Huge Can of Worms...

Would you?

If you were diagnosed with cancer?

Would you opt for traditional treatment?

Chemo?

Radiation?

Because I don't know that I would.

I have seen too much pain.

Watched the total loss of quality of life.

And then...


Watched them die anyway.

I think I would choose to have the time left be of some quality, not to endure incredible pain and suffering so much earlier. Not to be in a morphine fog for the remainder of my life. Not to be removed from my family by a haze of vicious poisons that remove your very essence leaving a hollow shell.

For this is what I have seen, this is what those I loved lived and then died. This is what I feel. Me. My personal choice.

You?

Living 1001 Arabian Nights...

"Scheherezade: These people sit for hours - just listening. It's a miracle!

Storyteller: People need stories more than bread itself. They tell us how to live, and why."

~1001 Arabian Nights~

Have you wondered where I am? I am here, but in an unfamiliar guise. I am Scheherazade, weaving my tales, casting my spell of distraction. Each day I am writing a new story, each week I am bundling them together and sending them off in the post of Australia.

Why? I cannot do much, I am too far away and her needs are met by family and friends who live in her proximity. All I can do, as she spends this endless, horrific month being bombarded by chemo, is to offer a distraction. I send my love woven in my words, I send her something to take her away, be it only in mind. I send her parts of me, birthed in short bursts of insane inspiration.

It is all I can do, it is so little, but maybe, in my own unique way, I am helping. Just a tiny bit.

Fight my friend, fight.

Life is Unfair.

I have a Billy Joel song playing again and again on an endless loop in my head. Only the good die young.

It is a strangely upbeat song for someone sinking into the darkness.

These are the lyrics which echo in my mind after hearing Big Boy's words when I rang him with the news... "Why do the nice people in this world suffer these tragedies and trials, yet the toxic nasty ones go forth without nary a ripple of discomfort?"

We have been friends for over twenty years, I can even pinpoint the date we met. 8/8/1988 - the day I began work at a large investment insurance company. Even through divorce, distance and life's ever changing cycle of demands we have always remained friends. We talk weekly. She and her husband flew in for my 45th bash a few years back. We have shared laughter, tears, anger and sadness. We have had drunken nights, saved kittens under cars, danced at each others wedding.

Friends. The genuine thing.

Today I received a text. In February they diagnosed her with a type of pre-leukaemia with a name so big I could not begin to pronounce it. It was the day she was due to have her large bowel removed after many years of issues. They did not go ahead, obviously. And in the months that have flown by my words of frustration and anger at the lack of action or treatment whilst the medical big wigs pondered this medical dilemma which is my friend, have echoed down the phone line.

"Do you want me to fly in? I am good at kicking medical butt after Wise Woman's fiascos."

"Not yet, I'll tell you if I need you."

"You sure?"

"Yep. For Now. You can be my secret weapon."

"Or your loose cannon, heheheh."

"That too."

Finally they decided to go ahead with her op... but today I received the text.

"It has developed into acute leukaemia. Op off, chemo starting next week."

I have a huge solid knot of fear pitted in my stomach. My gut instinct is sending huge red pulses of angst through out my soul. Those fucking idiots - they had caught it so damn early and yet failed to act. Now I am scared it is too late. I am terrified we will lose her. I am helpless, frustrated and angry.

And if I am feeling this way, how in hell must my gorgeous girl feel?

For God's sake, her girls are only so very young. She is a mother, a wife, a daughter, a sister, a friend. This is not right. It is so very wrong.

Only the good die young, and she is pure goodness to her very core. Please let it not be so this time, please, please, please...

Memories Of A Lost Friend.

I am meant to be doing my exercise for inkpaperpen's Write on Wednesdays, but as the house is silent for once I have no hope of being a dialogue detective at this moment. Instead, the doors of my mind have opened into a room of faded memories and I am writing of the night my last such a writing exercise took place. Of someone who has a place in my heart permanently reserved; one day we will meet again.

A Winter's Night

It is the image of him I am left with. The two sandy blond heads together, leaning forward, engrossed in the game on the phone. It is the image I wish I had thought to photograph, though I know by that point he abhorred having any images taken. It is the last night I saw Simon.

It is cold on the mountain, it is always so very cold in mid-winter. The fires burn on day and night, heating frozen rooms, warming the homes of all who reside in this rainforest paradise. Our mouths propel jet bursts of steam as we stomp up steep external stairs to the house of friends, which hovers on the edge of the hilltop drop. Tonight it will be a gourmet indulgence, rich, white sauce drenched crab lasagna with lots of tasty sides and extras, tonight it will be a meal fit for a king, for our king has returned at long last.

