are the days we will rememberrrrrrrrrrr! Woohooooooooooo. (Mez looks out of plane window inspired, teary,

“Take them by the hand don’t let them walk right by. DAYS GO BY! “

Almost ALL of my inspiration before and after ‘chemo days’ that’s by new marker in life….before and after chemo….circa 2016! The year I lived, nearly died, met amazing people, re-found people, fell more in love with my husband, found out my dad is the best person I know!

So chemo was amazing today. My husband left his super stressful and horrible day after flying back from Melbourne in the morning exhausted, and came to chemo because I asked him to. I’d done so many chemos alone that I was over it. I wanted my last two chemo sessions to be meaningful with the people I want there. AND so excited and inspired every damn SECOND with – Martin Gillespie – my new big bro. I don’t have a brother so he is IT! And…am I inspired. This man came into my life thanks to Ruth my beautiful friend I am also utterly inspired by with fitness, passion, brightness, energy, love and what a big smile every time I see her Northern English face! She introduced Martin to me a few weeks ago to and he has filled my heart with so much hope and drive to get through these few weeks and beyond. I wish I knew him 6 months ago! I can be so honest with him and no judgement but understands every word I say of this journey…

OMG….. John Denver is now on my Q playlist. “Country Road…take me home…” currently using my Qantas napkin as a tissue.

So guys, I’m happy, smiling and energised to get through 2 weeks before I’m done with this shitty chemotherapy – one to go, its poison through my veins and making my life all about some horrible stupid disease I shouldn’t have, I DON’T deserve and who knows why i got it. Who cares I guess.

Now I’ve arrived for my girl’s weekend and Sez is on another flight from Sydney on Jetstar so I’m waiting for her in the lounge before we venture to her friends for a bed for the night. I don’t need any type of sleeping tablets tonight I am definite. 

It was a long blog but important things have happened and will happen in the coming weeks. Mentally a tough couple of weeks. Physically touch...but no work will make all the difference. 

I am blessed in many ways..a few pics for you on this one. 

Getting my immune booster for white blood cell count

Dark hair moment in May