| We
have every dingle known to man, satellite, digital, you name it because
of Tony's profession (he works in pay TV). It's all set up properly
but the user interface leaves a lot to be desired let me tell you. At
3am I could not watch anything other than Arena, which was showing something
truly appalling that even I with chemo brain at 3am could not stomach.
It turns
out that the digital set top box upgrades itself from time to time without
asking and then you have to know that oh, the tv isn't working, so that
means I have to turn off the set top box and reset it.
How on
earth you would know that is totally beyond me and I thank my stars
Tony knows what's what. I let out such an animal cry of annoyance he
rushed out of bed, the poor thing, thinking something was terribly wrong
and he was most forebearing when he found out what it was.
I'm so
lucky to have such a *nice* husband. Nice counts for such a lot.
Telemarketing
rant
It's got
to STOP. Being at home more means I get these **ing awful calls more
often. You get, at best, a 20 second wait while THEY get around to picking
up the call THEY made. If I hang up I will only have to endure another
one, so I wait, getting more and more annoyed.
Lately
I've taken to saying, I was going to buy whatever you had to sell me
but you made me wait rudely so now I'm not.
The latest
trick is that they give you a recorded voice and ASK YOU TO WAIT. What?
Which idiot thought this up? Who ever actually buys after this treatment?
Who are they, so I can beat them up, since they gave these nongs the
impression it's okay to treat people this way?
<end
rant>
Friday
3 September 2004
Mum
My mum
is going downhill fast, it seems. Every day, says my stepfather, she
is a little worse than the day before. She can't move about much and
every morning she asks, "What can I do?" She tells me she's
still there inside but unable to say things, and it's terribly frustrating.
For such
an active woman to be imprisoned is a dreadful thing. She says she is
ready to go now that she's done all the things she wanted to before
she goes... the big concert, travelling
to Queensland, doing a trip up the coast to see various friends, a goodbye
party, seeing my sister's baby born.
I just
can't understand why euthanasia is so hard for people to come to grips
with. They have no problem understanding why a very ill animal should
be put down, but people they make suffer terribly. Why is it such a
no-no? I mean sure, it would be open to various abuses but that's never
stopped humans from doing other things. Every single thing you can point
to has an abuse, humans being what they are, and that's why we have
laws, customs, police and jails - to stop those abuses.
If only
she could say, "I'm ready", and a doctor would arrive, give
her an injection and that's that. So much more civilised, and be truthful,
isn't that the way most of us want to go if we could? Painlessly, at
a time of our own choosing?
I am half
dreading seeing her tomorrow, Tony and I are flying down there for the
day. I'm going for her sake, not mine, as I expect it will be painful
and upsetting for me, but I want her to see me one more time when she
can still get some words out.
I know
it will make her happy, however distressing it will be for me to see
her in that state. Anyway I only am protected from seeing her this way
due to the accident of us living in different states. And on the other
hand it will be lovely to see her, it's all so very confusing.
Back
at work
I'm back
at work this week, I did two days at home and two in the office. I was
mighty glad to get out of the house by yesterday, let me tell you. I
am so sick of being there. The steroids they give me make me restless
and keep me up at nights, and I think that's partly why I was so sick
of being there. In any case it's great having a distraction and to feel
useful.
Asking
for things
It can
be so hard to keep having to ask for help. So hard to know what to ask
for and from whom. And so terrible when that help doesn't come, or does
come but I sense it isn't given freely. That has hardly ever happened
but the fear of it holds me back sometimes from asking.
I give
this great impression of a coping person, so I suspect quite a few people
don't realise how great my needs can sometimes be, how overwhelmingly
important they seem at times. Even a small thing can mean the difference
between an okay day and a terrible one for me.
This morning
my neighbour hopped in my car asking for a lift to town. I actually
think she was waiting inside her front door until I came out to the
car. (I usually go to work around the same time, so she probably figured
I'd be out at some point around then). Her husband is very ill with
kidney disease, heart problems and various other things.
She has
not had the courage or coping skills to go and fix her car, so instead
she buses it everywhere. It's extraordinary really. Her husband is the
one who "does the car" and she feels unable to cope with it.
I would have once found that totally stupid but now I find myself thoroughly
understanding where she's coming from. I wish I had enough energy to
spare to take her to the mechanic myself, but I don't.
Saturday
4 September 2004
Visit
to mum
Today Tony
and I jetted to Adelaide for the day to see mum. I'm glad I did; I think
in a few weeks we won't be able to communicate much at all. Overall
it was great to visit her, and I know it was lovely for mum to see me
and Tony.
I was shocked
at how quickly she's gone downhill. The last time I saw her was during
my first operation, in early July, about
8 weeks ago. In that time she has lost a lot of functions.
She can
still walk but instead of her normal gait it's now a shuffle, hesitant,
and out of the house she needs help. Her feet and ankles are very swollen
from the steroids and covered in compression bandages, though apparently
this is much better than it was.
Her face
is swollen up like a chipmunk, also from the steroids, but as they do
a lot of good in terms of speaking and thinking it's worth it.
Mum can
still make words, but she is far less able to communicate a concept
than before. For instance, we were looking at her jewellery today, most
of which she'd made herself, and came across a piece I didn't recognise.
