Paw Paw Salad

Singin' the Black Book Blues.

About a year ago I bought myself a little black notebook

Some time in June last year, after it came to light that I was crook

Neglected now for months I get it out once more and take a look.

 

It ain’t the kind of black book that has contents likely to defame

This ain’t no list of lovers, contact details listed next to name

The hook-ups that are outlined all involve an IV and a vein.

 

I met up with this notebook after meeting up with the Big C

It lived inside my bag after some nasties were found inside me

At each and every nerve-wracking appointment it was on my knee.

 

The notebook’s filled with questions and some roughly drawn survival charts

Accounts and contact numbers and my surgery admission cards

And details of the medical equipment firm who’d make my bra.

 

I’ve got those little-black-book, life-and-death-in-biro blues

The can’t-believe-that’s-my-list-of-medication blues

Used to run your life - now it seems that cancer’s running you.

 

The notebook's crammed to bursting with suggestions from folk being nice

When cancer comes to visit everybody’s got some good advice

Sometimes it’s really useful, but there’s some I’m scared to look at twice.

 

I scribbled down the chances of a spread to liver, lungs or brain

A visit from a team of Mets who don't have baseball as their game

I double-check it often but the numbers always stay the same.

 

Six months since chemo ended and it’s time to see my docs once more

How fast has come the day when I must knock upon that clinic door

It seems the time's arrived to take the book out of my bedside drawer.

 

I’ve got those little-black-book, chattin’-about-cancer blues

The love-my-doctors-but-scared-as-hell-to-see-'em blues

The..yes, I look just fine, but I looked fine this time last year

..could be jotting down that I’m OK or I’m cactus

..only thing that helps is humour of the same colour...blues.

From little things...

I went back to work this week, to a job I’d barely started when I was diagnosed. It had been nearly ten months since my sudden departure.  For most of that time I was in Sydney having operations, chemotherapy and radiation treatment. From time to time I would stare at my bald, eyebrow-less face in the mirror and contemplate cancer's ability to raze a life to the ground. During that period I had a mental image of my ‘self’ as a carefully constructed pile of bricks – one brick for my relationships, one for my work, my body, my health, my sexuality, my self-image and so on. It seemed that cancer had snuck up to the pile, planted sticks of dynamite underneath it and then slammed down the detonator. My bricks now lay scattered in pieces. Rebuilding was going to be an enormous task, and I knew that it was impossible for the pile to look the same as it had done before.

My ‘brain brick’ had also taken a battering, it seemed. By the end of treatment, I felt that I lacked any meaningful areas of knowledge. There was my professional role, for starters. I re-trained as a social worker while having children and had worked part-time since graduation. My training felt distant, but I had not yet obtained the many years of experience that would have laid down vast reserves of expertise. During my lengthy period of leave, there were sure to have been developments in policy and practice that impacted on my area of work but of which I was completely unaware. Having only just moved to Darwin, I had not yet gathered the contacts and local knowledge that were essential to usefulness in my role. Hell, I couldn’t even remember how to get around the town I supposedly lived in. To make matters worse, I found it difficult to concentrate on news or current affairs, creating an unsettling feeling that the world had moved on without me. My cancer-related internal monologue was so loud and unceasing during that period that I found it hard to hear when people spoke to me. I seemed to be constantly missing crucial passages of conversation but was too embarrassed to ask for them to be repeated. The disease’s sardonic sense of humour meant that bandanas muffled my hearing, as if trying to heighten my sense of detachment and confusion. When I spoke to my husband and sons it was clear that they had found new ways of managing our household in my absence. My older son was experiencing a growth spurt, and whenever I saw him in person I was reduced to exclaiming at how much he’d grown, like a distant relative who shows up at Christmas. On coming to Darwin I would try not to cry each time I couldn’t find something in my kitchen. Out of touch with the daily functioning of my own family and home, it seemed there was literally not a single topic upon which I could claim authority.

