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WHAT A WEEK.....A LOT HAS CHANGED!!! SORRY FOR THE DELAY IN GETTING IT UP!


Monday 19th of Feb 

Soooo tired today! 

Spent a lot of the day updating my blog (everything is getting harder now, thinking is getting really tough. I keep forgetting my train of thought and it's frustrating). I'm about half way through the 10 week period after radiation (things "should" start to get better now..... Fingers crossed..... I just want a little more energy and some quality time with the family and getting back to a bit of normality).

I know it will come....... I just need patience and those who know me know I don't have any patience 😊😊





Today is Tahlia's first day of netball coaching after school. She is so excited and I'm so happy that she is getting into a team sport. The gorgeous Kay dropped Tahlia off after netball with a yummy banana cake...... Yumm!!! (Was demolished in no time.... Thanks Kay). #sogratefulforawesomemummies #blessed



Not long after, my gorgeous little man Lenny walked in with a massive bouquet of flowers (that were almost as big as him.... my spunky man). Lenny arrived with the equally gorgeous Fleur who brought over a with yummy dinner for all of us. Been so spoilt with gorgeous vegetarian meals from my family (as cooking has become a challenge). Simple activities like bending to pick something up or things like cutting veggies take forever to do). 



Although as spoilt as we've all been Harper asked me to cook this week.... She wanted me to make a vegetarian Bolognese I make (with mushrooms instead of mince)...... She says she misses mummy's cooking.... Very cute Harper. So I might try it tomorrow, just for my angel cakes. 



I’m struggling a bit tonight...... Very tired! I know there will be good and tough days, and this one was a little tougher. I just want to sleep now. Really hoping I start to come out of the other end soon and start to feel like I have a bit more energy. 

Here's to tomorrow and a better day 💪🏾🦁👠 #stillkickingitsass





Tuesday 20th Feb

Today I am getting an MRI on my brain and body. Looking forward to that because it will be the first measure on the brain cancer since I’ve had radiation, so I should have an idea if its worked.



Had to fast today before my scan and had to get up earlier than normally do. I find that when I wake up earlier than my body is ready to get up, I feel really nauseous so I end up having a spew…...gross!!! This becoming a regular thing…yukkk!!! I’ve always been a chuck guts but it’s no fun at all and I don’t like that the girls see me like that, so I try and hide it from them.



When I went in for the scan I was concerned because I was sure this wasn’t an MRI. I didn’t have to remove any jewellery or wear special headphones. I thought no not another CT scan…..I need an MRI. I’ve had so many scans and tests now, I know all the machines. But today because I was a bit unstable on my feet I was more concerned about that than what machine I was going in….but at the back of my mind I knew it wasn’t an MRI.



After the scan, Mum, Harper and myself  went for a treat of ice cream and yummy chips from “Lickings” and “Royale Bros”….on Church Street Brighton……yummy!!



Then it was off home so that mum could meet Fleur at her new place to do her condition report. YES you see Mum has also bought a new place as well and is moving into it in a few weeks!!! So exciting!! Finally the place she has been building (for almost the last 1.5 years) is finally done and she will get to move in very soon.

Mum was wrapped with her place. She will be very happy there. It’s brand new and a perfect new start for her. #soexcitedformum #abouttime #getstostarttoliveherownlife #ownpad



On another note Harper hasn’t been feeling her usual happy self, I knew she would benefit from an afternoon sleep today. We both slept from 1-4:30pm and it was exactly what we needed. Poor Harper has a terrible cough that is persistent...... She just needs mummy snuggles today and I loved it. #bestsnugglerintheworld #suchalover



Then for dinner Aunty Raxy came over with tuna cutlets and salad..... Yummm!!! Delicious….thanks Raxy, went down a treat!!! #hotandcancook #loveyou



Also received a surprise delivery of some stunning sunflowers and a pack of daisy seeds for the kids to plant from the gorgeous Mel Lee and Ames Ross……Loving them…they are so bright and make me smile. #blessedtohavemetyou #loveoureveshammummies







Wednesday 21st Feb 

Another early start today! Today I have a blood test before my Zometa treatment tomorrow and Harper has a Minihaha photoshoot in Glen Iris!



Harper loves her photoshoots (especially with Minihaha), she has been doing them since before she was 1 years old and just loves Jo (owner of Minihaha, Bebe, Fox & Finch, Tahlia, Sophia) so much. She was a good girl as per usual and looked so cute in her special occasion items coming out later this year!



