100 prints delivered!

As per my previous post, we collected 100 prints from around the world for The Charles Wanstall Apex Lodge. Today My wonderful husband delivered them as I was not well enough to go in (I didn't want to risk passing this bug on to any of the patients)

Delivering the first 30

And finally message from Allan -

Thank you very much it is absolutely wonderful that we can put these wonderful pictures in our units.  I expect to use them in units 1,2,3, 4,4A,5,5A, 6,6A and 21 to 26.

Thank you very much, will you pass on our sincere thanks

Regards Allan

Allan Puckridge JP (Qual)

Lodge Supervisor Charles Wanstall Apex Lodge

Cancer Council Queensland

100 Prints!

In my post on Friday April 13th I told you about the Charles Wanstall lodge and their need for Framed Prints.

I have also undertaken another mammoth task of personal importance. The Charles Wanstall Apex Lodge provides accommodation for regional patients undergoing cancer treatment in Brisbane. The Charles Wanstall Apex Lodge in Brisbane is desperately seeking donations of hanging prints, pictures and paintings of either landscapes or rural settings to brighten up our units for their guests. They are in need of around 100 framed pictures, any sizes up to 700mm x 700mm or about that size, and donors are asked to please attach their names and a little message to accompany their donation.

My parents spent time staying in places like The Charles Wanstall Lodge when I was a teenager and my Dad had to come to Brisbane from Toowoomba for treatment. I've spent a lot of time in hospitals with my parents while they were having cancer treatment and more recently while I was having treatment and know what it is to stare at blank walls.Yesterday I delivered 30 prints to the lodge. It was a combination of images from +Tony Porter , my Father and I. I spoke with Allan who was thrilled to receive them and explained that they have no funding to brighten up the rooms for patients and their families. I also got to talk to some of the patients there. It was a hugely emotional experience for me but I will do it again in next week when I have some more $$ and prints framed.

Please consider donating some of your own incredible artwork if you can. To make a donation, please email allanpuckridge@cancerqld.org.au. 

I put a call out on Google Plus on behalf of The Charles Wanstall Apex Lodge on April 10th, on April 12th my father and I delivered 30 prints to Allan at the lodge. Today April 20th I have another 59 prints sitting waiting to be delivered to the lodge from Google plus members from as far away as Denmark and America. By Monday April 23rd there will be 64 frames 8x10 prints to be delivered to the lodge. This takes the total to 94 Framed prints.

Meanwhile in California 2 prints are being prepared to be mailed to Australia to be added to this colossal pool of generosity taking the total to 96 prints! The final four prints are being supplied by a local Brisbane Google+er and will take the total to a staggering 100 framed prints.

I am overwhelmed by the generosity of heart, spirit and talent of these amazing people from Google plus around the world.

Thank you to
+Tony Porter 
+Kim Robertson 
+Ted Ewen 
+Niamh Brown 
+Dryade Geo 
+Gavin Crook +Thief Images 
+C. Corey Fisk 
+Colin Gerbode 
+Olav Folland 
+Ken Caughlin 
+Gem Nicholls 
+Rob Hallifax 
+James Lunan   and my Dad :)

 

If you are interested in donating prints tot he new project pop over here.

Big thank you to Lexy and her CNET article

Life is a holy moment, a brief flash of sentience in the sacred abyss.

My lovely friend on Facebook has this as her status currently and it sparked off in me a need to fill in some of the bits I have left out of the post op story. My first post op blog post was 6 weeks post op when I had just discovered I had memory problems and it was quite a shock.

When I first came home, and I say came home because I don’t remember a great deal of the time in Sydney or the trip home, I was quite terrified. I felt disconnected from myself. I knew it was my body and my life but I didn’t feel I was “in” it. I was also afraid to be “too” anything. I had remembered my GP telling my husband that if I was depressed post op to bring me straight in to see her and she’d put me on antidepressants straight away because it was most likely a sign of ABI (Acquired Brain Injury). Having spent some years suffering from severe depression prior to my brain blob, the idea of being in that antidepressant induced flat cotton woolly haze was something I dreaded. So I was trying to be very careful with my reactions to everything. Don’t be too happy, don’t be too sad, try and stay fairly neutral and level as much as possible.

That’s quite a feat when you have a holey memory; feel completely disconnected from yourself and just a little bit terrified by everything. Of course I dared not express my terror, or disconnected feelings for fear of being medicated, or worse, what ever worse was. My perception of reality was not the same as everyone else. Things I believed to be one way would turn out to be otherwise and the world as I knew it would turn upside down. It was a bit like being Alice in Wonderland but a whole lot more frightening. I relied 100% on my husband for my basis for reality. I needed him to be consistent all the time or my worlds would quite literally fall apart around me.