I asked her where it was from and she said, "In between".
I said, in between Adelaide and somewhere?
She said,
"No, here." I said, "Hobart?" Thinking she might
mean between the two different periods she'd lived in Adelaide. No,
she said. Then she pointed up. Sydney? Tony guessed. No, she said, and
pointed up. Brisbane? Cairns? Townsville? Papua New Guinea? She kept
pointing, and finally I said Singapore? Yes.
That makes
perfect sense. Singapore is the place you go when you're between here
and someplace else.
I spent
about 45 minutes reading stories to her from the Arthur Mee's Children's
Encylopedia. It was one of my favourite things as a child, and the set
was mum's when she was little, so I guess it dates from at least the
40s. It's a wonderful compilation of all kinds of stories, information,
puzzles, experiments you can do and activities. I pretty much worked
through the entire set as a kid (yeah I know, I'm a nerd, your point
is?)
Some of
the stories were delightful, but I was surprised on telling Ali Baba
and the Forty Thieves how bloodthirsty it is.
The saddest
thing is mum is adamant that she wants to die now. She's had enough.
It's terribly tragic that there is nothing I can do for her, nothing
legal anyway.
Later
I sang her the "Deep in the Forest" song, and it made her
cry. She said she'd like to go there, to the fairy glade in the song
to be lulled by music, and not "there", pointing at a picture
of a galaxy. I asked if she meant "Nothing", and she said
yes. The fairy glade sounds peaceful and inviting to her.
Michael
was out of the room so she called him in and asked me to sing it again,
and he hadn't actually realised how beautiful the song is, or how much
it means to mum until then I think, and I told him she used to sing
it to us as kids. There
were three she used to sing in rotation: Deep in the Forest, Jesus Loves
Me This I Know, and the Brahms Lullaby.
So I sang
it again, and by the end of all of this all four of us were in tears
and somehow I found myself agreeing to sing it at mum's funeral, though
whether I'll be able to pull that off without bawling too much to sing
is yet to be seen.
Here are
the words, since when I was looking for them on Google a while ago I
didn't find them anywhere. It's an old German folk song and sometimes
the words are changed to a love song.
Deep
in the forest, I know a fairy glade
There in the cooling shade sweet 'tis to lie
Softly a streamlet sings
Peace to the heart it brings
Clouds drift on silver wings
Far o'er the sky.
But
in the moonlight
Seek not that fairy dell
None may escape the spell
Who thither stray
By music's magic sound
Lulled into dreams profound,
'Neath that enchanted ground
Sleep they for aye!
I asked
if she could hear the music, and she said yes. I wasn't so sure, so
i asked her to sing me Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. With no hesitation
she said the words, I guess because she is remembering lyrics she must
have sung a million times (as an ex-Suzuki teacher). But no music came
out. I said, try again and this time sing it too. She said, "I
thought I was singing it." She did it again, but no music came
out.
The brain
tumour is in the left temporal lobe which is where your memory for music
is stored. I'm not sure that she can remember or process any music now.
It's utterly heartbreaking to see such a talented musician come to this,
worse than not being able to speak.
The tumour
itself has grown a lot, and spread into the right half of the brain.
It's anyone's guess how much longer she has, but for her sake I hope
not much longer.
Arms
I haven't
spoken much about my arms here but I should. After the breast surgery,
in which a big chunk of my underarm was removed to get all the lymph
nodes, my arm has been severely affected.
Lymph nodes
drain fluids from the body and clean them, they are a big part of the
immune system. Since I now don't have any, my right arm is very vulnerable
to infections. All I have to do is scratch it a bit and get infected,
and it can become very serious quite quickly. I had five mozzie bites
four weeks ago and the marks are still there, where normally they'd
heal in a day or so.
In addition,
the surgery made the whole arm's muscles seize up, and until last week
I couldn't raise my right arm much above my head. I've been religiously
doing stretching exercises though and now I can lift it up, what a relief.
For a few days I had this thing called "Cording", where a
lympatic channel seizes up (or something), the effect for me was it
felt as though a cord had been looped through my arm like a drawstring
then pulled tight. Ow.
I will
have to be vigilant about my arm forever more, no lifting, no carrying
my heavy bags on that side, gloves for gardening, disinfectant for the
slightest break in the skin, moisturisers to avoid cracking, etc etc.
Teeth
And today
I have a new symptom from the chemo, my teeth hurt. For a while I thought
it might be a root canal, but apparently chemo
can affect your teeth. Gawd, that's all I need.
My mouth
is sensitive as well, since the cells in your mouth divide a hell of
a lot, they are strongly affected by chemo which doesn't differentiate
between those and cancer cells (which divide a hell of a lot). Hot and
cold hurts, and I get regular ulcers.
Nausea
I said
the other day "the nausea train has passed", but that was
only a day or two after the chemo, and it was in the morning. By afternoon
it had come back. I had five days of it this time, four of them really
bad. I can only eat when I force myself to, and then only Salada crackers
with Vegemite, nothing else.
Maybe next
time it'll be easier, apparently I have an extreme case, worse than
most people.
Today's
silliness
Go look
at
if Mittens ruled the world. When you've finished laughing, look
at the main
Mittens
and Snowdrop page
for more silliness. Thanks to Bren for this one.