The gorgeous Jules (photographer) has offered to do a gorgeous family photoshoot for us. We have been blessed by knowing the most amazing people who just want to help and do things for us. We will definitely take you up on that offer when things calm down a but…thanks Jules…you’re awesome!



Then it was time for Mummy to go home and have a sleep, and I felt much better for it.



Then that afternoon I decided that I would make a start on dinner for tomorrow night. So I sat down and cut all the veggies for my vegetarian Bolognese (that Harper wanted me to make), it took a long time. A job that would normally take a few minutes, took well over 1 hour to do. But it was satisfying to get cook a meal for my dolly girl (tomorrows meal….I hope they enjoy it).

The skills that have been affected this week have been cognition and motor skills. I find my handwriting is terrible and it takes me a long time to work out what I am going to say and then to actually write it neatly. Kane thinks it’s not that bad….but you should see his writing 😊 …jokes babe…love you!

The other thing is that I'm not getting back to everybody, everyday. The reason for that is that I wouldn't never get off my phone. I'm lucky and have lots of beautiful friends who are concerned about me. I seriously just forget. And I prefer not to talk on a mobile phone as it hurts my ears (prefer speaker phones). So please know I love you all. I know you are concerned and trying to reach out and I love you too. 



Not long later we got some special visitors. Katie and Luna came over….I haven’t seen them in such a long time. Luna is crawling……WHAT?????? She has a tooth and is super interactive….grown so much in the last couple of weeks. It was so nice to see them both and it was interesting to me to see Luna trying to work out what’s going on with my hair…..I think she thinks I’m her Daddy (clearly better looking of course). So nice to have Luna snuggles and love, I was getting lots of special dolly kisses.

Sean is in America at the moment kicking his own goals. Things are just starting for him

#watchthisspace #excitedforyoubro #rememberImyouronlysister 😊

That night we had yummy Ann Lanigan vegetable soup for dinner….thanks Ann for your yummy soup make with love.



Got a message from Kane stating that Gary has to change our appointment to Friday at 8:30am instead of tomorrow morning. Oh I could have just made dinner tomorrow instead…DOH!

Oh well at least I’ll get a sleep-in tomorrow and don’t have to wake up early for another appointment…..bonus 😊





Thursday 22nd Feb

I had the best nights sleep. Was exactly what I needed and got up when I wanted to, not when my alarm went off.



Today my mum was able to have to whole day to herself. She was able to drop Harper at kinder at 8:30am and then have the whole day to pack for her own move in a few weeks.

My gorgeous friend Gill brought Harper home after kinder and we had a catch up in our “new” pad!

Was lovely to catch up (feels like we’ve been gone from Plummer Rd for ages and it’s only been a few days…and I’m sure it won’t be long till we’re back). Although in the mean time this house is a serious upgrade. This rental has 2 bathrooms (1 more than our old home) and a renovated kitchen and the kids have a little cubby and a spare/playroom too! It is also in the most convenient spot for school and kinder #couldnthavefoundabetterplace #happywhereweare #therental







Harper was so pleased with Gill picking her up from kinder, it was such a novelty for her and she just loves Gill. Special thanks to Super Ange for staying back a bit longer at kinder while Harper got picked up #loveeveshamrdkinder



That night we had Mummy’s Bolognese for dinner and I have to say it was a disappointment…think it is a mixture of my crappy taste buds and different ingredients to what I normally buy. Or is could be that we have just been super spoilt by all the yummy food we’ve been receiving from our gorgeous friends and family….I think it’s that 😊

Decided I was going to jazz it up tomorrow night to make it yummier.





Friday 23rd Feb



HOORAY WE FINALLY SEE GARY AND FIND OUT NEXT STEPS AND WHAT’S GOING ON IN MY BRAIN!!!



Super early start today, our appointment is at 8:30am, well before my wake- up time….my body is not ready for me to be awake. I woke up nauseous and ended up vomiting in the car on the way to see Gary.

*** fun story I felt sick and alerted Kane whilst he was driving. I found a plastic bag in the car (HOORAY!!) managed to vomit in the bag until I realised there were holes in the bag and it was coming out on to my jacket…..CHARMING!!!! The joys!!! Poor Kano…..Thanks for cleaning me up babe.***



We get to the appointment and we’re ready with lots of questions and queries.



Firstly, was it an MRI I had? No it was a CT scan I was disappointed as I thought this was going to be the first measure of my brain since radiation. But this was my mistake as he did say that we wouldn’t know radiation results for a few weeks (too early to test with MRI now).

