...and as all too usual these days, I can’t sleep. In a few hours I will be back in Auckland Hospital for another procedure; the placing of a portacath under the skin of my chest. With one end inserted into a large blood vessel, it’s how I’ll receive the cocktail of drugs making up my chemo treatment. Outside it’s still dark and the main road link through the city, glimpsed between buildings during the day, is quiet with just the odd truck looking to get ahead of the rush hour congestion. It’s not a bad time to be up, and when writing it's often when I'm most immersed in teasing out plot lines and getting to know my characters a little better. Lately though and somewhat frustratingly, there’s been more ‘writers block’ and less hitting the keyboard.
 
While still certain I can beat this lousy pancreatic cancer, staying strong is not easy and just like a roller-coaster one second I’m up and hugely positive, the next way down in the dumps. Often my lowest points are after meetings or yet another medical procedure. Don’t get me wrong, every professional I come into contact with is great and clearly has my best interests at heart but it’s the silly little things that seem to affect me most. Stuff like needing to have a bag packed and on standby in case the side-effects of chemo end up with me being rushed into hospital. Even the most well-meaning discussion of hair loss, and wig versus scarves can have me forcing a smile and gritting my teeth. And then there's the fact I can't plan anything, not even a weekend break as I've no idea what my situation will be in a month, let alone three or four. Everything serves as a reminder that while I feel okay at the moment, pretty soon I'll be anything but.
 
Thankfully I have a strong support network led by my very determined and pro-active daughter Beth. I’m also overwhelmed and humbled by the numerous offers of practical and emotional help from our wonderful friends. Meanwhile I try not to think too much about the future. Instead I’m focusing on a week at a time. Today the port, and then Tuesday’s assessment and the first of my six chemo’s the following day. That’s enough for now. 

Having being told to expect a meeting with a member of the oncologist team at Auckland Hospital this week or more likely the one after, we were surprised to get an email saying they’d a slot for us yesterday, at eight-thirty in the morning. Yay! Things were moving fast.
 
And that was where we hit Armageddon 2. With the tumour being situated where it is, apparently the experts feel the chances of it shrinking and retreating far enough from the important blood vessels in order to remove it are as low as 10-15%.  Even with chemo! Of course, I much preferred the less than 50% of a week ago!
 
Taking in factual information like that is quite strange, and still processing it myself I realised Jas was quietly weeping. There was nothing I could do or say. My heart broke for him. At least I have an element of control and fully intend to beat this thing, even if we have to go to the bitter end to do so. But the man I love with all my heart can only watch on helplessly and that is not how he likes things! Ask anyone who has worked alongside him!
 
Having already determined to try anything and everything, something the oncologist would have gathered from my question regarding any available clinical trials - just give me the consent form and tell me where to sign  - next week a fine tube is to be inserted under the skin of my chest and into a vein, and a week or so later I will have my first cycle of chemo, a cocktail of four drugs. This will carry on every fortnight for three months. Then it’s down to fingers crossed and the findings of another ultrasound. Meanwhile I have been given printed-out pages of the potential side effects I can expect, the worst of which as far as I am concerned is not the vomiting or nausea, or the fatigue or thinning skin, or the mouth ulcers and tingling in my fingers and toes. It’s losing my hair! To misquote Shakespeare, Woman thy name is vanity! That’s why I took things into my own hands and went straight to the hairdressers to get it all chopped off.  Why give the tumour any more power than necessary!
 
Meanwhile, I’m eating well – dinner tonight is seared yellow-fin tuna, landed just this morning at North Wharf, with plenty of green salad. I’m still off sugar, diary and meat, and perhaps four weeks of waving away cake, biscuits and chocolate might just have contributed to the one glimmer of hope we were given. That the tumour hasn't grown any larger since the last ultrasound.

Onwards and upwards!
 

If I'm going to blog about my cancer and the fight to beat it, my first thought was to start a new page and keep all mention away from my writing and such. But then I thought no, this thing in my system doesn’t deserve special treatment. Instead it can put up with being included along with all my other posts!
 
So, Armageddon? Friday 9th March was a day Jas or I will never forget. Sure, we’d known for a while that I had cancer but until then we were all in the dark as to exactly what stage it was at.  In fact, only the day before we'd  celebrated the results of the latest investigative procedure, an MRI scan showing there was no connection or concern in regard to another issue thrown up on the original ultrasound; a lesion on the liver. Yay! The cancer was nicely continued in the pancreas, so let’s get it out and move on. After all, I’m still symptom free and feeling probably the best I have in ages!
 
And that’s where things got a tad more complicated.
 
Having wrapped itself around some important blood vessels, getting it out was not an option. At least not immediately. And the one chance available, to try and shrink it with an intense course of chemo and then operate comes with a less than 50% success rate.
 
