Too much to say and there's a weird taste in my mouth

Please forgive the long silence. I guess we must resolve that a lack of blogging does not mean anything bad, just either that I've been under my duvet more than usual or having too good a time to write! Sue (my twin) is somewhere between Luton and Schiphol and the little one is (FINALLY) asleep in his buggy, Chris is in Cambridge, there's an amazing woman cleaning my kitchen and David and Eden are making music upstairs.

Quick grab that moment...

The last few days post-chemo have been a tad harder than days following cycles 1&2. Lots of naps and general lack of energy and a really annoying bad taste in my mouth. I have a memory of Grandad once giving me a Fisherman's Friend and for ages after the taste lingered. I remember wanting to rub the taste off the inside of my mouth. Sucking and swallowing didnt help but made it worse - it's just like that. The weird thing is that eating is fine. Other tastes replace the metalic one and I have no problem enjoying food - and lots of it! I guess the challenge is - how to eat all the time even when you dont feel desperately hungry.

Pause, reach for the bombay mix.

Sue said 'well, you certainly feel useful'. She looked a bit knackered as she left today. Although there's only 5mins between us, she's always been my older sis. This week has beeen very precious for us - she's looked after me and I've needed and savoured every bit of it.

My friend Julie used to talk about ADL's (activities of daily living) and I'll admit it, sometimes I feel a bit overwelmed by the old ADLs. I feel like my life is one constant nearly-finished job. This might sound absurd to the non-parents amongst you, but honestly, when I weigh up 'demands of motherhood' in one hand and 'managing a life threatening illness' in the other, I know which one seems easier!! Whether its Kirin's bottle at 5am or discovering via a helpful assistant in Clarks that Asha should be in size 8 shoes when she's wearing size 6 (oops!!) or the holiday washing or the overdue library books or the broken buggy wheels... it all adds up to a fairly mad full-on life. Bring cancer alongside all that and on some days it hardly gets a look in!

Please forgive me but I won't now do justice to our amazing holiday in Suffolk - it all seems too long ago to talk about. It was very special with lots of very normal maybe-I'm-not-about-to-die-afterall conversations. Lots of laughs with the kids in the tub and lots of space to hang out. At times when things feel very weird, doing something a bit normal like going on holiday is very reassuring. Come to think of it, I dont think Ive ever been on holiday in November before so maybe life is still pretty weird. I know that someone in my position is in danger of wanting to tell their friends to live their lives differently - so I wont - BUT if you want a hot tub under the stars with snow around and need to spend some unhurried time with your partner or family or friends? www.windmilllodges.co.uk/ (snow not guaranteed!). They're really reasonable especially if you avoid peak times and weekends and they provide you with the white dressing gowns so it feels dead posh!!

Can't tell you now about the chemo day and how all the Medics seemed quite excited about my progress or about Kirin's projectile vomit on the ward or Sue and me and our twin-fetal nap on the hospital bed... all that will have to wait

as I'd better blog off.

The Twin is in Town

Ali and Chris got a night out on the town with Sue and Mark on Friday night.

Stop press - great news!

I have just got a text from Ali at Barts, where chemo 3 is due today. She says "Really good news from Doc today - marker in blood (which measures the particular chemical that Ali's cancer produces) shows big reduction in cancer activity! 40 000 down to 16 000. Praise God for all those pray-ers xx". Amazing news.

For those of you who've wondered about the blog silence, Ali and Chris have been on holiday and had a great time. And today Sue, Ali's sister, and her family arrive from Amsterdam so you may have to wait another while before you get to hear about it all including the open air hot tubs!

Week 2 Chemo 2 love from Ali

pressure to be profound... I'm over it! Here's a little rambling along the way:

Funny how 3 really good days gives you a different take on a fairly poor beginning of the week. Sat Sun and Mon, I just kept needing to crawl under the old duvet. Mon night (Hats) was a bit of an effort but was a turning point and set me up amazingly - and I dont just mean in the hat and scarf dept. Problem with the old cancer thing is that its harder to just chill out about bad days, you worry a bit that its all a bit worrying... Then you swim 30 lengths and go out with the girls till gone midnight and realise youre still in pretty good shape. Wed was a bit weird, I got out of bed and promptly passed out! Here's another example of to-worry or not-to-worry, I have very low blood pressure, in fact I've always had very low blood pressure (for you medical lot 71 over 54 and that was on the next day feeling really normal). Suddenly, what might this mean? Is this a bad sign? Turns out I'd just do well to remember to get up more slowly in future!!

So fighting fit and off on hols next week.

From Mon we've booked a log cabin in Suffolk with a hot tub on the veranda open to the stars! Those of you that know me well will know that I have skinny-dipping leanings (you may as well be bald AND bare!) and the thought of trying to spot Mars whilst sitting in hot bubbles under a Suffolk sky just feels wonderfully mad! It gets better because my amazing parents will at some point come and relieve us of the kids. How good is that!

Back to London for Sunday 13th and my next appointment with the Consultant is on Monday and Chemo on Wed. Sarah our previous Consultant is now on maternity leave so we're praying we hit it off with the new one. The following month we'll be looking at mid-way scans 'n stuff so it'd be great if good communication was already established.

Before I blog off, I want to say the love being lavished on Chris and I at the moment is still completely overwelming. Friends at church are rallying to take off Chris shoulders parts of his current job, to enable him to massively reduce his hours and stress over the next few months.

In fact I'll do a few good moments, bad moments:
BM: feeling poorly.
GM: an amazing evening with our friend Andy who was willing to go back through his own grief of nursing Donna to the end, in order to allow us to ask our unthinkable fears and questions.
GM: the arrival of a beautiful book for Asha written and illustrated by Gabi (her childminder from before and biggest hero).
GM: infact precious tear-filled moment listening to Gabi's CD with a song written for us. Apart from Chris agreeing to marry me I dont think I have ever received such a beautiful gift.

The Hilarious Hat Party

There were lots of women, lots of hats, lots of food, lots of scarves, and lots of champagne (you've got to get through it somehow - possibly now's the time to re-adjust your shopping lists to include other forms of alcoholic beverages before the Adeney Lawrences have to resort to champagne jelly!). Oh yes, and that pink wig. On Monday night we gathered to help Ali find some options for those times she's bored of being bald in public. Or just plain cold. We were able to give her some top tips in tying head scarves so she doesn't look like Margo. We had a good laugh at all those definitely '90s' hats we'd found at the back of our wardrobes. And a few of us decided that top hats should really be making a comeback (though Ali was less sure about this).



Right - Zanna, Angelle, Jo and Eden get into the swing of things. (For Ali's sake, of course).




Shazza and Kazza









Two days later the options are still being worked through.