Hello friends

I hope all is good with you and as promised today I’ve made the draw to see who will be the recipients of my packs of paper and craft stuff.

I wrote all the names on pieces of paper and put them all into my ‘beany hat’ that I’ve been wearing at home for the last several months (ever since my hair fell out about two weeks after starting the chemo therapy).  My hair is beginning to grow back now but there is still not enough of it for me to go out without some sort of head covering, but I’m looking forward to the day when I can go out without a hat.  Anyway I digress, I put all the names into the hat and drew out three pieces of paper.  So the winners are….. (imagine drum roll here) …

Lucydragon

Sanje Sofar

and

Isisimaginings

Congratulations! If you could let me know your mail addresses I’ll get your pack off in the post this week. You can email your address to me at subagua@gmail.com  (the first word is subaGua, i.e. a G not a Q, but in lowercase)  I don’t normally check this email box as I generally tend to use it for people who I think will spam me with lots of stuff I don’t want or need, but if you send me your address to that email address and then leave me note below in the comments I will be sure to check so I can post you your goodies.

Today has been a lovely sunny day and I did some gardening, well actually T did some gardening and I held some posts while he banged them into the ground with a big sledge hammer.  I also mowed the weed patch that has a few blades of grass in it and pretends to be a lawn and dug up some weeds from the borders.  That’s not proper gardening but the front garden does look a bit better now.  We used to just have a lawn and borders in the front garden but I’m really not good at looking after lawns (and that is my job) and, as T was always saying he didn’t have enough room to grow all the vegetables he wanted to grow, I persuaded him to put some raised veg beds in the front.  I foolishly thought this would mean all the grass would be eliminated and I would no longer have to mow it.  But now on the rare occasions when I do get the lawn mower out I have to cut around the raised beds, it’s awkward.  Still at least I got some fresh air and exercise today so I mustn’t complain.

Last week I went to Southampton Hospital to have my mask made.  That was an experience!  First of all I had to have the mouth piece made that will hold my mouth open. It was a tube (for breathing through) wrapped in some sort of gum which almost filled up my mouth. I had to put it in my mouth and bite into the gum to make an impression, then wait until it hardened.  While this was going on they soaked this hard plastic sheet that would become my mask in a hot water bath.  I had to lay on the bed thing while they got me in exactly the right position. Then when I was correctly aligned they laid this hot but not unbearable plastic over my face and clipped it to the board behind my head, then they moulded the whole thing to the contours of my face.  There is a mouth hole in the mask so I can breath through it, but no eye holes.  The plastic is opaque so once it’s on my face I can ‘t see a thing.  Fortunately they spoke to me all the time telling me what they were doing so I felt reassured.  Once the mask was contoured to my face they put ice packs on it, so it went from being quite warm to being very cold which hardened the plastic and eventually they took it off.  It probably only took about 20 minutes.  It was weird but just about bearable.

After that I had to go and have a CT scan with the mouth piece in and mask on again. The scan didn’t take long.  Definitely not the most pleasant experience but I will have to go through this every time I have the radiotherapy and I will be able to cope with it.

I also got my schedule for radiotherapy which starts on April 8 and finishes on April 29. So for most of April I’ll be travelling across the water on a daily basis (except weekends) to have the treatment.  I guess that will be good practice for getting back into the routine of getting up for work every day.

I’ll be recuperating for most of May and hopefully finally starting my phased return to work in June.  That’s my plan anyway unless something else crops up in the meantime.

Also I am hoping we can get away for a short holiday at the beginning of June just because I think we both deserve it.  We just have to try and work out how the cats will be looked after while we are away and book up somewhere to stay.

The page above is from my new small journal and I thought I’d show you how it changes between the collage and when I’ve added all the penwork:

Collage                                                                                          Penwork

That’s just about all my news for now.  I hope you are all well and happy and, if you are in this part of the world, enjoying the beginnings of Spring.

See you all soon

Big love

AJ xxx