Saturday, April 29, 2006

 
a chart with year-by-year recurrence rates: I really should stop looking at this stuff now, it does no good. I'm not even up to the first anniversary of post-treatment yet: that's the end of June. and I guess there'll never be a point where I can say I'm safe; just a reduction in the fear.

 
a chart with year-by-year recurrence rates: I really should stop looking at this stuff now, it does no good. I'm not even up to the first anniversary of post-treatment yet: that's the end of June. and I guess there'll never be a point where I can say I'm safe; just a reduction in the fear.

 
more of her research here; nothing that new, but she is looking at subsequent pregnancy in her proposed study.

 
australian research on breast cancer: particularly the project from Angela Ives on pregnancy...

 
current activities: talking to dh (in sydney) on the phone. watching various kitchen fittings, water pumps and paintings on eBay. watching my shares not going up enough to pay for said eBay objects of desire. buying VERY expensive painting by an artist I've always loved, over the phone. wondering how to justify said purchase to husband. dreading yet eagerly awaiting the onslaught of tradesmen into my nice quiet house for the (finally! about bloody time!) installation of central heating next week. trying to get together an Australia Council grant application (why not? other people get money to write). letting my Mum come down to "help" and being tired out by the way she talks nonstop at me. feeling guilty for letting her leave when I needed to nap, she'd driven all that way. organising my party. wondering what my semi-breast will look like when the bandages come off. showing A. how I cook things. teaching him to go back to bed at 5 am (this morning he woke me, I said "what time is it?" and he said "four" -nearly right!). watching SuperNanny on TV and being truly horrified. trying to keep up the merest contact with my friends. having late-night conversations with down-and-out and slightly drunk old friend who insists on telling me how much he always fancied me (as I did him, but it's not so helpful to talk about it now, we both had partners then, mine his best friend, btw. explaining to said old friend why I can't have phone sex with him (yes, it does count as infidelity, which is why I haven't quite forgiven dh for his net porn phase). trying to make my uni assignment really, really good. wondering what to wear at my 40th drinks. fretting about roofing, fencing, general decay at my place in the country. wondering if it's feasible to live up there for a term one year when A's at school (the town has a school, nothing else, and I mean no thing.) wondering how that would work if there was ever a baby #2. feeling bad about a friend who had a mc and didn't tell me until afterwards. overdoing it by riding into uni on Friday and getting a sore chest. checking my shares again and freaking out about what happens if the market crashes. wondering how to buy US dollars while the ozzie dollar is high. dreaming of New York. wishing A. had slept for another 20 minutes this afternoon so I'd be writing now instead of randomly blogging. planning the novel I'll write if the Australia Council gives me $10,000. looking at the spot on the wall where my expensive painting will go and not being at all sorry I've bought it. planning Sunday dinner for friends when dh is home. wondering if dh will like his birthday present. accidentally listening to the Wiggles for five minutes in the car after dropping A. off....

Friday, April 21, 2006

 
so I didn't take my computer into hospital and post from there. so sue me.

now I'm home and moving quite gingerly, but without a drain tube thing (yay!) and protected by my electronic walls (no need to make calls/answer emails if I don't feel like it). have to pick A. up in two hours, and will probably try to unpack before then.

going back into hospital was slightly surreal; it's so much like an international flight. the early wakeup, the taxi through dawn streets, the queue to check in, the smiling (this was a private hospital after all) uniformed assistants telling me what would be happening. the oxygen deprivation, and in the end, waking up in a different place. not the same, of course, are the embarrassing won't-do-up-at-the-back-gown and the texta marks all over my chest.

so I have a right breast. sort of. it's covered in gauze and does not have a nipple, and will need further pumping up (right now it's swollen though) and "nipple construction" - ooh baby! I can't swim, or lift objects, or etc for weeks, and I have to be very careful A. doesn't bump me. one operation down, two to go.

A. came to visit me twice, like the good son he is, and each time as I watched him cheerfully toddle out the door, I thought how awful it would be to be in hospital dying, not able to go home to him in a couple of days. and I had serious doubts about the baby #2 plan. we'll see.

meanwhile, am laying plans to turn 40 with a bang later this month; including flaunting whatever cleavage I have in a silly dress at some point.

Friday, April 14, 2006

 
men. aargh! It's Good Friday, hence no childcare. next week I go into hospital, followed by a week with a public holiday on the Tuesday (no childcare) and dh being away for several days, including part of a weekend. so things will be busy.

I have: a uni presentation to do. A uni assignment to redraft. a long theoretical piece to read. a story I'm halfway through. I get anxious when I have too much to do and no prospect of getting it done. if I don't write, I get grumpy; I"m addicted, as I am to exercise.

so I ask dh to take A. out for one fucking hour while I get some stuff done. and he sighs and takes his time and generally makes it clear what a problem this is. to the point where now he's finally gone, I'm upset and blogging about it to get my head clear, instead of working on my writing. 45 minutes left...

Monday, April 03, 2006

 
Saturday morning the new bed arrived; two men put it together while A. watched from the door. he loves it; insisted on napping on it that afternoon, but couldn't sleep in it that night because we had a sitter and I wanted to be the one to put him in it for the first time. it's all decked out with Wiggles quilt covers etc, and he slept in until 8.30 (according to summertime) this morning.

so I've taken the sheets off the cot and will clean it down shortly; then I guess it goes up into the roof. how sad is that; my little boy really is growing up.

he still likes cuddles, though, and I'm getting as many as I can while I can.

he's into imaginative play; this morning I was the baby while he changed my nappy, brought me a dummy etc.

have been reading newspaper articles about big childcare centres and their failings; we have been so lucky with the little community centre down the road. I can't imagine leaving him in a substandard centre, knowing he was unhappy or at risk. it's wrong that people have to do it.

other readings: in the US, commercial breastmilk sales are appearing. at first I thought "how weird": then I remembered how upper class women used to send their babies off to wetnurses for the first year. the more things change...

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