Wow, I hadn't realized it has been so long since I last updated this blog, but I look back and it was the Race for Life that I was writing about! I am now on the final countdown of having cancer!!! Yes folks, the end of cancer for me comes next Thursday morning when I have my operation!! Of course, I still have 12 weeks of chemo to get through after I recover from the op, but technically I will be cancer free once this tumour is cut out on Thursday!! It's quite strange to think that this is it for me and cancer, but it does make me smile!! :-D
Anyway, what have I been up to in the last few weeks, I hear you ask. Well I guess that the main excitement was my holiday to Spain with 7 of my friends! We had a really great time relaxing in the heat and the sunshine. We had a nice villa on the edge of Moraira, about an hour north of Alicante on the coast. I must admit that I barely moved from the villa, be it lounging by the pool or cooling down on the sofa, each day, but we went out for dinner in town all but one night. One evening we did attempt a BBQ at the villa but it didn't quite go to plan as the coals took so long to heat up. We did manage to BBQ the burgers, but everything else was grilled!! Oh well, all good fun though! The week we were there corresponded with the annual Moors v Christians Festival. This seemed to involve a lot of cannon fire and fireworks on the weekend! A lot of the fireworks were set off whilst it was still daylight, which seemed a bit of a waste, but on the Sunday night they did save some until after dark, so here's some photos looking back towards the town centre:
I think my little point-and-shoot did pretty well with these photos! One afternoon we went down to the main beach in the town and some of the others went for a swim in the sea - I wasn't brave enough to do anything more than paddle - the water was a bit too cold for my liking! I did end up with sunburnt feet though, so a not entirely wasted day!! I also managed to burn my back early on in the week, which meant a lot of aftersun was used and I ended up with some lovely tan lines!! These are still there for my surgeon to admire next week!! On our last day we booked ourselves onto a boat trip along the coast. Now we had just spent a week in a quiet castal town that seemed to be very out of season, with the bars closing up around us each night and the only club only having the chill-out patio open and not the actual club on the night that some of the others went!! This meant that we were very surprised when around the breakwater came a boat almost packed with minimally clad 18-30s with a thumping base line!! It was a bit of a shock but we soon settled in and enjoyed the trip up the coast. Some of the others went for a swim in the sea when we dropped anchor for the BBQ lunch in a sheltered cover, along with a number of other boats. It turned out to be a great way to spend the last day of our holiday before catching the packed Ryanair flight back to cold and very rainy Stansted that night!!! All in all it was a brilliant holiday - thanks Aisling, Gemma, Lindsay, Vicky, Andy, John and Paul!!
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| Aisling & John by the beach |
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| Moraira Beach |
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| Out to dinner - Paul, Aisling, Vicky, Lindsay, Gemma, Andy & John |
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| Lindsay & Gemma |
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| Lindsay & Andy |
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| Aisling & me |
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| Lindsay & John doing a spot of astronomy - so many more stars than London! |
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| the view from our villa |
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| our villa |
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| Vicky & Paul |
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| all on the boat |
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| Vicky, Aisling, Lindsay & John taking a swim in the sea |
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| Andy & Gemma |
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| the girls on the boat ... |
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| ... and the boys |
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| the party boat!! |
Since coming back from Spain, I have been 'enjoying' the British summer - will it never stop raining??!! I think I am turning into a prune with it all!!! I have been glad to have Wimbledon and the Tour de France to watch (good thing I am an arm-chair sports fan!!) to pass the time, but I have also been trying to make the most of having decent energy levels! I have been trying to get to the gym most days to do 30 mins on the cross trainer. This does leave me tired, but I think it is good for me and I am trying to get as fit as I can before the operation as hopefully it will help me recover. I have also invested in a rebounder (mini trampoline). This is something that has been mentioned in a number of the cancer books I have been reading over the last few months as a good way to get some exercise. I have only been managing 15 minutes a day but I have not banged my head on the light fitting yet and I have been getting more of a work-out fighting to fold the thing back up and back in it's bag than I have bouncing on it! If anyone else is thinking about getting a rebounder, I do recommend it but make sure you have a good sports bra (boys included)!! ;-) Other things I have been doing to try and make sure I am as healthy as I can be (well, none of it can hurt anyway) is to have a shot of aloe vera juice and a glass of wheatgrass every day. I have also been making green juice and having a glass of that every day (I have not yet got the recipe totally right for my taste, with the balance of different leafy green veg, but the idea is to try and increase my chlorophyll intake). I am also, weather permitting, going for an hour's walk every day. All in all I feel great!!
