Postcard from the living.

Four seasons have come and passed us again.

Our kids have grown lankier, funnier, more creative. 

We’re still here.

I dreamt last night of the baby I lost and today I so dearly wanted to call you to talk about her.

But you are gone.

There’s an ache in my throat that just won’t go away.

You are gone. 

You are gone.

We’re still here.

Piecing ourselves back together after The Shattering.

One year on.

The Missing, it stings.

Even when The Living is sweet.

Wishing you were here Rach. 

Poachers Pantry

This time five years ago my world was flipped on its head with my breast cancer diagnosis.

I’d turned 36 two days before and suddenly I wasn’t able to see myself making it to 40. It was a fiercely frightening time. But thanks to the hell that is cancer treatment and sheer dumb luck, I’m still here, very much alive at the ripe old age of 41. And so...to celebrate my birthday and simultaneously flip the bird at cancer, we took a drive out to Poachers Pantry this morning for a spot of brunch.

Its been a few years between visits and the cafe has undergone a bit of a transformation in that time...it was lovely before but its grown into a really gorgeous space including a thriving kitchen garden. 

Brunch was as divine as ever...

To the boys great excitement two helicopters landed in the nearby paddock. They were delivering a few patrons to the cafe...as you do. We went and had a sticky beak at the choppers after eating...as we do. 

Then we continued stickybeaking about the property for a bit before heading back down the tree lined drive toward home.

Such a beautiful morning. I’m so grateful to be here to enjoy it with my Littles and my Love and I’m certainly not going to leave it so long to get back to this gorgeous place. 

Xx Em

A Lanyon Farewell.

It's been six long months since my last post. 

I well and truly lost my blogging mojo due to our frenetic pace of life last year. 

But today it came back.

 Today was my best friend's funeral. 

Today, I want to capture the memory of this beautiful creature and share it with the world.

I first met Rach 21 years ago at the church we both attended. Ours was merely an acquaintance back then which was to be expected given the five year age gap. Fast forward almost two decades later. A mutual friend reconnected us when Rach and her husband moved to Canberra on an army posting. I remember how Rach and I clicked immediately on her first visit to my place. We had a wonderful conversation amid the territorial roars emanating from Jack's room. The kids took a little longer to warm to each other that day but eventually they sorted out the pecking order and became fast friends. The fact that faith was still very much at the core of Rach's life but no longer in mine had little bearing on our friendship. We shared a mutual respect for our alternate beliefs and focused on our shared experiences of motherhood.

Her friendship came at a time when I was enduring my second mastectomy and I found her joyful personality and generous spirit so uplifting. We had weekly playdates with our Littles and spent many mornings at Lanyon Homestead, Cotter Dam and various museums and parks around Canberra.

Rach always came armed with crazy strong coffee, a big hug and enough food to feed an army.

We shared all the frustrations, joys and absurdities of motherhood together and it was lovely.

We had so much in common but I never expected to share the same oncologist with Rach.
My darling friend was diagnosed with a rare and extremely aggressive ovarian cancer in 2015. It was an odd experience going back to the chemo room at Canberra Hospital to sit with Rach instead of receiving treatment myself. I was glad that I could draw on my own experience and help look after the kids or be a sounding board when chemo got rough. Things looked positive for a little while and Rach made plans for the family to join Steve on his overseas posting. The day before they were due to fly out she received the news that the cancer had returned and everything was put on hold. They settled in Brisbane to be close to family and a new treatment began. She did everything she possibly could to survive the wretched disease. Her poor body bore the brunt of extreme surgeries and several types of chemo until it just couldn't bounce back anymore. Despite the horror show that played out...she held her head high, kept faith and imparted an immense amount of joy to everyone she came into contact with. She remained the arch nurturer, putting everyone else's welfare before her own.

I flew up to Brisbane a few weeks ago to spend a night with Rach in her room on the palliative care ward. I wish I could express how much of a privilege it was to have that time with her.

My darling friend was in her final weeks and her body was so utterly broken. It was by no means the first time I'd seen a friend in the final stage of cancer, but it was the most heartbreaking. 

It was a privilege to wake whenever she stirred through the night, to help her to the bathroom, chase up pain relief, rub her feet and cool her forehead with a cloth to ease her fever. In the early hours of the morning when she had moments of lucidity we talked about her New Zealand holiday and seeing Adele in concert. The morphine caused her to talk in her sleep and most of the time it was her kids she was talking to. In those pre-dawn hours she woke from a dream in which she wasn't dying. It tore me to pieces when reality dawned on her and she sobbed in my arms. We cried together about the injustice of it all and how agonizing it was for her to not be around for Addy and Dunc as they grew up. She asked me how many days she had left, to which I said not many. She didn't want to leave everyone, most of all Steve and the kids, but she'd had enough of the incessant pain and was ready to let go.