Sunday
5 September 2004
Idolatary
I'm going
to tell you something a little embarrassing. I like Australian Idol.
It's kinda strange because as a general rule I loathe pop music,
with a few exceptions. Mostly I like classical, jazz (old fashioned),
acoustic blues, gypsy music, nouveau flamenco and some world music.
Old fashioned rock and roll is cool as well, and of course the pop music
of my teen years, like everyone.
I'm not
at all keen on contemporary R&B/soul, especially the kind where
the singers decorate every note like some outlandish bridal cake. And
that's mostly what they sing in Idol, so it's really odd that I like
watching.
I think
it reminds of my musician days and doing auditions, there's a certain
amount of shadenfreude mixed in, plus I enjoy critiquing each performance
and seeing if my favourites get in. Last year my favourite was Cosima,
who (as I'm sure you recall) dropped out when she was in the final three
due to vocal nodules. She has now signed a recording contract in the
US, go Cosima. Guy Sebastian was the guy who had the style I loathe,
all bland decoration and no substance.
This year
I have enjoyed, so far, Chanel,
who is delightfully quirky with a unique vocal quality. The only singer
I can think of who's close to her is Macy Gray, whose voice I also like.
I also
like Angie,
who's a fantastic soul singer of the old fasioned kind - not decoration
but funky and earthy. I also like that she's a big girl who's confident
and sexy, and she's not being told to slim down either. That's cool.
Of the
others, Courtney
looks very ordinary but he has an honesty in his singing I like. And
also I like Marty,
who has nothing I can really pinpoint but I enjoy hearing him sing.
The person
I'd like to win so far? I can't decide yet, but it's between Chanel
and Angie for me at this point.
Emelia
should never have got into the final 12, she has no vocal training and
already the strain is showing. She was told not to talk and rest her
voice and all the "behind the scenes" shots had her talking
loudly in it. As a former athlete I would have thought she'd know better
but perhaps discipline doesn't translate for her across activities?
She is
going to bomb, possibly tonight, but certainly soon as she has already
had the wakeup call she needed and took no notice.
In my view,
Billie
should have had Emelia's place. She's a wonderful singer, and I think
she was eliminated only because she stuck to singing jazz, without showing
what she can do with other genres. That was a disgrace. Emelia has no
idea what to do with her voice, all she has to recommend her is energy
and ambition.
I'm going
off to watch the show now. I know, I'm a dag, but I don't care.
Later
Ok, so
that was interesting. Chanel was good, but didn't excite. Actually hardly
any of them were exciting, they all seemed really nervous. The only
ones who did for me this evening were Casey,
Ricki-Lee
and Hayley.
I liked Casey before, but tonight I thought she had great emotion. Ricki-Lee
and Hayley didn't exactly excite but they were at least interesting.
Courtney
was good but his voice was under par.
Emelia
did bomb. She chose a song way beyond her capabilities, with a lot of
strange key changes and awkward intervals and she just plain missed
a lot of the notes. However her voice wasn't as badly off as I expected
it to be. Marty
was boring and scared looking.
Angie
sang Just a Touch of Paradise, a "nice" song, but it's hard
to lift that above the ordinary.
Okay that's
my dose of silly TV for the day over.
Monday
6 September 2004
G-mail?
Pah!
The Omnilect
email and file-storage offer is free, devoid of popups and you don't
have to wait to be invited. You get a whole 2 gigs of storage. You can
have some shared files and some private. There is a file size restriction
on the free account.
There is
advertising, of course. It's free; what do you expect? Here's what they
say about them: "There are no pop-ups or even pop-under ads in
Omnilect. No humans read your email nor do we use any "spyware"
whatsoever to target the ads, and no email content or other personally
identifiable information is ever provided to advertisers."
But then
in the privacy policy it says: "...Transtelligent will display
targeted ads and other relevant information based on the content of
the email displayed. In a completely automated process, computers process
the text in a message and match it to ads or related information in
Transtelligent's extensive database. No human reads your mail to target
ads or other information without your consent."
So they
do target the ads based on your email content, but not using what they
term as "spyware". The distinction is completely lost on me,
for one.
One
man's eye
This is
a very cool web site devoted to top notch photography, a collection
by Alan Siegel. It is also an information design triumph. The information
display shows you the entire database of the collection in a tiny area,
in such a way that you can immediately see what's available and easily
find out by whom.
Tuesday
7 September 2004
Idol
tragedy
To my astonishment,
Angie
was voted out of the competition last night. She is the strongest singer
there, with the possible exception of the classically trained Daniel.
Yes, her performance was lacklustre this week, but Emelia's was just
plain out of tune, so I don't know what's going on there.
I suspect
Angie hasn't picked up "my favourite" status due to her looks,
whereas Amali
certainly has, and Emelia
gets the underdog vote, perhaps people are willing to go along with
her "I'm new at this" excuse for a while. Amali was boring
as a drive over the Nullarbor. Yes, she's only 16, but so is Casey and
she rocks.
I'm so
sad, the way I was last year when Cle, a very similar contestant, (funky
black soul singer) was voted out on one poor performance. Maybe black
chicks get less slack?
