I need to stop doing some of the Harry Potter titles, my brain just can’t handle it at the moment, mostly because of fatigue. I swore after the writing workshop that I would write something at least once a month. Just because that was back in March and I’ve done maybe three updates since then… I don’t want to actually go back and look at it. It’s scary to think how quickly this year is passing. Another blink and it’ll be all gone, and then the roaring Twenties will be upon us again.

Hopefully without the war or recession, please.

This year just needs to get into the bin, and quickly. It’s been so awful, and so great, and heartbreaking. I have had adventures with friends, family, and by myself, and it’s been a really emotionally and personally rewarding year. Even still, it needs to go into the bin.

January I flew off to Perth to visit my friend Shelley, just floating around for a few days. I took my rental car on a massive drive to Wave Rock, which was smaller than expected but also so beautiful and calming. I headed to the USA a few days after Perth, and got sick after being drowned by rain at Disney World. I saw things that went into outer space at Kennedy Space Center which was incredible.

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February saw me go back to Jamaica and lay on a beach, drinking my way through Jamaica’s rum inside daiquiris and pina coladas. I saw some Hanson, and hit platinum status with Virgin Australia thanks to all of my business class flights around the world. I came back to Australia with Influenza A. My parents came to visit and we did a day trip to Puffing Billy, which they absolutely fucking loved. I knew they’d like it, but hadn’t expected them to completely love it the way they did.

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March had friends from New York come visiting. I saw my favourite Hanson show ever at Melbourne Zoo’s Twilight Sessions, where they played all killer, almost no filler. I went dancing at a 90’s night with Jodi which was a bit of a fizzer, I dogsat for the first time, and started training with my personal trainer. I also flew to Canberra and did the Melanoma March with Jane’s family, and had a great chat with Bec whom I hadn’t seen in forever.

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April was when I started tracking my fatigue, and talking with my oncologist about switching my medications. I started on duloxetine for anxiety and depression, because who wouldn’t be depressed and anxious when they’re going to die from cancer? My brother and I planned a last-minute trip across the Tasman to New Zealand, and caught up with friends in Christchurch that we met on the Contiki tour in 2018. We drove from Auckland to Queenstown. Yes, it was madness, and no, we didn’t get to see everything we wanted to see. But we did go ziplining across a canyon.

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May was my birthday month and the month of new loves. I had a lovely high tea with lady friends at Mary Eats Cake. I did a bit of a fundraiser for Love Your Sister and blew my goal out of the water, thanks to the generosity of my friend Belinda’s workmates and friends. She let me shave her head for it. I also adopted a kitten, LilyCat MurderPaws, and she quickly wormed her way into my heart harder than the ringworm on her tiny little fuzzy back. I floated in an isolation tank for the first time and fell in love with it so damn hard. I did a speech at my work’s Australia’s Biggest Morning Tea and conned a bunch more people to donate some red and yellow bank notes to the cause. I did my first pottery class too, which isn’t bad for someone who hates getting their hands dirty. I was also in hospital for breathing problems – I found out this was caused by hundreds of dead mice in the exhaust fan vent in my ensuite. We moved house a few weeks later.

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June was heartbreak month. Minou was put to sleep after giving her the best day a kitty could ever have, getting to do anything she wanted to. We moved to a different house at the end of our lease, a house plagued with problems and neglect that we hadn’t seen when we viewed it three times, including the fact that the landlord lived next door and let herself in without asking. I headed to Perth with my bestie to see Shelley and her bub.

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July had me jetsetting again, off to Canada to visit Zoe, Matthew and the #beavisbabies. I saw my friend Jodi sing for the first time as part of the MSO Choir. I met the Governor of Victoria and visited Government house for an afternoon tea to celebrate Peter Mac’s anniversary.

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August began with fireworks and a whale watching tour in Vancouver, desperately seeking orcas in the wild. It was a let down both times I went out on the boat but we did see humpback whales frolicking as they do, so it wasn’t a total loss. On my Topdeck tour around British Columbia, I met Fatemah who quickly became a good, close friend. We rode bikes from Jasper to Pyramid Lake and saw a grizzly bear munching on some berries by the side of the road. Brought the house down singing Shania Twain’s “Man, I Feel Like A Woman” at karaoke. Did a LOT of ziplining. Did not see a moose.

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September I acknowledged my cancer symptom awareness anniversary (2 years), I flew to Adelaide and made the most incredible masks from feathers, matching it into makeup. I kept a pretty low profile after the busy few months prior.

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October I went to my personal trainer’s gala night, and did not officially win best dressed, but won the peoples’ choice (in my opinion, and the opinion of the ladies polled in the bathroom afterwards). I saw a palliative care doctor to talk about getting cannabis oil prescribed, and paid $250 for a tiny 30ml bottle. Yeah. I made a killer fruit salad for Jane’s birthday, and enjoyed the afternoon laying in the shade talking to Roxy and Leonie. I ‘celebrated’ my Cancerversary with karaoke dressed as a cancer patient in a hospital gown, and was a real patient in Footscray hospital after I developed pericarditis symptoms out of the blue that didn’t show up on any scans or tests.

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November I found out I was going to become a published author with a contribution to Peter Mac’s Stories book (page 66). I baked a whole lot for Jasmin’s baby shower, attended a speed dating event that was enormous and messy, and started lessons playing the ukulele with the hospital’s Music Therapy program. My work situation was discussed and agreed in principle upon, making a huge weight of anxiety come off my shoulders. I will transition onto the disability pension, and pick up some casual work through my company, which my BossLady has so kindly managed to wrangle for me, on a super flexible, no deadline, do as I feel contract. Honestly, it’s like a dream, if your dream is to you know, actually work.. I got to see my baby cousin from Queensland when she came down for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, and I finally bought a sewing cabinet for my machine and threads and stuff, making life a whole lot easier.

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December I spent making some Christmas cards, decorated my house, and baked an awful lot. The stress of trying to see and catch up with people before the holiday break hit like a shovel. Christmas was actually a really calm and lovely affair. I made just the right amount of food for people who came over, I had very little leftover and all of it was eaten, with almost zero food waste. Score. I figured out a really cute way to wrap presents so now I want to be a professional giftwrapper FYI. Please give me your presents to wrap all year around. And my cousin finally popped and had her bubba boy, my tiny squishy little nephew Sebastian.

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Tonight, I have plans to eat some lasagne and some mini pavlovas with icecream, play some guitar and ukulele, and hopefully not cry about the fact that I will enter my fourth calendar year with cancer and everything is shit and I’m going to die.

Oh yeah, and I have brain tumours.

Happy New Year.

#toomanytattoostomention #cancerstrikesagain #twentytwentytattoosplenty