With the Russian madman causing mayhem in the world, I am really trying to maintain a positive outlook.
The war news is dominating and it’s difficult to avoid. But am very aware of how my mental health can affect my physical health, so I am attempting (and so far succeeding) to limit my news watching/viewing. I look at just enough to get a very superficial overview but even that is more than I want. I feel so sad for all the people affected by this megalomaniac!
Time flies by, even the chemo treatments. Yesterday was #5 of the planned 6. The results of my blood tests continue to be good. The cancer marker went from 301 to 187 this week. But not low enough to move on to the next stage. Dr. McCleave said they want to see it at around 30 which is quite a long way yet.
When I came back to South Africa in 2019, I naturally gravitated to where I was born and grew up. And actually ended up in the what we used to call the village of Kloof. (It’s no longer a village!) Kloof is about 18 miles/29km from Durban and just on 1600ft/500km above sea level, giving the area a more moderate climate than Durban, usually being a good 10F less which was the case when I took Rodney to the park this afternoon. Plus less humid.
The fourth treatment went as planned. Mick came with me so he was able to meet my doctor. It’s always good to have another set of ears in a consultation but this one was very straightforward because everything is going so well.
November 16 last year is the fateful day I got the definitive news that changed my life.
By then I ‘d been in hospital for 8 days going through tests and everything else that goes along with a cancer diagnosis. I’d just had laparoscopic surgery for a biopsy and the GYN/surgeon came to visit me after I had very gently been given the diagnosis. He’s a lovely man and from reading his bio, a pretty religious one as well. He said to me as he sat at my bedside, “Have you considered end of life?”
I thought I was immune to this isolation and restrictions and was, I thought, mentally prepared for the anticipated announcement from President Ramaphosa. We all knew that the three weeks wasn’t long enough to “flatten the curve” but when he announced on Thursday evening that the lockdown would continue for an additional two weeks, making it a total of five weeks, taking us to the end of April, it felt like the world caved in.
For a couple of years now, I’ve been capturing memories. The good, the bad and the ugly ones.
The impetus behind this originally was that my family has very little information about our parents’ past. Just a few anecdotal stories handed around. Our mother was very, very tight-lipped, way beyond the stiff upper lip of her generation. We had maybe a couple of stories from her youth that she may have mentioned in passing. But probably got from our grandmother who I barely remember.
This is when I’m really grateful for all the electronics and messaging systems we have available!
It’s pretty much the only way to keep in contact with anyone during the South African COVID-19 lockdown, and being on my own, it’s super important that I keep in contact and know that if one messaging system isn’t connecting, I have four others to try!
There’s a countdown clock on TV, clicking off the seconds until we go into lockdown here in South Africa. And this is a real lockdown, with pretty much no movement out of your house allowed. No going for walk, even alone. No jogging. No walking the dog. No take away food vendors or fast food or food deliveries. No veering off the path to the grocery store if you don’t want to be stopped by the police, backed up by the army. It’s pretty much martial law.
One of the main reasons I had made the decision to not make South Africa my permanent home is the the sense of isolation and distance from family and friends in the US. Just knowing how far it is and how long it takes to go back and forth between the two locations was what clinched that deal. I was so afraid of getting stuck here.
And now, here I am under COVID-19 rules, with no idea how long I will stay.
We’d all like to have nothing to do with awful situation that has turned the entire world upside down, sowing chaos and misinformation.
For those of us who are away from their “home” countries, the disruption is particularly disturbing. Although South Africa is technically my home, the fact is that the majority of my friends and family are not here and with flights being cancelled, airports closed, social isolation and quarantines topping the news, I can feel a bit of panic setting in, being stuck here. Even though I hadn’t really thought about leaving until late May/early June.
