Thoughts about being blown a little off course

January 30th.......'With Thanks..'

I think Gary is probably as relieved as I am that I have finished my 'colouring' and that it wasn' as bad as he feared. Thanks to him I've been looked after well and haven't had much to worry about. So a big hug and thank you Gary for cooking, cleaning, shopping, driving, making endless cups of tea, giving me hugs and putting up with the heating on full! Thanks to to everybody else who has kept in touch via this blog. I have found it fun to do and it did help, as I hoped at the beginning, to give me a focus during the past few months. Now that I have come to the end of 'gold' I am going to stop writing as much as I'm not so sure there is something to say every day! Instead I'm going to add a post once every week so I can hopefully still keep in touch with you all? I will be taking my laptop with me [of course!] to Victoria and so will have more to say from there. So watch this space but just not quite so often.

The blog has spurred me on though and I have been happy to receive such positive responses and feedback about it from you. I have been collecting my thoughts and notes for some writing for the past few years and now that I am at home I want to commit some time to that. It is odd how situations can have an unexpected result as working full time I would never have come to realise that I do enjoy writing. 

A big thank you to all of you for your positive thoughts and encouragement.

January 29th.......'Through the door to....'

I feel as if I'm moving from one phase into another as I go through these three weeks. Mis piernas como jalea or  [les jambes branlant ] have sorted themselves out and I'm feeling stronger. I'm so used to telling people, 'I'm 'doing the chemo thing' that I'm a bit lost as what to say to explain the tired, sunken eye look and assorted hats and wigs. I met two neighbours on my walk today, both doctors, and  both said I'd dealt with the colouring so well becuse of my positive attitude. It's interesting isn't it as to how much attitude does play a part and to hear one of them saying he felt it was 100% really surprised me. Even though I have finished my colouring, I'm still locked in for a three weekly visit to the local Cancer Clinic for Herceptin until November and my body has fallen into this familiar cycle. I half know what this next stage of radiation will be like but not really ......as I've said before ..no expectations, and so although friends have told me how it went for them I know that I'll be unique! 

This centuries old doorway was in the traditional village of Andong in Korea. 

January 28th......'Small and Insignificant.'

This week on TV I saw the lovely young actress Christina Applegate who, along with another actress Cynthia Nixon, has been walking the breast cancer road recently as did Sheryl Crow and Kylie Minogue a few years ago. All four of them have spoken out about their experiences and all look just as beautiful as they ever did. Such high profile celebrities do, I realise, make a tremendous impression on anyone else in the same position. That they should look so good is one thing, but that they should talk so matter of factly and positively to educate and demistify the whole thing for others not touched by it is quite another. I knew nothing of this whole new vocabulary up until a few months ago and, to put it in the jargon of second language teachers; Immersion is the only way to become bilingual! The more I meet and read about women who have done this before me the more I realise that I am small and insignificant in such a large number. I think that slowly fearful perceptions will change as people realise that, with all the wonderful care and medications available today, the treatments and prognosis are vastly improved. Apart from those who are famous, the others I know of are just as ordinary and small and insignificant as me. It is reassuring to know that they are no more privileged, stronger, healthier or different than myself and that this means that surely, if they can do this thing and look beautiful and smile at the end of being blown off course, then surely I can too.

So as well as Sheryl, Kylie, Cynthia and Christina I would like to thank those whom I know just in MY circle of friends and work colleagues. Aziza, Kathleen,Wendy, Robin, Lisa, Barbara, Sue, Pat, Sheila, Trudy,Tami, Patricia, Erika, Carol, Mary, Jenny, Di, Donna, Kate, Lynn, Louise, Linda, Shirley and Rosemary. [An alarming number! .......all save five have had breast cancer.] As well as this cohort of completers, I would like to send all my thoughts and encouragement to Karin, Pauline and Marj who are a little way behind me and to let them know that they too 'Should be so Lucky' like Kylie after all this .

The photo is of me looking small and insignificant next to a great big, luxuriant friendly Singapore tree. 

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQ3d3KigPQM&feature=channel This video is fun .......you see it's all in the power of numbers things are much more fun if you share them and get others involved!