In the morning, Rach's very dear friend Jules arrived. It was so good to finally meet her in person and so very special to spend that time together. We wrote in birthday cards for the kids when Rach no longer had the strength to do it herself. It was beyond precious and it's something I will never forget.

The time came for me to say my final goodbye. It was so very, very hard to walk out of that room.

 I am so grateful to have had those precious 24hrs with her and say all we wanted to say to each other.

I got the call from Rach's mum 10 days later to say that Rach had passed away peacefully in her sleep. I was home alone at the time and I cried inconsolably for the rest of the day.

I made the decision not to go back to Queensland for the funeral. Out of all the friends I've lost to cancer in the last few years, Rach's death has been the most devastating. I decided instead to go to Lanyon, our favourite place here in Canberra, and have my own private memorial for her.

Lanyon was shrouded in fog when I arrived this morning.

At the time that her funeral was scheduled to start, the fog lifted and the homestead was bathed in brilliant sunshine. So very, very Rach!

I sat with a coffee under the large oak tree where our kids used to make little camp fires out of sticks.

I soaked up the peaceful atmosphere and slowly wandered about the gardens and paddocks photographing everything that was beautiful and beloved to Rach.

At the end of the gravel walk I looked at the view of the gardens and the homestead beyond and had a quiet cry, remembering her, missing her.

I bought a seedling from the little plant stall by the front gate.

It reminded me of the Autumn Plant Fair we went to a couple of years ago with the kids and all the fun we'd had that day. A fitting way to remember my darling friend who adored having her own patch of dirt to grow things in.

She's gone now but her legacy of love and compassion will live on in the people who knew her.
I know that Steve and the kids will somehow get through this awful time with the support of family and friends but I wish to goodness that they didn't have to. I'm a better person for knowing Rach and I'm incredibly grateful for her friendship.

Farewell my beautiful friend.
Sleep tight.

xx Em.

Order and anarchy.

 

The Anarchy

 

I haven't posted about it before but I recently made the decision to stop the hormone therapy I've been on for the past two and a half years. It was a very hard decision to make and it took me six months to make it, but in the end, quality of life trumped quantity. I was supposed to take Tamoxifen for ten years to reduce the risk of cancer returning but the side effects of chemically induced menopause on my late-thirties body was just too much.

 

Since starting Tamoxifen I've gained almost twenty kilos; battled extreme fatigue and depression; had frightening bouts of vertigo and prolonged headaches; struggled with short term memory loss, night sweats and intense hot flushes that had me at my wits end. I became dependent on anti-depressants to help negate some of the side effects of the tamoxifen but that came with its own issues, affecting my blood pressure if I didn't take it at the exact same time every day.

 

My oncologist will have a pink fit when I tell her at my next check up in May. But truth be told, I just don't care. It was obvious at my last appointment that the quality of my post chemo life is of no consequence. I appreciate that my onc treats far too many who won't see remission, but when she couldn't take thirty seconds to glance at my notes and at least remind herself that I'd had a double mastectomy, I began to wonder why I'd bothered to turn up at all. The final straw that spurred me to re-evaluate my treatment options was when I explained that my fatigue was so bad I could barely get through each day. My oncologist responded with "Well, that's just life with small kids isn't it".

Given what I had been through during surgery, chemo and radiation that remark was incredibly insulting. I'm not the type to whine about my situation, I've worked hard to stay positive, even during the blackest times of cancer treatment and I know the difference between the 'normal' fatigue of life with small kids and the kind of fatigue that renders one useless.

 

That swift dismissal spurred me to think hard about how I want to live.

 

And the thing is, I really want to live, not just exist.

 

I don't want to spend the next eight years living a poorly functioning existence and ending up morbidly obese and severely depressed. I've reached my cancer treatment saturation point. Everyone has one...this is mine.

 

So, I'm having regular check ups with my GP who has a genuine interest in my wellbeing. Together we will make a plan to help me regain my health. My energy levels have already improved and my weight has stabilised in the few weeks that I've been off Tamoxifen. No more hot flushes or headaches either. I'm slowly weaning off the anti-depressants and aim to drop back down to my healthy weight by the end of this year.

 

I don't know if cancer will come back. There was no guarantee when I was on hormone therapy and there's none now. I guess that's life though isn't it...full of uncertainties. I'd rather not dwell on the what ifs and throw myself into living in the now, mothering my boys, loving my husband, being a friend, being creative, working hard and enjoying being alive.

 

 

The Order

 

In contrast to the chaos of hormone therapy, I've got a new project to work on when I'm not busy with Puddleducklane or the kids. Sprucing up the house one room at a time. Now that my energy is back I'm sorting out cupboards, designing better storage, jazzing up the interior and giving the house a pre-Autumn clean. It feels great for a neat freak like myself to de-clutter.

This week, in between playing nurse to my croupy four yr old, I've started sorting out the kitchen by labelling the recycled coffee jars that store all manner of dry goods.

 

 

Feels good to sort things out don't you think?

 

xx Em

 

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