Sunday 10 June 2007

Going along nicely

Yesterday was a good day. Mum and dad came to visit in the morning and then I had some rest in the afternoon and then Jess and Nat came in to visit at night. Jess and Nat brought Chinese and some DVDs although we got too busy chatting to actually watch any DVDs! I felt well for most of the day. I was extremely tired though - last night I spent from 9pm to 10am this morning in bed!! Unheard of for me usually. This time I am not having Dexamethasone which is a steroid that usually peps me up and keeps the tiredness at bay. They think it was partly responsible for my hypomania so I am not having it this time. The good news is that now I don't need sleeping tablets to sleep (usually the dex peps me up so much I need sleeping tablets). Also the dex caused my skin to breakout so all round I am very happy I am not having it. For those who are wondering what role dex played in my treatment - it reduces swelling in the tumour and reduces nausea.
Today I have had a good day too other than feeling tired. Cam came and visited this morning and we had a nice morning together. Tiernan is sick with a cold so I will not be seeing the kids until he is better - I miss them so much. I contemplated seeing them and making sure Tiernan did not come to close but figured that would be impossible. Today is mum and dad's anniversary so mum, dad, Nat, Ben, Tim and Jess are out for lunch celebrating. Ben is going to pop in after that to say hi. Tonight Amanda and Kylie are coming in for our Sunday night chin wag. I am planning on spending as much of tomorrow as possible tranquilised. Doctors and nurses alike have warned me that tomorrow's drug is dreadful. Hopefully it wont be as bad as they say.
I am currently on the lookout for ideas. What for you ask. One of the positive outcomes of having had a hypomania attack was the ability to free my mind and have some creativity and I have been doing a lot of thinking lately (with my chemo and drug effected brain no less) and there are no services out there specifically to support mums who are diagnosed with cancer whilst pregnant or with young babies and/or toddlers. So I am starting up a charity. This charity is going to offer support such as babysitting so that the 'well' parent can visit the sick parent on their own, counselling for toddlers to help explain that a parent is so sick, counselling for parents to help them cope with the demands of a critically ill parent as well as a new baby/toddler, tip sheets for the sick parent on coping with some of the side effects of chemo, outings for the families on the times the sick parent is home, toddlers toys and DVDs to be kept in the 'cancer' wards of hospitals to help occupy visiting children. Where I need everyone's help is with ideas for fundraising. I am thinking of holding a charity auction dinner in October and would welcome anyone's suggestions or donations for items to auction. Natalie and mum are thinking of doing a walk from Bribie Island to Caloundra. Any other ideas are very welcome.

The other thing is the name of the charity. During my hypomania attack I decided that the logo for the charity would be three jellybeans - pink, blue and red. (Anyone with any artistic talents feel free to give me suggestions on how to put this together into a logo). The idea with jellybeans came from trying to explain to Tiernan that I was pregnant with him when I climbed the Harbour Bridge. We were at Circular Quay in Sydney and Tiernan saw people climbing the Harbour Bridge and he was amazed. I told him that when he was a tiny jellybean in mummy's tummy that mummy climbed the Harbour Bridge. Now we constantly have discussions about when he was a jellybean or when Arielle was a jellybean. I am not sure I really explained the concept well enough though as he has also commented about when he was grown up and I was a jellybean in his tummy. I think I will just leave it at that for the moment though as I am not going to have a birds and bees discussion with a three year old. The other reason two for jellybeans is that I just about live on them lately due to blood sugar problems and from childhood I have always related going to the doctors with having a Glucojel jellybean. So given all of this I was thinking of calling the charity either JELLYBEANS or JELLBELLY. Any comments would be greatly appreciated. I did think of Dette's Wish however I am conscious of the fact that we will probably have a website and trying to spell Dette's Wish over the phone would be too hard. So I want a name that is simple, easy to spell and easily recognisable.

Well that is all for now. It is ten to four and I still have to have a shower and change out of my pjs!!! At least I am holding up to my promise to keep the blogg regularly updated!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi bernie,

Great idea with the charity.

As mum may have told you Mary and I hosted an event in America in your honour and Mary is in communication with a charity called locks-of-love which we want to bring here to Australia. They collect hair donations of 10" or more (so therefore could work with Worlds Greatest Shave) and then make wigs for kids with cancer. So once Mary and I get that off the ground (when she returns) some joint fund raising would be in order :)

As for your charity here is my name suggestion:

MumsLittleJellybean.org.au

Hope to see u soon.

From cousin Angelo & Mary

Anonymous said...

I think the charity idea is amazing! Count me in to help. I certainly know what it was like with a very young child and having treatment for cancer. I am more of a researcher than an ideas person though. I like the mumslittlejellybean!
Gayle

Anonymous said...

Hi bernadette
I hope your recovery is getting better each day.
I would like to know more information about your charity, as i think my school can help.
Details such as; -when you expect this to be up and running.
-specifically what you aim to do
-and how you are going to carry through with this charity, meaning is this a Brisbane based organisation? Will it appear in Syd?
You see, our school is looking for a charity to fund, and im hoping that with sufficent reason I could convince the rest of the executive to help with your budding charity, and with a school of 2000, im sure we could make a splash!
Your in our prayers always
Pamela-your cuz