My children whine, hating leaving the cosy comfort of our residence. The oldest dreads social interaction with this bunch of boisterous boys, his brother included, and the one tomboy girl attending. For him, at age 9, this type of gathering is a living hell. As it is for one other, the one for whom this feast is in honour.

Laughter, hugs and garbled greetings meet us at the door. But eyes are drawn to the taut figure sitting in the large recliner. The chair swamps him, and if I hadn't had the chance to see him briefly on his journey home from hospital, I doubt I could have hidden my anguish. So frail, so thin, so tired. So sick of it all, and sick of being sick. He is 39, but looks decades older.

We sit, eat, talk.  The noise level ramps up and conversation and games become rambunctuous. Five children laugh, giggle, joke. One child covers his ears and cowers from the noise. The man has returned to the large leather recliner, sitting quietly drinking it all in. He sees the boy, my oldest. From across the room he senses the distress wafting off the child in waves, smiles. Pulls from the pocket of his now too large jacket a shiny new gadget - his phone. Waggles it, smiles, and beckons. The others come too, jumping in, wanting to grab, investigate, intervene. Simon shushes and sends away, it is not a toy, he tells them.

The boy walks quietly over and gazes into Simon's eyes. They smile, understanding the importance of such technology, each relishing the abilities of this one little cold metallic item. The boy does not see the illness, he does not see the frailty, the shadows of pain. When he looks at the man he sees only a kindred spirit, another technological addict. And someone who understands. He moves to the chair, slides in beside Simon, shuffles his bottom to make room. Unselfconsciously he leans into the thin body, snuggles deep. They bow over the phone, engrossed, absorbed, happy.

Simon glances up, catches my eye, smiles, joy emanating unsuppressed. For right at this minute, this child has made him feel whole, just for a while. The two tousled heads lower again over the phone. The boy moves closer, looks up into Simon's eyes and beams. Simon beams right back.

It is the image I remember him by. My son, my different, quirky outsider completely content and calm, nestled as close as one human can be to another. The man, feeling special, wanted, strong. I just wish I had taken that photo.

Write On Wednesdays Stirs Up Memories

Write On Wednesdays Exercise 2 - *Detective Dialogue: For this exercise you need to be a little bit sneaky. And brave. You need to be around at least 2 other people (or a small child who will happily chat to himself and/or imaginary friends). Write down a conversation/ dialogue exchange as you hear it. Feel free to write down things that accompany the dialogue (E.G. gestures, interruptions, accents) but don't worry about this too much. It is more important to capture the way words are used in natural speech. Try not to let anyone know what you are doing. It might alter the natural flow of their words (it could also be a tad embarrassing for you!). If you can get out to a park, cafe or shop like Naughty Mumma, then this is a wonderful chance to get some new writing ideas and get some practise in dialogue writing. If you can't get out (and I know this is a reality for some of us) you can copy down the dialogue between your partner and your child. Or the conversation between two of your children or even one side of your partner's phone conversation. If you are really stuck, turn on the TV and copy down the dialogue between a couple of TV characters.



This is our task, and no, this is not my entry. I completed the same exercise nearly four years back, when attending my creative writing course. Like any good student, I decided to trawl back and read my piece. I had forgotten the pain of the week of this task.
 
You may not realise I have another blog (several in fact, but I am only referring to one of them). It is my writing blog, where all my bits and pieces over the years have been added.
 
And so I decided to add my dialogue piece from those years ago there.
 

Madmother: Little Woven Words

 

Go have a read if you wish. I have been adding more and more of my writing there.

 



Reality 101

Our phone rang at 6.15am. It was my cousin, the one I am very close to, the one I speak with weekly especially as her parents have declined in health. My wonderful, loving uncle passed away this morning. Talk about the universe giving a proverbial slap in the face, whilst I have allowed myself to be beaten down by this campaign of hate, he has been fighting cancer. We knew it was coming, but it is still heartbreaking when it actually happens. I wrote of him here. After the initial dire prognosis he had rallied, and remained in his own home until very recently. We saw both him and my Aunt in January, at home, happy.

Of course, once he was in the nursing home and they processed his diagnosis, the morphine was pumped in. Now, after not getting much sense from my heartbroken cousin, I sit and wonder what took his life. The cancer that had seemed to slow incredibly, or the morphine they administer so forcefully.

RIP Uncle Darleigh, you were well loved and will be truly missed. Say hello to the old bugger for me, I'm sure he'll be at the gate waiting.

