A lot can happen in 5 months. Since April 2023 (in this order) my hubby and I bought a new house with a long settlement, put our house on the market, I was diagnosed with cancer, we sold our home, we became homeless and moved into my hubby’s family home for 8 weeks (with our three sons, two dogs and two cats), had 6 weeks chemoradiation, I was hospitalised with side effects and finally moved into our new home on 18 Aug! It’s been a huge few months.
I have missed so many of the more diabolical side effects of chemo and radiation EG. I have a full head of hair and no mouth ulcers, eye abscesses or loss of taste. I have definitely been lucky.
However, my side effects did have me in screaming agony for weeks, unable to move without pain. The radiation burns! I didn’t have a lot of skin left between my legs. Ouchies! I hadn’t found pain relief for 6 weeks… for some reason I needed to experience debilitating pain.
By the final week of my treatment I was sobbing spontaneously just trying to walk to the car. After the final radiation the intuitive nurse who saw me sent me straight to Emergency and I was eventually admitted to hospital for five days (including 20 hours in Emergency).
That was 2 weeks ago and I’m healing very well and am pain free (I no longer need pain relief). My chemo oncologist pronounced my recovery was “advanced” and was very happy with how I was healing. I won’t know whether the treatment has been successful for three months but it definitely feels like it has been.
That’s just going to be set aside for now while I look forwards.
My brain is still glitching weirdly. I haven’t got my full vocabulary back but I can struggle to make myself understood and I’m no longer trailing off mid-sentence. Chemoradiation brain is very foggy! I imagine I’ll be back to normal in a month.
My discoveries during chemoradiation treatment:
• I didn’t have the capacity to take on or even listen to anything that wasn’t critical.
• I struggled to hold a conversation or complete a thought.
• I could not hold anyone else.
• I struggled with trivial conversations.
• I couldn’t do inner work or go deep into stories of why this cancer had been created.
• I needed to know my spirit guides were around me but I didn’t need to ask for understanding of the why of my cancer. Now was not the time.
• I just needed to surrender to the process and trust that there was a purpose.
• I was easily affected by everything and everyone around me. The oncologists who treated me were in a position to encourage and reassure me or make me feel out of control and uncertain what was going on.
• My focus was on my physical body and using my inner resources to help me. Now was not the time to learn coping strategies.
• The physical side effects were deeply confronting. Because the radiation was targeted in an area I can’t physically see for myself I had to rely on others to tell me how my private parts looked. I needed people to look and tell me what they saw.
• I could cry spontaneously over nothing, no external trigger needed.
• Physical comfort was often declined because it would start my tears and I wasn’t sure I would stop.
• I needed all of my strength and focus to cope.
• The pain hit too much to stay in my body. I needed to watch reels to leave my body and be distracted from the pain.
• Mind set was key. It was impossible to start working on mind set. I needed to have developed my own coping mechanisms and be able to self soothe and self resource. I was beyond being able to work on my attitude in this crisis.
• I craved loving touch through massage or reiki that were given without neediness or demands of their own. Again, the focus was on my physical body, my body’s needs.
• I focused on loving my body and being very gentle and giving what my body needed each day.
I moved with presence to reduce risk of pain. I felt every single inch of my body acutely.
My support network was so very important. I needed to rely on a few key people (my hubby, my three sons, my big sister). The rest of my family and friends I messaged as often as I could.
I withdrew and did not speak to people for weeks except my chosen supports.
I needed to discuss my physical symptoms in minute detail with my support people and be asked question to help me process changes taking place.
If people found the details too much information I struggled to know what to say. I couldn’t summarise or describe how I was going without the details.
I needed to be able to ask for what I wanted once and not have to repeat myself. I needed others to do whatever I asked without complaint. I needed others not to ask anything of me and to take their cues from me whether I could talk or not. I needed to be surrounded by soft voices, calm and peaceful conversation. No raised voices, no arguments.
I am lucky my hubby could hold space for me without trying to make me feel better or fix things for me. He took over the household and fed everyone.
I am lucky I could tell my kids everything I was going through daily and they would absorb, ask questions and stay engaged with my process even when it was TMI.
I am lucky my sister (who lives in Melbourne) checked in every morning and asked how I slept. Based on that she would ask what I needed that day. Some days we’d just exchange funny memes or reels. Some days we’d message throughout the day.
Right now I’m loving our new home. It is magical! It’s like waking up in paradise every single day. I feel so very blessed. We have a vast garden with a view over the city to the water and a forest reserve.
We have been settling in and enjoying the space for the last two weeks.
Did I mention I have a trip planned in Oct to go to France with my mum? We are doing a tour with my favourite Mary Magdalene author. We will see the relics of Mary Magdalene, go to her cave, and go to the Roma (gypsy) festival of their patron saint Sara (who arrived in the same boat with Mary Magdalene and may be her daughter). I’m healing well so I should be good by then.
So although I’ll be becoming more present I won’t be offering sessions or programs until after I return from France.
Photo: me at the front door to my new home
Posted in Healing Journey

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