OK the CT scan is not a good measure for brain activity but what it did show is a significant growth in the lung cancer. I feel that this was to be expected given we were not treating the lung cancer when we went on the Alectinib, as Gary was more concerned with fighting the brain mets.



He said that our options going forward are immunotherapy and chemotherapy together. He said that I would have 4 extensive cycles of chemo (every 3 weeks) and immunotherapy every 2 weeks for the rest of my life.



Kane I and I spoke about the effectiveness of this as a treatment and he said it is really effective and will give me a good chance.



We spoke about being tested again (with new biopsy) for T790M (Targrisso meds) and if that is a better option. He said he didn’t want to wait to get the results for that test as it takes a long time (4-6 weeks), he said we needed to act now given the tumour has grown so much.



I’m just disappointed that I asked for the fresh biopsy in January this year (knowing the test results take so long and he didn’t want to do it then due to perceived risk from the biopsy but now he doesn’t seem concerned about the risk and I’m having the biopsy on Tuesday this week.

So, my feeling is we should have done this test last month and know without a doubt, if I am positive for the T790M mutation or not and then this week we would just be starting on the correct meds.



My concern is I don’t want to have chemo if I don’t need it.



So, like with every appointment you have you walk away and you think, and you start to come up questions and queries.

We’ve gone back to Gary and have asked these questions.

-       We want to know if there is a way of fast tracking the results for the T790M?

-       What is the next line treatment should immunotherapy and chemo fail

-       Are there other options?

-       Clinical trials we can get on?

-       How good are my chances?

-       How am I going to feel on immunotherapy and chemo?

-       What are the side effects?

-       Can we hold off chemo until we know results of T790M?



We sent this email off to him, and to Prof Ben Solomon (who I am going to see as my second opinion, this Thursday morning from Peter Mac).



Other things that have changed is now I no longer need to take Alectinib and I need to take Folic acid for my new treatment.



I will follow up with Gary on Monday to see if there is any way we can fast track the testing to know for certain? Although I feel he is going to say no.



From our appointment with Gary I had my Zometa treatment in oncology. I haven’t had one since last year because I was having radiation. The nurses were shocked to see me because I look so different. The last time they saw me I had long hair and now I’m bald.

Upon talking to them and helping them understand what was going to happen they suggested I get a port inserted (because I have very narrow veins and having immunotherapy every 2 weeks and chemo every 3, as well as blood tests, scans, contrasts are going to make my veins even more difficult to deal with because of scar tissue.

One of the lovely oncology patients from Cabrini is an advocate for the port and showed me hers and she said it was the best thing she did. The nurses feel it really is the best option for me and will prevent a lot of grief in the future.



So next week is looking like:

-       Monday 26th following up to see if we can get an early test result on T790M?

-       Tuesday 27th Feb lung biopsy Cabrini Malvern

-       Wednesday 28th Feb port inserted in chest Cabrini Malvern

-       Thursday 1st March second opinion meeting with Prof Ben Solomon Peter Mac

-       Thursday 1st March meeting with Gary and starting chemotherapy.



After speaking with the patient about her port, all I could wonder was how low in the chest can they go with inserting the port?

The reason for wondering this pathetic really…..it’s because I bought a dress for Kylie’s wedding on the 17th of  March (and I love it and I don’t want to see the port!) Seriously such a vain reaction, but wouldn’t it be good if you couldn’t see the port much? I’m going to ask how low can they go and get ready for the #youresovainremarks 😊

I’m really just hoping that I feel well enough after the chemo this week and immunotherapy in the next few weeks that I can be there and party with my little cousin on the happiest day of her life #IlldoeverythingIcantobethere #wouldntmissitfortheworld




On the way home I picked up some more grocery items to jazz up the dinner a bit….and I have to say, after my second attempt it made it much better 😊



Before we went home we went past HASS our framer on Bay road with the Skylighths we had removed from our house last week. As soon as he saw the job we had for him he said he wished we kept going. I guess he’s not looking forward to a pain in the ass job that this is going to be. But he is the best and I trust him and I can’t wait to see the job completed and hung in our new home! How nice will it be to have the original skylights (1940’s) from the existing house in our new contemporary home? #cantwaittoseethem. #hesalegend





Also this weekend is a good weekend for mum pack and get organised before she needs to move.