In a way, feeling so great at the moment makes me a bit apprehensive about the surgery as it will really take me back to square one with not being able to move properly and highly dependent on others again. I think that I am going to get very frustrated. I am aiming to try and keep up my healthy habits though. I am going to get out for a walk every day once I am out of hospital, even if it is just along the corridor. I am hoping to be well enough to see the Olympic torch come through my bit of SW London on July 25th, but I will have to check the route map carefully I think so that I have the option of getting the bus!!! ;-)
A couple of weeks ago I had my pre-op assessment at the hospital and I learnt more about what'll happen with me. It turns out that the enhanced recovery programme that they run means that I could be out of hospital in 3 or 4 days after the operation, with up to 2 of those days in the ICU, so that I can be carefully monitored! This means that I could be back at home again by this time next week!!! We'll have to see how it goes though, after all I wouldn't want to be deprived of hospital food too soon!! ;-)
I have begun to think about my future plans once this latest cancer adventure is over. Where do I want to be in a years time?? I have even made an inspiration board to help me think about this, which now hangs on the wall. One thing that I would like is to get more into my photography and make use of my lovely digital SLR that I bought last summer. Whilst I can't take the camera with me into hospital, I am thinking of trying to make a photo diary of my experiences there. I am not sure quite how this is going to work, but I kind of want this to be something that others about to go through a similar thing can look at to get informed. You see, I would like to give something back. I would like to think that something useful can come
out of this whole experience I have been / am going through.
OK, I am going to give up with this DVD from Love Film, 'The
Fighter', that I am watching. It keeps skipping and pausing thanks to the
scratches on the disk. This will definitely be sent back and reported
as faulty! The other film I had this time though was 'The Descendents'.
Now, whilst you can't generally go too wrong with a George Clooney film, I must
say that it was the location rather than the story that got to me - Hawaii is
most certainly on the 'places to visit' list! If only I could go now and skip
the next 6 months!! ;-) The other film that I have seem recently was 'One for
the Money'. Now I am a great fan of the series of books by Janet Evanesovich
that this film is based on the first of, so I was a bit worried about how it
would be adapted. I really enjoyed it though and hope that they make more of
the books into films. I have also been watching 'Brothers & Sisters'.
My TV on demand service has put up all the seasons so I have been
catching up with the last 2 seasons that I missed on TV. Of course, there
ended up being a cancer storyline - am I just sensitive to this at the moment,
or do there seem to be a lot of cancer storylines everywhere at the moment??!!
In preparation for my hospital stay, I have been
loading my Kindle with books to read and choosing books to listen to on
Audible. I also bought a pile of magazines to flick through. I think that I
might have gone a bit overboard though as I think I have got enough to keep me
entertained for a couple of years!!! ha ha ha!! I'll let you know what I think
of the books in another review session.
Last Tuesday I went for a lovely massage. It involved some
aromatherapy and I have fallen in love with the citrus & mint blend that
the therapist made up for me! My dry skin is certainly appreciating the oil as
I smother myself in it at the moment!! I can't wait to go and have another
massage when I am able to after my operation - I guess I will have to wait a
couple of weeks!! I'll also have to put yoga on hold for a bit - don't
want to pop a staple!! ;-) I am hoping to be able to do some relaxation
sessions with Yogi Clare though and maybe some reiki and NLP. Discovering all
these things are some of these things that I am grateful to the
cancer for. This may sound odd, but who knows what sort of life I would have
ended up with if cancer hadn't given me a wake-up call and shown me that there
is more out there. My sister pointed out to me earlier that I have changed from
a 'glass half empty' person into a 'glass half full' person, and this can only
be a good thing!
Anyway, I'd better leave it there as I think reading this
post maybe qualifies you for an endurance medal!! I'll try not to
leave it so long next time!!
xxxxx
