(Original title – Mudbloods and Murmurs)

The cancer life continues – I have had post-op review with my oncologist, bone scan, palliative care appointment for pain, and a bone and CT scan. I’ve been dealing with a lot of pain over the past six weeks or so, mostly at night when I lay down to go to sleep. So now I have a brand new prescription for morphine, which seems like fun. It’s now another two tablets a day on top of my letrozole, palbociclib, vitamin D, nexium, and maxolon. I rattle if you shake me, I swear.

I did a guilt-trip speech at work for their Australia’s Biggest Morning Tea in the last week of May to try to encourage people to donate more generously. Last time I did a speech at work I made everyone cry, and my goal this year was to avoid doing that unless it prompted them to open their wallets. It totally worked.

I also did a speech for a bunch of clinical psychologists at the Peter Mac to speak about my experience in the pilot program for Can-Sleep, a group therapy session aimed at curing or controlling insomnia. I haven’t really spoken about it before, but holy crap, if you experience insomnia, go and find a psychologist who specialises in sleep therapy. I’ve not slept so well in 25 years. That was 12 minutes of public speaking.

My CT was supposed to be done on the 31^st, but they managed to squeeze me in the afternoon after my bone scan, since I was there anyway. Maybe they felt sorry for me because a bone scan takes four hours in total. I went to a workshop at the Cancer Council where Dr Susan Carland was guest-speaking about headscarf styling. It was the first time I’ve been to the Cancer Council, which seems weird given I delivered a five minute speech at work all about them.

That day was a really weird day. I woke up with a migraine and knew I probably shouldn’t go out, but I reaaaaaally wanted to learn all the secrets of headscarves and wigs. And I managed to learn most of the secrets of headscarves before I had to duck out and go cough in the bathroom for a while. One of the staff members saw me into a taxi during the tea break, which was just in time for me to be violently ill. It’s the first time I’ve been sick like that in weeks, and it really came out of nowhere. Even now, I’m still fighting the migraine; it just won’t die. It’s been sitting in the exact same spot at the exact same level of pain for weeks now.

The other thing I have been focussed on has been getting my life insurance benefit paperwork completed and sent in so that I can begin planning and going on my trips. If I can get the money as soon as possible, the schedule is looking a little like this:

• July 2018 – Disneyland and Universal Studios in California, Vancouver, Chicago
• August 2018 – Broome (Space Gandalf’s stargazing), Darwin, Perth
• September 2018 – Japan (Tokyo Disneyland, Universal Studios Osaka)
• October 2018 – New York, Chicago, Niagara Falls
• November 2018 – Hong Kong Disneyland
• December 2018 – somewhere for a white Christmas
• January / February 2019 – Disneyworld Orlando, Jamaica, Las Vegas
• March 2019 – London, Scotland, Disneyland Paris, probably Iceland as well or maybe somewhere else in Europe

If I’m forced to go back to work in the meantime, I am totally screwed.

So I had the scans and submitted the paperwork for the insurance company, and my parents came over for my oncology appointment for which I had been expecting bad news. I’d been in so much pain prior to my morphine joy, and was bracing to hear that I had cancer everywhere, so it was a bit unexpected to be told that everything was stable and there was no new growth. My new drugs are totally doing what they’re supposed to be doing and holding it at bay. I was also given the all-clear for Disneyland in July, and for my tattoo in July (good blood results pending, of course).

I have an MRI on my abdomen and my braaaaaain on Monday to look forward to, and now I have nothing else to talk about so this post is done.