I finally worked out how to do paragraphs with the new setup!

Just one more round to go. I'm so excited. Sort of. Its so strange, almost being done after such a long long long time. About this time in the round I'd usually be starting to get a bit anxious about the coming week of cytotoxic poison, but since its the last one for the moment I'm just thinking about what comes after.

Not that post treatment life wont be complicated. I wonder a lot about what kind of language I'll use to comunicate with people about it afterwards. There will no doubt be people saying things like "done forever" or "cured". Its awkward because obviously nothing is certain - far from it - but you also dont really want to go "well no, actually... maybe?". Especially since its not really my way to just nod my head and go along with it. I always feel more comfortable with people knowing. I also wonder about my eventual return to work, and then eventually my return to university. I'll meet new people and it'l come up that I've been away for a year/two years and they'll ask what I was doing. Of course i can just say something vague like taking a gap year from uni and working, or with work saying I was travelling (but then they'll ask where and blah blah), or I could say I had some health problems to sort, but that just creates more questions than it answers! Of course I dont worry about other people being confused, more about the possibility of people being awkward, or asking others about it and finding out I had cancer and then being weird about it. I'm much more comfortable being candid about the whole thing and just saying I had cancer. I guess. Just thinking out loud a bit here.

I know I dont have to tell people anything if I dont want, but I always feel that there should be a more open dialogue around uncomfortable issues like cancer - or in particular cancer in young people. Perhaps if people know they know someone young who had cancer, when they get strange symptoms like I did they wont be so reluctant to take them seriously. Last time I saw my GP she was saying how so many young people and doctors all just sort of think "its fine, I'm/they're young" when in fact young people really aren't invincible. Obviously, these things do happen.

My attention span and focus has been good this round, though energy levels have been very up and down. I saw Tim Minchin live on the 3rd in Sydney with some friends which was fantastic. Not only is he wickedly clever and fantastically funny and talented, he makes you feel awfully smug for agreeing so wholeheartedly with all his songs and opinions. Few days later I went to the coast with friends, which was lovely. It would have been a lot better though if summer wasn't taking a vacation this year though.

Though I'm getting fairly anaemic Im holding up pretty well I dont feel that different, though the drop has probably been fairly gradual over the last month or so and in comparison to everything that happened since surgery being a bit more tired and short of breath really doesn't stand out so much.

Still haven't got anything definite happening with radiotherapy. I'm pretty sure they're mean to call us sometime to organise more appointments. They better hurry. I think ideally radio would start three weeks after chemo, same as with normal treatment, and I'm also under the impression that I'm meant to go down for a day before hand to get an MRI and get everything set up for the actual radiotherapy. And then there's also the PET (and possibly CT) scan/s that have to be done "as late as possible" but before melbourne. Who knows! Its hard to worry about being punctual with this last lot of treatment at this point.

I wonder how many more blog posts I'l have? What should I do with this blog once I finish treatment? I think I'l keep updating for a while at least, chronicling my return to normal life. And I suppose also updates when I have follow up scans/appointments.

Hope everyone out there is well x