If you
are remotely interested in the performances,
you can view a bit of them here. Though I guess if you were, you'd
have been watching, but hey that's the power of the Internet: linking
to stuff no one wants to look at. Hehe.
Nalo
Hopkinson win
I was thrilled
to see on Nalo's
blog that she's won
the Gaylactic Spectrum award for her novel Salt Roads. Go Nalo!
New
market for me?
You may
think it kinda strange that I'm still writing away in the midst of the
disaster wreck of my life this year, but it's actually a refuge for
me, a welcome distraction.
I found
a great potential market for my erotica story, and have submitted it
there - it's called Fishnet
and if you're into erotica, the stories there are quite well written.
As you'd expect, since they pay 4c a word, so if my story is accepted
that's (counts on fingers...) $200 US.
Hey, at
that rate, I may churn out a few more.
Collaboration
I'm also
working on a collaboration with Nathan Burrage. I'm reworking a story
of his, "Point of Origin", and he's doing the same with a
Clarion story of mine, "Owl of Lombardi".
Nathan
and I kicked off the process the other week by discussing the intentions
we each had behind the story, what we were trying to achieve ith it
and why, so that we can each try to honour that in the rewrite or at
least keep it in mind.
I started
writing on his story this week and it's remarkably easier having done
the excercise before for Between Space. I'm just writing it as though
it's my story, which is really the only way to go.
I fondly
recall the stoush between two writers at Clarion who collaborated in
week 5, yelling at each other, "no more purple prose!" and
"you gotta keep some of the beauty in there!" I hope Nathan
and I can manage to avoid that, but then in the Clarion case the story
ended up being fantastic and you really couldn't tell who'd written
what.
Nathan
will look at it again afterwards and no doubt want further changes,
and I reckon that's good. I would not like to "collaborate"
again the way I did for Between Space. It wasn't so much a collaboration
as a steamtrain ride over someone else's work and while I'm happy with
my rewrite of Terraforming Lily, I'm not convinced the process was a
good one.
I would
have rather done something truly collaborative. The "rewrite"
of my story was not in the spirit of the original story, but it did
morph into something interesting, and that's okay given my original
story sucked quite badly.
Anyway
it's fun not having to think up a plot for a change, and Nathan is great
at plot, so that's a major strength he brings to the mix, especially
welcome since it's one of my weaknesses.
Delving
deep into the mechanics of his draft is revealing to me each of his
strengths and weaknesses at the sentence/paragraph level the way critiquing
them doesn't. It'll be interesting to find out if he is having the same
experience.
Wednesday
8 September 2004
Russian
massacre
The world
has been rivetted by accounts of the hostage situation at the school
in Beslan, Chechnya. I have been trying to imagine what it would have
been like in there. This morning a still from a video taken by the
terrorists was released.
Why on
earth would you film something like this? I am usually reasonably good
at putting myself in someone else's framework and imagining how you
would get to a certain point, even if I wouldn't myself. But here I
meet a brick wall.
What brings
a person to the point where they can do something like this? I just
can't get there.
They were
in here for days, in the middle of summer heat, with no water, terrified.
It's simply horrific.
And then
they blew up and shot hundreds of them as well. Aside from the sheer
evil of such an act, how on earth do people think this is going to help
their cause? It only hardens the hearts of everyone towards them and
usually brings severe retribution.
Many people
I know have been distressed by these events, so I can't imagine how
much worse it would be if you were Russian. I found myself wondering,
what would it be like if it happened at my local school? When every
second neighbour had lost a child? It's a tragedy of simply colossal
proportions for a community.
The Sydney
Morning Herald said:
"Wires
ran across the centre of the floor of the gym and also between the
two basketball hoops on opposite sides of the gym.
The gym
hoops were stuffed with bombs on both sides and several other explosives
were hanging on the wire.
The footage
showed one masked man placing his foot over a book on the ground that
apparently held a detonator.
"Do
not bring in the children here yet," one man was heard yelling
in accented Russian as another continued to connect the wires.
Several
hundred people appeared to be sitting quietly on the ground. Some
had already taken off their tops and others were fanning themselves
with books.
The tape
also showed a female suicide bomber draped in black. They held pistols
and wore suicide belts."
Thursday
9 September 2004
Good
for a morning's entertainment
Cat sent
this amazing site around - the most amusing section is the Hall
of Baaaaad Fashion. Make sure you click on the old archives, there
are some total doozies there. A couple that made my hair stand on end
were the hairy spiders around the trousers look; and I was gobsmacked
to see the peekaboo crotch with three chickens on a stick poking out.
Or perhaps
the Ku Klux Klan headgear, the skirt made of Daffy Duck beaks, the lampshade
hat, the sack of grass on the back look, the brillo pad over the head,
the orange balloon tail, or the Ronald McDonald outfit are worse?
You be
the judge. Hey, they're all pretty baaaad and funny.
Friday
10 September 2004
Chemo
day 3
Today's
chemo seemed to take forever. Got there at 12.40, had to wait a few
minutes fo the doctor, then half an hour with him going over my next
set of drugs. I have six different ones now, most are for nausea, one
for stopping my white blood count from dropping, and one is steroids
and I forget what it's for.
