The home straight and memories of Christmas with cancer

Books and games now completed!  Prince Caspian finished off the 40 with The Wizard of Oz and The Wolves of Willoughby Chase also read this week.  A final mad Lego board game afternoon has seen the 40 family games chalked off too.

All that remains is for this blog to be completed, which I will continue right up until my birthday, (lucky you!)  a scouts sponsored swim, which I have to go in and promote the charity so they can organise it as part of their badge work, plus help out with them counting out lengths on the night.  Finally (although now not officially a challenge) I will be holding a party / get together for as many people as I can possibly fit in the centre who'd like to come who've been involved in some way or another with my challenges.

I want to make sure that it the coming few weeks I share with you some more of my experiences of living with cancer, party as a reminder to me, but in the hope it might help others too.
I hope to show not just the serious side, but the funny side of cancer too!  (There really is you know!)

Firstly some pictures dug out of Christmas Day whilst on treatment.
On the first you can see how terrible I looked (I actually was worse than the photo suggests!)
I sat there on Christmas Eve full of cold with a temperature.  For most people this isn't a problem, but if you are on chemo you're supposed to go into A+E with a temperature because of infection risk with low blood counts.  There was no way however was I going to let my two little kids wake up on Christmas morning to no mum, so I just hoped and prayed that I'd be OK.

  As you can see, although unwell, I made good use of all the winter woollies I'd been given to get me through the winter, modelling them all at the same time.
Fortunately for me the temperature didn't get any worse, but by the time I went to get my checkup in clinic between Christmas and New Year for my next round of chemo, I was given antibiotics and my chemo was delayed.  The down side to this was I wasn't going anywhere for New Year.  The upside was I got to spend it with my family, not suffering the after effects of chemo to see in the New Year!

As you can see, party hats look so much better on a bald head!  We got through until New Year without any further illness, and I had my chemo a week later.  We also made the most of a New Year's Eve together just the four of us.

Cancer threw some horrible stuff at us as a family, but we got through it.  This is why each birthday and Christmas is even more special to me now.

https://www.justgiving.com/Louisevernon4040/

The end is in sight

As many of my challenges near their conclusion the end is in sight, and an amazing £1270 has been raised along the way to date.
The cycling 40 miles was done in 5 days and only now almost 2 weeks later am I thinking of going near my bike again.

