Thursday 25th November 2010

Yesterday was a big day of comings and goings as Alex and Greig arrived for a visit from Melbourne (Helen's niece and nephew), Louis returned from Brisbane and Douglas was about to head off back to Victoria when it turned out that the work he was going back for has been deferred and he is able to stay up for another week.

Today we all went to have lunch at Buzz Cafe and check out Absolutely Bookshop.

Louis was served with a most amazing Marguerita tower so we had to take photos at once...

The pirate cupcakes

Earlier this week I took Doug to check out Dimitrios Cakeshop - a Darwin Institution I was introduced to whilst working. We were excited to discover you could get black sparkly decorating icing and other elements necessary for making pirate themed baked goods so for lunch with Kaye on Tuesday we took white chocolate cupcakes and had fun decorating them together. Herewith you see pirate faces, a pirate ship with full sail and the full assembly of little cakes. Kaye's tongue shows the surprising discovery that edible black glitter stains!

Saturday 20th November 2010

Good news - verbal report of Helen's most recent staging CT scan of everything - no change in anything. I assume that means no more metastases and that the tumor and fluid affecting the R lung remain the same. This is great to hear. Not sure what it means for prognosis or whether it means the Iressa is proven to be useful or proven to be having no effect but either way the cancer is evidently pretty inactive.
I think this makes sense in other ways as some of the unpleasant paraneoplastic syndromes we had to deal with in the past seem to have stopped and also she has been able to put some weight back on and to keep it on whereas when the cancer was more metabolically active I think it was chewing up all her calories.
Sadly the weight is making her unhappy as it makes her belly feel uncomfortable and not like her own but I think she is looking much healthier in the face and body overall and it's much better than being a skeleton.
In the last week I have started treating her for a urine infection and I think she is a little more mentally with it since starting the antibiotics - although this could just be the inexplicable swings of her varying cognition.
During the week just gone Douglas has been the main carer while I have been at work and he and Helen went out for lunch with Kaye. The 3 of us all went out for dinner and drinks last night and we also made a brief trip through the Northern Editions Print studio to check out Dion's Cheeky Dog etchings - not that Mum could see them but we read out their stories together which was fun.

more photos

Helen and Natasha in the spa (actually about Helen's 10th time but she can't be convinced it's not ehr first!)
Reading Winnie the Pooh in the sweltering heat of the Build Up...I think we had the aircon on for my sanity and poor Helen was freezing again.

Some of the oil pastel squiggles Helen did with Dorothy - and a Helen P card up in the far corner.

photos

Captain Umpherston
Cousin Dorothy
Carol - the Scottish carer who loves staffies.
coffee art in Darwin - see it's quite cosmopolitan!

Saturday 13th November 2010

Once again I am behindhand with the blog so will have to employ a bit of shorthand to catch myself up. I hope those regular readers looking for news know they can always call us if I have been slack but also that in general no news is good news...

Dorothy's visit has come to an end and she headed back to Sydney and then on to Tassie last week. There was a smooth changeover on the Tuesday to the lovely Susan from Castlemaine.

Helen is well.

With Dorothy she enjoyed readings from The Magic Pudding and Winnie the Pooh, shared sessions listening to the book show, a drawing session with lovely oil pastels on creamy card, a few outings to share bits of Darwin including a trip to the Deckchair to see Secondhand Wedding, a few dinners at the Wharf and coffee at Martins. They finished the visit off with a trip to the Day Spa for a shared facial in the double room and popped in at Absolutely to see Peter. Dorothy also accompanied Helen on the Day Respite that Masonic Carers had planned for a trial activity but not too surprisingly this didn't seem like it would be much fun to go on with . They both learnt more than they knew there was to know about Bingo and met a few interesting characters, but for Helen to return on her own - given her vision and hearing difficulties and occasional disorientation not to mention younger age and different culture to the other attendees - just doesn't really seem worth pursuing.

Since Susan arrived things have been a little quieter. Last Wednesday Helen had her routine CT scan to assess the cancer's progression (or otherwise) and we are still awaiting results. Susan and Helen made an excursion to Kaye's house on Friday (and took both the dogs to play with her Lily). This afternoon Helen went in the spa again (it has been hot!) and we also had a small trip out to Parap Markets and a catchup with Naomi and Dianne. Presently Shirley is visiting and reading Helen poetry.

I have been continuing to work fulltime for Danila Dilba and Louis is still in Brisbane. The Build Up is not as bad as I feared. We are looking forward to visits from Douglas, Greig and Alex and Louis' return.

Tuesday 2 November 2011

Louis is back in Brisbane, I am working at the Darwin Aboriginal Health Service and Dorothy and Helen reign supreme at Helen's house in the world of chaos provided by my dogs!
Luckily Helen is pretty much always out of reach but poor Dorothy is available to be jumped on and have snarling interactions around and is getting more dog than she bargained for I would say being more of a cat person. She calls Umphy kitten which I find very sweet. I mostly call him puppy so I doubt he is bonding with his name much.
I felt a bit like an inexpert and harrassed young mother as I left for work this morning - 2 poos, 2 puddles, 2 walks, 5 snarling kerfuffles, 4 "timeouts" for Umphy, tea and ecco for Helen and me, put a load of washing on, didn't make breakfast, nor clean the kitchen, nor prepare lunch, nor organise my room, nor bring in the washing...and out the door....
Thank goodness for Dorothy but I hope they will be ok.