Back at Cabrini

Well here I am back at Cabrini and the day has almost come to an end.  I will leave here most probably tomorrow morning around about 10am.

So far it has gone fairly smoothly.  I hope it isn't like last time I had chemo where the worst effects happened after I left the hospital.  

Unfortunately I have not had my own room  this time.   I don't know how loud I am typing but as I type I hear my room mate tossing and turning.  It is 11:06pm and her lights are off.  I'll try to type quietly if I can manage.

I had a port inserted into a vein in my chest this morning.  The vein goes straight into my heart instead of an insertion into my arm.  I have very small and weak veins which make in needles very difficult to insert and there is a danger that they can cause damage to the vein.

I can't remember if I mentioned it but I have registered my own domain name - anitalive.  I wanted it to be just anita but that was already taken so I have taken this one from a list of suggested names.   You will notice now that when you go to my blog you will be redirected.  You can if you want go straight to it by linking to blog.anitalive.com

Also I mentioned before that I was thinking of setting up a new blog.  Well I did.  It is very much a work in progress in both the setting up of, the design of the sight, the type of sight and the ideas or topics that I want to discuss on it.  So far I have named it It' a Weird World.  I will place a link to it on this blog later tonight.. perhaps when I put up a post their as well.   I probably will rename it as my blog takes shape.

Now I have cunningly sent you all out an email to tell you about my new url.  I will check with my analysis tool if you will link to my blog following the email.  Boy this is fun.  Do you think I might have tooo much time on my hands?  :-)

Update:

Can you please let me know if you are having problems posting comments to my blog.  Email me and tell me what you did and what message you got.  I'd like to fix it if there is a problem and not because I'm having debugging withdrawals.   A couple of people have told me they can't comment and I'm wondering due to the lack of comments if there is a serious problem there.

To post a comment, choose the post you want to comment and and click on the comments link at the bottom of the post.  Then on the right hand side in the Leave your comment box follow the steps from my Tips for adding a comment post.

Big day tomorrow

Sorry I haven't written for a couple of days.  I have been a bit tired.  Tomorrow I am going into hospital to have my second chemo session.  I'll be back home on friday so I am just going in for the two days.

I promise after that I'll get back to blogging more often - I hope.  Actually I shouldn't promise anything because I don't know how I will react to the second chemo session.  I saw the oncologist today and he made me feel optimistic about it all.  

The weather has been bloody freezing lately but now every day is one day closer to summer.     That's enough to put a smile on my face.  Now I better get some sleep for my big day tomorrow.

Back to being about me

I wasn't really that serious in my last post about changing the direction of this blog.  I guess I was just feeling weird about posting about myself everyday.  Anyway I have had some feedback suggesting that I back off anything controversial so I won't continue to post 'articles of interest'.

Maybe I'll start another blog with some of my interests on it and just link to that.

Cousin's Do Photos

Well it was a busy day for me and I did everything I said I was going to do in my last post.

No one posted any comments today.  Maybe no one writes on the weekend or maybe my blog isn't riveting enough to keep your interests going.  I have a site analysis tool and my blog visits went down from 122 Thursday to 54 on Friday.  So now I'm thinking of ways to get my visits back up.   If it works then I can attract advertising on my site....just kidding.

But it has got me thinking about what would make this site more interesting.  I know it is just supposed to keep you up to date with my well-being but looking at my last post, my daily happenings can be pretty ordinary.  

Batya said in a comment that the blog was like a reunion since there are quite a few people from Kadarim in the comments.   It would also be nice if all my friends could get to know each other through my blog.   A lot of other blogs talk about current issues or topics of interest.  I have put on the side of this blog links to interesting articles I have just read.  I thought it could be interesting to hear what people think about them.  For example, I am the only person I know who thinks that Man Made Global Warming is over-rated and yet I think the articles are very compelling.  I would be interested to read what you think.

Then again maybe you just want to know what I've been up to so here is my web album from today.

Click to go to today's Web Album: 

Day of Cousins Do

Lunch with my team

Well today I saw my work buddies for the first time since I went in to hospital.  I had lunch with the Huxley team.  Huxley is the project I was working on and leading the development for.  I won't go into more detail in case I bore you all.

