The weekend

Helen had two days off from radiotherapy. She was pretty well. Less and less manic and more herself. Still very tired and weak and needing a lot of rest and some time to herself. Robin (her older brother from Victoria) and Norm and Sue (old friends from Sydney) were in Brisbane briefly so Louis and I took the chance to have a bit of time out.

Strangely difficult to relax even when we tried but here's a list of "fun" stuff we did: tried to have more naps; Robin took us out to a Japanese restaurant run by actual Japanese people (rare for Brisbane) who mostly had incredibly minimal and cute English;

we tried to eat better food in general; visited Sarah and Brian and their chickens; gave ourselves some retail therapy in Myers - clothes shopping and an ipod touch for Mum - mainly for listening to podcasts of poetica and the book show and other radio national goodies (Doug continues to be horrified by Louis' and my insistence that Helen embrace new technologies - but she does really well!) went climbing at Kangaroo Point with Douglas, Jed and Gareth; went to dinner at Muooz - Eritrean community/refugee restaurant in Moorooka with Norm, Sue, Robin, Louis, Doug and me - delicious tangy sourdough pancakes and spicy food.

Helen had as many visits as she could manage and some quality time with each of us. Eating better and has put on a little weight again I think - her face looks better.

Really no radiotherapy side effects over the weekend - obediently applying aqueous cream to face, head and chest 3 times a day. Started feeling able to watch TV again and watched all of 39 steps on Sunday night - stayed awake til 11.30 - a first since starting on the sedation.

Sunday afternoon we shared a hair shaving ritual. Natasha's friends Stuart and Michael joined us. We all rendezvoused in Helen's room at 3.30pm. The radiotherapy nurse warned us that Helen's hair will fall out ~ a week after the brain treatment finishes so it seemed like a good idea to pre-empt this.

Sarah lent us her clippers, poncho and fancy hair dresser scissors - veterans of many an interesting haircut.

We gathered on Mum's verandah in the fresh air, played the grimstones soundtrack (Mum recently saw Asphyxia's show and loved it), smudged the air and ourselves with white sage, wrapped her in the poncho and ceremonially snipped her locks into a beautiful bamboo bowl. Helen then snipped or received a lock from each of us to contribute to the collection (I carefully held my longest dread out of the way of her sneaky scissors). Louis provided Grandma's beautiful old sewing basket to keep the collection.

We progressed to serious no blade clippering and Louis and I massaged aqueous cream into her new scalp. I was strangely delighted and surprised to discover that Mum's skull is a very similar shape to mine! I've always thought I look very lovely with a shaved head and ...so does she.

The ritual concluded with Verve Cliquot all round in beautiful glass champagne flutes courtesy of Stuart and Michael - Helen has always valued real champagne (although prepared to drink quality bubbly/or sparkling instead) and she really likes a fine glass to drink out of. We stashed a small bottle of Moet in her fridge for later - maybe the end of radiotherapy - maybe another celebratory occasion.

We then allowed Helen to go and shower off the itchy bits that had missed the poncho and got down her neck - as some always do - and took out leave to let her have some time for rest.

I'll post photos/video as I get them from Doug, Michael and Sue but unfortunately I didn't take any myself as we went. Here is the aftershot from Monday morning where she gets a little sun to even up her skintones at Robin's advice: