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Brave Momentum, Christchurch (2026)

17/06/2026

The Finish Line

At the start of treatment, I really didn’t know how I would possibly survive to get to cycle 6. I was in such horrific pain before starting treatment, and the first two cycles, lying in bed in pain not able to eat or drink and wretching because there was nothing left to vomit up, I remember thinking I know why people stop treatment and just want to die.

I also knew that if I stopped treatment I would die, and that the process of dying would just get more painful. I owed it to myself, my kids, my family to try to fight cancer and to take the treatment and pain. And holy moly these 6 months have been trying.

I sometimes think what it must be like for people who otherwise feel ok when they discover that they have a tumour, to go from feeling ok, to feeling awful from treatment to try and prevent feeling terrible and dying in the future.

Last week I had my 6th lot of chemo infusions. Because of the anaphylactic reactions from last time, I had to take a different type of high dose steroids for the 2 days before the infusion, then the infusion had to be given very slowly. It was like 8 hours in the chemo chair. I was first in and last out. Fortunately the precautions all worked and I was back to just normal chemo sick and no extra reactions.

The Dexamethasone to prevent the reaction, in some ways made the few days after chemo feel more manageable. But there is a cost for everything. I have spent about ⅓ of this year on pretty high dose steroids. Steroids are great for helping kill blood cancers and reducing inflammation. But terrible for your bones and eyes, blood sugar and sanity.

Lots of blood cancer patients really struggle with the side effects of steroids when on treatment. Roid rage is real, savage hunger, anxiety can make you a ball of emotions about to erupt. Overall I have been pretty lucky to have very few steroid issues. This is mostly because I was so ill. This time I did have side effects.

The Dexamethasone then only the Prednisolone kicked my arse. For the first time in 6 months, I was hungry. I was obsessed with thinking about food, talking about food, and eating food. (only for a few days). I was tired and wired, I felt anxious and jittery and just all over the place. I didn’t cry as much as I was expecting, but did a wee bit. Weaning off them then hit me like a brick. I went from super wired to needing both a morning and afternoon nap and still not feeling rested at all. I took the last of my weaning dose yesterday.

The neuropathy, nerve damage from chemo, has gotten worse. The bottoms of both feet have an altered sensation and the tips of most of my fingers. This might be temporary or it might be just how life is now. I am trying to keep moving them, I don’t know if it will fix anything, but it makes me feel like I’m trying. At the hospital, they ask if I can still button things and use zips or if I am tripping because I can’t feel my feet. I so far can manage, so I guess that’s good.

It is a weird feeling being ‘done’. Mostly because I am not done. It isn’t a case of the last treatment going in and life going back to normal. I will be monitored life long for late treatment effects. I am at higher risk of heart failure thanks to chemo, cataracts, osteoporosis, bladder issues, more nerve damage, and cancer caused from treatment.

I find myself being grateful to get a break from treatment. I would feel very anxious leading up to treatment. Knowing that I was going to feel so awful again. Now I am also torn with - was it enough. Did I have enough toxic chemicals to kill the cancer?

My brain feels like it’s made of marshmallows. I find myself unable to find words, losing my train of thought. I was reading that when you are sick it happens as your body's way to get you to stop and rest. The chemo can cross the blood brain barrier, which is one of the causes of chemo brain. Fatigue and feeling crappy don’t help matters at all. Again, it should be temporary, and I don’t need to do much thinking just at the moment.

I now wait for another 5ish weeks for a scan then another 2 weeks for results and next steps.

So my life at the moment involves, hurry up and wait. Given my lack of energy I don’t have a lot of options. It seems surreal to be able to plan ahead. I am looking forward to having eyelashes and nose hairs.

This post probably is a bit garbled, apologies if it is. It’s been a long hard year.

01/06/2026

Keep on swimming

A lot and not much has happened since cycle 4. I am now in cycle 5, of 6. The finish line for this treatment is almost in sight. Round 6 is scheduled for the 10th of June, and scans will be 6 weeks after that. I will then have to wait for team meetings and an appointment date to find out what the next stage of treatment is.

The reason for the 6 week wait, is it will give time for the chemo to finish working, and time for any cancer to heat up and show up again.