Then at
1.30 I was in the chemo room and it took 2 hours. They did it really
slowly to help the nausea, during which time I read Cosmo magazine and
the nurse and I chose which footballer we preferred. There were also
some pretty silly stories which we giggled over.
I have
a long list of symptoms from last time. The nausea today isn't qauite
as bad, but I do have the crushed feeling and I'm very tired. Icy wrongness
is there but muted, and the floaty out of it feeling is also muted.
Perhaps this one will be easier.
My hair
is definitely coming out, thinning mostly, though there are a couple
of bald patches I can do a quite convincing combover. I haven't done
this in public however, if I go out I have either my wig or scarf. It
should have all come out by now, wouldn't it be cool if I don't lose
it all? More likely it's taking longer because I have very thick hair,
I don't want to get my hopes up too far. Mind you if it doesn't, I wish
I'd known because I wouldn't have cut it quite so short and would have
probably skipped the wig entirely.
I have
extraordinarily low tolerance to any annoyance, anything that goes wrong
or any slight tension that has to be resolved. I had to fill out my
annual leave form a second time because it got lost somewhere between
my office and its destination, and I actually burst into tears over
it. It seemed overwhelmingly horrible to have to deal with it.
In normal
life I would feel a small flash of irritation, no more, and it would
pass. It doesn't pass and it doesn't seem small. I think I must be difficult
to be around right now.
Yay
Thorbies!!!!
Nathan
and Emma have got into Clarion 2005! I'm so stoked for them, it's fantastic
news. (Before you wonder, they both said they were happy for me to put
the news here). I had no doubt that either of them would get in, they're
both talented writers who'll get a lot out of it.
Feels weird
to think that my news about Clarion was a
year ago now, and I have been writing this blog for a year too.
That makes
six Thorbies who've gone to Clarion now, woohoo.
Saturday
11 September 2004
Not
so bad
Today's
been a cautious relief. The doctor gave me a new pill, Kytril, which
is very expensive and the government restricts it to two pills per chemo
session. I suspect this has done trick, because today I had almost no
nausea. I feel a little queasy, is all, but have been able to eat. True,
it's white bread and dried fruit, but better than crackers, crackers,
crackers.
My main
feeling today is tiredness.
Kate E
sent me a note to say that New Scientist reports people who keep diaries
are less well than others. Mm. Well I don't know, maybe if you are feeling
less well that's why you want to diarise? I'm doing it in such detail
because when I was first ill I couldn't see anything on the web that
really told it like it is.
I figured
it if some women coming after me read this they can at least deal with
the "not knowing" factor that freaked me out so much early
on. I was 10 out of 10 scared all the time at first, even after I got
my prognosis, but now much less so. Perhaps that's partly to do with
you get used to anything over time, and also because now there's so
much less of an unkown quantity. I know what I have to deal with.
I reckon
my fear quotient is down to about 6 out of 10, with occasional moments
of panic. I may never go to 0 since even after you are pronounced ok,
you can never be told "you don't have cancer". They can definitely
tell you if you have, but not if you haven't, so it is likely to be
always a background worry.
I hope
this pill isn't the reason for my relative lack of nausea today because
I have no more of them until next chemo.
Sunday
12 September 2004
Still
not so bad
The nausea
is there, yes, but mild and bearable. I have spent all day sleeping,
and in between each doze reading a story from Year's Best SF 9. My God
there are some good stories in there, though one that was utterly unreadable
by an Argentinian author I've never heard of before. Way too obstruse
for moi.
Still eating
Salada biscuits, it seems safest. (Apparently, I learned the other day,
they are the very same biscuit called "Saltines" in the US).
Nothing
else to report. Going back to sleep now.
Australian
Idolness
I didn't
see all the performances last night, dammit, but caught the first few
on the reruns. I missed Casey, Dan, Emelia and most of Anthony, who
sounded okay but that's all.
Hayley
sang well, but didn't rock me. A bit try-hard or something.
Amali for
the first time sang as a performer, and how hilarious with her dress.
She had on a low cut dress which showed off her ample curves to perfection,
causing Mark to comment she "deserves enormous hits". Glad
he was careful with his consonants there.
Courtney
I keep feeling should be better than he does, as though he's holding
back but perhaps he's sick.
Chanel
was amazing, doing a rip roaring cover of Shirley Bassey's History Repeating.
She needs to pump up the vocal volume at the top though.
Daniel
did "You Raise me Up", and let his vocal abilities soar, but
I find that kind of song so boring. He's been scared off by the Rock
DJ disaster earlier but there is something else in the middle between
daggy pop and middle of the road granny pleasers.
I'm going
off Marty. He sings nicely and has a boyish appeal but he's never quite
pushed it off into actually exciting for me.
Ricki-Lee
is looking like a star at the moment, her voice is in top form, she's
confident, she acts like a star. I'm not that sold on her thinnish voice,
is all.
Quite a
few of them seem to have throat problems, probably because just before
they moved into Idol HQ the pool flooded the rooms downstairs, and instead
of ripping out the sodden carpets they dried them. This, folks, causes
damp and MOULD, and that causes throat problems. Yes I'm sure replacing
them would have cost a bomb but geez, put a dozen singers into a mouldy
basement, and don't get surprised they are sick.