In desperation, I clung to the notion that there had been an acorn underneath my pile of bricks which had somehow survived the explosion. It seemed I had little choice but to plant it and pray that something would grow. Starting a new job is challenging the first time – I am now in the bizarre situation of repeating this experience in the same role. But I’m trying not to get demoralised by thinking about the time it will take for my acorn to sprout. I cling to the idea that gardening takes patience and tell myself that - all going well - it’s not too late to grow something lovely. And tough.  

Nine Squares.

In morning breeze bandanas dance

Upon my washing line

Bright squares of cloth against blue sky

The pieces number nine.

 

Discovered, bought and sent to me

By mother, cousin, friend

They have been lying in my drawer

My treatment at an end.

 

Another woman needs them now

Though she has not met me

A friend of hers is friend of mine

And asked if they were free.

 

So sorry she has need for them

I'm glad to make the gift

I hope that in tough times ahead

They give her heart a lift.

 

Sun-warmed and dry, I take them down

And as each one I fold

I think: If I had magic powers

What blessings would they hold?

 

The first of them contains a wish

For doctors smart and kind

And nurses who bring calm and cheer

While veins they quickly find.

 

Two shields her from the toxins' power

Keeps side-effects at bay

And lets her eat the food she loves

For strength along the way.

 

The third square hides a bunch of flowers

Some DVD box sets

Stacked freezer meals, a movie pass -

The treats I hope she gets.

 

The fourth reveals a gentle path

Well-blessed with birds and trees

And time for walks where she draws strength

From sunshine and the breeze.

 

Cloth number five seems empty, but

Its stillness is its gift

Space of her own when she needs peace

Through troubled thoughts to sift.

 

Cloth six is an enchanted cloak

Its warmth she can keep near

When all seems bleak its soft embrace

Will bring relief from fear.

 

Unfolding Seven blinds one as

Light bursts into the room

Bright rays of hope to bask in when

Her days seem filled with gloom.

 

Bandana eight falls open as

Within it shoulders shove

It's crammed with friends and family who

Bring laughter, help and love.

 

Cloth nine never got ironed, lost

In joyful family strife

This bright and crumpled headscarf holds

Long, healthy, vibrant life.

 

For T.

Trapped in the Drive Thru*

Something that intrigued me about Bali was the prominence of religious observance in daily life. According to our main driver, Andy, one factor that prevents most Balinese from visiting other parts of Indonesia is the extent of their ceremonial obligations. We often saw groups on their way to temples for what we were told could be rituals lasting several days. And every morning – before dawn in many cases – offerings were placed around people’s homes and places of business. Apparently, the Balinese version of Hinduism requires both good and bad spirits to be acknowledged. Woven baskets filled with flowers and small pieces of food, often accompanied by incense, were placed on shrines to honour the good spirits. Similar baskets were tossed onto the ground to keep the bad ones satisfied.

Given my frame of mind, the idea of fickle, mischievous spirits alongside good ones made a kind of sense, and I enjoyed stepping over their scattered gifts. I liked the idea of starting one’s day with a frank plea for good luck before plunging into the fray. It seemed to fit a society where there is less of an illusion of control – and appealing to a Westerner for whom that illusion lies in tatters.

Like countless others, I struggle with the Problem of Evil – the question of how the presence of an all-loving, all-powerful God can be compatible with the existence of seemingly pointless suffering.  I have wrestled with this for much of my adult life. Contemplating the possibility of not seeing one’s children grow up certainly doesn’t make the answer any clearer. While going through treatment, I stumbled upon this strip in one of my sons’ much-loved ‘Pearls Before Swine’ anthologies.

 
I shed a little tear while laughing at this comic, and the boys wanted to know why I loved it so much. I told them that there are some questions for which you may search all your life for an answer, and “Dude, I just make the tacos” sometimes feels like it’s as good as you’re ever going to get. Right now I feel like putting it on a t-shirt – and tossing a daily offering to the ground from the edge of my verandah.

[* The title of this post - as well as being an expression of existential angst - is a tribute to one of my sons' other favourite funnymen, Weird Al Yankovic].

Here's one I prepared earlier!

I am about to go ‘off blog’ for a week or so. While I don’t like to advertise these things too much on the internet, my absence will involve a family celebration, some extraordinarily cheap middle-of-the-night plane fares and a nearby tropical location about which I will say nothing other than: “Don't mention Elizabeth Gilbert.”

To keep this baby blog a lively place I wanted to put up a new post before our departure, but I've been too distracted to write anything. Glimpsing the horrifyingly bald identity photo in my new passport reminded me that I had written something during chemotherapy. A friend had suggested that writing might be helpful during active treatment, but I felt utterly dried up and as if I had nothing whatsoever to say (this has obviously changed - ahem!). The only things that I wrote during all those months were one poem and this little piece about my first chemotherapy session. (And yes, I did make it to the end of 'The Sopranos' - I hope to reflect on that later!). Best wishes to all, and back soon...

At my first chemotherapy session I am directed to an armchair, beside which stand an IV pole and a table. After setting up my laptop and headphones, I pull series 1 of ‘The Sopranos’ out of my handbag. Somehow I have reached the age of 41 without seeing this HBO classic. Six chemo treatments, each three weeks apart, six ‘Sopranos’ series – perfect! Something good has to come of this, I say jokingly to the nurse. In truth, I need the distraction.  Other patients sit alone or with a supporter, talking softly, reading, or gazing around the room, but I need diversion with heft. I am shown an instructional film about infection risk, hair loss, exhaustion, premature menopause. The nurse puts heat packs and a tourniquet on my arm, skilfully teases up a vein and tells me to stay very still. I feel stinging and a rush of coldness. At last I press ‘play’, and sink with relief into Tony Soprano’s passenger seat as he drives along the New Jersey Turnpike.

In the pilot episode we meet Tony, a mobster whose life has been thrown into turmoil by the onset of panic attacks. His line of work has no room for frailty, either real or perceived. In secrecy he starts therapy, and it is unveiled that the first attack coincided with the departure of a family of wild ducks which had made a home in his pool, bringing him an intense and uncharacteristically innocent delight.

Tony reminds me a little of Captain Ahab. Both are impatient, violent men in positions of authority. Both experience anguish due to the actions of wild creatures which symbolise things beyond their control. To me, the malevolent white whale whose existence Ahab cannot bear is the randomness of the universe; the dreadful truth that our fortunes are largely governed by luck and do not correspond to our godliness or what we may deserve. Tony’s therapist thinks the ducks represent his family, but they could also stand for love itself, or the relentless cycle of life - things he cannot bend to his will. As toxins flow into my body – to no guaranteed end – I realise the strength that it takes to fully acknowledge lack of control without having it break you; or at least without wanting to ram the next person who chirps “everything happens for a reason” with your car, Tony Soprano-style. 

The IV bag is changed and episode 2 begins. An elderly man in an armchair on the other side of the room sees me flinch at the violence on screen - I almost call out to let him know I’m OK. The nurse comes to tell me I’m finished just as Tony uses a telephone to bash a strip club barman in the face. Embarrassed, I hurriedly close the screen as she hands me a bag containing five different anti-nausea medications. Tablets are to nausea as telephone is to barman. Cannula removed, I pack up my laptop, confirm my next session and walk out to wait for my lift home and then – what? Mouth ulcers? Vomiting? Forgetfulness? I have no idea what chemotherapy – or ‘The Sopranos’ – will bring, but sense that I’ll draw a twisted comfort from one while enduring the other. As I sink into a real life passenger seat, the theme song pulses in my head. Woke up this morning, the world turned upside down...

 

The Not-Dead-Yet Poets' Society.

