Month: July 2021

Music Monday | Hero – Mariah Carey

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We are still in Lockdown 5.0 in Victoria. I’m not sure how many weeks it’s been now. Two? No. Three? Like I said, I don’t know. So, I’ve reverted to spending hours consuming what I call “wholesome content” to keep me sane: Mostly YouTube–which is as close to a time machine as we have–and Mariah Carey, whose song Hero was released at the end of my sophomore year in high school.

I’ve also been reading, and have just finished The Believers by Sarah Krasnostein, and am now devouring Song of the Crocodile by Nardi Simpson. I’m still reluctant to call it reading, because I’m mostly listening on Audible; I don’t have the ability to sit still to read with so much anxiety coursing through my veins. But I’ve “read” more this year via Audible than in the last three years together, so that’s something.

And for anyone else who also needs a little lockdown pick-me-up, last year, the Phillip Island Penguin Parade was livestreamed during our 112 days of hard lockdown in Melbourne–and they are bringing it back from tomorrow night. The Speed Cubers on Netflix is a documentary about friendship and the fastest rubik’s cubers out there. And added recently to my rabbit-hole (and not on YouTube) is an Irish dancing group called Cairde. Apparently they have a TikTok, but I don’t, so I watch them on Instagram.

We are hoping some of the lockdown restrictions will be eased tomorrow. I’m hoping I’ll get the results of my 7th covid test that I had this afternoon. And, more than anything, I’m hoping they’ll be negative.

Music Monday | Grateful – Rita Ora

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Anniversary season is hitting differently than I expected–in a good way. Yes, it is overwhelming to be revisiting all the dates of medical procedures and big information, but overwhelming gratitude has been the predominant feeling.

Today is the one-year anniversary of the day I took G back to hospital to begin the staging scans and assessments prior to treatment. By now, he’d had multiple CT and PET scans, an MRI, and a brain biopsy–which is as risky as it sounds. He had been diagnosed with primary CNS lymphoma, all within ten days of me taking him to the hospital, but it was this week coming that they performed further scans–lumbar punctures, ultrasounds, ocular exams and more PET scans–to confirm with certainty that the cancer was only in his brain and not anywhere else in his body (which would have made it secondary CNS lymphoma).

We are four days out from the anniversary of the commencement of his treatment, fifteen days away from the anniversary of him being placed into a coma, and sixteen days from the night they called me to say his organs were failing.

And yet, here we are. One year later. He is outside, pacing, as he speaks to someone from work on the phone. This is typical; he always preferred to stand and move when having conversations in the before times, and nothing has changed. He is working. Not a lot, just a few hours per week, but working nonetheless. This time last year, we assumed treatment would be a linear process. He would go to hospital, have chemo, it would work (or it wouldn’t) and he’d come home. We did not expect nor account for any of the complications he experienced. By the middle of September last year, we weren’t sure he’d ever work–or walk–again.

And yet, here we are. Grateful is an understatement.

Music Monday | Brand New Sun – Jason Lytle

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On Wednesday, it will be the twelve-month anniversary of when I took G to the hospital for strange, stroke-like symptoms that turned out to be brain cancer. The next two months will be filled with dates like these; that time he had brain surgery, the time he came home from chemo but developed a severe septic infection and had to be placed in a coma and his organs started to fail, that time after he woke up from the coma but couldn’t walk or talk or move…

I am not sure how I will process the next few months. I didn’t process any of these events or emotions last year; instead, I woke up every day and simply did the things that needed to be done without thinking about anything else.

Eleven months ago, I took myself to the emergency department for heart issues and chest pain while G was in hospital. The triage nurse took my blood pressure, looked at me and said, “Oh, sorry, it hasn’t worked–let me take it again.”

I asked what it was and she said “It’s 158/123”, which put me in the hypertensive crisis category.

“No, that’s right,” I said, “based on what I’m feeling.”

My ECG was normal, even if my heart rate was elevated. They diagnosed me with stress and suggested a follow up a few months later. That ECG in January was normal, too. But now, even though the stress has dissipated, my heart is still palpitating and thudding a couple of times a day. I still have chest pain, multiple times a day. So I’m typing this with a holter monitor hooked up to my heart. I’ve pressed the button several times for mild pain but I haven’t had a bad episode yet. And I don’t think 24 hours is long enough to register one. A month ago, I’d have had three-four episodes by now. A few weeks ago, the palpitations were so intense I had to pull the car over on the side of the road and wait until they had passed. But now, they’re only happening every few days so I’m sure we won’t record the problem–tests are often ridiculous that way. Unless there is more happening that I don’t actually feel?

So, as we approach what I’m calling “anniversary season”, I am going to focus on sorting out my own health and being grateful that G is still here–currently cancer-free, progressing in rehab, and making just as many terrible jokes as ever. Maybe we’ll get our 40 years together, after all.

You should hold my hand

While everything blows away

And we’ll run

To a brand new sun