Great!
 
But it didn’t stop there. For some reason, I had the idea that once weakened, removing the tumour would be a simple procedure. Key-hole surgery with the slightest of scars as a memento, right?  Er, no! It is a fearsome, cut-you-open, highly risky seven or so hours on the table. And even then, it might be impossible to remove it all.
 
So Friday was not a good day.
 
Less than twenty four hours later, and with my specialist bluntly describing me as being in the grey area between white (survival, at least for now) and black (not a hope in hell) we were planning our battle strategy. And we’re going wide to beat this thing. Chemo yes, and anything else the experts suggest. Even clinical trials. But we’re going to be attacking on other flanks too, such as finding a personal trainer to keep me on the straight and narrow and increase my fitness levels. And there’s going to be even more focus on the sugar, alcohol, meat and dairy free diet I’ve been on for some three weeks. As already mentioned in my last post, according to the experts cancer cells gorge on glucose, but they’re stupid. Remove the sweet stuff and instead of looking for an alternative food/energy source they shrivel up and die. Okay, a bit simplistic, but you get the idea! Along with all the hard work we’re including therapeutic massages and long, invigorating walks by the beach or in the bush. And then there’s acupuncture and yoga. Oh, and a trip to Mexico and some snake-oil stuff if all else fails!
 
But first, there’s the up-and-coming appointment with the Oncologist, and the round of chemo starting a week or so later. And having been told the possible side effects and that it will knock me about quite a bit, I'm not looking forward to that.

I’m not one for going to the doctors. In fact, the last time I went would have been years ago, and as if to bear that out I believe the practice has moved premises in the meantime! But with the twinge in my left side becoming more than a little annoying I popped into the local medical centre during our last but one house-sit complaining of that and a touch of bloating. Expecting to be told I might have IBS or any one of the myriad gastric issues supposedly arising from a western diet I left with antibiotics and painkillers for what was possibly a slight kidney infection. I thought little more about it even after the follow up visit when, with the twinge having subsided and the bloating under control, I asked if I might have ultrasound imaging to update a very old diagnosis of a slightly fatty liver. I was there after all, and it would be interesting to see if giving up alcohol back in August of last year had made any difference - not that I was expecting to be told my pickled liver had miraculously rejuvenated itself. But perhaps it might be looking a little healthier?  

What I certainly wasn’t expecting was to be told was that I had a tumour in my pancreas.
 
A CAT scan would reveal more, and two weeks later Jas and I were sitting with an upper gastro-intestinal, liver, biliary and pancreatic surgeon discussing the situation and where to go from there. Seeing his serious expression and hearing the words cancer and malignancy in the same sentence while being introduced to the lovely woman who would be my counsellor going forward, suddenly it was all too real, all too serious, and all too frightening. Pancreatic cancer sits at the bottom of the table for survival rates; it’s the one you really don’t want to have and that’s why, having sent Jas off to work that afternoon I threw myself into a full-on weeping, wailing, ranting, why-me fest before conceding that strangely enough, I actually felt fine. I had no clear symptoms and given the annoying twinge had disappeared almost as quickly as it had materialised I could hardly be at deaths door.

And so, as most of us do in these situations, waiting the short time for the next investigative procedures - a camera down the throat and biopsy followed by an MRI - I turned to the internet for more information and found it full of stuff on fighting cancer with the right focus and a heavily plant based diet. How easy could that be? Already I was seeing the final score as me one, cancer nil and you can't get more focused than that! Discovering that these nasty invasive cells just love sugar and amino acids, the fridge and cupboards were cleared. Out went the designer ice-cream, the brie-slathered baguettes and Nigella Lawson’s favourite chocolate, along with all dairy and meat. In came salads, vegetable curries and healthy carbs.  And for the first time ever, I was cooking from scratch. I’m not a saint though and completely fell off the wagon last weekend at our niece’s romantic wedding in Napier. Hitting the champagne with complete abandon I also made short work of the lovely desserts, not to mention the fabulous wedding cake. You see, it’s not the will-power I lack, just a touch of the 'won’t' power every now and then!
 

​After experimenting with very tiny house living last year by way of a furnished studio apartment, ten months later we’re giving it another go! This time though we’re spreading out with double the floor area; a whole unfurnished-but-very-trendy 68 square metres plus balcony on the edge of Auckland’s Viaduct and beside Victoria Park. In fact, the living space would seem generous if we weren’t also emptying the storage unit we’ve had for the past two years.
Popping into said facility two Friday’s ago we began selecting only what we absolutely needed in order to settle in. That is, the sofa, our beds and Jas’s kitchen island unit without which he’d be lost. Then we started on the rest of the furniture and cartons. Unfortunately, over the years and in the darkest reaches of the unit those boxes, stacked to the ceiling, have been multiplying like rabbits leaving us with no option but to finally get rid of ‘stuff’ we’ve accumulated over the years. And yes, some of it is from a house we sold in 2009 while even more is from another sold in 2012! Call me a hoarder if you will, but it’s really hard to part with things that still have plenty of shelf life/might come in useful one day/mean too much to simply throw out. But even I have to admit this pared down lifestyle will have little need of enough oven-to-tableware to host a dinner party for sixteen, or duvets and bedding belonging to the single beds we sold over three years ago!

