January 8, 2013 | Still Alive!

We had to move. 

And the past few weeks have been a shaky walk to find my feet again. It all happened so fast. The diagnosis, the shock, the decision, booking flights, my sober 21st birthday, going back to our beloved town of Moscow one last time, fainting, forgetting my meds, hundreds of friends coming out on our 'official' last night wearing crazy wigs to send us off. 

It was a tear-stained, messy, joyful night.

The next day - the last day - was ours alone, to relish in the joys we had shared, alone and together, with our hometown over the past three years. Coffee at One World, cheesecake at Bucers, tacos at Casa, gyros at Mikeys, dinner at the restaurant we went on our first date at (we were full!) before watching 'It's a Wonderful Life" at the town's gorgeous, historic cinema. 

We wandered home one last time, hand in hand, new snow falling gently on the bare winter trees lining the streets. We walked up the bright orange painted stairs and all their excitement for our new life together. We crawled into our bed one last time. I'm not sure we even entered our office, or went out onto the roof/balcony, spaces that had contained our plans and dreams, for it was in darkness the next morning we left. 

Under the watchful eye of the flight attendants, we made the long journey to Wellington, New Zealand. The capital city was shrouded in fog when we arrived, adding to our daze (okay, I'm especially dazed) as we wound up to our home for the next while on narrow streets lined by twisting Pohutukawa.  

When the fog lifted, we saw Wellington. From the top of Cluny ave, the sun rises in arrays of reds and oranges and purples over the Orogorongas to the East, journeys over the distant Rimutakas and Tararua ranges perched up the north of the sparkly harbour, and sets over the massive, rolling hills aptly called 'the Skyline'. 

We managed to go up to Taranaki, my homeland, for Christmas, staying in little cabins on the waterfront. What a heartwarming experience it was, to see my dad and his family after all this time...and all this. How wonderfully therapeutic is was to swim in the ocean on Christmas day. 

I’ve missed the incessant pokes and jabs and medication so much that I will begin IVF tomorrow. IVF - a concept I remember learning about in high school science and not blinking an eye to. It’s something that applies only to old women who have left things too late, right? 

It was a surprisingly easy decision to go ahead with the fertility treatment and embryo freezing. Not so long ago, both staunchly independent world travellers, we were would have laughed at such a concept as having children. So, our parents are about to become a grandparents of multiple cold, very well behaved grandchildren. We are currently accepting applications for godparent roles for each of them.

 ***

The sunshine of this sudden summertime and going for small walks are helping me build strength in this precious bit of time while I wait for radiation therapy to begin on Monday.

It’s funny…I actually can’t wait to begin. Of course, It’s no fun being in hospitals and they still get me down in their own strange way, and being in ‘the mask’ is claustrophobic and uncomfortable (breathing deeply and sending my mind to other places being my strategy), but I’m really excited about starting radiation. It feels like such a long wait since surgery, such a long time waiting around with life on hold for this treatment that now looms.

Life is good. 

January 19, 2013 | Walking the Skyline

The nurse told me on the phone this morning, “take it easy today.” I didn’t tell mum or Guy that (I guess they'll find out soon), and without knowing they were unsure whether I should be joining them on the ‘Skyline walk,’ which is a hike that stretches for 13 kilometres along the hilltops that make up one horizon from our house.

We began climbing Mount Kaukau, a steep uphill with stunning views. My hands clasped on my abdomen, we made it to the top fine. There were a number of people up the top, some talking about how they were going all the way to Karori, a faraway suburbs. Some were older and some simply looked unfit, and so I said to mum, “If these people can do it, so can I!” “Sure, but they’re not recovering from an operation yesterday and in the middle of radiation,” was the response.

The procedure yesterday to retrieve the eggs was a lot worse than I had expected. I had thought I would just breeze in, hand them over and breeze out. Typical Wellington though, it was a cold morning and my hands were cold (okay, typical me.) They spent over half an hour just trying to find the right vein to put the sedative into (so I now have little pricks and bruises dotting my arms), and then the actual egg collecting was just as much painful as it was uncomfortable, even when sedated.

I waited today in a sunny little cemetery to be picked up after our walk, contemplating death as you do in gardens of the dead. I could help but notice all the eerie ‘reserved’ spots for people who wanted to be next to each other, and the things that people were remembered for. “Loving husband, father and grandfather” was the most common [male] remembrance. Wealth doesn’t matter when you’re gone, neither success. We all know this logically but it really hits home in a cemetery.

So I was sitting there on a bench thinking about the value of family when you’re gone. Just then, a young family came by with three yelling, misbehaved children whom they looked quite fed up with, and not bitterly, I couldn’t help but thinking about how people don’t quite realize that it’s lucky simply to be able to have children. I say this as three of the six eggs they got out yesterday have fertilized overnight and they are quite frank when they say “you’re lucky if you get more than one to succeed.” Many women undergo multiple rounds of IVF before success and in this case, we can only hope that our age helps the success rate so we can at least have something to freeze for a later date.

And so now I am back at home, which is beginning to feel a bit like home (although I still do consider Moscow home). I may be ambitious with trying to keep living, but I’ll be the first to admit it’s really hard to get started on online classes half a world away that I am already late in beginning. To write a blog and help with the housework, or start this class that I’m already behind in and feel distant from? I have to ask myself. I guess you can see which option won this time. I don’t know where time goes – and am hoping to have more time now that IVF is finished and it’s all in the hands of the embryologists. It’s so much better being able to attend real classes, something that in regularity we often forget to be grateful for and emit the occasional complaint about.

