Do you know what I am terrible at? Updating. I am so awful at it. I think this year has been quarantined away from me, because I cannot even begin to think where it has gone. It’s just gone.

My last update was in February, and I am truly sorry that I didn’t update again sooner. In the months that have passed, I have really just been focussing on me, but not in the “Rebel Wilson’s Year of Health” kind of way. I have dropped weight (12kg and counting) and managed to keep it off for the last 12 months, but that’s purely due to cancer. Okay, okay, my exercise physiologist and personal trainer were there to keep me motivated and give me the push I needed for a bit too. But we moved out to the very border of the Melbourne metropolitan area and driving 35 minutes each way to see someone for 30 – 60 minutes, then be sweaty and drive all the way back home just seemed to be silly.

In all truth and honesty, I’ve been struggling, but so has everybody. The lockdowns have not been easy, and this most recent one to Stage 4 restrictions in Melbourne has been the toughest on us all. We all knew it was coming and just a matter of time before it was announced, and I knew I wouldn’t cope being stuck at home with only a cat and a brother allergic to social contact, and escaped to SA. I am so grateful to everyone who, when I floated the idea at them to heading to Adelaide, said “good,” and “hurry up and fucking go already.”

These past few months, I have been working, and grateful for the additional income to supplement my pension and keep me living in the style to which I have become accustomed. I have been treated with radiation. I have changed my CDK4/6 inhibitor medication. I have been scanned and poked and prodded and radiated and had a doctor put his finger up my bottom to check my anal tone (I checked he had small fingers first). I haven’t written about any of this because I am exhausted mentally. I think I’m feeling cancer burn out. And if I keep to the theme of telling the truth here and now, I feel that because I look “healthy” (thanks, 20kg overweight), and I can function mostly through fatigue (thanks, switching to decaf tea in the afternoons), that talking about the inner, utter exhaustion that is cancer eating all of my additional energy that I have is in some ways wrong. Honestly, I feel like some people forget I’m even as affected as I am.

I feel that talking about my issues during lockdown is saying that I struggle more than the average person out there during this time. We all have our own things we’ve been going through. One thing I will talk about that’s been happening is that I had radiation to my spine while I was in Adelaide, about a week or so before I drove back. I have a new tattoo on my groin which I guess is a new pickup line for me now, right? They did the same sort of treatment I had to my brain earlier in the year, in that they blasted me with five sessions of radiation in the one session. I’ve been expecting to find red patches on my belly or my back from the rads but there’s been nothing (which is good because I did not do nearly enough aftercare. I promise I’ll be better next time I need it, I swear). I spent the night in emergency while I was there with pain that made no sense on scans. I’d already had two increases in my pain control meds and was heading for a third in three months if I hadn’t had radiation. I’m glad it was suggested finally, because it was getting seriously bad there.

Anybody who lives with chronic pain knows, it never goes away. It can be controlled for a while but eventually breaks through. The trick is to stay on top of it and don’t let it break through. I’ve stopped being so medication-averse when it comes to my back pain. If I let it go above a low hum (like a 2-3 out of 10) it eventually it starts affecting my mood and fatigue and appetite and will to live, essentially. Unfortunately for me, pain is relative and trying to explain that yes, I have a high pain tolerance but I’m presenting to emergency because the pain is so intense I’m barely able to get my words out clearly, and no, I haven’t actively injured it, it’s just broken through inexplicably – it’s really hard to explain, I’m telling you. A small handful of my friends get it, and a small handful of medical professionals get it. If I’m complaining about something, it’s worth complaining about.

So it’s looking like the end of my year is pretty clear for the moment. I have scans tomorrow afternoon, then breast-oncology on the 28^th of October. There’s some more scans again in December because the 3-monthly schedule pays no mind to Christmas. So before my dad can get around to telling everyone I’m going to Adelaide for Christmas, I am in fact, not – I need to be here for my nephew’s first birthday. And then there’s Jeanie’s first birthday a week and a bit after that, so I’m sticking around the end of the year in Melbourne. I might go to a local fireworks if there’s anything going on in the area and Covid behaves.

I haven’t forgotten about the possum skin project – that will be sorted out once restrictions ease with high priority.

What are peoples’ plans for when Stage 4 lifts and we can start socialising again? Talk to me about fun things please.