In good news my wee Midas is much improved, after a very scary bump. He has heart failure and is on meds. Initially they really helped and he was a bit more himself. But then he went very downhill and his breathing was terrible. Snoring, snorting, super rattling sounding. He was back to being lethargic. I was really worried he only had days or weeks left.

A trip across the road to the vet. His lungs were clear which was a big relief, and the vet thought he had an ear, nose or throat infection and prescribed antibiotics to be eaten with food. His heart meds and to be taken on an empty stomach. Fortunately that was the issue, and he is much more back to himself. He is more playful and alert.

He super loves leaves. Even more than sticks. We kept him away from them until he recovered.

I have been having my own health adventures. Being that the world is a very small place, I sat next to a former carpet customer in the infusion centre, who is now on life-extending care. It was lovely to see her, even in such circumstances. Adult cancer is tough, the survival rates for a lot of cancers are still poor, and there are a lot of very elderly unwell people on treatment. I haven’t seen many people my age or younger.

An hour before my chemo infusions, I take steroids, paracetamol and a strong anti histamine. These meds are all to try and prevent having an allergic reaction, mostly from the chemo immunotherapy drug, Rituximab. This drug is known to have life threatening reactions, but the drug has been a game changer for increasing survival.. Most people, if they react, react the first time they have the drug. The first time you are watched like a hawk and the drug is given very slowly, over 4 or more hours.

Last cycle, I had a minor reaction at the time. The infusions were paused, I was given more antihistamine, then told to watch out for reactions when I went home. I started spewing at dinner time which is unusual for the first day given the new meds I was on. I just didn’t feel right at all. After I went to bed I got itchy - which is a reaction. I rang the hospital and they said to come in. About this time I realised I couldn’t swallow. Mum quickly took me into the hospital. I was put through and seen very quickly. By then my blood pressure was very high and my throat was getting very swollen. I was very quickly given IV meds into my central line. I spent a few days in hospital, getting fluids and extra meds.

I am now on much better antinausea drugs, and they are now tapering my steroids so I don’t go from very high doses to nothing, which has also helped with nausea. I am halfway through cycle 5 now. I am hoping and praying that the chemo has been enough, that it has killed enough cancer. I go in for fluids on the Friday and Monday after chemo, and if needed also the Wednesday.

I am at the point where I can’t remember what it is like to feel well. I found out I had cancer in January. I had been going to the GP for months before that not feeling well. Shortness of breath, drenched night sweats, really tired and just not feeling right.

Rationally I know that I will feel better again, it just seems very far away.

I have been thinking about my baldness lately. I really haven’t cared that much while I have been on treatment. I don’t really go anywhere apart from hospitals and appointments and most of the people there are bald anyways. Unlike Elsa in Frozen, the cold does very much bother me. I have different hats for different temperatures, day hats and night hats. We are getting closer to the year’s shortest day. But it is chilly.

When I finish treatment and go back into the world, I will still be bald. I had alopecia as a child, but I was so young that I don’t remember it. I had a hat on in any photos that were taken. I have almost no eyebrows or eyelashes now either. I do courtesy of my sister, have eyebrow stamps and eyebrow pencils. Part of me wants to be brave and own the baldness - in a sunsmart way of course. Apart from a brief childhood stint at baldness, I have only had short hair once when i was 18 and I cut it to be a hair model (my hairdresser won her category). I have pretty much always had long super thick hair, that has lived in pony tail prison.

I have always admired a friend of mine from school Jan. She has for as long as I can remember had shortish hair. She has always had amazing cuts and colours. I would like to think that I would have the courage to try funky cuts and colours.

For a while I felt like something kept falling in my eyes. But dismissed it that it can feel like that but rarely is. Turns out I did. My eyelashes. You don’t appreciate how useful they are until you don’t have them. They stop grit getting into your eyes, they feel weird too when you touch your face. It feels a bit exposed.

A lot of facial expression comes from eyebrows. I can artificially put them on, but don’t at home. I still get a surprise when I see myself in a mirror with no hair, and looking so tired.

I am more tired than I thought possible now. I get pretty short of breath and need one or two naps a day and lots of rest. I am looking forward to being ‘done’ with this lot of chemo, but it doesn’t seem real either. I am planning to do some counselling and trauma work after this phase of my life.