Last week we had a mammoth film fest to get them all completed, the final one being Antman which we went to see at the cinema along with my parents too.
Much of last week I've had my nose stuck in a book finishing Frankenstein and Far from a madding crowd, both requiring immense concentration to follow the language.  I now recall why I didn't go any further than GCSE English.  I've just got to find 3 more now that I haven't already read.  I scoured the library the other day and have been in second hand book shops to no further avail so far.  Hopefully I'll have better luck this week.
Board games and card games are slowly being plowed through, last night after reading through the rules a handful of times we tackled Backgammon.  Not convinced we played it properly.  It took us 10 minutes and at no point did we block each other's counters. We might need to research tactics!  There's 6 more left to go now, so currently working through the huge number of Lego board games we have in our house.  At least these are no so taxing.
Party invites have been issued to many of the people involved, so the end is really drawing close.  I'm not quite sure what I'll do with all my free time afterwards!!  I'm sure more volunteering and different types of fundraising will be on the cards.  It's going to be pretty hard to top this one though.
As I get down to my last few blog entries I might need you all to get sharing to get me some readers like I did with my first few entries, that had well over 100 views (340 on the very first one)!  Thank you for sticking with me to the end.
When I was ill I had contemplated writing a book / journal of what I was going through.  I never did get around to it, perhaps if blogging had been as popular and accessible then I might have.  I only got myself setup on Facebook when I was ill.  I have to say it kept me in touch with the world and helped me get through many hours where I wasn't really well enough to do anything else.  Time makes you forget some of what you went through, which is why I sometimes look back and think a journal might have been good.  I wouldn't want it to feel sorry for myself, more as a reminder of how far I've actually come.  Little things do pop back into my head now and again.  I remember little bits about the fatigue, and how I would try and go for a walk, sometimes just walking to the next street corner and back would actually be a real struggle.  There would be other times where my mum would do the school run, and I'd sit in the car just so I could get outside.  I was too tired to walk the short distance to the school playground and back.  It was also the coldest winter for years, great when you're semi bald.  I used to go out with 2 hats on, and even sleep in one occasionally.
I often go to support groups and chat to people, each of us has our own little story, with our trials and memories.  Perhaps that might make an interesting read sometime.  Not everything was doom and gloom though.  I recall trying to get into school in a bit of a panic to speak to my son's teacher to explain how we'd been throwing my boob around the room and he'd been holding it  that morning (to explain what a prosthesis is).  This could have been a potentially awkward conversation that she might have had to have with a 6 year old when taken out of context.  I dare not imagine what he might have said.
My parents were mortified having got me a new electric razor for my birthday, only a couple of weeks later  for my hair to start falling out.  I found this hilarious!  We also found a great use for my old bras when the snow came and the children made snow ladies!  (I add only in the back garden!)
Sitting in oncology they always used to have radio 2 on.  I still remember the irony of listening to Gloria Gaynor - "I will survive" when I'd just received some bad news about my chemo not working.  I also changed my ringtone on my phone to "Radioactive" by the Kings of Leon when I was trundling backwards and forwards to radiotherapy for 3 weeks.  People were always worried at offending me.  A friend had posted something on Facebook to me about pulling her hair out.  I remember her being horrified where as I was crying with laughter.  You definitely get a warped sense of humour when going through treatment.
That's probably enough ramblings for one morning.  I did say I wanted more people to read this!!  Enjoy your day and think of something positive!

Just 6 left to complete

The end is in sight!
Just 6 more challenges left to complete, one of those being this blog that you have been reading throughout so just 5 more really!

Today and yesterday I spent time being a real couch potato finding online the rest of the computer games I played in my youth and young adulthood.  For those who do not know me as well I've always been a bit for a computer nerd, (but only just!)  I started at a young age with the grandstand tennis as anyone who is around the 40 mark will remember clearly.  I've recently seen one up and running in a museum!!  I then moved onto various consoles including the Atari 2600 where Sky Skipper was my favourite.  Check it out if you dare.  In my teens I had an Amiga 500 with my first window based operating system,  (none nerds now asleep) before moving onto Windows or DOS games on my first 486 and then the Playstation.  The 40 games were a real mixed bag from all of these, and don't you notice the graphics when playing them on modern PCs and even phones!!

I've not just been a couch potato though, since Saturday I've been busy cycling, 40 miles in a week.  Not that much some of you may be thinking, but for me who cycles no more than 5 or 6 miles a week, this has been pretty taxing to get on my bike every day.  All being well I'm actually hoping to finish in 5 days, assuming I get to Kingsbury Water Park and back in one piece tomorrow!!

So what's left you might be thinking.  I've got a handful of books and films to finish off.  They might get finished of the summer holidays if I'm lucky, and get off my laptop.  I've got an absolute mound of board games to get cracking on with the kids, so that should keep me pretty busy too.  I'm then helping to organise a Scout's sponsored swim, well at least go and talk to the kids, and get them to get sponsorship in early October.

A get together is planned in October at the centre to celebrate what has been achieved, and hopefully tie up anything left in the few remaining weeks of being 39!

I'll have to make sure I finish my blog leading up to my cancerversary which I've now worked out is the 3rd November when checking through my original consultation notes.  Time was a blur in the weeks leading up to diagnosis, so I never really remembered the exact date of being officially being told I had cancer.  Four days later I hit 40 a wonderful feeling to still be here to be able to say that.
I am thankful for being alive, and for all the opportunities I've had since cancer.

I'm also tremendously thankful for all the people who surround and support me every day.