While staring haggardly at a blur of organisational emails on the computer screen far too late last night, it dawned on me that I was suffering from Carpe Diem Syndrome. It was a textbook presentation. Following treatment for a life-threatening illness, I had become obsessed with a need to:

• Commence long-dreamt-of activities.
• Complete time-consuming and abandoned tasks (compilation of photo books is a classic indicator).
• Exercise daily.
• Compile nutritious weekly menus requiring multiple shopping trips and the preparation of all meals from scratch.
• Develop a sophisticated level of knowledge about aforementioned life-threatening illness, so as to become an Informed and Outspoken Advocate.
• Form connections with others who had experienced said illness (involving support group attendance, intensive blog perusal and participation in Dragon Boat racing).
• Tidy my house and garden.
• Organise a bonding family holiday.
• Grab every opportunity to be a fun, involved mother.
• Review after-school activities to ensure that my offspring were (a) mastering crucial life skills and (b) exploring their passions, remedying any oversights on an urgent basis.
• Learn to perform all domestic tasks previously undertaken by my spouse (thus moving towards goal of being a Highly Capable & Well Rounded Person).
• Maintain contact with family and friends.
• Start a babysitting club (facilitating re-connection with Highly Capable & Well Rounded Spouse).
• Invigorate my family’s social life.
• Try (again) to learn piano.
• Fill gaping holes in my historical, geographical and scientific knowledge.
• Read the entire canon of English literature.

Sufferers experience high levels of anxiety due to the inconsistency of their multiple compulsions with three strongly internalised beliefs about their future well-being:

1. That life must henceforth be appreciated ‘in the moment’.
2. That stress must be minimised.
3. That eight hours of sleep per night is mandatory.

And the cure? Well, for the moment, I’ve decided that my diem should be carpe'd a little less forcefully. I haven't just been seizing the day, I’ve been putting it in a headlock until it begs for mercy. I think that maybe I should just...cuddle my diem for a while. And then give it a footrub and a nice cup of tea.

Of recurrence and risk.

In his New York Times article ‘Blowing Up’, Malcolm Gladwell examines the approaches of two famous Wall Street money managers. The first, Victor Niederhoffer, is a fiercely competitive and hugely energetic man who became fantastically wealthy making daring investments in stocks which he picked as winners. The other, Nassim Taleb – who had seen great misfortune in his life, including a rare cancer – took a previously unheard of approach predicated on the inevitability, at some point, of disaster. He made trades in a way that would lead to ongoing losses when the market behaved normally, but result an enormous win if it took a catastrophic downturn. He stuck to this strategy with increasingly miserable determination as his losses mounted. Then Wall Street crashed. He became a fabulously wealthy investment guru. Neiderhoffer had to sell his fund and his mansions and borrow money from his children.

Gladwell reflects on Taleb’s past - the way that he knew, on a gut level, that none of us are shielded from the forces of “sheer dumb luck” - and commented as follows about his strategy of putting money on the worst outcome:

“This kind of caution does not seem heroic, of course. It seems like the joyless prudence of the accountant and the Sunday school teacher. The truth is that we are drawn to the Niederhoffers of this world because we are all, at heart, like Neiderhoffer: we associate the willingness to risk great failure – and the ability to climb back from catastrophe – with courage. But in this we are wrong... There is more courage and heroism in defying the human impulse, in taking the purposeful and painful steps to prepare for the unimaginable.” 

My husband and I met at university and have effectively grown up together. Until now, we have tried to approach risk with a Neiderhoffer spirit. We have moved to a variety of places, including an overseas posting which commenced shortly before the birth of our first child. We have tried different jobs, and I returned to study while having children and changed careers entirely. We took the kids out of school during 2010 and camped our way around Australia for several months. When an opportunity came up for John in Darwin, I had real misgivings. As well as the pain involved in moving so far from loved ones, making such a major change at that point in our lives, with children approaching high school, felt dauntingly risky. But John really wanted to take the job. We were not a couple to shy from a spot of risk, I told myself. We were Neiderhoffers, damn it! So we headed off – straight into our very own Wall Street crash.

My surgeon reckons that there is about a 20% chance that my cancer will metastasize. Despite all the pink ribbons, there is still no cure for metastatic breast cancer. On some days I feel hugely positive about my chances. On others, the words “one in five” toll in my head and I wonder how it is possible to keep functioning with such a level of fear. On days like this I feel like I have a revolver barrel spinning near my temple in a game of cosmic Russian Roulette - and the barrel is missing one chamber.