January 27th....."Long Drive to Nowhere.'

I have been thinking of Australia and gold this week and so went burrowing in my photos to see what I could find! Two years ago we drove for hours and hours north of Perth in Western Australia, well going nowhere really. Miles and miles of straight road sandwiched between acacia trees, banksia bushes [like proteas] and bright red earth it was very reminiscent of South Africa. Absolutely nothing...nothing at all apart from the odd kangaroo. Even the fishing villages were hard to find as the road was 70 kms or so inland meaning it was a long way to even find a garage. After two days we came to deserted Nambung National Park with these unusual limestone rock formations left in a sea of golden sand, After seeing them we decided we really didn't want to drive north for another two days or more if there wasn't too much to see along the way, nor was there anything when we got there so we turned round and drove back to Perth!

It was odd being in that environment again; hot,dry,sunny,clear,endless and childless. The area around Perth is very like the eastern Cape in South Africa and has a similar surfer vibe.The hot dry air and sharp colours brought back our early days before children full of beaches,long long journeys on roads as straight as a rod with the loud noise of cicadas buzzing in the trees. It was good to feel that young again but depressing to realise that those days of hectic physical sports and activities were perhaps past! There is something wonderful about the air in that kind of environment; it is so dry it has a certain smell and the views so endless. Australia seemed to me to be a huge dry continent... golden red in colour with so so much sand. How different to my view here today with its cold damp wet air! 

January 26th.....The End of the Rainbow.'

So ....this is where the end of the rainbow is; as seen a few weeks ago from Victoria's balcony in the suburb of Tamarama, Sydney and this is also where Toby will have arrived today so maybe he'll find my pot of gold for me in that apartment block! I've been holding onto this photo until I had finished my own rainbow.

In the words of Dolly Parton!

 'The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain."

Happy Birthday and thanks to Victoria for remembering me and all the photos she sends my way making me just a teenie bit envious about her summer time Sydney sun...enjoy it Toby!

 

January 25th......'Still in the Fog.'

Thanks to The Vancouver Sun for this rather otherworldly photo of a golden sunrise over Vancouver this week. It was taken from the top of Cypress Mountain looking down over the city. For the past two weeks down at sea level we have all been hidden in fog, whilst the skiers above have been enjoying some extraordinary views. Usually we talk about having our head in the clouds but not this time. I've written before about Vancouver's good bones but this endless fog is unusual and has been hiding most of them. As a treat for getting through my 'colouring book', I have bought two tickets for Carmen in Vancouver in a couple of weeks. I'm not sure if it will be a treat for Gary but I've never been to an opera and think it's about time!

I feel as if I'm a little bit in transition now as I wait for the next phase. I have heard from the Cancer Clinic in Victoria about what happens next and I will be starting my radiation on February 17th. As with the colours, it seems I'm going for the record and have a long stretch of over six weeks finishing on April 2nd. That means that I will be staying at the Cancer Lodge there Monday to Fridays and coming home at weekends. Although it is only for a few minutes each time, it is every day so maybe I'll be like a piece of crispy bacon by the time I finish. I have to go to Victoria because they don't have the machine here. People pay the earth to go to the city with the most flowers in Canada so spring is good timing.

January 24th...'Happy Birthday to Toby!'

 Thanks to Saskia for this photo of Muizenberg sent to remind me of where we used to live in Cape Town......[as if I could have forgotten!] our house was just behind the tall block of flats. Sunrise Beach is the one of the previous beach hut photo and was our afternoon playground. So Toby, you started off in a good place your first six years! Safe journey tomorrow as you fly off to find those Sydney beaches.

Most of you will have known at least one of the four big bouviers we've had and when we lived here we had Chaka named after a big black fearsome Zulu chief.This was his exercise spot and although we knew that he would always come back he would run away along this beach chasing seagulls to the left until he became a speck in the far off distance. There was no way he would come when we called even if he could hear us and then just as we were beginning to panic or get unbelievably angry, he would run back and sit bolt upright at our feet and stick to us like glue from then on like a well behaved dog. This would sometimes take forty minutes or so. One day he was doing his thing and was way ahead of me as I walked along collecting shells doing my thing. For some entirely bizarre and surreal reason there were two nuns in black walking slowly with their backs to me quite a way ahead. I happened to look up and see Chaka idle up to one of them lift his enormous leg and wee all down her habit. Being the goodly person that I am I turned round, walked away and totally disowned him!  A good example of turning a blind eye!

