Thrills, pills and a headscarf

On Saturday I posted a photo of me smiling in the hospital. Saturday was one of the first times I felt like smiling while I was in the hospital. Things haven't really improved but they're semi-controlled and I had decided I just needed to have a good day. I've actually had a really rubbish month. While the world has been falling apart with the Covid-19 threat, my world has been doing it's usual kind of cancer related falling apart as well. I attempted to go into isolation long before we were told to as a country. I'm already high risk thanks to a lung tumour and the medication I'm on so I intended to hide myself away in my safe little house and we introduced a whole lot of extra levels of germ control to stop anything getting in. Unfortunately my body had ideas other than isolation. My amazing drug that has been keeping me healthy (based on my low standards) appears to have made my immune system a little confused and it is now attacking my liver. That'...

I posted this photo from the plane as we returned back from Sydney on Friday. I was smiling; and that was very genuine. I was relieved and thrilled, and a little stunned, to hear the word stable on Wednesday. It was a feeling I could not have imagined before this diagnosis. I regularly share pictures of me smiling because I am generally pretty happy to be alive. I'd like to share a little behind the build up to this most recent smile. In December I got my usual pre-Christmas bad news. I love Christmas and all the fun, celebration and family time that comes with it. Cancer appears to be pretty determined to challenge this love because, instead of coal in my stocking, which actually seems pretty appealing these days, it gifts me shitty news each pre-Christmas appointment. It started in Christmas 2016 (pre-diagnosis) when I found out my liver wasn't functioning properly. Christmas 2017 it gifted me some new tumours in my newly regrown liver and a very difficult decision on w...