One evening over dinner, before he was aware of the disconnectedness and how far it extended, he joked with our son that I was not actually here and still in surgery and hadn’t woken up yet. I ended up in tears because I couldn’t tell if I was actually asleep dreaming my life and the things that had happened since surgery or if he was joking. He hadn’t done in maliciously it was just him joking around but because I had no real basis for reality it was alarming for me. I then had to tell him what was going on for me and how I just couldn’t tell what was real and what was my brain filling in gaps.

After brain surgery you spend a lot of time sleeping. Sleep is your body’s way of allowing the brain to recover so, after having a hole drilled in your skull and then through your brain to reach the absolute middle to remove a tumour, there is a lot of healing to do and a lot of sleeping required. Consequently your brain will do funny things like fill in gaps with what it thinks may have happened feasible or not. I had remembered a conversation that Charlie had with another patient and he said something that he absolutely wouldn’t have said, that was my first clue that something was a little odd.

Reality and our place in it is such a very fragile thing. I have had great difficulty trying to express any of this up to this point and I am still struggling with it now. Writing this is mentally and emotionally draining, I want to throw my hands in the air and leave it another few months. I will update it later or make another post down the track if I really feel the need to correct or update this one, but it is time this was said and expressed.

There is more to the recovery process that I didn’t post in the earlier posts for fear of upsetting people or unsettling them but the reality is that brain surgery IS upsetting ad unsettling. It’s not a walk in the park and it IS hard to recover from. I’m not complaining though, being here without the tumour, without the pain, without sudden death hanging over my head is the most amazing blessing! I didn’t dare to hope for so much.

Oh! In the end I was classified as having ABI anyway, no antidepressants required..... worried about nothing ....... Brains are fun no? 

1 Year 2 Months

 Our lovely Ossian came back to stay with us at the beginning of March and is still waiting on word from immigration as to wether they will grant his 2 year visa or not. It has been fantastic having him here. He fits well with the family and very much a part of it. He will be greatly missed when he picks up his journey and continues his travels wherever they take him. He is a beautiful soul to spend time with and a blessing to have in our home.

At the end of March, Kim and I went on the Google+ #thewalkdownunder in Brisbane. We met some truly lovely people, amazing photographers and had a beautiful day. I managed my first post op trip(s) on the water with no problems. Much cause for joy and celebration! Thank you for the nifty new camera strap too! After that we went to Kim’s brothers 50^th (still in my G+ t-shirt).

We met up with Tony again for a sunset shoot, followed by a trip into the city to take photos of the various building lit up blue for Autism Awareness. We tried to meet up again for a sunrise shoot but ended up a bit separated, did the festival of Sails at Redcliffe and then another sunrise the following morning at the Gold Coast.

It has been a great and inspiring thing to be a part of. Really very much looking forward to the next photo walk at the end of this month and catching up with these fantastic people again.

I have recently heard back from the people I applied for the job with and they have given it to another lady who applied internally. Fair enough too, she is already working in the company so less training to do! They did tell me that I interviewed very well and they’d like me to reapply for another position coming up in mid May. I Have actually applied for another job with the same company a few hours after that conversation as well as having my name down for a traineeship with them and I will keep my eyes open for this other job coming up in May if none of the previous pan out.

I have signed up for a 5km run/walk for the Kim Walters Think Pink Think Choices Program. (Choices) is a free community service regardless of where treatment has been undertaken offering support for women and men diagnosed with breast cancer and women diagnosed with gynaecological cancers and their families. http://www.uchealth.com.au/choices/

You can help me to raise funds to help men and women diagnosed with cancers continue to receive multi- disciplinary holistic care through the Wesley Hospital Choices Program. This one I am doing for Aunty Elaine who was diagnosed with breast cancer last year. My fundraising page is here http://www.mycause.com.au/Walkingthewalkforcancer

I have also undertaken another mammoth task of personal importance. The Charles Wanstall Apex Lodge provides accommodation for regional patients undergoing cancer treatment in Brisbane. The Charles Wanstall Apex Lodge in Brisbane is desperately seeking donations of hanging prints, pictures and paintings of either landscapes or rural settings to brighten up our units for their guests. They are in need of around 100 framed pictures, any sizes up to 700mm x 700mm or about that size, and donors are asked to please attach their names and a little message to accompany their donation.