While I was undergoing chemotherapy in Sydney, there was a period during which I became obsessed with pinning down my odds. I felt that I needed to know for certain if my surgeon’s statistical judgment was on the money. A driving force behind my (ultimately futile) quest was that I was trying to figure out if we should pull out all stops to return ‘Down South’, closer to our families and friends. Terrified by the prospect of finding ourselves ‘marooned’ in Darwin after an unlucky Russian Roulette spin, I was in a Taleb headspace. The smart thing, I thought, was to pull out as soon as possible and then hunker down indefinitely, close to support and prepared for the worst. I told John that this was my view, and started making preparations - both mental and practical - that anticipated our return.

Shortly after I went back to Darwin, a job was advertised in Sydney that John was well placed to apply for. Jobs don’t come up often in his field. By that point the kids were thoroughly settled into their new lives. They had a school they liked, a Scout troop, trumpet and electric guitar teachers, favourite bike rides, and most importantly, a tight group of friends with whom they socialised on several days of most weeks. They could provide passionate descriptions of what they loved about living in a small, nature-drenched city. They were at one in being adamant that they wanted to stay, and John and I loved seeing them so happy – it seemed nothing short of miraculous considering the time we’d been through. John, meanwhile, was beyond exhausted. When I got back to town he was flat out working to a deadline, and beaten down by our horrific year. Everything in him rebelled against the idea of another huge change. Simply writing a job application felt like it could be the straw that broke his poor, tense back. He asked if I would be OK with the idea of letting the opportunity pass by. Despite the risks involved in staying, he didn’t want to move again after the year we’d just had. If the worst happened, he said, we would deal with it at the time, as best we could. And – while he was almost as scared as I was about the future – he didn’t want us to approach life bracing for disaster. Disaster would feel like disaster, he argued, whether we had tried to prepare for it or not.

I guess that’s the thing. There isn’t much of a potential pay-off from this kind of Wall Street crash. Can one, really, “prepare for the unimaginable” in these circumstances? And what can be gained by attempting to do so? If disaster befalls me, would a sense of grim satisfaction at having gambled on that outcome outweigh the cost of having lived in fear of the worst? And even if there is an ultimate ‘payoff’, is that what matters most?

John didn’t apply for the job. For the moment, we’re staying here. I’m not sure for how long. But for now, he and I are hoping for time to re-build. To explore. To show our sons Jim Jim Falls and the Stone Country Festival. I know that this may ultimately seem foolhardy if the odds don’t go our way, and that Malcolm Gladwell may see it as the less courageous choice. But I guess that - despite our own recent Wall Street Crash - we're just not ready to abandon our inner Neiderhoffers.

Life in the slow lane.

As a young girl, I was a good swimmer.Tall and broad-shouldered, I became the girls’ swimming captain of my primary school and local district. My coach wanted me to take it further, but I quickly became bored with training sessions and left the squad. As an adult I’ve been a sporadic lap swimmer, but could keep up a strong breaststroke for as long as I wanted to whenever I gave it a go.

Now I’m on orders to swim. Like many women with breast cancer, I’ve had lymph nodes removed from my armpit. This tends to cause shoulder tightness, and creates a risk of lymphoedema in the arm, an extremely unpleasant condition in which lymphatic fluid accumulates and causes swelling. My OT has told me that swimming will improve ease of movement and will stimulate my lymphatic system, encouraging the remaining nodes to take on an extra workload.

So I dig out my board shorts, tie a supportive bikini top over my reconstructed breast (wondering nervously how swimming will feel with an implant), pull on a rashie vest and head to a place that I’ve been wanting to visit. Nightcliff Pool is situated near the edge of a cliff overlooking the Beagle Gulf, which separates Darwin from the Tiwi Islands. It is surrounded by palm trees, and their fronds toss wildly in the hot Wet Season winds as I arrive. Gazing out to sea, I feel like I’m about to swim at the very top of the continent.

