For many this is the time of the year! Festivities, family gatherings, food, spirituality! You can go as far as you’d like getting into the Christmas flow, I get tired just thinking about it all!

The tiredness is unfortunately the number one thing that makes me feel not 100%. I had my Herceptin injunction last week on Wednesday and it in combination with my insomnia has really set the standard for space faced living… Sounds like fun? Basically imagine this: you feel ok enough to do something simple. But in a heartbeat all your energy is drained from you, making it hard even to stand up. Driving is out of the question, riding also… But it does get better. After 5 days now and I was back to being more or less me, after 7 days back on high speed full on living.

Even though I have the beautiful capability of waking up close to 2am every morning and often can’t manage to fall back to sleep, I still manage to be more or less fine all day! I’ve been by my lonesome since Monday and I’ve managed really well coping with the challenge of 3 children’s separate play and sports schedules even though I mostly only get 3-5 hours of sleep/night.

My week in so far:

Monday: Busy day at stable and school. Sleep 22-1:45 and 3-5:45

Tuesday: Girls play tennis. Sleep 22:30-2:04 

Wednesday: Christmas party at stable! Girls parties after school, 3 separate venues… Sleep 23-3:15 

Thursday: Busy day, dentist, accountant year end duties.. Sleep 22:30-1:30 and 3-5.03 then I heard the biggest bang from the house that could either be a burglary going slightly wrong or my children. Was joined in bed by burglar number 1 around 5:43 and number 2 at 6:07. Number 3 stayed in bed until 6:15 so when my alarm  that was set to wake us up we were already downstairs having breakfast.

Insomnia can be a bit of a drag sometimes, but if you can read you can get lots of things read

Keep smiling 🙂 Never curse the fact you are waking up early, remember you are STILL waking up! 

Please someone inform this body of mine at the tender hours say from midnight until six one should sleep. This is the core for any recuperation especially for someone recovering from various ailments.

The wolf hours are so mean. In a normal hour when you think about anything, there  is reason and you can easily weigh up and compare different solutions for projects. In the wee hours of wolf there is just black and white. Doubt and distress. I’m naturally such a positive spirit and I have never really been “awake-er ” at this time in morning until now, but after a few weeks of natural 2:30am awakeness even I have begun to wonder.

In the hours of wolf, your mind plays trickery on you. Wilting away my natural resources of mind over matter. It’s strange, especially as lying here now I know for a fact that none of the things that bother me now will not bother me tomorrow morning. 

Actually I’m doing really great normally from normal morning until about 6:30pm then I feel these awaking hours. I go to bed roughly at the same time as the girls so atleast it gives me a 3-4 hours solid sleep before wolf… I think that’s how I’m still able to do so much. 

I have been known to have a strong will and sometimes a “temper” but I’m not especially proud of my swearing in front of kids and have donated €15 to the swear-pot. We have decided to do something fun with the money of said swear pot so it looks like it will be something really fun if this no sleeping palaver continuous…

It should be 10 cents per swear word so we are talking easily €1000 by the end of next week…

Keep smiling 🙂 at least writing about it makes you worry less about other things! Although the worries about lost words continues… I’m sure I am losing not only Swedish but also English words, Alzheimer’s light…

My lovely 4 legged friends. The ones I have been told not to get back on before 29/11 I managed to stay off them until 30/11! But I’ve been back riding since Monday and other than a very sore bottom and other muscles in my body that are somewhat surprised by the sudden onslaught of high intensity excersise, I feel whole again!

I am surrounded by people worrying about me overdoing it again and I am just making sure I do everything as right as I can. Monday and Tuesday I rode 3 horses and today I rode 4. Dan asked me -Do you think the doctors meant that when they told you that you could start riding again you should get on as many as you could as soon as possible? My answer was just a look I think…

I feel fine. Other than I actually don’t have much feeling over Bella and my belly. I feel fine enough to make lazy vacation mode horses realize their mum is back and it’s time for action! I think the poor horses have had a few wake up days! Looking forward to see what else we can do tomorrow!