Monday
13 September 2004
Still
not so bad
Well so
far so good. Nausea is still there but bearable. The full list of symptoms:
nausea, floaty out of it feeling, heavy crushed feeling, headache, an
odd smell (of the chemo in my body), toothache (sometimes), constipation,
tiredness, vomiting (only ocassionally), dry skin, low appetite, low
concentration, emotional, irritable and cranky, sleeplessness, blurred
vision. Oh yes, and nuking all those rogue cancer cells. :-)
Really
when the nausea is abated it's a whole different story, nasty but bearable.
With the nausea in full swing it's truly terrible.
Later
It seems
that nausea ratchets up as the day goes on, since about 5pm it's been
getting steadily worse.
Australian
Idol was interesting, I wasn't sad to see Daniel go (pop boy, not classical
boy). I could hardly believe what Casey wore on the show, she looks
as though she really doesn't care. It's cool to wear at the mall, hon,
but not on TV.
If she
wants to win she really needs to get that together.
Poor Chanel
looks as though she hates the competitive side of things. I feel for
her, but it is a competition after all. I think it would be distressing
and I'm in awe of how calmly people can say, "I'm fine with it,
I had a great time", when really they're probably thinking "waaaaaah".
Tuesday
14 September 2004
Ewwww
it's back
Seems it
must be that 'spensive that thar pill the gummint ain't gonna pay fir.
Now pardon my Appalachian but I bin watchin' The Songcatcher
on Foxtel 'n its catchin.
What I
meant to say (coff) is that the Kytril pill the government won't let
me have more than two of seems to be the thing that did the trick because
as I have run out I've felt more and more sick.
Bleah.
In
which I "get" Mr Bean at last
Suddenly
I understand the appeal of Mr Bean and I'll tell you why.
I thought
it was a car wreck watching the main Australian Idol Show, but THIS.
Oh. My. God. If you didn't see the Unforgettables episode do
make sure to catch a few seconds of their "performances".
Actually
I think it's rather cruel. These totally hopeless 'performers' are given
their act in a show ("my dream!"), and I think down to the
last one they all took it seriously. I think that's how they
were chosen, for the look of 'please God let the sun shine on me and
make me a STAH' in their pathetic eyes. Not one has talent.
I watched
helpless with mirth as the shrieking girl Jenna
(seriously, you have to hear this to believe it) was followed by George,
the Madonna wannabe in silver pants and not a note in tune;the Duffy
Sisters, who are just bad enough to be bad and not bad enough to be
funny, but seriously daggy.
Then there's
poor Nadine, who got so much makeup and hair treatment she could start
her own salon, but still had to count visibly to come in on time; Jean-Pierre,
who did a David Roth takeoff spookily indistinguishable from the original,
though how you can tell I'm sure I don't know; Chris, whose 'rap' didn't
hit a beat even once; and Flynn, who likes it when you get nasty with
him. Now there's an image I won't forget in a hurry.
What has
this to do with Mr Bean? Well, he's the human-brain equivalent of listening
to Jenna "sing". I've never laughed at him, I either find
him pathetic or sad or irritating, but never funny. I like my funny
served up silly.
Jenna,
well Jenna is also pathetic and sad and irritating, but somehow also
funny. So I get it now. Sorta.
You do
have to feel like three types of unkind creep to laugh at this though.
It's an icky, gotta go wash now feeling. All you Mr Beanheads, shame
on you.
Word
counts, pah
How do
you count words of a story you're collaborating on? Can I count all
the ones in the original I delete? All the new ones? Plus all the ones
I decide to leave there? I decided I will count however far I am up
to in the story. It seems the only way and really what does it matter
in the end.
Wednesday
15 September 2004
Halfway
I am halfway.
Halfway through the chemo, three down, three to go. And probably halfway
through the treatment in general. I got the
diagnosis on June 7, and the last radiation treatments are likely
to be end December early January, so I make that about halfway.
This thought
threw me into despair this morning. Look, three months may not seem
very long to you, and to me, in normal time, it doesn't either, it goes
in a trice.
But right
now every day seems like a mountain-climb that I have to start all over
again the next morning. And maybe in Part 2 my mum will die from her
glioblastoma brain cancer, making Part 1 look like a picnic.
I woke
up crying and I guess the day can only get better from here. Work to
do, so that's something to keep my mind off it.
I snuck
a Zofran anti-nausea tablet this morning. I have two left because I
bought them ahead of time for this round of chemo, and instead was given
the magic Kytril pills. They aren't on the program for me to take, so
(I think) they are spare. Always a bit iffy to self medicate but tough,
I need it. Last night was bad.
Thursday
16 September 2004
Back
to the office
I am back
in the office today. I don't go in until the nausea has passed, so when
it gets bad I can just go and lie down for a while. It's nice to be
out of the house, I'm heartily sick of looking at it.
Sad
dreams
I dreamed
of my mother last night. She was playing the violin, she looked the
way she did about ten years ago, full of life, totally gorgeous. She
was playing her favourite piece by Secret Garden, "Song
from a Secret Garden". I was rivetted on the sight of her thin,
nimble fingers as she played. In the dream I went up to her and put
my hands over hers so I could feel her play.
I woke
very sad, because I will never hear her play again.
