A good day

I am still not able to eat much, but I had a big bowl of fruit, yoghurt and full cream milk, topped with a spoonful of cereal and some cream for breakfast. I ate all of it except the cereal! Then for lunch I had some stewed apple and icecream. Ate all of that too. Tonight I intend to have another bowl of the vegetable soup I made and ate last night.

I have had a lovely day. This morning, after having my blood test in preparation for tomorrow's visit to the oncologist, I went with a friend to an art exhibition. We were too early, so we went to another gallery and enjoyed what we saw there, then came back to our intended destination. It was great. Read more on my other blog if you are interested.

This afternoon we went to visit Margaret. She seems to be holding up well after Haddon's death a few weeks ago. Then we went down to South Beach and had a little walk in the park there. It was a lovely day, warm and sunny, and a pleasant stroll. I am pretty tired now, though.

Naughty, but nice

I probably did the wrong thing today - I went to a big Craft Fair. I enjoyed myself and feel inspired to do some different things in my textiles (also to revisit some things I haven't done for a while). I took things slowly and had quite a few sitdowns - see the other blog for details.

I know if your white blood cell count is low you should avoid crowds, so I hope I haven't done myself a disservice. However, I feel less tired this evening than I have for some days, and I haven't had any diarrhea for the last two days. I will be sure to take my temperature regularly though.

Brisbane Day 1, Cycle 9 Day 6

We have been in Brisbane nearly 24 hours and we are “suitably impressed”. We are staying in a hotel in the CBD only about 200 metres from the major shopping precinct which we have visited 3 times today – for breakfast, for lunch and to buy an umbrella (unfortunately it is showery, so we have tried to keep under shelter).

This is probably more walking than I have done in months. I have needed lots of sit downs, but have managed quite well. There are lots of lovely colonial buildings here. One of the most impressive is the Old Treasury Building, which is now a casino. We are thinking we might venture into it one evening – probably not tonight, though.

Another lovely building is City Hall. It is closed for renovations at the moment, but the façade is lovely. It is interesting that Brisbane has a City Hall when all the other capital cities have Town Halls.


More rain is forecast for tomorrow, so we are planning on visiting South Bank where there are lots of museums, so we won’t have too much umbrella time.

We are both struck by how much smoking goes on. There are people standing outside every building with cigarettes in hand, though it seems to be banned in indoor areas. Smoking seems much more prevalent than at home in Perth on the other side of the continent (3709 km or 2503 miles according to the display on the plane’s information display as we landed).

Another day out

My sister and I went to a Craft Fair this afternoon. I bought some pickles (an African Mango Pickle) from Armanda whose Eggplant Kasaundi is absolutely fabulous. I usually buy that, but I had a full jar at home. I also bought a pack of the ingredients for a yummy vegetarian dahl and some passionfruit butter. I could actually taste what I was sampling which was great.

I quickly ran out of energy, despite sitting for half an hour listening to a talk and demonstration on recycling op shop finds into fashionable garments, so we left after two hours, and I have done nothing since I got home except surf the net.

I had an encounter with an acquaintance which was rather disconcerting and I am not sure I handled it well.

"I hear you have been sick" she said.
"Yes, I have cancer".
" Breast cancer?
" No, bowel cancer and it's spread to my liver. I am having chemotherapy".
" Well, I guess that's all they can do for it. You just keep positive".
"Thanks", I said.

So why is the conversation nagging at me? Possibly the assumption that the only cancer a woman will have will be breast cancer. Possibly the assumption that nothing will be able to be done for me. Possibly the throwaway line about remaining "positive". What if I sometimes want to be negative? Especially when I am having a (literally) shitty day. Positive is a meaningless word in connection with cancer. Stubborn is one I like better.

A Day Out

We are having quite a busy weekend. Yesterday we drove to York which was the first inland town in Western Australia and has some lovely old buildings. There is a very English feeling to siome of them.

While we were there we went to a photographic exhibition and an Antique and Collector's Fair. I bought a couple of things at the Fair for very reasonable prices - including an set of eight old EPNS dessert spoons and forks for the huge sum of $28. Most of the exhibits in the photographic exhibition were quite ordinary, but there were some photos of textures (wall surfaces and leaves) that I liked and some Photoshopped images which I found quite interesting as I tried to work out what the artist had done. Nothing terribly technical, mostly colour inversion and some filters.

York is 98 km from Perth and I began to feel nauseous on the trip home. I had some Pramin with me, so I took one and lasted the trip without having to pull over to the side of the road. I felt rather unwell for the rest of the evening, but have had a good night's sleep and feel OK today, apart from BAD tingling in my fingers and in my lower legs.

We are going out to lunch at our daughter's today.

An excursion

I haven't had anything much to write about for the last few days. This cycle is following the pattern I have become accustomed to, with tiredness starting to peak as I approach mid-cycle. I am not nauseous or suffering from diarrhea. I get hungry, but I can't eat much because I can't taste much either and the tingling in my mouth is unpleasant if the food is cold. The fingers still tingle badly when I touch cold things, though I have learned to use a cloth or oven holder to get stuff from the fridge, and there have been no droppings or breakages lately.

We did a big excursion on Saturday in the late afternoon to the annual Sculpture by the Sea at Cottesloe Beach. There are lots of pictures on my other blog. It was crowded, but you could usually get a photo of a sculpture without extraneous bodies. I did include one in this: it was great to see the interaction.


We were there for more than two hours, walking up and down stairs and paths . Despite our best efforts we did not see everything, as we discovered when we looked at the catalogue later. I thoroughly enjoyed the outing.

Afterwards we went to Fremantle Fishing Boat Harbour where we shared a fisherman's basket at one of the fish and chip places. The seafood component was very nice - the chips were horrible. I was a bit wobbly as we crossed the railway line to get back to the car, so it was an early night for me.

Yesterday we had visitors for lunch and I made a fish pie (snapper, prawns and scallops in a herbed marscapone and sour cream sauce with a cheesy potato topping). Everyone else liked it - I couldn't taste it and only ate half my portion though I finished it later in the evening. Dinner was leftovers. Kevin ate some of the Chili con Carne he made the other day. I cannot eat it - chili really hurts my mouth these days. Bummer - I love spicy food.