I have been spending my time napping, colouring, doing adult activity books ie Sudoku, word finds, binge watching shows (I'd love some ideas), trying to do short walks with Midas. When my brain is working a bit read. I made pizza for dinner on Friday night for the first time this year.

I just need to stay alive until I can start living again.

Thank you so much for the people that have signed up to the meal train. It makes such a huge difference. Mum and dad are amazing and are absolute troopers. But they aren’t as young as they were and this is bloody exhausting for them too. The meals really help to take the edge off. So thank you again.

14/05/2026

The Straw That Broke the Camels Back

Overall I think that I have gotten on with having a cancer diagnosis and treatment as well as I could. Don’t get me wrong, I am bloody hopeless, and would be completely skilled without my parents.

I have spent the first 10 days with severe vomiting and nausea and trying to sleep through the worst of the initial. The nerve/tumour pain of what we assume is the tumour dying is horrifically painful. The new theory is that the tumour has left scar tissue and that is being pulled at while the tumour is dying.

This cycle for the first 5 days I had better antinausea treatment, that could only be short term. After that finished I well and truly fell to pieces. I go into the triage area for fluids every second date for three times.

I have been seeing a psychologist once a cycle. This has been pretty helpful. The goal is to get through treatment, with no more trauma than I already have. Treatment has definitely triggered some trauma that I had long suppressed. When I am a bag of balls, I think about how much my wee Lizzie suffered. When my feet burned from neuropathy (nerve damage essentially from chemo.) I wonder did Lizzie have that and just not be able to tell me? Did she feel nauseous all the time, or just vomit with no warning? I have had both.

Last cycle I really didn’t have any ‘good’ days. It is often pretty sore to p*e. This again, caused by one of the chemos that is knows to cause bladder irritation. To fix this you get ural sachets to drink. The nurse realised it shouldn’t still be hurting 20 days after getting the chemo and had me do a wee test. UTI. For some reason when I was in the day before vomiting and miserable this wasn’t picked up. So more antibiotics.

I feel some days like I am rattling, upwards of 30 pills a day for the 5 days around chemo. When you are nauseas, swallowing pills is not fun at all.

But back to the camel, or in this case my dog, Midas the cavoodle.

Midas came to our family the day after the second lockdown in Christchurch. I had organised for him to come and live with us before the lockdown. At the time Lizzie was terminal, but was otherwise well and happy, and the medical advice was that she could stay for another 6 months. I was a cat person, but on a busy corner, the chances of a dead daughter, and then a run over cat was more than I thought I could cope with.

I did a lot of dog research. I was told that small dogs learn to live around you, you have to learn around a big dog. I learnt this when I had to be careful where to put my wine glass, least a friend's dog’s tale knocked it over. I didn’t want dog hair everywhere, and am mildly allergic. So hyperallergenic and non-shedding came onto the list. I wanted a dog to bring love into our lives and be a cuddler. For cross breeds, my research told me that a F1 so first generation cross would likely have the most hybrid vigour, and the least chance of inherited issues. Eventually I got down to a Spoodle (spaniel x poodle), or Cavoodle (cavalier King Charles x Poodle). I went with a mini cavoodle 10 to 12 kg. The breeder told me that girl dogs often latch onto one person and that is the accepted human, whereas boys were more likely to equally love everyone. Midas did not get this memo. I zoomed with the breeder and chose Midas.

3 weeks after Midas arrived, Lizzie became symptomatic, and needed regular oral morphine. Shortly after that she developed severe diabetes insipidus, water diabetes. It has nothing to do with blood sugar. It is thirst hunger and you p*e constantly. Her 12 hour nappies would be soaked through in 3 hours over night. I really don’t know how I survived her end of life, especially while training a puppy. Puppy schools hadn’t really started after lockdown, so google and I did our best. The treatment for diabetes insipidus is a nasal spray. It took much longer than was reasonable for this to be prescribed.

We were blessed to have friends look after Midas when Lizzie ended up in hospital. Lizzie did love Midas. When she was dying and delusional, she spent a lot of time telling off Midas and Popple. We would have to pretend to take the dog outside and to send Popple to bridge.

At Lizzie’s insistence we shared a bed for the last part of her life. She wanted to be cuddled in a particular was and god help me if she woke up out of nowhere and I wasn’t she would bolt upright and literally growl at me that she needed more cuddles, I would assume the position and she would go straight back to sleep. It took bloody months for my hip and back to recover.

