I know, I know

Yeah, it's been a long time. So sue me. I'm sitting in the public library (I didn't know there was an upstairs!) because the laptop at home has gone kompletely kaput. Rich is having a great time with the American call-centre to get them to fulfill the warranty. I swear, Americans don't even realise that there is a world outside America.

But that's not my only excuse, I have plenty more! It has been a very crazy couple of weeks. Last week Dave (my stepdad) came down for a week's visit, which was lovely. On Wednesday, however, the phone call came from my grandfather who had been looking after my brother Tim - Tim had appendicitis and was going in for surgery that afternoon. So we ran around trying to book flights for Mama to get back to Mackay. Timmy's surgery went well - he is now being encouraged to lie under a doona on the couch and watch DVDs all day - Tim's idea of nirvana.

Dave's operation is on the 30th May, so Mama should be well recognised at the hospital soon. Someone asked me yesterday if she was going for hospital frequent visitor points - poor Mama! I think she's a bit frazzled - three operations in a month is a bit much for anyone to cope with. I'm going to go up to Mackay on the 30th and be as useful as possible - well, I can cook and make cups of tea, anyway.

My big news is that chemo has been officially postponed. The cancers are currently two small to be seen in a CT scan, and opening me up each time we want to see how things are progressing is really impractical. So we could do chemo now, but then we would have to wait to see if the tumours grew bigger before we could assess whether the chemo had been effective. I've decided to do the waiting in the beginning - so wait now, and when the tumours are measurable, then I'll have the chemo, so we can assess its effectiveness as we go.

The reasoning behind this is that it really doesn't matter when we have chemo. The chemo will kill off ALL the susceptible cells - whether there are twenty cells or twenty thousand. So it doesn't matter how big the tumour is, it doesn't change the chemo's effectiveness. And since it doesn't matter, I'm enjoying being fit and healthy with lots of hair.

So the plan is to scan monthly, to monitor the tumour's growth. We have no idea how fast it's going to grow. With this type of tumour, growth is usually fast. All my doctors have been surprised that this tumoru didn't grow back two years ago. So either it grows nice and slowly in me, or it lay dormant for quite a while. Either way, there is every chance that it will do the same thing again - either grow slowly or lie dormant for a while. So it could be months or even years before I have chemo.

So that means I'm going back to work! After my six weeks recovery period, I'm going to go back to work and back to normal. I will have my first scan first, however, so that we have a vague idea of what the tumour is doing - if it's already growing really fast, I won't be going back to work - I'll have to go straight to chemo, do not pass go, do not collect $200. But at this stage it does look like I'll be going back to work in a few weeks.

In the meantime, we are still spending lots of time with family - my Dad, Beata (my step-ma) and sister Sophie were down last weekend. I keep forgetting how chaotic a three year old is! We went to the zoo and a few more outings. It was really lovely to see them. This weekend my beautiful Amy is coming down and we are going to get all dolled up and get some glamour shots taken. Instead of a tattoo. (Although I have to tell you, the tattoo was MUCH cheaper!) And then Rich's parents are down for a few weeks, which will be lovely.

Well, that's my allocated half an hour on the library computer used up, so more from me anon!