Silly

On Thursday the kids had a shared lunch with me. In exclusive Brethren terms this means I have first servings of the food and then retire to the staffroom to eat so as not to break the "not eating with the exclusive brethren" rule. They also gave me a goody box - enough treats to last the 18 weeks of treatment, and certainly guaranteed not to allow me to lose weight.  I managed to hold it together throughout all this and then three of my old students from previous years appeared with a huge bunch of flowers AND  a vase and this card. I was in floods of tears and then my nose started bleeding so I was a right mess!
Never mind - the sentiment is excellent!!
However looking at these two girls I wondered what I will wear when I lose my hair, and while their headgear is very fetching I have opted  for a very classy felt fedora from Ezibuy. It will either cover my thinning hair - or hold my wig on in the wind. Today's silly something - buy a silly hat!

What am I up to now?

When I first told the students at school that I had cancer, one of them asked "What stage are you at Miss?" I replied "Too early to say" which was quite clever of me as I had no idea what she was on about. I know now that I am just entering stage three. I have the BIG lump on my neck and another swollen gland on my collar bone. That takes me from stage 1 (one lump) to stage 2 (more than one lump) then the body scan revealed that I have one swollen gland below the diaphragm - near my tummy - and that takes it to stage 3. However this gland is 11mm when they class it as enlarged at 10mm. I have some other glands near my heart which are enlarged but only 5 or 6 mm. My breasts, armpits, adrenals and kidneys are clear. Stage 4 is when your bone marrow is affected and I won't find that out until next Wednesday. That's serious.
I have diffuse large B cell of non-activated germinal centre. Ok so that the "tech" report.

Getting ready

Just a week until we see Dr Forgeson, the specialist from Palmerston North who will come up and design my chemo cocktail - it will be a version of the RChop regime. Ha ha since my nickname as a kid was Chop (hence 222choppy was my radio call sign when I was playing radio announcers. Yes I did all the singing and the news broadcasts.)  There will be 6 treatments in a 3 weekly cycle. So I have ordered 6 Agatha Raisin Detective books from the book registry. They are very light reading. Duncan will order 6 bottles of (good) champagne for us to have as each cycle is completed. Although they do say my taste buds will be affected and it will have a slightly metallic effect. We were very pleased when Jill found some information that alcohol has a slightly protective effect from Lymphoma. I am saving all the easy puzzles in my sudoku book for chemo days. It is 6-8 hours for treatment no1, then 4-6 hours for each successive cycle.
Liz and Barry were down last weekend, and Liz bought me her wig block. Her wig she called "The opossum" and advised me to spend a bit of my own money to add to the government grant to get one which doesn't look like roadkill.
At present my neck is very swollen as I have a bit of an infection in my mouth. It makes me realise how careful I will have to be once treatment starts.

Premonitions

This is the first of the BLOGs now that I know that the lump on my neck is a lymphoma and will require chemotherapy.
I had always said that I would be retiring at the end of my 60th year and I can remember a dragging feeling as I headed back for school this year. Now it doesn't look like I will be able to make it through this year, and I am very doubtful about returning next year.
It wasn't long after the lump appeared that I had a nightmare. I was in the kitchen (at 36 Wylie St, Rotorua) and heaps of smiling faces were coming in the door to greet me. All of a sudden a large black bird (like a black magpie, or maybe a crow) flew in and gripped onto my forearm and started pecking at my neck. I was screaming "get it off" -I may have even called out in my sleep. All the smiling people just kept on smiling and chatting and doing nothing! Then Jill came pushing her way through the crowd and lunged at the bird... At this point I woke up in a very agitated state. From that point on, when they said "it's probably viral, but we'd better check that its nothing more sinister"  I think I secretly knew the answer.

There are about 5 possible causes of lymphoma including presence of the Epstein Barr virus - a flag for Glandular fever which I had about 6 years ago and agricultural chemicals. However Duncan thinks it is highly suspicious that this should strike during the period when I could not get Marmite even when it was back on the market! I guess what we mean is - who knows what caused this to flare up?

Neck Minute

After the Easter break I was still very worried about the lump on my neck. On the Tuesday I booked an appointment with the doctor on Friday as I had to go early on the Wednesday on my VC class visiting marathon. First to Kerikeri in North Auckland where the class had done very little work at all, Then I flew via Auckland to Christchurch. By the time I arrived I was feeling very unwell, but with the help of some pain killers had a reasonable nights sleep. Next morning on a plane to Hokitika, then a car journey to Greymouth.By the time I got back to the airport I was so sleepy, but managed to nap all the way back to Gisborne.