After she died, the nights felt so long and so lonely. She had always had someone in her room, and that person was mostly me (or my mum or on occasion her dad). When she was on oxygen and nasal gastric fed overnight she needed her pulse ox checked and to ensure that she didn’t aspirate from the liquid feed. There wasn’t a lot of sleep then either.

I do most of my crying at night time. I cried buckets after that. I was relieved her suffering was over. But the way she suffered so much, I think will always haunt me. Up until this point, Midas was crate trained. I very much recommend this it worked really well. It was me that stopped this. I started letting him sleep on my bed. A queen bed for one person and a small dog mostly works well. There are certain bed spots that we both want, but he is small enough to move, and unlike a cat won’t attack me.

When I was first on chemo, Midas didn’t want to go near me much. I probably smelt funny. When you are literally just trying to stay alive, you don’t notice the details around you. A friend of a friend has been kindly walking Midas, she had said that he was short of breath. He was then sleeping a lot and very lethargic. He wasn’t even defending his territory from passing trucks. Normally he took defending us from trucks driving by and the rare noisy drunk person very seriously.

I took him across the road to the vet. He did appear to remember that we only walked this way to go there so was a bit reluctant. The vet listened that he had been very tired and then examined him. Tests the next day confirmed the diagnosis. Wee Midas has a Mitral Valve Defect which is causing heart failure. It is an inherited defect from the Cavalier King Charles side. I was in tears during the appointment. When I came home I cried all afternoon and most of the evening. Peter was worried something was seriously wrong and that I was hiding it from him, and didn’t consider a dog as worthy of all of the tears.

Richard thinks Midas isn’t really up to much apart from being an emotional support animal, which is all I need him to be. The good news is, he isn’t in congestive heart failure yet. The mitral valve is very enlarged, and he has a whooshing heart murmur.

Midas has been started on meds. Good news is we haven’t gotten Popple’s and Midas’s meds confused. The dog meds seem to taste nice. He hears the rustle of the med bag and appears like magic. He happily shakes hands and rolls over to get them.

The meds have helped a lot. He is much more himself. We aren’t protected from all passing trucks but some. In the evening he presents his ball ready to play indoor fetch (bad habit I know). He was like a drunk skunk after his sedation for his tests. He was so cute and relaxed and snuggly.

His walks are now shortened with more chances to rest in between. He still super loves plowing through autumn leaves, and belly rubs. When doing my research it stated that the average life expectancy of a cavoodle is 12 to 15 years. He is currently 4.5 years old. In my mind, he would be with me until the boys left home, then we would have a few years together before he peacefully passed. I would be sad but know that he’d lived his best life. Then I would go travelling and do stuff for me.

Midas will still live his best life. We will love him and look after him and let him live life at his pace. I had imagined us walking all over the place together building up my fitness and stamina. We will, but I might need to drop him off on the way.

My crying was a lot about him being sick, but also what losing him would represent. He’s a link to Lizzie. He’s cuddled me through lots of late night tears. I am hoping that he has a couple of years left in him. Ironically we don’t let animals have long drawn out painful deaths because it is inhumane, but the medical fraternity will stand by and let a child have one.

I cry on the 4th day of each cycle from the steroids, this week spoiler on Call the Midwife, Sister Monica Joan died. I suspect the day I found out about my poor wee Midas, that I had a lot of pent up tears. For the life I thought I would be living now. For past traumas and losses. Anger that the other parent is off living their best life and I am left to try and handle everything. Grief of career’s smooshed. Fear that I will die, and then what happens to my boys. At the time that much crying feels awful, but it is cathartic, and later feels better, like a release valve.

23/04/2026

The Elephant in the Room - and Cycle 3

This cycle of chemo has taken a couple of detours. On Wednesday morning when I was getting my infusion of chemo-immunotherapy drugs, I snuggled up in a blanket and had a nap. I was woken by the dietician coming to see me. Oncology is the only department that doesn’t want you to lose weight. When I woke I had trouble focusing on what I was looking at, and my words were clumsy and a bit slurred. This triggered a lot of medical attention. This drug, 70% of people will have an adverse reaction to it at some stage. I have to take a few meds an hour beforehand to lower the chances.