On top of the riding I have become a member of a gym! It’s great to do other excersise as well, and hopefully I’ll be fit very soon! Even though I’m in bed most nights before or around 9pm, I still tend to wake up around 2:30 am. The last two nights I haven’t been able to go back to sleep. This morning was the worst. A nightmare turned into actual doubting. Then not far off that was the opening of distant possibilities of more negativity. Those thoughts should be banned. Especially at that time of night…

Although somehow through it all I always manage to stay grounded, my feet firmly on floor. Luckily I was born with slightly flat duck like feet, so they are good to balance on!

Keep smiling 🙂 tomorrow comes quicker than you think! 

It’s odd, as I drive myself and clients around the north of England looking at horses and planning flights to get to Stockholm, I have to stop myself for a while, this is me, again! I’m alive! 

For some of you it might seam like a stupid thing to do. To push myself so early after an major operation, not to give myself a safetynet to fall into, if I was to fall. But I guess this is how I’m designed. If I can push, I keep pushing.

I know I’ve only “been back” for a couple of weeks, if that, but I feel as strong and energized as I was before all this years hardships. So for me a combined trip to look for new horses for clients as well as myself in combination with flying to Stockholm to watch my 7 year old jump at Sweden International Horse Show, it seamed like the most ingenious idea! Especially as there were direct flights from Manchester to Stockholm as well as direct flight from Stockholm to Palma! Faith had this trip inscripted in the skies!

We found the perfect jumping partner for my client and we proved it today by allowing him to jump at a real show! Clear round and fabulous awesomeness all round. As I was early arriving at the airport to fly to Sweden, I sat down to try and download my emails and get more or less updated on things from my real world. It was so lovely to meet John Whittaker who also is flying out to the SIHS in Friends arena starting tomorrow.

Respect! He is an inspiration for everyone! As he has turned 60 years this year he has almost had as good a year resultwise as he has ever had. He is jumping 2 horses at the show and it will be amazing to see him! He has become a grand father since I saw him last and I got an update on his three children who I don’t really ever meet now that I live in Spain. 

My trip also involves spending time with some of my amazing cousins! They are my closests friends. It can sometimes feel a bit far away to live in Mallorca especially when you feel the need to hug them! 

As the plane now flies over Surahammar (Sour-hammer) my thoughts go to another friend I haven’t seen for a while as she has been traveling the world working on a yacht. She should be back in Mallorca now and if she by any chance reads this please come and see me when I am back!

On the not so good page of surviving this cancer palaver are my nails. They are beyond disgusting on my toes and beyond brittleness on my fingers. I really need to take something to improve the sorry state of them… Any advises are appreciated!

Keep smiling 🙂 when you are lucky enough to travel, for work or pleasure, you are lucky enough!  

I am surrounded by extraordinary people. A friend of mine Villi had offered to cook dinner for me as a celebration of finishing all my treatments. Dan had recommended that instead of dinner we should do a picknick after a wonderous walk in Mallorca with some friends. So the survival hike was arranged!

We all got picked up from Palma and driven up to Deia to start our hike along the GR221, which is the trail that goes all the way from Andrax to Pollenca. We were only going to trail the approximate 10 km from Deia to Port de Soller.

It was a wonderful day with the bluest sky possible! In the end we were 5 girls walking. Along the trail we met some people that actually lived there! I’m not sure how they got their stuff there unless they used a donkey but were we got invited for an orange juice was pretty special! 

We managed to get to the beach of Port de Soller were Dan had set up a five star picknick in front of Esplendido hotel! The food and company was excellent! Thank you thank you thank you! For being part of my life especially during the last three of years when the “hike” of life hasn’t been so easy. The Survival hike will now defenitly become a once bi-monthal happening! Next hike will be in January! 

Keep smiling 🙂 apparently you only need two muscles to smile! You need a lot more to walk as my body is evidence of right now!   

