What’s up?

Well things have progressed and I fear this will be my last post. Since the brain radiation I’ve been really unwell and in the last few weeks increasingly unwell. I keep rallying but it only lasts a few hours and the nausea, diarrhoea and fatigue return. The cancer is everywhere now and we are out of options.

So here we are having “serious conversations” with the palliative care team and they are talking about days now.

So, here we go.

Thank you for all the your support of me and my family. Honestly you’ve been immensely supportive. It has made the process much more bearable. Of course I really would rather not have to have done this, but I guess we all have to at some stage.

What can I do?

With Christmas and Lachy’s birthday we have a lot of stuff. We have been very generously gifted a lot of stuff and inevitably fairly soon we will be down sizing stuff soon (well not me!). So please don’t send stuff, we don’t have much room here. Vouchers, food and so on is just not as practical and I’m not eating much. Nice experiences require organising and I doubt you realise how unwell I actually am now.

But… you can send money. Sorry to be so mercenery. I know many many of you have sent money and I truly only want you to send money if you can afford to.

For example $5 buys Simon a coffee, $18 buys an hour of baby sitting (going to be crucial when Simon returns to work as he will have a gap between after school care and getting home, vets work long hours), $30 buys an hour of cleaning and Simon is tired. We will need money for a funeral too and counselling for the boys and Simon. Simon hasn’t been working much for a number of months now.

Now, Simon is MORTIFIED that I am asking for money yet again. Simon is terrible at asking for help. He’s terribly embarrassed by me asking, and wants you all to know we are not on the bones of our bums here, but I’m planning, and people seem to want to do things.

So, to some extent you will need to gently force the issue with regard to help and childcare and food. Some meals would be helpful but please check freezer space with Simon first. He is likely to say no. but maybe press him.

You can definitely share this post. You’d be suprised how it helps.

And you can pray.

If you are not comfortable sending money because you’ve already helped out so much or cannot manage any more I absolutely understand and, well, no judgement here, I will be gone. If you’d prefer, then the charities I favour are (no particular order).

Vet and koala charities

• Southern Koala Rescue (mish)
• Adelaide Koala and Wildlife Centre (Tamsyn)
• KoalaRescue (Merridy)
• Koala Health Hub Uni of Sydey (Damien)
• Koala Conservation Australia (Cheyne)
• Healesville Sanctuary
• Australia Zoo
• Wildlife Disease Association Australasian Section
• MANZVS Pharmacology Chapter
• AVA Benevolent fund

Human rights

• Amnesty International
• medicins san frontiers
• Red Cross

General conservation charities

• Bush heritage Australia- and similar charities that fence off areas for bush regeneration
• Australian conservation foundation

Education

• Queens College
• University High School

Other things

Sending cards and messages you can do, but please be aware I may not read them. They do make me sad.

Last words

Just be kind. Kind to my boys, other people, animals, each other, the planet. We desperately need it.

XXX