Week one of radiation is officially completed! It’s really not too bad. In fact, I have a lot of fun striding into the radiation treatment rooms, greeting the lovely receptionist lady with a smile (who always says “why hello, darling, just go on through Bethany”). The radiation nurses are incredible too, I feel that in some ways they are my friends (although perhaps that is due to my current relative lack of physical friends). I take my earrings out and lie down in the position on the bed I have come to know is aligned with the lasers, and wait while they do the position checks. “Perfect,” they say, and then leave the room. When they have left the room, on blasts the song of choice for the day in a feeble attempt to drown out the dying bumblebee sound of the radiation beams. After about six minutes stuck under the mask, I am free and can breathe properly again. I thank them, grab my earrings and phone and wander out, making sure to say goodbye to everyone on the way.

There are just 25 of these days to go, and I understand that things are going to get harder and my hair will conveniently fall out in patches, permanently, about a week before James returns. It’s nice there is a build up as it gives me time to develop my mental strength in the situations, so I can be stronger when the dreaded chemotherapy begins.

Alright, that’s it for now, thanks for listening to me ramble about this new, crazy life! 

February 14, 2013 | Flossing my teeth

Last night. I have finished brushing my teeth, paying particular attention to scrubbing up and down at the back after a dentist’s recommendation. I grin at my balding self in the mirror. ‘How wonderful to have clean teeth,’ I think. Reaching for the dental floss, I pause.

Why am I flossing?

A mass of thoughts flood through my mind, tumbling and churning. I am reminded of my own mortality. Why does it matter anyway? If I’m not supposed to be here in twenty years, what use is this extra time spent flossing my teeth, which will last that long perfectly fine with just brushing? If our long-term future is one that James will most likely carry, shouldn’t I simply be encouraging him to floss his teeth, considering mine are already better cared for? Am I wasting my time on all this irrelevant stuff? Am I losing sight of what matters?

It goes on like this for a while until I manage to stretch the grin back across my face. “It makes me feel good,” I tell myself, “that’s why.” I begin to floss, making sure to get between each and every tooth.

Yesterday I had written a quite serious piece about futility and purpose, and the role of the little things in life, and keeping hope. But I read through it and realized that it wasn’t a very accurate reflection of my life at the moment. You see, every day is a pleasure.

When I’m not throwing up (like I did in the car today) or entertaining headaches, or sleeping, life is brilliant. I’ve been able to continue as normal really – with the difference being living on the other side of the world and living a completely different lifestyle.

…improved, I could perhaps say. A little lacking in friends and those I love, I’ve had a lot of fun wearing wigs each day, to the point that I feel sorry for people who are always stuck with the same hair. How boring! Each day radiation is a delight – being greeted by Sharon at the front desk, receiving the “hello Darling, you are looking gorgeous today!” and going for little walks hand-in-hand with James at dusk. The small things in life like watching a carrot be crushed and squeezed in my juicer, or cooking a four-course Valentines meal with James for mum and Guy are perhaps more delightful than ever…as is the sight of a sunset and the lights flickering on in the city from our place up here in the sky. To lie down at the end of a day and know that it’s been a good day has an extra sweet feeling of success when you’re not supposed to be feeling good.  Ha! And while on the wonderful things in life, I can't leave out that wonderful thing called romance (can I say this is more fun with wigs too, or is  that too much for the public?). For everyone who was involved in the making of James and Connor's Valentines day creation - click here - I can't thank you enough. It brought tears to my eyes.

Today, however, has been a little more difficult. This morning at 8.45am I had the second egg collection procedure. I was worried about it due to the last one being so painful (for so little results) and had mentally, and physically, prepared myself. After eating ‘fertility foods’ for weeks, not doing any strenuous exercise and putting on a couple of kilos, I was hopeful. Plus, this time we weren’t dealing with defrosted semen.

The procedure was still painful, but much better. They gave me a high dose of sedatives (hence the nausea today) and had an expert find the vein to put it in, saving the six or so jabs they gave while trying to find the right one last time. From this point I don’t remember much, as I was rather loopy. James has been mocking me recently about my inability to act with any convincing emotions beyond happiness, surprise, and love (I fail miserably at ‘anger’). After the drugs had kicked in, I told him I was ‘just acting’ loopy, which improved my score as an authentic thespian.

Anyway, despite the higher dosages making today unpleasant, and the now familiar feeling of knives in my uterus each time I move, it was most certainly worth it. Although I can’t be too sure at this point how many will survive, they collected 12 eggs, which is at the upper end. Last time with six there was only one success, and so a moderate hope would be three more considering the better sperm situation. I admit I’m smiling as I write this. It’s weird how this sort of thing can make those innate ‘motherly instincts’ come out – we were laughing as I held my stomach last night to protect the eggs and said I was incubating.

I’m not sure how I get back to the flossing thing from this tangent, but I guess it all boils down to that all-important little thing called hope. I’ve had to make a conscious choice to live for the future and still make plans…albeit different ones to those before. It could be easy to give up the idea of a long-term future, and start preparing for the worst, but even if it is ‘logical’ to prepare for the worst, who really wants to live like that?

Tonight will be the first night James and I are able to drink (a glass of) alcohol, so I’ll leave you with a toast – here’s to the future!

February 16, 2013 | Little guys

I just wanted to share some good news - advance apologies if this doesn't interest you - but we had the regular call this morning from the embryologist and all seven of the eggs that fertilized have divided! Another one also 'came to life'. By this stage last time there were just two little dudes hanging on. I am being careful not to get too excited (James keeps me in check with reality) but so far, things are going well.

Aden is down for the weekend and the three of us are heading to Zealandia, the bird sanctuary nearby, for a couple of hours. It's the first time the three of us have been together since we went camping about a week before I left NZ. It's funny it took this to bring us back together again. 

Sharing the journey

...as if, you have a right to think, I haven't done that enough. This expose has been sitting in almost every coffee shop in Wellington for a few months now. Sorry for not posting it sooner.