Chad popped around with some gorgeous flowers, love them…my house looks like a florist now. He’s just concerned and wanted to pop in….so sweet. #suchasweetheartcousin



Also the gorgeous Mel Ward did a sneaky drive by bearing chocolate and wine……thanks honey was not necessary…but definitely yummy 😊



Tonight was a particularly tough night. My mind is just not working for me today. Over the last 2 weeks that main symptoms that have been bothering me, have been fatigue, nausea and especially losing train of thought. This has become particularly difficult as I will totally forget what I am going to say if someone interrupts me. I can forget completely till the next day or sometimes it comes back within mins or hours.

It is very tough on the kids because they are kids and they don’t completely understand it.

I hate being snappy with them…..I love them and I miss (quality) time with them. So Kane and I are going to try and schedule fun family time with them when we can. We’ll try to go out for early dinner with them on Sunday with a special treat.

I want to try and keep things as normal as we can for the girls. That’s why this chemo is not ideal as I’m not sure how its going to make me feel. #couldbethefreakwithnosideeffects 😊





Saturday 24th Feb

YAY Corella’s first game of Netball for the season!!!!

Tahlia has never played netball before, so she is nervous. WOW early start….we need to be there at 8:40am!!!






Tahlia and all the girls looked so cute and are pumped.

We get to use the new courts and it looks awesome….they are so lucky to start at the new courts. The girls all look so gorgeous. They are nervous, as many haven’t played before but they are excited too.

They did so well for their first attempt and by the end of the game were really finding their groove. I think she’s really going to enjoy it and love being a part of the team!





Well the day proved a bit too much for me, because a few minutes into the car ride home  I started to get nauseous again and this time came prepared with a plastic bag. But this one had holes in it too…..bummer and there was no saving it. So I had to throw the spew out of the window…thank goodness Tahlia’s window was up. It was seriously gross but provided the girls with a good giggle….what is happening to their mummy???



I think Mummy needs a good sleep….which I did till about 2:30pm.



Later Kayla, Larraine (Mum) and Aldrin and Raquel came over for a visit. Kayla the honey bought us a gorgeous Indian dinner and lots of naughty doughnuts. Was so nice to catch up with everyone. Has been a long time with everything that is going on. Kayla the girls adore you and would love a day with you….we’ll work it out soon. Thanks honey #suchasweetheart





Sunday 25th Feb

Uncle Wayne came over with breakky for everyone this morning (thanks Uncle Wayne) and to teach Tahlia her song for Kylie’s wedding. Tahlia wants to do a good job for Kylie so wants to be super prepared for it when she sings it in a few weeks.  Wayne worked out a good version for her and they recorded it and now she needs to practice before the big day. He’s going to work with her over the next few weeks, so she feels good about it.



She is a good little singer (definitely got her skills from my bros and not from me), but this is going to be challenging, as she needs to sing it without a microphone, in a cathedral with Wayne playing live guitar, in front of potentially 300 people! #goodlucktahls #youregoingtosmashit



After an afternoon snooze by me, we took take the girls out for an early dinner to Tommy Ruff’s in Mordialloc, so that we could have some fun time with them before the craziness of the next week. Hoping chemo doesn’t knock me around too much, so I still get to have energy to enjoy the fun times with the girls. After Tommy Ruff’s we went to YOMG (YO MYGOODNESS) for some yummy frozen yoghurt. Was so nice to do something fun with the girls, they’ve been so good adjusting to all the changes.








Despite all this stuff happening during the week we’re also in the process of building…..so our house is going to be demolished starting tomorrow for 3 days, WOW!!!!. I have mixed emotions about it. It will be sad to see it get knocked down, but exciting because we’re starting our new project.

I’m sad because a lot of the gorgeous features of the house are going with it (the gorgeous plaster mouldings in the ceiling, the original windows, a Denon AMP, an electric gate, terracotta roof tiles, light fittings etc etc) we just couldn’t sell it all in time. I really want to see the house get demolished but we don’t know if we will be there to see the house knocked down because of all our appointments this week. I know it will freak the girls out to see it.



I’m excited to see how fast it all goes up. Exciting times ahead can’t wait for our new home. We are building with Thomas Archer, and to date they have been amazing to deal with. They are taking a vested interest in this project and I feel they are eliminating many issues for us. I would recommend them highly to anyone. #cantwaittoseehowitallcomestogether.





#fullonweekahead #lotsofchanges #upforthechallenge #kickingitsass #cancercangetstuffed #Ihavetoomuchtodo #notimeforthisrubbish #bringonremission





#BIGWEEKAHEAD #LETSDOTHIS #LETSBETHEEXCEPTIONNOTTHENROM

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