Sliding into an empty lane, I do a lap of breaststroke, then one of freestyle. My shoulder feels stiff, and seems to click a little while pulling through water. The scar under the implant is sore. I feel like I’m swimming so slowly that I’m barely moving at all. I do one more lap of breaststroke, one more of freestyle. I try to keep my kicks steady without worrying about motion, focusing only on keeping afloat. Since diagnosis, it seems that every bloody thing is a metaphor.

After a paltry four laps my shoulder is tired. An elderly woman says that my lane looks like the right one for her, and I suppress the urge to explain myself to a stranger. I try to pull myself up onto the edge of pool, but my shoulder won’t allow it. How can this be me? I duck dive under ropes to reach the ladder, and glance at the clock as I climb out. I have been exercising for less than ten minutes. The drive to get here took longer than my swim.

Feeling embarrassed at the prospect of walking out past the chatty pool attendant so soon after arriving, I sit down to dry out in the sun. A man is running a swimming class for preschoolers. He is encouraging a nervous little boy to rest on top of his arms and be dragged through the water, while putting his face in for a few seconds. Gathering his courage, the boy lies on the outstretched arms and tentatively dips his goggles as he is swished along. The beaming instructor lifts him gently onto the side and raises his hand for a high five saying, “Who’s the star, hey? Who’s the star?”. And for the umpteenth time since this all began my eyes suddenly fill with tears.

[With thanks to Jessica Stanley for the lovely photo!].

Thwack!

I have decided to use pseudonyms for the other members of my family on this blog. I was once told that there are only two degrees of separation in Darwin. This city is probably so small as to make efforts at anonymity virtually pointless. But for whatever it’s worth, I’ll call my fellas by their middle names – my husband will be 'John', our 11 year old son 'Francis' and our 9 year old 'Scott' (named for their two grandfathers).

Last Saturday, I found myself at home alone with Scott. As is typical during the wet season, the day was overpoweringly humid. After he had played on the computer for a while, I suggested that we do something – play a game, perhaps. No, he said, he’d rather go on a bike ride. My suggestion that the humidity might make this unpleasant at 11am was dismissed, so – determined not to let the side down and to start re-establishing my rep as a fun, active mother - I agreed.

When you’re trying to re-build your life after a year like the one I’ve just had, the smallest task can seem complicated. No simple grabbing-bike-and-going for me, at least on my first attempt. I needed to get my helmet from the store room – where on earth was my key? Where did we keep the pump? What should I wear to: (a) give maximum comfort to my re-configured body; (b) protect against the sun (especially important due to my risk of lymphoedema); and (c) allow for the stickiness factor? Where would we go, in this town I was still getting to know? A map needed to be consulted. There was barely concealed sighing, and more than a touch of eye rolling, during all this faffing about. I could sympathise. I was finding it annoying myself.

Eventually we got underway, headed for Nightcliff Jetty in the hope that the ice cream van which frequents the spot had set up for the day. The route took us along bike paths that skirted the Jingili Water Gardens and then wove between palm trees along the Nightcliff foreshore. Scott’s speed had increased since our last ride together, and he kept a brisk pace a fair way in the lead. I was heartened to find that my body felt strong and my left arm (which had been aching, leading me to worry about lymphoedema) was untroubled. It felt great to see my little’un powering ahead of me, his long metal-head hair bouncing under his bike helmet, the brilliantly blue water of the Beagle Gulf shimmering alongside. As I pushed along I wrote a blog entry in my head about reclaiming my body while bonding with my child. Goodness, but it was going to be uplifting!

When we reached Nightcliff Jetty, the heat was punishing and no ice cream van was in sight. We rode to the nearby swimming pool and bought ice creams there, which we shovelled in while sheltering as best we could under a palm tree. The sweltering ride home drained us both. On reaching our front gate, I commented that we should keep the weather in mind when timing such ventures in the wet season, but that it had nevertheless been nice to have a ride. “No, it wasn’t!” was the blunt reply. My imaginary blog post was starting to lose its shine.