It’s true, detox gives me green superpower for energy and stamina! I am not sure other detoxers do as much as me whilst on the detox but as I’m a little special, I have the special superpower given to me by the awesome green juices from Ziva.

This is day 7 of an all green juice detox. I’m not allowed for medical reasons to do it any longer. It’s not recommended anyway. So what I have been up to during this detox is plenty. I’ve done yoga, HIIT (high intensity interval training), vibration plate and hiking. Yesterday we went for a hike outside puigpunyent and we nearly got to the coast! A hilly adventure and we walked for over 7 kilometers! My partners to the hike were Dan and our dog Jack. Not sure who enjoyed it the most. It was awesome!

The glow on my face is obvious to lots of people. Today a record of 9 people commented on how healthy I look! That’s not bad for a cancer sufferer/TBI victim! We hope we have chased away the cancer and the toxins killing the cancer from my body. I can recommend the detox to anyone that wants to clear their system. This time I lost 3kg in one week.

Keep smiling 🙂 if there is a road, walk it! 

I’m back home! There is nothing like it in so many ways! The closeness to all of my family as well as the things I know and use and my little sofa buddy Jack!

The only downfall would be that I’m not very good at sleeping any more. This is the third night on the trot where I wake up for no reason and cannot go back to sleep. I got an extra hour tonight which makes me positive that I might get an extra hour tomorrow Etc… I’m a fool. Unfortunately I think that I won’t sleep before I tackle some real life problems, such as paperwork that was supposed to be in by beginning of October. I wonder how I can be so awake at such a rubbish hour, even more I wonder how I have become such a useless individual when it comes to the basic things in life.

Halloween has been and gone. I must admit this year I had below average energy to put into getting dressed up and go to the schools yearly party. Partly because I can’t remember who anyone is on a normal day, add a bit of fancy dress and I have no chance. We went. Dan was dressed as Mr Marshmallows from the Ghostbusters film. I was dressed as a nun. I should have been a vampire nun but as the fake blood tasted like rotten feet I decided to cop out and just be a nun. The girls got dressed up as pumpkins, vampires and an angel that liked blood… Let’s hope next year will be as good as this year! It was a lovely gathering and it really was an event for the kids, not like the years before that I thought was more aimed at the older crowd.

I have been back at the stable twice. I can ride in 25 days…(not that I’m counting) all the horses look good and hopefully they should behave in the weeks that come. 

I’ve become a little bit of a complainer. About life and little things. I nag. It’s not nice. I know that I’ve been though a lot of things, but I should hold my head high, chin up. I don’t think complaining about silly things such as lack of sleep will get me anywhere, well it probably won’t get me anywhere, but atleast readers of this blog can understand why I am a little bit cranky… Sorry! 

I feel that I’ve lost my skill of writing. I used to have it but it’s like my short term memory is almost gone, it took away my skill of assembling sentances. It’s a nick you either have or not. Sadly I seem to have lost it… Dan thinks it could be because of the post radiation and mid flu tiredness… I don’t know but I excuse my bad language until I get energized again!

Keep smiling 🙂 even when you have lost your way a little you will end up seeing new things! 

I’m sure survivors should be tougher than this. I was in a coma for nearly a month, then paralyzed on my left hand side. I had to learn how to walk and talk again. I then broke half of my body. This is before operating on my eye to get rid of my double vision only to be followed by breast cancer. Oh the joys of the last 3 years!

The problem is this. My immune system has been shot since the first accident. If I get a cold or a flu or any disease my body gets fully involved. My natural defense has been so out of order that I end up in hospital every time I get a cold… We have been very vigilant and lucky this year not to catch a single flu/cold as the chemo would have been totally upset by this. As the radiotherapy has been going on I’ve stayed illness free… Until my family arrived from Mallorca. 

What was supposed to be a lovely trip to London to meet up with me and go and see wondrous things, ended up with first Millie and then Mel and Myrna getting ill, closely followed by me. I’ve got my emergency antibiotic but I really don’t want to use them if I can avoid it. As it felt more like a virus rather than bacterial to start off with, the antibiotics wouldn’t have helped.