Eventually one of the nurses realised, and asked if I got migraines. Yes I do. I had slept through the first visual symptoms. I was loaded full of meds and caffeine, observed for a while then sent home.

On Thursday morning I went back for the other three chemos. This was pretty straight forward. I was booked in on Friday morning for fluids. I was starting to feel a bit meh. This cycle I was given a new anti spew pill. This would have worked better if I had all the chemo on day one when the drug dose was highest, it is halved for the next two days then stopped.

I slept through the days after this, and tried really hard to drink and eat. Try as I might, it wasn't enough. Mum did ask if I needed to go back for more fluids on Monday, I declined. This proved a big error on my behalf.

I ended up back in oncology triage on Tuesday morning in a very sorry state. I was given IV anti-nausea drugs and IV fluids. I was also in a lot of pain. I am on very strong slow release pain relief and nerve relief drugs. The Dr was a bit worried and ordered a CT on my abdomen.

This became the elephant in the room. I knew that the Dr had ordered the scan, worried that the pain was caused by new tumour growth. This is what happened when I was admitted into hospital the last two times pre chemo. I wasn’t sure if mum realised that. Turns out she realised that, but didn’t want to say in case I didn’t. My sister and a couple of friends I was messaging were told I was having a scan. I didn’t tell them, they didn’t tell me.

This happened to coincide with a major IT outage. This meant no patients could be admitted or discharged. Charting and administering medication became onerous. It also meant results could not be uploaded. So we waited. And we waited. The oncology Drs on ‘duty’ in outpatients, are based in the old emergency department. This is where I bought Lizzie in for when she was first diagnosed. It is an ok set up. Annoying that there are no taps to fill up water etc.. The poor Drs have to get from there to the new ED to admit patients, it is a bloody long walk and must cost a lot of time.

The other unsung hero of the hospital are the orderlies. From talking to different orderlies they average 20 thousand steps a day. The very large majority I have spoken to really like their jobs and the comradeship of the team that they work with. Their key cards allow them to take patients through areas the public can’t enter. The lack of dedicated service elevators for patients seems like it will be an ongoing issue for some time to come.

Eventually, as triage/outpatients was closing the Dr came back to see us. The Dr said that the blood test results look good and that the tumours have shrunk considerably. Phew, exhale.

I know that these results are good, that they mean the tumours are recognising the chemo. I know it is better to have pain from shrinkage than growth. I know I am meant to be super grateful for all of this. But it still sucks.

I have been feeling angry of late. It took a while to realise that this is part of grief. I feel angry that instead of selling my business and taking a few months to figure out what to do next. I am still trying to get the sale completed and am sore and miserable and or exhausted. I feel sad and angry that my boys were so sick last term that it was too risky to spend time with them.

On good days. I work out that IF I only need 3 more cycles, then I have 10 to 14 days per cycle feeling horrific, so worst case 45 days. 45 days is doable. Then about 10-20 days of crippling exhaustion, still rationally doable. While doing it, it feels less doable. Then I might get more chemo, or radiation.

I saw the oncologist today, we have a new, new plan, for meds and fluids. So hopefully that helps, mum is pretty sure that we will have it sorted for the last cycle. Hopefully we get it sorted by then. But for now, at least the suffering is killing the tumours.

The photo on the left was last Tuesday, the one on the right was February. There is another tumour not in that scan, that is near my heart that has shrunk from 30mm to 11mm.

Abby Briggs

08/04/2026

New Routines - my chemo life cadence

The Webmaster online dictionary defines Cadence is:
: the beat, time, or measure of rhythmical motion or activity
a regular and repeated pattern of activity

Routine as:
a regular course of procedure
habitual or mechanical performance of an established procedure

A lot of people comment when they finish treatment for cancer that they aren’t sure what to do with their time. They are told what to do and when. For me every Tuesday my central line dressing needs to be changed, every third time I also get blood drawn, and an extra bit changed once every third time. I see the oncologist just before each cycle and they add or subtract meds depending on what is happening.

The Cyclophosmide chemo can damage or irritate your bladder, so I now have sachets to try and lower the acidity to ease the irritation/damage. I now have super duper specially applied for antinausea tablets. My kidneys are working really hard, so every couple of weeks I get a few days morning and night of Potassium, to help them work better.