After two full-on years of caretaking lovely properties and pet-sitting gorgeous fur-babies, 2018 has brought with it an unexpected change. Thanks to a work-related opportunity, we’re settling down again! Not long term, I hasten to add, as who knows what 2019 will bring, but it'll be enough to reclaim our furniture and bits and pieces from storage. And because of  that, I’m nesting. Big time!
 
First though, we have to find an apartment. In no rush since we’re booked for assignments until mid Feb, we’ve been browsing places on line and after physically inspecting one—which by-the-way, was not quite as shown in the photos—discovered it would be necessary to up the budget if we were going to get anything we considered liveable. Call it a wake-up call, but after two years of no rent or mortgage it was a definite ‘ouch’ moment! It’s our expectations, of course. We’d like 80m2 plus, new to newish, two beds, two bathrooms, a decent sized deck and a wow view. Oh, and in the city itself please.
 
And while we search for the perfect pad, I’m happily filling imaginary blank spaces with new décor ideas and colour schemes. Itching to go shopping, the funny thing is after forty-eight months of living with a wide variety of home-owner’s artwork, photo montages, soft-furnishings and design ideas I have the strangest desire to go minimalist. Jas would definitely approve. Now more strongly averse to clutter than ever, his only request is a Smeg retro fridge and a flash Italian coffee machine!

Back in New Zealand, and caring for a lovely property with views of Waiheke Island. But there's no gorgeous feline to fuss over and pamper this time. Instead a dozen or so ducks waddle onto the front lawn every evening around five o'clock for their tea! And that's after doing the rounds of the other houses in the road!

Another experience to add to our c.v.!

Time really does seem to fly when its hard to tell one day from the next, and in just two short weeks we’ll be leaving this wonderful island and heading back to New Zealand for another assignment. With nothing arranged yet, and while already having booked a city-centre hotel to catch up with visiting family, it might then be a few days in an Airbnb. We’re not overly worried though since there are always last-minute assignments, some listed just days before they are due to commence. It’s just finding the ones with a decent coffee machine!
 
So, given the lack of distractions, have I been able to write? Yes and no! I’ve typed up pages and pages, and tens of thousands of words. Am I pleased with any of it?  Not really, though I do have some nuggets worth holding onto and a few plot lines to develop further. But no, I haven’t belted out an entire book during our stay here and so my apologies to anyone waiting for my eleventh book. If you could just hang out a little longer...!

Approaching the shore, the first impression of the house we're currently looking after is Fort Knox. All-over grey plaster with sharp edges and no relenting features it definitely seems to warn 'this is private property'. And perhaps that’s deliberate. But inside its another world!
 
Upstairs in the open-plan living area, white plastered walls wash unevenly down to a festoon of shells and coral on the painted concrete floor. There’s shelving created from palm trunks sawn lengthwise in half, and an overhead fixture of LED lights roped to a triangle of bamboo. Downstairs, our bedroom has crisp white open-weave curtains and pelmets of sun-bleached driftwood, the latter collected from the shore and handmade by the owner. More lengths form the bedhead. Add two small beside-tables and a palm-leaf mat and the effect is blissfully serene and harmonious. 
 
Then there are the gardens, an on-going labour of love that would have taken countless weeks of back-breaking work just to clear the dense island vegetation. And that's before anyone could think of planting the vibrant red and pink hibiscus and the green/purple oyster plants edging the pathways. Not to mention build the steps and yoga deck!

Okay, it’s those flaming mosquitos! They just love me – or my A-negative blood group. Either way, I would be a lot happier if I didn’t have to spray myself with Sod Off each morning and cover my red-spotted arms and legs in sarongs at night. Let’s hope they soon forget about me, as I certainly don’t remember it being this bad last year.
 
Anyway, on a less irritating note. After two days induction into the workings of this remote, off-grid home, and after taking the owners to the airport yesterday and completing the necessary shop for essentials we returned to the island and pretty much immediately Jas was wading through the warm, shallow waters with his new lightweight fishing rod. (Me – ‘Another new rod? How long have you had this one?’ Jas, a little too casually - 'Oh, ever since I bought it.') First cast and he had a barracuda on the line, sadly an inedible fish, but looking on the bright side it does appear we won’t starve over the next two months.