Anyway it was great to hear how everyone was doing and hear where they were up to on the project.  I also met Atul the new GUI developer and after our lunch I went around the corner and met up with the Tech Comms group (they are the guys who write up our technical manuals and online help) who were having lunch and having some very good wine indeed.  They also had a few new starters whom I haven't met before. 

There have been quite a lot of people leaving my department over the past 2 months and now after years of hardly employing anyone new, we are starting to get in quite a few.  The place will have a very different feel to it when I get back.  

Tomorrow I am getting together with all my cousins for dinner.  There will be about 11 of us (I think) plus their partners.  My agenda for tomorrow is as follows:

•  having breakfast with my friend Jill.  
• Having my hair washed, massaged and blow-dried at Synergy - the hairdresser opposite the Turtle cafe.  
• My friend Michelle has booked me in for a manicure and pedicure.  

I think I will look and feel like a million dollars after all that - and then I'm off to the Cousins Do.

Tips for adding a comment

When you leave a comment you have 3 choices to choose and identity for which there are 3 radio buttons:

1. Use your Blogger account name - that can be a gmail account if any of you have one.
2. Click on the Other radio button and enter your name.
3. Select the Anonymous identity.

Tip: If you are going to use the Anonymous identity be aware that unless you put your name in your comment, I won't know who you are.

A Request for photos of Patrick and Choochie

I spent the evening trying to get together photos of Patrick and Choochie to put on my blog as I had a request to do so.  Well what I came up with isn't working as smooth as I would have liked but it is serving the purpose of showing the photos so I'll try to fix it up at some later stage.

Tomorrow I am going to be having lunch with my team at work which is a big day out for me.  We were going to be doing the lunch later next week but I realised that I had my next chemo session already on Thursday. 

I was a bit tired today but will have more to say tomorrow.

The bed arrived today.

Well the bed arrived today. Yay!! It's sooo good to finally have a proper bed.

I also got my first blog comments today which was a real buzz. Blogger makes it so easy to set up a blog and it seemed like a really good way to keep in touch with every one.

I know my life really isn't that exciting but I had so much support and good wishes from everyone recently so I wanted you all to see me getting better as the days progress.

It doesn't always go that smoothly though. Yesterday I was feeling terrible. I think some medication I took affected the performance of my pain relieving medication and I woke up in terrible pain. Today on the other hand I'm feeling the best I've felt since my surgery.

It is always difficult for me to know exactly what is causing me to not feel well. Is it the surgery? the chemo? the cancer? I believe it is mostly the surgery. I can't know for sure but even before the surgery, when all I thought I was going in for was to have my lungs drained, the surgeon said it would be 6-8 weeks recovery. Now on top of that I have had the lining of my right lung removed plus part of my right lung, plus a rib even. All that and it has only not even been 4 weeks since the surgery so I am doing pretty good.

I went to see my local GP

Yesterday I went to see my local GP who I haven't seen since before I went into hospital. He had some of the reports from the surgeon and the oncologist. I asked him if I could have a copy of them to take home and then told Patrick to read them for me - in case there was anything in there I didn't want to know about.

We found out that during my surgery the surgeon also removed one of my ribs. Well that would account for a lot of pain that I am feeling but I wish he told me about it. Seems like something you would think he might mention in passing.

Tomorrow our new bed comes that we ordered from 40 Winks in March. They said it would take 6 weeks to arrive. When I found out I had to go into hospital they brought around a bed frame that we could use until our new bed arrived. That was great because we just had a mattress on the floor before that.

I sold my other bed in December. It was a waterbed that I had swapped with my brother Jack for the other bed I had at the time because I loved his waterbed and Naomi, Jack's partner who he was moving in with didn't. When I sold the waterbed it was because my doctor at the time believed all the pain I was having was due to back pain. On top of getting rid of the waterbed I also was having physiotherapy on my back for the pain - all the time never realising what was actually wrong with me.

Anyway I am very excited about getting my new bed tomorrow.

The photo is one of me that Patrick took today. I fell asleep reading my Macbook and was asleep when he was about to take it but being a light sleeper I woke up just as he took it. Choochie is having a nap too.

I have started a new blog

I have started a new blog today. I plan to add a bit to it every day so that family and friends can keep up to date with how I am doing. It is getting late here now, it is 2:40AM and I've been playing around settting this thing up. Tomorrow I'll try to add something of interest to my blog.