It was the longest trip of our lives back to Brisbane. It was 1am on a Saturday night, I should have been drunk in a gutter somewhere but noooooo.  Indie had woken and was bright as a button. She is only 8 weeks into this world and for some reason I’m trying to fool her into thinking the world hasn’t just exploded in our faces but she‘s only interested in the milk bar attached to my chest.
On the way, even though I know we need to get to the hospital, I just want to go home and have a shower in my own house. I just want life to be normal for a second before whatever it is that’s going to happen to me, begins. Its now 2am and we walk into the house, nothing feels the same anymore and I just want to empty the dishwasher …which is weird because I never really did it before anyway. As I mentally start to write a piolet for The House Wive’s of Hodgkin’s, Indie is now back asleep and Anthony and I lay on the bed hugging each other so tight it hurts..this is the first time we cry. What the fuck is happening to me? What’s happening to us?. After a while I just get this urge to get this shit happening, I have a shower and say goodbye to my house because at this point I have no idea if I’ll ever be back and I’m really, really scared.

We arrive at the hospital and a couple of hours later I meet my Doctor. He mumbles through a few things I don’t recall , then the testing begins. CT, PET Scan, X-rays, Blood Tests ,Bone Marrow and Biopsy’s. I’m like a junkie on Dole day I’ve been injected with that much shit. A week later I’m still sitting around and I now have 3 different doctors and a lactation consultant as the milk in my boobs is causing my cancer to attack me…and I’m still waiting. You realise as a cancer patient, waiting is something you get very good at and I truly believe that this is one of the worst parts because self-diagnosis and death preparation don’t mix. That is something I could never explain to you in words.
Through this time there were many moments when my faith in the medial system was tested, that I planned my funeral and I feel like I have held my breath more times than I have my children. Your entire being rests in the hands of a stranger and even they are just resting on their laurels. After being misdiagnosed twice and my body turning on me throughout the night a number of times, I am diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, Stage 4B, Unfavorable which translates to YOU’RE FUCKED BITCH. The cancer has consumed my chest, breast bone, collar bones, heart sack and some of my lung. It has also entered into my bone marrow, there is a chance of breast cancer and I’m a few months from death. WINNING AT LIFE!
As my 2 year old enters the room with my parents and I see him for the first time in 2 weeks, I’m tired from getting up to my new born every 4 hours to breastfeed , she’s hungry again and its time to change nappies, my boobs hurt, my head hurts, my heart hurts….. and I wonder how the fuck are we going to do this?