So first thing on Friday I had the doctors appointment and he sent me up to A and E. Of course things move very slowly there, and I was sent home just before lunch to pack a bag and return at 2 for the ultrasound which they expected would confirm the diagnosis of a blocked salivary gland which they would then drain and put me on intravenous antibiotics and keep me in overnight.

Once in the ultrasound there was much cooing - "oooh that's interesting, I'm just going to get the radiologist to look at this" He said "oooh that's interesting, I just going to send these images up to the Ear Nose and Throat Specialist"

The upshot was that it was not one enlarged gland but a whole "bunch of grapes" of lymph nodes that were enlarged. Subsequent Google searches say there are 300 lymph nodes in your neck, and I reackon I am close to having 150 of them inflammed.

It is very hard to turn my neck, or lift my head off the pillow. Since it is viral I was sent home to rest but with anti-inflammatories and painkillers until the swelling subsides. The ENT specialist will then have a look to see if there is anything nasty being masked by the swelling.

Will try and do my classes that have internal exams this week, but my head is very fuzzy, so will just take it one lesson at a time.

Nonna's Passata

 As I am mellowing I am finding the time and patience to do things in a more relaxed fashion. One of the things is to process the tomato crop hence the heading Nonna's (grandma's) passata (tomato sauce). I am not quite a purist yet as I don't skin the tomatoes, but I do take the pips out.

We have had a wonderful tomato crop this year, mainly "Early Girls" which came early and are enjoying it so much they are still producing. I remember when we went to Sydney and stayed with Brett and his Italian wife Rosalia her old mother used to make the passata every morning and in the evening the two daughters would call in and pick up a bowl of passata.

Very fascinating from a mathematics point of view that the fruit display rotational symmetry of order 2,3 and 4.

Now just a top up of fresh herbs - we have basil, sage, rosemary and thyme and a good steady boil up and we are good to go.

I used this on top of meatballs made by Duncan for a dinner party this weekend. A golfing mate had presented Duncan with 6 aged wines including a Bakano 1965. We checked on the internet - thinking maybe they were valuable - but the wines were dismissed as not enjoyable AND not worth anything. While not up to the standard of today's New Zealand wines, one or two of them were not too bad. I did 6 tapa courses - starting with smoked cheese and cocktail onions on toothpicks - very 1965, then smoked lamb on ciabatta with mint and basil pesto that Duncan had made. Many counted the mushrooms stuffed with chorizo sausage and cream cheese and then breadcrumbed as the highlight of the night. The meatballs and pasta - a small plate serving followed. Next was a crostini with Tarasamalata (creamy fish roe) with a tomato nipple. These were the the tomacchio that Duncan had grown (very small tomatoes), and by this stage of the night the gentlemen at the table were a bit giggly about this. We finished the tapa with a small serve of steak cubes and raw energy salad (beetroot - raw with carrot - YUM). I passed round a fresh salad of Shrimp amd avocado on a bed of salad greens to finish, and dessert was a brownie (made with courgette - but I wasn't telling them that) with blackberries and cream.

A great night was had by all - something a little bit different!

Final Days

 Shall I tell you a secret? I thought that 3 weeks at Ohiwa was far too long, but by the time the last few days rolled around I still had a few of the usual "to do" list to check off. So off we set from our cosy campsite, nestled in the trees to walk around the spit.

 Millie found some shells covered with banacles obviously ripped away from their hiding places but a couple of strong surges that we had.

 Grandad had to take a ball - Looks like Millie has confiscated it!

The cliffs are starting to show signs of erosion. The beach changes every year. In the past these would have been gently sloping sand dunes.

 There has also been some alarming changes in birdlife here too. This variable oyster catcher has three chicks, but the usual flocks of godwits were nowhere to be seen

The  spinifex blew like tumble weed across the dunes into the sea which promptly - well at the next high tide - dropped it back on the sands again

Sand and Shell modern art.

Low tide so the small crabs were scuttling about.

And finally up the track to the road. Notice the salt laden base of the reeds as we had had a few very high tides.

And it was during the last few days that we found that children are natural surfers. Watched by a proud but envious dad, Alex takes it right in to shore!

And now Millie shows her stuff!

Only 10 more months till we are there again - for at least three weeks!