I have been thinking a bit about people that I used to know this week.  People who have died.  I always do, I suppose I’m  a bit of a dweller, but perhaps a bit more lately as I’ve been writing some stuff about cancer.  All my dead people except one had the big C.  So that’s a fair bit of C.  A fair bit of watching people you love being eaten from the inside out, until everything collapses in on itself.

I watched a movie in the late 80s called Less Than Zero, and the chick in it said she had a creepy feeling that her dead loved one (Possibly her Grandfather? My memory is a bit sketchy, it was the 80s after all) were watching her doing stuff.  She was a bit weirded out by it, mainly because she was having lots of sex.

I too think of the people I know who have died, and I imagine that they too are sometimes watching me, but I have made some rules up of what they do and what they don’t see.  Even dead dudes need boundaries.

They don’t watch me in intimate moments, like, going to the toilet or yelling at my kids.  They give my some privacy.

They don’t follow me around when I’m doing boring stuff like waiting for the car to get serviced, or doing the food shopping, although, apparently they do hover when I’m clothes shopping.  Particularly when I NEED those jeans on sale in a size 8.  (They find them and then pour me into them.)

They do sit nearby when I’m upset about them dying, especially when I’m in a secure little place like the car or the shower and think I might have a little cry.  I feel their warm breath in my ear telling me it’s okay to miss them, but that it’s okay to be happy if I want.

The hang out with me when I play the music they like, and I think I can hear them singing along, faintly, just faintly, at the blurry edges of my hearing.

They come and visit when I need a hand with something, especially if it’s a protection-type thing, or something that mortals can’t really help with.  They have superpowers to bend things a little if required.

I have given them some other powers too: they can read minds, so I don’t have to seem like a nutter, having my conversations out loud.  They can also organise things for me if I ask, like shuffle my appointment book around, or to help with the kids.  They can get my kid good blood on transfusion day, as well as a competent doctor who will hit the vein up first go. They keep an eye on my kids when they are out in the world, and help them to be safe.

They help me with; the plot twists of life, being graceful in defeat and they give me a nudge when I need some help to step onto a stage and be unafraid to share my heart. They help me to keep on going when I want to stop, to remember to dream, to let the sun shine on my face before rushing off to the next thing, and to take the time to simply be present for a moment. Most of all, they remind me that no matter what happens, life is a gift and the present is something that must be held gently and sweetly as it’s the only thing I truly have.

Noosa River- My thinking place

My friend had breast cancer.

When you have cancer, and somehow the body that grew those rogue cells is able to overcome them, people say that you are lucky. That always makes me cringe. I know they are talking about the fact that you had the Big C and are still here to tell the tale, but from what I’ve seen, it doesn’t look very lucky.

Have you ever looked at cancer cells under the microscope? Even if you know nothing about histology, when you see them, you know something has gone terribly wrong. Under the microscope, there is an organisation and structure to normal cells, and in fact, the cells of each organ have distinctive features. So you can tell the difference between a thyroid cell and a liver cell, a heart and a lung. Cancer is not something from the outside, it is those self-same cells, but they are in a death rush to end it all. They are multiplying and dividing and multiplying again, in some frenzied tornado of reproduction, so that they become some mutated, ugly cousin of the original cells, hideously echoing the family traits.

Their evolution is like Gremlins, but they have the malevolent fury of something from the other side of the Pet Semetary.

I despise them.

My friend had breast cancer.

It ravaged and contorted and shrank her body, killing her from the inside out, just as mine swelled and glowed and created a new life.

She used to talk to my fecund, streched skin, right up close, whilst I was doing for her the only thing my hands know how to do for people in pain. I would rub away on her tissues from the outside, hoping that I was erasing some of those cells deep within. She would tell my baby all sorts of things, and I now realise I was squirrelling those stories up, like quotes in one of those “Words of Wisdom” books, saving them for the Winter of my empty.

When someone you love dies, that is all you have. Photos, stories and perhaps some things that they used to wear. Nothing new gets added as the years mount up, so you have to save up those fragments and slips of ideas that you shared, and store them deep inside, for it is all you will ever have. Nothing new will be added, not ever. So those fragile wisps must be wrapped lightly in the most delicate of tissue papers, and stored in a box with plenty of air around them, so they can breathe and retain their shape and stay precious and safe.

When my friend used to talk to my ripening abdomen, I was often struck by the thought that we were both growing things within us. She talked to mine, she told it to be good and healthy and strong and creative and funny and to pop out at home in a rush of bursting life. I talked silently to her’s and told it to fuck right off and leave her alone and have our business done and done and over and done.

Mine listened. Her’s did not.

So now I count off the years gone, in the milestones of my daughter. Every December as Christmas draws near, I wait for the punch in the guts and I struggle and claw myself past that day on the calendar fearful that if I go down, it will kick and kick me, as I cower on the floor. I hold myself rigid as I think of the people who have more right than me to grieve, the people who share those very same cell lines that took her down. And I think of the love of her life, and the hole that he has somehow filled with wonderful things, old and new.

I don’t even know what to say to them any more.

My friend had breast cancer, and she didn’t let it stop her one bit. Until it stopped her for good.

She was not one of the lucky ones.

None of them are.

RIP Rick. Miss you. Still.

…From The Ashers

I have been a bit off the bloggy RADAR at the end of last week and then again yesterday, because I’m feeling a bit weird.

We had a big end to the week, with a big relief.

We are lucky.

When we go to the hospital, we are in the Paediatrics ward, so obviously there are lots of sick kids, who are mostly admitted with things that are acute but transient.

The kids go home.

And they go home well.

Sometimes the kids have chronic things, like our kid does.

Those kids go home too.

And they go home pretty well.

But then there are the kids that have a thing that doesn’t fit into either the acute or chronic category. They have a thing that fits into the terminal category.

By and by, they go home too.

But they don’t go home well. We all know why they go home, but we won’t think it-won’t imagine it-won’t say it.

Instead we will light candles, say prayers, make wishes, bargain with a higher power, get Facebook likes for them, send quotes, stay positive, raise money, raise awareness, send positive thoughts, share their story, wear a ribbon, do anything except think about the reality.

There is a local kid who has been popping up in my Facebook feed over the last little while. I don’t know him, or his family, but I know people who know him. So I know he has come home. Just like we did last Friday. But we came home to laughter and energy and relief. Sweet relief for another few months. We felt the heaviness pushing on the backs of our necks evaporate like so much vapour.

They didn’t.

And that makes me feel a bit weird.

I hope you heal little dude. I hope your parents get to feel the heaviness leave. I hope it with all my heart.

…From The Ashers xx

Thinking of my big hearted friend, today.

Happy Birthday Hayls.

I will play Green Spandex thirty seven times, and probably have a cry.  (I’m already crying.)

Things I would rather be doing:

Choosing you a present.

Talking to you on the phone, or even better, in person.

Discussing what the birthday celebrations are gonna be.

Doing some Jump Dancing.

Teasing your husband because he got you something weird (That of course, you loved. Because: also weird.).

Agreeing with you that your best gift would be to have Ricki here to share the day with you.  If only you could have that.

Shit, I’d even give you a cuddle.

I don’t like this game.

I didn’t like the cancer game either.  I kept on wishing for it to be over so we could get on with our real plans.  I think John Lennon said, “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.”  The same goes for death, I guess.  I remember you saying once, about someone who had died, and who’s loved ones were consoling themselves with the stories about how they had “had a good life” and that they “died on their own terms”, that they were still dead, and dead for a long time.

It is long.

And yet it’s not even a year.

It feels like a lifetime and a minute.

I don’t know what is worse.

I just bloody miss ya.

…From The Ashers xx

I don’t really feel like writing a blog right now.

I just got some news that someone I care about has cancer.

Another one.

My Dad died of cancer.

Nath’s Dad died of cancer.

Nath had cancer.

Nath’s sister had cancer.

My Aunty died of cancer.

Two of my mates died of cancer.

Two of my patients died of cancer.

Another three of my patients had cancer.

Someone told me the other day that one in two people will have cancer.  I’m not sure if that’s right, it seems like quite a lot, but maybe it is, and maybe that’s why it feels so personal. Regardless, I’ve had enough.

So right now I’m gonna go give my sleeping kids a kiss, sit on my couch, hug my cancer-free husband, watch some Top Gear on the teev, eat some chocolate, drink a beer, and think about how lucky I am that my worst ailments are a blister on my toe and a bit of a sore finger that I suspect might be a bit over-worked. (Even though they are quite sore)

And cancer? You can fuck right off.