Fionnuala
Sherry from Secret Garden wrote to mum last week sending best wishes,
they'd had some contact a year or two ago. Unfortunately due to her
operation, mum missed their recent concert tour, something she was disappointed
about, but it couldn't be helped. While the operation didn't save her
life it did give her the time she wanted to do the things she wanted
to do.
Collaborating
I had a
long chat with Nathan last night about our respective stories under
collaboration. I'm excited about what he plans to do with my story.
I plan to just go with the flow and see how what he does turns out,
otherwise what's the point, you may as well write it yourself.
We had
a long chat about solving the problems in both stories, and I think
we have come up with good solutions. I have one thing left to solve
for his story, but I think I have the glimmering of an answer coming.
He's turning
my story away from fantasy towards SF, in a most interesting way which
will add a lot of richness and detail. I'm condensing his, and removing
a lot of characters, and changing the crucial scene at the end so it
is even more cool. (At least I think so). We'll see how it turns out!
It's fun anyway.
Jack Dann
(Mr Collaboration) commented that collaborating doesn't seem like nearly
as much work as writing a whole story yourself and he's right.
Saturday
18 September 2004
The
wonder of GPs
Squeamish
folk: cover your ears and skip to the next entry.
I have
an infection in my boob, it's red and hot and hurty. I've had it ever
since the first chemo. One day off the antibiotics yesterday and it
got immediately worse.
Now the
interesting thing about this is that neither of my doctors care much.
Three weeks ago my surgeon pronounced it something he didn't need to
operate on, and to show the chemo specialist next time, and gave me
antibiotics. The chemo guy said, "I didn't cause that you know",
and didn't even want to look at it, though he did renew the antibiotic
script.
I am very
concerned about it because I spent a week in hospital after a nasty
operation to remove an infection in July. It was horrible and I don't
want to do it again. Plus, infections can still, in this day and age,
kill you, and when your white blood count is down the way it can be
during chemo they can kill you in hours.
So, why
are these guys not very concerned? Well, it doesn't fit into either
of their specialities, ie, not surgery and not chemo. I noticed the
first infection before I was discharged after the first operation, and
told nurses and the surgeon, and no one was very concerned then either.
They sent me home with a few days worth of antibiotics and that was
not enough and that's why I ended up with the second operation.
So I took
myself off to my GP. Well, she said, the antibiotic is just keeping
it at bay, with chemo going on you're unlikely to win against it, so
here's seven weeks worth of antibiotics for you. Keep going on them
until two weeks after chemo.
Why couldn't
one of my specialists have said this? I'm going to ask them why. It's
not good enough.
While I
was there, I told her my sad story about not enough Kytril. She immediately
rang the PBS and got permission to give me all 15 tablets for the rest
of my chemo on the spot. To be fair, chemo guy hadn't had the opportunity
to do that (I was planning to ask him next visit), but I didn't even
have to ask. She heard my tale of woe and just did it.
Did I mention
I heart my GP?
Customer
loyalty is a fragile thing
It's incredibly
easy to lose a loyal customer.
We took
a spin in Tony's shiny new dark red Saab convertible this afternoon.
It's not actually new, it's second hand, and thus cost about the same
as a new standard sedan, but it's new to us. We felt very cool spinning
along with the top down. I now get why women wear scarves and men wear
hats in convertibles. The sun shines over your sunglasses and the wind
is fierce. But hey, it's such fun. I felt very Debbie Reynolds or something.
We headed
for Barzura, at Coogee, which is a gorgeous spot to lunch since it overlooks
the glorious Coogee beach, way nicer than Bondi in my view. We've been
there regularly for years ever since my friend Caroline introduced me
to it.
But this
time we were disappointed. We waited 20 minutes for an outside table,
and then they told us we couldn't have our dog at the table but had
to tie him up elsewhere. It was the first time we'd gone there with
him, so we were surprised. The waitress claimed it's against health
regulations but it isn't, as long as the dog is more than 5 metres from
the kitchen, and outside the restaurant.
We told
her this and she said, 'we don't allow dogs because it's not hygienic'.
I said, 'why, the dog isn't on the table or touching food?'. Finally
she said, 'other customers don't like it'.
So we said,
don't give us health regulation BS, it's your decision to not allow
it, and you should say so before we wait for a table, not after. We
went off in a huff vowing never to return.
We walked
up the street to the Deep Blue cafe who were lovely, and brought the
dog a bowl of water, and so that is our new favourite Coogee restaurant.
The food was just as good, if not better, and the view mighty fine.
Dreaming
of a cure
I have
had several dreams about my cancer in which my body is represented by
a house. In one early dream, the house required cleaning, so I've been
using that metaphor in my creative visualisation and meditations.
A couple
of weeks ago I dreamed various bits of my house were on fire. In each
dream, the house looks different. The early one had two houses, only
one needed cleaning (no prizes for interpretation there!). The one where
it was on fire focussed on the one house, but the fire was getting rid
of built up rubbish. (Again, no prizes).
The one
last night was amazing. I dreamed Tony and I had bought a new house,
a small townhouse (the entrance was in a shopping mall!). We walked
through it. I was amazed to find it had everything I wanted in it, even
a spinet (a forerunner of the piano), a big storage closet (something
we now lack), a separate basin for Tony to shave in, etc.