My parents spent time staying in places like The Charles Wanstall Lodge when I was a teenager and my Dad had to come to Brisbane from Toowoomba for treatment. I've spent a lot of time in hospitals with my parents while they were having cancer treatment and more recently while I was having treatment and know what it is to stare at blank walls.

Yesterday I delivered 30 prints to the lodge. It was a combination of images from +Tony Porter , my Father and I. I spoke with Allan who was thrilled to receive them and explained that they have no funding to brighten up the rooms for patients and their families. I also got to talk to some of the patients there. It was a hugely emotional experience for me but I will do it again in next week when I have some more $$ and prints framed.

Please consider donating some of your own incredible artwork if you can. To make a donation, please email allanpuckridge@cancerqld.org.au.

I have also felt the need to start writing things down. I feel like I need to better document this post surgery journey and then things that have happened along the way. There have been a HUGE bunch of things I have overcome so far and it’s very easy to lose track of it all.

That’s all for now I guess, if I remember more I’ll make a new post. Have a fantastic day and make the most of what you have.

1 year and 1 month

Today marks 13 months since I had brain surgery. It feels like yesterday and like a million years ago all at the same time. This month has seen a lot of new things for me.

As per my previous post, no tumour on my leg *happy dance*. No more physiotherapy for the time being, I am left to my own devices for that until further notice :) I did have my story showcased at (b)human. If you don't know it, want to know more etc. it is over here "Julia's Story"

This weekend is the Twilight Running festival! I am so excited. I am so incredibly overjoyed to be ABLE to do this. I received a new running singlet and a note of thanks in the mail from "Cure Cancer" for fundraising. I couldn't have done it without your help so Thank you all!

Today it seems that we have enough people to form our team for the relay for life as well! I am also totally overjoyed about that. My mother used to do relay for life every year before her lung cancer. She used to Run the Daffodil Ball for the local hospital as well. Its a really big deal for me to be able to do this for her, for my dad and other family members and friends who have won, lost the battle or are still fighting.

I went for a job interview the other week. I haven't heard back from them yet but time will tell. They were lovely people. I had a number of victories that day. I celebrate all the little milestones as they are each important and signs of my improving health and my healing post op. Firstly I didn't get motion sickness on the train going in for the interview. Before surgery it would have been a very big problem for me. I also walked around the city without having a panic attack. I had one a few weeks after I got home from hospital so I was a little concerned that it was going to be a permanent thing but it looks like it isn't :) We went to a bookshop on the way home from the interview and the floor was uneven with hideous fine striped carpet which looked like it was moving every time I moved my head/eyes. I felt like I was going to have a seizure so I left the shop and managed to avoid it. They don't seem like very big things but for me they are.

I don't know where I would be without the support of my family. My husband has been an incredible rock through it all and my youngest son has been amazing.

Marvellous March

Yesterday was our granddaughters 3rd birthday. It was a lovely morning spent with her and watching her play with her little friends at Hippo's. I have to say I was feeling a little old having a 3 year old granddaughter!

In other news, I had my leg scan done and there was nothing to biopsy so no leg tumour! Ecstatically happy about that especially with the Twilight Running Festival 2 weeks away! I was not looking forward to the possibility of doing that with stitches in my leg! Sponsor me for the Twilight run here

Things are really picking up. Last week I put my resume in for a job and was called back in under two hours. Very exciting and scary. Now to wait for the second call back to arrange interviews etc. I'm really looking forward to it. It really is a whole new world for me now. So much has changed and so many opportunities are now open. We went out and bought clothes and shoes so that I'll have work clothes again. It was all a bit surreal and odd but we got there in the end.

I have been asked to write my story to be showcased on a website. It has taken a while to get started and is probably the hardest thing I have written in a very long time. I think I have it finished now. No doubt there will be things I have missed out or skipped or forgotten but there isn't a lot I can do about that right now. I've written what I could remember as best I could and that will have to do, I can't really do better right now.

I have finished with physiotherapy for the time being as well! I have improved out of sight and unless I have a bit of a stumble/back slide (which I'm actively avoiding) I don't need to go back. Very very happy. My Physiotherapist is a fantastic guy and wonderful at his job but I really hope not to need to see him a gain any time soon. I am going to continue with my brain training at least until my subscription runs out. It has been incredibly helpful. I'll be picking up some second hand secondary text books and working my way through those as I can as well. The only way to try and fix what is broken and put back what is missing is to try and learn it again I think.

Today was a wonderful day, I got back in contact with a long lost friend. I can't wait to catch up properly. It's been a long time between drink as they say.

Reasons to be Pretty