Scan results tomorrow. I had the CT done Monday and am now waiting, waiting, waiting.  Rather annoyingly the imaging place uploads your films to the patient portal but not the written report. And of course the films all look sinister. I can make not hide nor hair of them. And so I wait.  I feel… Continue reading Back in the waiting place 

I’ve just celebrated my third Christmas since diagnosis. Amazing. In writing this I have realised that I no longer measure my age or the passage of time in reference to my birth, but rather to my diagnosis. A strange and rather horrible re-birth – no longer nearly 37 years old but instead nearly three. 2017… Continue reading #alternativemilestones

My lovely friend Priscilla died of bowel cancer yesterday. Her husband sent me the most gracious and generous message today to let me know.  Priscilla and I first connected on Instagram. We were both youngish women with stage IV bowel cancer, both parenting small children and being treated at Peter Mac. One chemo session, in… Continue reading Beautiful 

I wanted to share this amazing blog which articulately sums up where I am right now.   Source: Depression 

We are currently waiting for the call from my surgeon to tell me if the liver surgery can go ahead next week. Given it is past 5pm, I suspect we won’t find out until Monday. Which will make for a long weekend. This period without a concrete plan has been very hard for me psychologically.… Continue reading A long weekend – not the good kind

Some of you may have seen 60 Minutes on Sunday evening. It featured the story of ‘Patient 71″, a woman named Julie Randall who was diagnosed aged 50 with metastatic melanoma. She found a place on a US clinical trial and is now in excellent health. There is much that is great about her story.… Continue reading You can’t always get what you want…

This week is Young Survivors Week, part of Bowel Cancer Awareness Month in Australia. It’s an interesting term – survivor. I don’t like it. It implies that something (awful) is over – “oh, I survived, I made it through”. The examples used in the Cambridge Dictionary entry prove my  point: One survivor described his torturers as… Continue reading The tribe has spoken