Then it
morphed into the most beautiful house ever, a Georgian style two story
place, including a balcony the full width of the house with a gorgeous
view over the water, a swimming pool, a spa, a lush garden, and its
own cafe. No kitchen, just a cafe with a cordon bleu chef. I walked
up and the chef said, 'what would you like me to cook tonight?'
I tell
you, this house was paradise.
I suspect
my subconscious is telling me the chemo has worked. All the cancer is
now gone.
Or, it's
trying to fool me it's all gone so I'll stop giving it chemo.
But I don't think subconsciouses are as clever as that, are they?
I think
I'll believe it's gone. Of course I will finish chemo anyway, but I'm
very much liking this dream and what I think it means. It's the first
encouraging thing my body or subconscious has told me in a long while.
Yesterday
a colleague asked me, "how will you know if chemo has worked?",
so perhaps that's why I dreamed this. I answered him, I won't. Because
there was no sign of cancer in my body before chemo began, I hope that
afterwards it will show that again. I won't be able to tell any difference.
If I did
have any cancer at the beginning of chemo it was a few rogue cells that
don't show up in tests whether they are present or not, and their absence
won't be visible.
So I'm
very glad I had this dream, it gives me something to hang my hat on,
that this is indeed all worth it.
Core
list of SF books
There's
an interesting thread on scifi.com at the moment: what is the
core list of books you should have read?
Sunday
19 September 2004
First
draft done!
I beat
my head against the story I'm writing with Nathan for hours and hours
yesterday. I had solved one problem by 3am. But the other one - the
crucial part at the end - wasn't coming.
Sleep on
it, I thought wildly. Sleeeeeeep. It was 3am after all.
This morning
I had a chat with my cat, and it all became clear. My cat? Well, he
just listened to me rabbitting on, and eventually I talked myself into
a solution.
I like
the solution. It's neat. It fits the theme. It's logical. It even fits
the name of the story. Oscar (the cat) liked it too. I wrote it in a
frenzy this morning, and got to the end.
I then
did an "I Got To the End" happy dance around the house, startling
my deaf dog and making him run for cover.
Now, just
have to see if Nathan likes it!
Eep. Just
realised it means that now I have to start on Apulder Sweet again. Yikes.
I wasn't
born in 1780, but I can still play Mozart
Today is
Australian Idol day, and here's my wrap-up for the night. All the contestants
except Courtney made much of "I wasn't born for 20 more years"
blah blah. As if loads of songs from the 60s aren't played constantly
everywhere.
See
them sing here.
Emelia
sang "Anyone who had a heart". She was actually not bad, and
for the first time saw in her what the judges saw to put her through
into the final 12. Mind you, she was behind the beat on every single
note, but at least a bit more in tune. She also had for the first time
a bit of what musos call 'performance architecture', that is the song
builds up to a rousing climax and has a satisfying finish. Good on her.
Ricki-Lee
looks like the winner to me. I'm not totally keen on her voice, it's
a bit too treble and veers on whiny at times. But she moves well, performs
well, has a lot of energy, and her voice is solid. She hasn't put a
foot wrong so far. Tonight she sang Proud Mary in a Tina Turnerish outfit,
and it was pretty good. I wouldn't buy her records, I just think a lot
of others will.
Anthony
sang "Give me some lovin". I am really not sold on him. It
was a slick performance, and he made the most of his pretty looks by
stripping off his jacket halfway. You can really tell a lacklustre performer
by the fact that they need three key changes to generate any interest.
I find him boring.
Amali
sang "I say a little prayer for you". She is so beautiful,
but she has NO idea how to put emotion into a song. She is 16 and it
shows. I find her very hohum.
Daniel
sang "He ain't heavy, he's my brother". He only discovered
a couple of days ago what the song is about. For him, it's an in family
joke. He sang well.. he always sings well, his voice is trained and
it shows. But he did not get the song. A singer like him should be able
to do much better. I'm totally gone off him.
Marty
sang "I can't get no satisfaction". What a fool! It's one
of those once in a generation songs, you're mad to do it unless you're
really crash hot and even then... think Madonna's cover of American
Pie, listen and learn. He just didn't understand the point of it, and
it sounded sweet. Sweet!!! I ask you. It's actually a very boring song,
most of it is just a couple of notes over and over. It's only good because
Mick Jagger is so edgy, intense, full of aggression and youthful rebellion.
Marty.. well Marty isn't. Totally gone off him now.
Hayley
sang "To Sir with love". It was a boring rendition of a song
I don't much like. She stood stock still, and sounded nervous. So she
should be, it's a damn hard song to pull off, and she didn't.
Courtney
sang "Spinning Wheels", which is a cool song. Again, like
Satisfaction, it's only cool if sung really well, which he did. Sung
badly it's like a nursery rhyme. Courtney has an edgy voice, and precise
delivery. I was disgusted that Dicko raved on about his weight. It's
not appropriate during the show. Reckon he'll get more votes out of
sympathy for that. Along with Ricki-Lee and Casey, he's getting better
and better.
Chanel
sang "Walk on By". I am going off her big time. She does the
same thing on every song and thinks she's being different. A little
swoop here, and breathy little cutesy girl voice there. Most irritating
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