I thought up that slogan at the retreat, hoping to help someone, most of all Mae.
But its hard to love chemo because its a bitch. Its awful. Chemo makes you sick, tired and miserable. It is tough medicine. It goes against my every mothering instinct to take Mae to the hospital to have poison infused into her veins. Even when you know it targets a bigger enemy, the cancer. I remember the old Arabic saying: the enemy of your enemy is your friend and I try to keep that in mind while I sit with Mae all day in the chemo suite, fighting the urge to push the staff away, disconnect the drip, scoop her up and get her out of there to somewhere that feels safer.
Putting your trust in modern medicine is an act of faith. It feels like we have made the right decisions about treatment, but it's a tough lonely journey for Mae. She has completed four fortnightly cycles of chemo now, with eight to go. The tumour markers appear to be normalising and her white blood cell count is holding. She is losing her hair, she has nosebleeeds, mouth ulcers, neuropathic symptoms, pain, nausea and a fatigue that goes so deep, so long that no amount of sleeping helps. But she is a remarkable young woman - philosophical, mostly positive, always stoic and unbelievably patient. In the "on-week" she takes her pills, stays quiet and sleeps a lot, managing her symptoms without fuss. In the "off-week" she begins to come back to life and can sometimes cope with outings and socialising and some normal daily life activities.
Nick is mostly back at work and carries a big load in terms of managing the life practicalities at the same time as supporting Mae, which he does better than anyone. I am trying to get to Canberra regularly, especially during the "on-weeks". They seem grateful.
It's a special kind of nurse that chooses the chemotherapy ward. Here's one of them:
She's wearing cytotoxic purple, has black bat wings and two spare sets of eyeballs. I bet it was her who put this charming image up on the window of the chemo suite - not quite what you expect to see!
Yes, black humour reigned in the chemotherapy delivery room on Hallowe'en. Good on them. Staff also brought in witch cake, spider rings and severed finger lollies to share. As I said, special breed of nurse.
It seems to help Mae to get out a little. Wednesday last week we did a little drive around the southern shore of the lake, visiting some of her old pigeon sites from when she was doing her honours thesis, also seeing lots of water birds. She couldn't manage getting out of the car, but the views were calming I think.
Later that day, she and Nick absolutely refused to back down from their intention to take me out to dinner for my birthday. So we went to Pistachio at Torrens, and it was very good. Mae managed to sit upright, smiled and ate a good meal, with her take-home chemotherapy infusion bottle tucked into a little waist bag supplied by the hospital. She is determined, very determined. This is my delicious seafood dish.
This is the birthday torte courtesy of Flute Bakery. Yum!
Please keep sending your healing thoughts to Mae. It can't hurt to supplement modern medicine with some positive energy from out there, can it? Here's a link to Lian's blog in which she speaks of Mae's condition. Lian's post and the responses it drew completely brought me undone and I cried and cried. Sometimes the power of the written word takes me by surprise.
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