Will madam be having the carrots or the chemo?



So, I've learned several enlightening things today.

See how I said enlightening? Do you think I mean enlightening?
Or insulting?

Correct.

Here's what I've learnt today.

1. Kale will prevent cancer
2. "Yoga and a vegan diet cures pretty much anything". That is a direct quote.
3. Cancer is a multi billion dollar industry and there's NEVER going to be a cure because too many people are making too much money from it.
4. Stress causes cancer.

OK, suit up.

Number one. Find me one person, ONE person who has cured their cancer by eating Kale.
(I'm going to need proof, I'm just that kind of gal.)
It isn't an option.
If it was WE'D ALL BE DOING IT!
It's easy to administer and it doesn't make your eyelashes fall out. Win-win.

Conversation between an oncologist and a patient:

Onc: So these are your options Mrs West, we can remove your uterus, and hit you with 12 rounds of chemotherapy, ORRRRR you can eat Kale.

Mrs West: Oh I don't really like Kale doctor, lets go with option one.

NO.
DOESNT HAPPEN.

Ditto ginger/turmeric/garlic/green smoothies/overripe bananas/green tea/activated nuts/camel milk/soursop.

THEY ARE NOT SCIENTIFICALLY PROVEN TO DO ANYTHING EXCEPT ADD TO THE ANXIETY.
And create gas.

I hope to god it really is that simple, but for now, chemo, surgery, radiation and drugs are all we've got that has proven to beat cancer. Suggesting otherwise is false and insulting.

Yoga and a vegan diet?
Shut Up.
Just Shut Up.
Seriously where in the world are people curing cancer with cucumber, lime and deep breathing?
Where?
Show me where.
I WISH.
I REALLY DO.

Corporations may indeed be making billions out of cancer treatments, but as long as its all we've got that's scientifically proven to work, I'm going to go with that. Cause I am just one woman with one life and one body.
Had I been given the option of chemo or carrots, my heart would have said 'Go with the salad' but my head would have said, 'Let some other sucker try the coleslaw route, I'm going with the stats'.

I hope with all my heart that those stupid people don't ever have to decide between radiation or guava, but if they do, I'd have a guess they wouldn't choose the fruit.

There are people that do. I know there are. And good for them for having such strong faith in the healing powers of groceries. In many circumstances I agree with diet as a healer. But this is an exception for me. And I find it insulting when people who have no idea tell me perhaps a mango frappe might have saved me.

And as for number 4: Stress may very well cause cancer, SO SHUT THE STUPID PEOPLE UP PLEEEEEEASE!

Ommmmmmmmmm.

My Last Surgery

So, tomorrow I'm due in for a little day surgery.

Those of you who know me will know that I have walked around for the last 19 months with an odd looking button on my chest. Its accompanied by an odd looking wire that leads up my neck.

This photo looks like Im showing my nipple but I'm not, its my port.

 

 This is my port in action. Its a little valve that was inserted into my chest and carried the chemo drugs from the I.V. into my heart.
It sounds bad. But its good.
I never had to have any poor stressed out nurses digging for my veins, which can be an incredibly traumatic thing when you're having chemo.
With my port I could just plug in and go.
I had to receive one of my drugs for over 12 months so it was a great recommendation to have the port put in just days after my mastectomy.

Its been with me through thick and thin.
Almost two years.
Bizarre.
It really signifies THE END for me.
Its funny the things that really mean something in the end.
The bloody thing even has its own ID card.



Anyhoo. Tomorrow it will be in the hospital incinerator.
Weird.
A tiny little day surgery and all visible signs (with clothes on) are gone.
Training wheels off.
For real.
Its over.

Nanny Daph



So, I went to visit my Nanny today.

My Nanny Daph is not someone you would ever forget if you met her.

No kidding, people who have met her once 25 years ago, will still ask "How's Daphne?"

She is the kind of person who is on a constant safari. She hunts stuff down. People, places, facts, fun.
We used to play a game with her where we would try to think of a country she hadn't been to.

We never could.

She was born with adventure in her blood. But not aggressive adventure. Magic carpet type adventure. Along for the ride adventure. World travel was just a way of life for her.

She loves people.
And no one is safe from her.
Sit next to her on a bus and you will be completely interrogated on where you came from, who you are, where you're going and what you think.... And she listened. Really listened.

It's a wide eyed curiosity you just don't see much. It's rare and beautiful.

We didn't so much go for walks with nanny as children, we went for skips.
And as we used to skip along, if she saw something that took her eye, like, people in their own backyard, doing their own thing.... she liked to investigate.

Nowhere was out of bounds.

