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But I don’t want to go there…
Where is there? It’s the future, even just a few weeks ahead gives me palpitations. My husband I had a feedback session with my daughter’s psychologist this week. She was talking about Arabella’s schooling and how there’s a good high school called bla bla in bla bla near where we live….it was only chit chat but I secretly sat there wanting to cry. I cannot deal with the future because, I am scared I may not be there and I have worked so hard to live in the present moment, but that doesn’t mean that the future doesn’t pop up though! I had to calm my thoughts and recenter –…
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Life as I currently know it
I have not updated in like forever ( I say that on every post!) and they’re always on my Instagram stories so some of you miss them! Quick recap for those who don’t know me that well. I had a recurrence of colon/bowel cancer mets in my liver October 2021. A 3cm lesion was cut out and I went into remission AGAIN! I’m currently on IV Oxaliplatin three weekly. Side effects (I get are neuropathy, nothing cold at all or my digits do all kinds of weird things and my throat closes. Bad nausea and overall exhaustion. I am up and about but I can’t drive until at least day…
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I was laying on my sofa….
Friday had been a long day, Arabella, my daughter was on on her third day off school with a sore throat and runny nose. Even when she is poorly, she has so much energy and doesn’t understand the concept of rest; she’s six. By the evening, she had fallen asleep next to me on the sofa, she plays with my hair to comfort her; something she has done since a baby and something she has never grown out of. I don’t mind, it also brings me comfort having her so close to me and feeling needed. It is in those quiet moments, when I feel so much unconditional and crazy love…
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What can I say?
It’s been a long time since I have felt like writing or doing much of anything to be honest. As you know, I had a recurrence in August this year which required surgery to remove the small lesion (3cm) from the remaining liver. Surgery successfully removed the lesion and I was home after four days. I was recovering well but then started to feel fluish and was waking up with severe headaches. I went over to see Adam, my oncologist and bloods revealed an infection with CRP markers at 239, five being normal. I had a CT of the area, and they found an abscess measuring 5 cm by 7 cm,…
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Why?
Why? Why? Why? How many times have you asked yourself this question? It’s not an exclusive question to someone who has or has had cancer. If the voice in your head was a real person, you would look at them like they were completely fucking mad! I read that in The Untethered Soul, by Michael Singer, a great read by the way. My ‘whys’ used to be so much simpler, although at the time they seemed so significant. Many whys will go away or can be solved by actions, my ‘cancer why’ is forever present. So, when I was diagnosed, I asked myself why? Why me? What did I…
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Scanxiety
Back in 2009, I was working at a bilingual school in Shanghai. I was working alongside a guy called Craig. He was always reading on his breaks or on the computer learning about various topics. One lunch time, he said ,“There’s no such thing as being bored. There is so much out there for you to learn about, how can you ever be bored? Unless you already know everything!” These words stuck with me ever since. Which is why even if I have certain ways of doing something, or I have ideas, experiences and knowledge about some topics – I can ALWAYS LEARN MORE. So, I reach out the people,…
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Intuition or paranoia?
Ever since cancer came along, my reading list changed to include books talking about diet, exercise, mental health, breathing etc etc in order to ‘stay in remission’. I am not so naive to believe that these factors will keep me in remission and I am fully aware that cancer can rear its head no matter what I do; that’s the scariest part. One book delved into ‘intuition’ and how our body uses its intuition to know when something is wrong or right for us. I knew something was wrong with me pre diagnosis because I also had physical pain, signals telling me that something is wrong. The hard part was…
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Immu ‘no’ therapy!
My oncologist, Adam Nosworthy recommended that after I had full recovered from my infection (post liver resection) I would do six sessions of immunotherapy (over three months) as a preventative of recurrence and I agreed to it. I started immunotherapy (Vectibix) on the 4th January at my oncology clinic (where I had my chemo) and I went in there positive that this was the last chapter and that it would be an easy one. I had IV steroids to start via my Portacath and then my immunotherapy was administered on a drip that took maybe one hour. I felt fine and left the clinic smiling. The steroids were my biggest…
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Consistency and the Two Big C’s
We all know that consistency is key and that most our results in fitness and nutrition come from this consistency but how do we stay consistent when life keeps throwing us curve balls? I have struggled with consistency in fitness and have been guilty of program hopping (you should see all the PDF’s in my iBooks folder) even though I would tell myself ‘Just stick to something Jo! ‘ After the birth of my daughter, I had a period (2016) of consistency with the BBG program and lost my baby weight. I was also running and committed enough to run a half marathon. Even in 2017 after I settled back…
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Nobody Said It Would Be Easy
Following the birth of her eldest daughter in 2013, Laura Stephenson gave birth to twin girls on April 25th 2017. There was huge excitement among all the family, her mother, her two sisters, in-laws and of course myself, her dad. Two identical girls that arrived amidst lots of questions:- Are there twins in the family , how do you feed two at the same time, do they both sleep at the same time, will Mum and Dad get any more sleep, the need for a twin pram, can we fit 3 car seats in the back of the car. Lots of questions all based around the twins. In the middle…
