| marriage
27 February 09
It's Luke and my 25th wedding anniversary on July 14th. Will he make it?
I should qualify that question: Will he make it in the flesh? I have no doubt that his spirit will be with me.
I have been thinking about marriage. It's like playing a Mozart piano sonata.... |
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| Family
25 February 09
Pete and Susan arrived yesterday. Luke was on day two of the chemo, and feeling awful, but he was so happy to see them. It's wonderful to have them here.
Pete braaied last night, Karoo lamb chops and wors, and we all sat together for the first time in nearly... |
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| 23rd February
23 February 09
Luke did the second dose of the first round of chemo today. It's 42 hours with a balloon filled with the chemo, which he carries in a moonbag. It feeds straight into the port in his chest.
He's doing ok. He's tired and pale, but cheerful. The oncologist says he's... |
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| Dignity
19 February 09
It's true that you never know someone until they are pushed to the limit. Luke has always made a fuss about colds and aches and pains. He's needed to be put to bed and coddled.
But now, here he is in constant pain, with a ileostomy bag, a permanent catheter... |
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| How rude is this?
18 February 09
I found the Cum books giftcard on line. How rude is this?
Luke's catheter putting in went well, though he has a lot of pain. It's in for three months now. The tumour is growing around his prostate and the base of his bladder, so it affects his sphincter. Unless... |
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| 16 February
16 February 09
Luke goes in tomorrow morning to get a permanent catheter inserted from his bladder to his belly. This is more comfortable for long term use, and now he'll have two bags on his tummy.
We've had an emotional weekend. He broke down his reserve and wept and wept at having... |
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| 13 February
13 February 09
Luke is so much better. He's got through the chemo with no vomiting. He's positive and peaceful, and has got out of bed and started living again.
It's such a relief.
He says its because the doctors have been honest with him at last. They aren't trying to cure him,... |
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| Thursday 12 February
12 February 09
I have a student in Australia. This is what she wrote me on email:
"The koala and the dear fellow who rescued him are
both from my hometown. The Koala has been named Samantha and she is being taken care of and is expected to make a full recovery."
That's good. |
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| Wednesday February 11
11 February 09
This morning the front page of the paper showed a burned koala being given water by a fireman. I found it incredibly upsetting. I got so distraught by it that I started to have a panic attack that I couldn't calm with meditation, and I thought I'd have to take... |
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| February 10
10 February 09
What a miracle hope is. Luke is up and about again, engaging with us, checking Philip's homework, and eating.
All because he started chemo yesterday, and he hopes it will buy him time.
I can't bear hope anymore. And I'm the optimistic one. It is too painful to have it... |
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| February 8
08 February 09
Yesterday Luke's therapist, who has been doing some couples work with us recently, came, and we spent an hour with her.
It was terribly painful, and even she cried. But by the end of the hour we had engaged again.
The problem is that we are so different. When I... |
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| 7th February
07 February 09
For 24 years and 7 months, which is as long as we have been married, Luke has complained bitterly about the way I accumulate clutter. What is clutter to him is material for a potential creative project for me, material that one day I will alight upon and say 'AHA,... |
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| Friday 6th Feb
06 February 09
I used to reflect on the fact that I regularly think i am the luckiest person in the world. It seemed to Oprahish. But it was true. I'm lucky because when I see something beautiful, or engaging, like a lovely baby, or a bed of inca lilies then my whole... |
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| Wednesday February 4
04 February 09
I keep crying. For a while I forget, and then it hits me again. I get hot and feel as though I am going to vomit.
Jenny Parsons collected my recycling today to take to Oasis. I went along for the ride. We went to the charity shop and she... |
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| Today's News
03 February 09
So he is terminal. Poor Luke. The cancer is back in his pelvis and in his liver. At the worst he has six months. If they do chemo and it works this time, he will have up to two years.
I am so fucking mad with rage. And I'm heartbroken.... |
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| chemo starts tomorrow
02 February 09
Luke had a PET scan this morning. he was in agony, and almost completely incontinent, and the doctor called me in to say that his bladder was enormously swollen and he needed to be catheterised at once. So it was off to Kingsbury. He is much better now with the... |
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| Lovely Poem about my Gynae
01 February 09
I love my gynae, Peter Roos. Last time I went to see him I wrote a limerick about him. His name begs it.
I found it today, searching through emails, so here it is. It's a little rude. For those of you who don't speak Afrikaans, a framboos is a... |
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