I remember her driving along one day, and she spotted a truck in traffic. She said "he looks like he knows where he's going, lets go and see...." And we followed that truck all over the place and finally into David Jones basement delivery dock. Embarrassed much?
Crying with laughter? Absolutely.

When we got older, and my cousin, my sister and I stayed at her place, she would take us driving around King's Cross to look at the "Ladies".

And the soundtrack. There was, still is, a constant soundtrack.

She knows all the words to all the songs from 1927-1967 (that's a guess)
She once told me modern music is:
"I want ya, I want ya, I want ya, I want ya. I got ya, I got ya, I got ya, I got ya."

This was accompanied by a disturbing thrusting dance.....

But you get the idea.
She noticed stuff and she was interested in everything.

There is no end to her knowledge, if she was on one of those game shows with a specialist subject, hers would be 'Everything'

So, I went to see her today.

She's in a home.

Actually she's in a dementia ward.

A locked dementia ward.

When I got there, Bing Crosby was  blasting while all the ladies sat in their comfy arm chairs with far away looks in their eyes. Some of them waved at me like they'd been wondering when I was coming. One lady told me Sandra would be here in a minute to tell her how the show was getting on without her.

Nanny looked up at me with watery eyes and said unremarkably, 'Hello, Love.... how's your mother? I've just been making some clothes for the boy's"

I hope with all of my heart that all of those ladies believed they were debutants, dressed in their silk gowns they and their sisters just finished stitching late last night, sitting in the town hall at a dance, waiting for hansom Jonny to ask them to dance. And that when they saw me, they thought I was the nice lady chaperone from the church.

The slow disappearance of a bold and highly decorated character is a deeply sad and heart-breaking thing. There is so much history and life and love and mystery all wrapped up in one fading package. It hurts my heart when she asks me for the 22nd time if I knitted the jumper I'm wearing.

She would have told me to hoppy-uppy and sung a song about a 'boy she once knew' if she suspected I was upset.

But apparently next week, she's take me on a ferry ride.

I just feel proud and lucky to be part of her rich, brilliant tapestry.

Vietnamese Shaking Beef

We had a family lunch on the weekend and I made a dish I have done a few times before. It always gets rave reviews and even though I am vegetarian, I can just tell it's good.
Its easy, it smells amazing and it goes with wine. Three thumbs up. Give it a go for groups in a casual setting.
So here goes my recipe:

Ingredients

5 cloves of garlic
1/4 cup of fish sauce
2 tbs brown sugar
2 tbs vegetable oil
800g beef cut into thin strips (I use rump steak)
1/3 cup lemon juice
1tsp ground white pepper
1 tsp ground black pepper
1 tsp salt

Mix up the crushed garlic, fish sauce, sugar and 2 tsp oil in a large dish.
Add the beef strips and coat well. cover and pop into fridge for an hour.

Mix the lemon juice, both peppers and salt in a jug. Put aside.

Fry up the beef strips in batches in the remaining oil until just brown.

I serve the shaking beef on a platter piled with rice, and drizzle with lemon pepper dressing.

This goes really well with a crunchy salad using iceberg lettuce, radishes, cucumber, snow peas, capsicum and bean sprouts.

And wine.

Enjoy!

**I did not take this photo. I lifted it from Google. xx





Dear Self



Dear Self

So, I think we need to talk about what happened today.
Arsenic hour is never your strongest moment is it?
Its probably so-called because, lets face it, kids go feral and Mum's fall down.
You outdid yourself tonight, self.

So.... you didn't work today did you, self?
So, according to the organized-this and the homemaker-that, you probably shouldn't have been wondering what to cook for dinner at 6pm should you? You didn't have a nourishing slow-cooked meal ready to serve up did you? You didn't even shop today did you?

Shall we talk about the washing pile that's blocking out the sun, self?
We'll get to it....
Oh, yes we will.

So..... risotto was the one pot meal you decided on tonight, self.
You scribbled it in the back of your student diary in the supermarket the other day, whilst thoughtfully composing your weekly meal plan didn't you?

Probably at 6.15 tonight it would have been advantageous to have an onion in the house then wouldn't it?
Probably.
So that's OK, then you moved to plan B.
Risotto sans onion.

Up the garlic was the plan.

Burn the garlic was what happened.

But, self, you pushed on. You cooked that risotto despite the known fail rate of any dish containing burnt garlic.

To be fair, self, you did a remarkable job throwing this meal together whilst a very hangry Mr 5 badgered and berated you from the bathroom about how STAAAARVIIIIING he was.