Mel was too ill to fly back on Monday, and as I also had the same symptoms I thought it would be ok to have her with me. The sad thing is I’m now on day 4 of fever. Even though I manage to get rid of the fever with lemsip it always comes back! Last night was the killer. 38.6 degrees fever and a sore thought that felt like someone was torturing me by cutting sharply every time I coughed.

Now my mucus cough is turning a yellow color… I think this means that I can take the antibiotics. But as everything was so awful at 3am I called the out of office duty nurses at the LOC. They wanted me to come into hospital straight away. I said I couldn’t as I had little Mel here, but they have arranged for a doctor to see me today. They called Dr Jones around 4am, which I’m sure she is used to, and it’s probably part of her job, I still feel awful about it.

My mum is here in London now. She arrived Monday night so for me it’s excellent! She can look after Mel today. I’m not sure if they will keep me in. But paracetamol doesn’t seam to shift this fever… 

Keep smiling 🙂 what else could you do? Crying only makes you waste very important water!

I knew I was allowed to do “gentle yoga” from last Wednesday. That did not include any downward facing dog or any pose involving any handstand or anything too strainous. 

As my background in yoga is ashtanga and the last couple of years vinyasa and kundalini, I know the dog of the downward facing variety is featured quite a lot even in “gentle yoga”. My friend Rebecca said -“you should try Yin yoga!”. 

The only Gin I know of previously are the drinking kind, Tanquary or Bombay Sapphire… But I agreed to come to a class today with Rebecca. It was very gentle. I don’t know how else to describe it. We were using lots of props to get into position, and it worked even for a newly operated on person! It was an hour of stretches and very gentle movements that made the rest of my day feel very cheerful! 

I know my family is coming tomorrow and with only 1 sleep to go I cannot help but feeling excited! London is going to behave more or less weather wise. I think we are only promised one rainy day in the 5 days they are here!

Today was a rainy day! I was thinking of going to the zoo, but as I was carrying around my ruck sack weighing over 10kg I decided to buy some food for the crew tomorrow!

Keep smiling 🙂 a short note of something happy should ignite you! 

Tamoxifen or in Spanish Tamixofeno is the only medicine I have to take daily, for the next 10 years…

The possible side effects are so many. I was hoping to list them here but it’s more than 4 A4’s list of possible side effects. The ones that you have to be wary of are these ones, you can get cancer from Tamixofen or you can go blind. Neither of those feels like a side effect I would want or need. 

The side effect I have started to get after being on the drug for a good 20 days is hot flushes. For you women of “that age”, you know what I’m talking about. So I’m not naturally at “that stage” yet, but thanks to Tamixofen I feel HOT!

Honestly, it should be a cheap year for me as I shouldn’t need any central heating, or clothes. Although saying that, the increased hotness during some times also makes me feel super cold at other times… Can there not just be easy for once? I am dressing in full training outfit with sweat wick-away fabric to not end up wearing wet cold clothes.

I haven’t known sweating like this. Maybe a good time to start taking up hot yoga? As I’m already so hot it shouldn’t be a problem to get to the Shavasana stage. I could even just go to “normal” yoga classes and they should turn into Bikram just because of this inner fire burning.

I don’t know if this is a 10 year thing. Will it stop when I stop taking the medicine? Only to then start again as soon as I get to “that stage”? I don’t feel very glamorous dressed up in my winter sweatpants and colorful sweat tops. I’m wearing my wig now as my hair has started thinning even more… My stripey okapi hair is growing in length but as its thinning it’s easier and warmer to wear a wig… 

Oh the problems, never mind. The radiotherapy is going ok. Bella is now turning a nuked purple color, but this is not totally unusual, I will let Lovely Lisa, the breast care nurse to have a look at her today.

Keep smiling 🙂 the weather in London has been incredible so far this autumn!