Desperate for relief, we stripped off extraneous items of clothing and flung ourselves into the pool. This was another significant moment – the first time that I had swum since starting treatment. First there had been surgical wounds to recover from, then paranoia about infections during chemotherapy, and finally a large expanse of radiation burns that had needed to heal. The pool behind our much loved, box-on-stilts Darwin house is a lovely one, and an involuntary gasp of pleasure burst forth as I broke the surface after plunging in. “What are you making that noise for?” Scott asked, to which I mumbled something about it being nice to be back in the water.

A while later, Scott and I were taking swings at each other with long, inflatable mallets while balancing on large pool toys. Tiring of this game, Scott got out of the water and took a running dive through the centre of a blow-up ring floating on the other side of the pool. “Why don’t you do things like that?”, he asked. The note of disdain was too much for me. “Scott,” I said, “I've just had eight months of cancer treatment that involved three surgeries, six rounds of chemotherapy, and radiation that left burns all over my chest. You will notice that I am currently sitting on an inflatable crocodile swinging a mallet. All in all, I think I’m doing pretty well.” “Yeah,” he replied dubiously, nose wrinkled, “but still....”

When it comes to my sons – particularly the younger - I sometimes wonder if I’ve made cancer look too easy. But when it comes to your kids, I guess that’s what you try to do. Nine year olds are meant to be blind to their mothers’ struggles, un-wowed by their small triumphs. Better that than paralysed with fear. So for now I’ll thwack my lad with an inflatable mallet, fall off my crocodile and try to rejoice in the normality of his implacably wrinkled nose. While reminding myself that real life never makes a perfect blog post.

[Edited to add: I was tickled pink (no breast cancer-related pun intended) to find that this post had been 'featured' on the Breast Cancer Network of Australia's Online Network page today!! The BCNA has been an excellent resource for me, from the very start of this journey. It's lovely to now be meeting their members on-line!]

Forked in Darwin - Ep 1.

In the best-selling pregnancy guide 'What to Expect When You're Expecting' there is a paragraph that says something like: "Every time you lift a fork to lips, ask yourself: 'Is this the best forkful that I can be feeding my baby?' If not, PUT THE FORK DOWN!". I must confess that on reading this many moons ago I nearly picked the weighty tome off my pregnant belly and hurled it across the room, finding its condescending tone pretty forking annoying.

Having spent my life as an 'eat, drink and be merry' kind of gal - a woman who liked to start the day with strong coffee, finish it with red wine and order the most sinful dessert - I have found post-diagnosis eating quite a challenge. I am currently struggling with 'Fork Paranoia', feeling terrified that the tiniest indulgence in 'naughty' foods will lead to disaster. I guess it doesn't say very good things about me that I PUT THE FORK DOWN far more often for my own sake than I ever did for the sake of my unborn children, but there you go. I suspect (and hope) that I'll relax as time goes by, but I do want to make sure that most of my forks from this point on are good ones (ahem). At least until my 70th birthday, after which all bets are off. I'm goin' down in a blaze of chocolate glory.

After initially feeling more than a little miserable about the dreary prospect of years of dietary virtue, I am attempting to shift to my attitude by hunting out the absolute yummiest in healthy foodie treats. So - using the book 'Foods that Fight Cancer' as my inspiration - I thought that I'd make a little project of finding cancer-nuking goodies around the city that is my new home.

First up: Parap Markets. These are held every Saturday morning. The 'Yum' smoothie and juice stall has a new offshoot (at least, new to me), 'Yum²', which makes fresh drinks out of berries.

This morning I tried boysenberries, cherries and raspberries blended with cranberry juice. Cop a load of this. Icy cold, utterly delicious, and you can virtually feel the antioxidants blasting through the computer screen.

And here's a gratuitous shot of my plastic cup o'goodness amongst some of the locally grown fruit on sale...because the fruit at Darwin markets makes me happy.

I promise to leave no promising food source unexplored! I'm good that way.