Thrills, pills and a headscarf

As those who follow my social media know, I have been able to access treatment in Sydney now. I am receiving an immunotherapy drug which I was unable to access in New Zealand. Since this cancer is very rare (only 1 in 1-2 million people will get it) there is no sure fire way to treat it. Researching a definitive way is a little challenging when there are very few people to test on. We've followed any protocols there were along the way and added in a whole lot of determination and amazing experts who are prepared to brainstorm together to find the best option at the time. Now there's no set route. Immunotherapy drugs are new in the scheme of cancer drugs and I'm a lab rat in lipstick when we're trying out what might work. All I know is that not doing anything has the most certain result. A result I am not keen on. So a giant thank you to all those who made donations for me to access treatment!!! There are not sufficient words to express how grateful I am. I was stunned...

I like to think I was a fairly present person before this cancer diagnosis. I like to think a lot of things.  What I can say is this diagnosis has made me a far more present person, in so many ways, than ever before. Even with that wonderful chemo brain that makes me unbelievably forgetful, with the fatigue, nausea and tendency to space out (particularly when I'm low on blood sugars) I believe I'm learning the art of being more present. Note I say learning, not have learnt. (If we ever think we've reached perfection then we've failed ourselves - a hangover from my Learning and Development days) Something I realised after being told I may have less time than many is that I wanted my family and friends to know just how much they mean to me. For my nephews and nieces to know that as long as they continue being the wonderful people they are and never hurt anyone I will always think the world of them, that they are amazing and I couldn't ask for anyone better to...

I've always said that travelling gave me an education I could never buy. One that could never be taught in schools or universities; that simply needs to be learnt as each opportunity presents itself. Those opportunities could be great fun or amazingly challenging. All of them important to deal with. I feel so thankful to have had another four weeks to continue my education in life and as slow as I've been on my blogs I want to share some of those learnings. Some useful, some not. Language is great in it's ambiguity: I thought I spoke Spanish to a point. I guess that's still strictly true but we had some fun experiences with it. It was quite empowering to realise I was still able to get by in Spanish, speak to people and get done what I needed to get done even if it wasn't perfect. What I did learn was there are many more differences between the Castellano I have learnt and South American Spanish. In some of many language confusions we established that ...