Well played letting him eat a bowl of prunes when he finally got out of the bath.
You knew.
You smiled to yourself and you let it happen.

Questionable parenting moment, self.

So eventually the family sat down to eat together.

Good.

In front of 'Myth Busters'.
Not good, self.

You sat and watched Miss 8 swallow back tears whilst she read Charlottes Web closing chapters long after she should have been asleep and T,D&H tickle Mr 5 whilst he tried to do his reader. It was chaos, wasn't it self?

So now you've had time to reflect on this familiar array of stress inducing events, what say you, self?

I say: babies tucked up in warm beds, dirty dishes in sink, bodies and minds nourished, bowels apparently made of cast iron, warm fire, cold wine.

Winning.
Patting Self on the back for yet another day of Chaos as we know it.

Going Home

So, as some of you know, I'm going home this weekend for two weeks.

I am very lucky to have grown up here

 

 

No kidding. That's Cairns, my home town.

 

I am so excited about the warmth, the beach, the seafood, the friends, the family and showing my kids so many wonderful places where I have the best memories of growing up.

 

But I am also a little apprehensive.

 

I haven't been home for three years.

The last time I was in Cairns, we were living there, looking after my mum.

 

This time she wont be there.

For the first time.

I have flown home to Cairns dozens of times, and she was always there.

Waiting at arrivals.

 

I don't really know what to expect. Maybe nothing, but maybe lots of memories and reminders.

 

It's ok. It's going to be an amazing holiday, we've been working up to it for so long.

I cant wait to hug my Nan.

And have a cocktail with my friends, and take my kids and husband to beautiful places they haven't been before. And catch up with my family after so long.

 

But there's a little uncertainty just sitting there.

 

It'll probably be just the same as always.

Beautiful, relaxed, friendly, hot.

 

Maybe it's me who's different this time.

xxx

 

 





7 different ways to hold a friends hand....

People often contact me when they have a friend, colleague or family member who falls ill or is diagnosed with cancer.

They often ask me what I think they should do.

It's human nature to DO something isn't it?
And it's certainly in our nature to do the RIGHT thing.

Except, mostly when the big moment comes.... it's really hard to think what the right thing to do is. You want to help. You want to be supportive, you want to let the person know you're thinking of them. And lets face it, you want to make the whole thing go away.

Here are some of the most thoughtful things that people did for me when I was having chemo and just after I had surgery when I was really fragile.

1. Send a letter. Or a post card. There is something quite unmatched in the joy of getting a personal note in the mail. This is also really useful if you're not sure what to say in person. I received beautiful little handwritten cards from time to time and I kept them. It might not seem like much but it's so appreciated, trust me.

2. Cook something. This is one of the first things people think of. GO WITH IT! We all need nourishing and no matter how great a cook the person is, when you're poorly, you don't want to cook. I was the very grateful recipient of a gorgeous cooking circle which a dear friend of mine organized. Every day for three weeks a mystery parcel arrived on my front veranda containing dinner and dessert. It makes my heart ache now just thinking of the richness of this gift. You don't have to do anything big scale like that, but if you can drop off a batch of cookies or a pot of soup... it's love, and it's practical. Tick, tick.

3. The gift of time is priceless. Go sit with them if you can. Be brave, I know it's hard and it's easy to say "I'll just give them space". But if everyone gives you a lot of space all at the same time, it can feel a little lonely.

4. If they have kids and you are equipped to do so, take them and do something nice with them. One of the things that really ate away at me when I was curled up on the couch under a blanket with a bucket, is how my poor kids weren't getting the fun stuff I try to do with them. Watching them watch another movie broke my heart. When they had fun outings and got a little bit spoilt I felt so unburdened.

5. Clean! Now, you need to be careful with this on because it can be misinterpreted. Some people like, me, don't mind. Bestie came in each time I went for chemo and freshened up my bathroom, floors and kitchen. I came home to clean sheets and it was the BEST. You really need to seek permission for this one. You don't want to suggest that they're not coping. I have also heard of work colleagues giving vouchers for a cleaning service, then the person can organize it themselves.

6. Flowers, chocolates, mixed tapes. Good old fashioned, personal ways to remind the person that you're there holding their hand.

7. Celebrate the milestones. The person may not be up to having a big rocking party, but after chemo hot chocolates, cake, video night, foot massage. Again just a gentle hand holding exercise that will go a long way to supporting your friend.

Anyway, just a few ideas to pass on. I know its hard to think of ways to show someone you're thinking of them. I struggle too, but I have learned a lot from all the love I received in so many different ways.

Got any other ideas? I'd love to hear your experiences. xxx