You can see that I have finally learned how to do hyperlinks today...clever!

January 23rd.....'The Golden Buddha.'

I love the story behind this buddha.To stop it being found and smashed by Burmese soldiers in Thailand in the 1500s the Thais encased him in a large form of clay several inches thick to hide him and so he escaped destruction. Hundreds of years later in the 1950s, as he was being moved by a crane, he was dropped accidentally and it smashed open to reveal a small, pefectly pure golden Buddha inside. This story was a text I often used in a reading class and so, when we were there, I insisted on dragging Lucy to find this temple so I could see him. He was an effort to find too and, as always in Bangkok, though we were determined, the marathon through the city traffic drained us of all goodwill to humanity and sapped our cultural enthusiam so we arrived on a sour note..... hot, exhausted, grumpy and with Lucy only intent on finding a Starbucks...[it's cool in there!]. He was though, worth finding, even though much smaller than we expected.

Just as he was hidden in all the clay, I always like to think there is a good heart in everybody. I'm sure I might have been called naive for thinking this in some situations but so far it's worked for me. It's hard to find the golden buddha inside some people....... but I like the challenge.

January 22nd.........."Egoli.'

Johannesburg, now called Egoli [meaning City of Gold,] is the only city I have ever lived in that is not close to the sea. In fact it might be the only city [anywhere in the world? ] not built by a coast, river or lake...... nothing except for little Sunday afternoon walk around with the children Zoo Lake. We had to drive for about seven hours through the mountains to Natal to find those beautiful but shark ridden beaches. No,the scenery around the city is made up of the mine dumps; the waste left over from the gold mines. The summer of 1976 was not the best time of times to arrive there in the middle of the Soweto riots, having to work around 'Kill a white day' once every few weeks, riots in the city centre and day long unpublicised work boycotts once a month. It made for an interesting life and one that had people, even then, used to having burglar bars on windows, dogs in the gardens and guns in the bedrooms.

For all that, our two years in that 'Golden city' were ones that opened our eyes, allowed us to discover the wonderful countryside of South Africa, gave us two great places to work, encouraged us to make great friendships and let us enjoy out first two years of marriage. We rented the tiniest of houses in a lovely garden of a big house sandwiched between their swimming pool and tennis court both of which we could use. It was the best and worst of places and we saw both extremes.

I'm reading Nelson Mandela's autobiography at the moment and am at the point where he is the first practising black lawyer in Johannesburg. The Government laws and restrictions he writes about were draconian and could almost sound idiotic today. More recently he wasn't able to bring the changes quickly enough and fulfill the hopes and wishes of the impatient popualtion after he was released in 1989. Too many expectations....

Here are two of his quotes;

"In my country we go to prison first and then become President."

"If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.”

January 21st.......'The Last Time.'

What a relief ...my last six hourer! Along with visits from Toby, Gary and Dori, my Benadryl made me sleepy and so they all helped to pass the time. I look like a Grandma in the blanket but I can't resist them they come out of a heated cabinet and are all warm and toasty and I love them! It is great to have finished this first phase of the detour and I realise how lucky I have been to have got through it the way I have. Just in case any of you might ever find yourself in this position  [which you won't as I am doing it for you!] it really is, as people told me before I started...... "doable." There's no better word really; it's just something you have to do! I couldn't have done it so graciously without all the love and support that you have sent winging my way and the chit -chat to distract me, keep me talking, writing, texting, replying to e-mails and Skyping.

You may wonder why I bother to have a wig on when I go to the Cancer Clinic but I make a point of dressing up not down to go there otherwise it is so easy to look the hospital slouch! Toby is off to Australia at the weekend so I won't see him for a while. He, like all three of my lovely family, have shown such love and support in a quiet way that I'm sure this has been a major part of getting through the eight colours!

Could this Obama First dance get any better?

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-pzlZPRvx8