Now I must organise my final journey to see him. I do not know how my Aunt will go on without him, they lived for each other.

Losing Mum - January 2009

A follow on from my last post, this is a piece I wrote over the dark months of December 2008, January and Febuary 2009. It was never finished as a miracle saved her, and I have not yet had to find out about life without my much cherished mother. I hope it is a long time until I do.


My mother is dying. Not today, not even tomorrow. But slowly, piece by piece, she is dying. And as she disintegrates piece by piece, so do I. I too am dying. I am emotionally dying. You wouldn’t know it to look at me. You probably wouldn’t even realise if you spoke to me. But I am. Slowly, secretly, quietly on the inside. Hidden away. Friends have not yet realised I have severed ties, that I can no longer abide trivial conversations or even manage to be polite. My ability to cheerily chitchat was the first part of me to dissolve. The quivering mess of raw nerves inside my calm outer shell start to expand if I interact with others in reality too long. They threaten to break the fragile cover and reveal their ugliness to the outside world, and I cannot allow that to happen. I am smart enough to feign commitments, to create obligations which prevent me from more than the obligatory, fleeting “hi, must run.”

It is getting harder and harder to leave the cocoon of my bed. But leave it I must, for as my mother leaches life, I must step into her void. She tells me she feels guilty for my illness. I tell her it is not her, it’s me. But I have now realised what a fraudulent life I have led for years. All the time I battled forwards, coping with whatever life tossed my way, laughing in the face of the Gods, little did I know that a gentle, firm hand was placed firmly in the small of my back, propelling me onwards, upwards. My Mother’s hand. It is only now as her frailties eat away her life I realise how much strength was within that small hand. How much of who I am, belongs to her. The hardest battle of my life must now be completed without her, for it is her loss, her death, I am fighting. Fighting a war I will not win. If I stay in bed and utilise the phone as my connection to the outside world I can fool my embattled, weary psyche that all is well. All is as it was, even as her disembodied voice betrays her weakness down the line. But my pretence is short-lived as I cannot abandon her for more than a day, and taking that one selfish day of denial unleashes endless feelings of guilt.

My body is now synchronising itself in sympathy with hers. Physically, as the cancer ravages her frail body, I am falling apart. Is it that we are so aligned, so close my whole physical being links to the betrayal of her body? Or is this just the physical manifestation of my weakness, my selfishness, my inability to save her? As I do not cope emotionally, my body reacts physically. Logically, I know I cannot rescue her, I know nobody can, but that does not deafen my heart’s response. Nor can my logic quell my small bursts of hope, the little explosions of maybe that help me to get out of bed each day and drag my deteriorating carcass into the shower in readiness for another day as her carer. Carer, such an ambiguous word. I am her daughter, her friend, these are my roles, and I should not have to destroy her dignity by helping her do the most demeaning of tasks. My soul weeps when I look at her sad, solemn face. Through her own tears she thanks me, in a quiet ladylike manner, so refined even in the face of degradation by age and illness. My Mum, oh Mum.

This is where it ends.  A week later she was rushed off in the ambulance and as her life was renewed, so too was I. This is not a piece I thought I would ever share but posting about our drive home made me realise how blessed I am, and how close it all came to this emotional house of cards falling down.

I wasn't going to post this as it is so personal.

My Uncle is very ill. We had been told of his diagnosis, but thought when the surgery went really well it may buy some more time. I rang today from Mum's as we have always been close. It is not good. Always before, when we talked he and I would be on the phone for at least half an hour before he handed the phone to my Aunt. My Mum always jokes about it because if she rings, she's lucky to get two sentences before he hands over. Today it was I who only received the two sentences.

I have always been his favourite. He is my father's younger brother, and the one most like my darling deceased Dad. He was raised in a harsh, hard-working unaffectionate, farming family, where emotions were never shown. Like my Dad he didn't like physical displays, so it became a running joke when I, as a toddler, attached myself like a limpet to his leg if he refused to pick me up for a cuddle.

Since Dad died, he often comments on how he loves talking to me because I was just like the old bugger. A straight talker. Even today when I asked how he was he replied "Waiting." "In the waiting room hey - waiting for the old bugger to come get you?" He laughed his deep, croaky bark.

We haven't been home for over a year, and thank God, we had organised to go in a fortnight. I told him he better bloody wait for me, or else I'd be putting in a bad word with the old bugger. And yes, he knows I'm mad enough to still have lengthy converations with my Dad. And to believe he hears me.

Hang on Uncle Darleigh, Dad's Boy is coming home.