I had trouble coming up with a title for this post but then when I thought back over the last couple of weeks this title caps it all off nicely.
Over the last month I have been doing quite a lot of brainstorming and networking to get JBeanies out there. I have brochures in various clinics around the lower north island and a couple of Cancer Societies are coming on board and putting the word out there about my product. One branch has ordered a dozen straight off; so I am really pleased about that. One lady who bought a beanie a few weeks back, suggested to me that I should make gardening sleeves (which she had seen on Good Morning whilst she was waiting in reception at chemo). She thought that they would be ideal for women like ourselves who have had lymph nodes removed through surgery and have to go to great lengths to protect the limb from cuts, scratches, insect bites and sunburn whilst working outside. So I have taken that on board and have made some of these and intend selling them though my JBeanies website, once I have photographed them. Of course once I decided to make them I had to think up a name for them and came up with Green Sleeves! Pretty cool eh!
I am done with my wig. I don't wear it if I can help it. I even treated myself to a nice new hat last week. My hair is getting thicker (not thick enough to go without a hat though) and my eyelashes are growing back.
Well, last week's chemo was number 11. This last regime has gone really fast for me, although I will be releived when it is finished with. I am starting to get really tired now as the district nurse predicted I would. My bones ache (which is another side effect) but then that could be old age creeping in, not just the chemo. I suppose after having chemo for the last six months, it is starting to take its toll. The travelling in and out to Wellington once a week is also quite tiring; well not so much the chemo itself, but the looking round the shops afterwards. Monday and Tuesday nights I am tucked up in bed by 7.30.
As I sat having my infusion last week I looked around at the other people there, all for the same reason. In this room it doesn't matter if you are young or old, black or white, rich or poor, highly successful or unemployed, male or female. Cancer does not discriminate! It can effect anybody. And you know what? We all probably thought that Cancer is what happens to somebody else. And here we all are....the somebody elses. Then I see and talk to people who have it real bad but you would never know by their great attitudes and positive spirit. I look at other people who look really sick and hope beyond hope that my monster has gone. Never to return. When I walk out of the clinic after my last infusion next week, I hope I never have to go back for chemo ever!
It's great to hear you so positive. I know what you mean by meeting others who are worse off than you. That's how I feel when I go for my radiotherapy, such sad stories, but such cheerful people, we sometimes have such a laugh and I always come away from there feeling very lucky that I seem to be coming out of the dark tunnel while some are just entering it. At least you have something to look forward to - in a couple of weeks Helen will be with you and then you are going up to the north of the island, so you can have a nice break and a rest. Love you lots, you are still such an inspiration to me - Linda x x x
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