Yesterday I started seeing a Psychologist, so I can best navigate my way through treatment from the psycho social perspective. Day to day you don’t think about the past accumulation of all the less than ideal. Telling it aloud there is a lot. A lot of medical trauma, an acrimonious divorce, losing my career and identity, dealing with EQC over botched repairs, being out of my house for 2 months from smoke damage from fire defects and lots of other things.

My routine is now dictated by my three weekly chemo cycles.
Day 1 -
All day in hospital having 4 different chemos. I have to take a number of extra meds the mornings the of chemo to try an prevent allergic reactions, and to try and limit how severe the side effects, such as vomiting and diarrhea/constipation, big ulcers in your digestive tract from your mouth to your bum.
Days 1 to 5.
On top of my daily meds - pain, antibiotic, antiviral, poo meds - stopping and starting, kidney drugs. As part of my treatment plan I have 5 days of high dose steroids. These ease nausea, increase hunger, and give you lots of energy. They also can make you have roid rage. The purpose of the steroids is they interfere with the cancer cells reproduction. I take very regular anti nausea pills, which I try to stagger through the day and night so I don't have a lull. I have old people pill organisers and with mum count and double check what is taken when into morning and night daily pill organisers. Some days I have over 30 pills. You only need that day with things are at their worst when you least feel able to swallow them.

I am a bag of crap through this phase, based on the last two cycles. I am bed ridden, sleeping a huge amount, severely constipated, so taking gross meds for that, I dry wretch, vomit bile and any food left. I try to keep sipping water, but it starts to and anything starts to have a metallic taste. Last cycle, between the dehydration and the irritation to my bladder, I was p*eing blood with no infection.

The nausea and worst of it eases about day 12. I still need afternoon naps everyday and can’t handle really doing much of anything. By days 17, I can get out and about a bit, but tire easily and need a 2-3 hour nap.

A nurse in my first cycle recommended recording what I felt and when as that would likely be repeated each cycle. This would help plan what you could get done and when. For me the first 10 days - I can do almost nothing, just sleep and feel miserable like worlds worst hangover time by lots; day 18 - go shopping, walk the dog, do brain thinking stuff, but then need a nap.

Once a week my CICC (centrally inserted central catheter) had the dressing removed, cleaned in a very sterile environment, think gloves to open gloves that are only touched with a sterile. Bits of it are replaced each week, then a sterile dressing is reapplied. The nurse checks that the line is still working and takes blood every three weeks or as required.

Nights are hard, my brain does all it’s thinking then and goes down the rabbit hole. Some wonderful friends sent me a notebook for my Gratitude and Joy moments. Every night (starting very recently), I try to write down at least 3 things I am grateful for, and 3 things that bring me joy. Drops of joy are just a moment, but it is important to look for those moments.

Yesterday 7/4/26
Grateful for:
The energy to take Midas for a short walk at the park.
The last of my carpet being laid, the house looks and feels great
For a reassuring meeting with the psychologist to outline how best to get through treatment.
No more insect bites.
Mum and dads care and support.
Procrastinating sending the forms in to lower my trauma insurance.

Drops of Joy
Dinner with my friend Janine. Sharing laughter and sadness, celebrating both of our girls who were taken too soon.
Watching Midas play in the autumn leaves.
Watching dad play/run along with Midas at the park.
Moments in the ‘Other Bennett Sister’, when she was actually seen for herself.
My chemo card.

It is hard to feel purposeful at the moment. And people, I think particularly females, are conditioned that to have worth (opposite of worthless), we must care for others, be productive, and achieve things. As a full time sole charge parent, who was self-employed I was usually running on fumes to try to be all things to all people. It is hard now to be running on fumes and for ⅔ of the time not able to contribute anything of traditional worth.

My sister did tell me or remind me, words to the effect that you have value or worth just by existing and you don’t need to justify your existence. In one of the earlier seasons, I recall one of the main characters saying that she will keep surviving until she can start living. I would not expect anyone else to be ‘achieving’ anything on chemo. And everyone responds differently. So following the cadence of chemo is enough for now. There is still much to be greatful for and joy to experience.

Brave Momentum

17/06/2026

01/06/2026

14/05/2026

23/04/2026

08/04/2026

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