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The Eulogy I couldn’t read.

by admin on June 21, 2010 in Cancer, Death with No comments

Well, it’s all over. Grandma was cremated this afternoon. Today was really, really hard and it has now hit me that I will never see her again. Walking into the funeral home for her final service, and seeing the coffin, was just a little too much, and the last 2 months hit me like a ton of bricks. I wasn’t able to read out the eulogy, but here it is.

Grandma was born in 1931, in Catholic Ireland, to a single mother. She had 2 older brothers and a little sister, Josephine, who died when Grandma was 7. Her mother died around the same time, and grandma grew up in a convent. She never really spoke much about her childhood, and the memories she did share with me were always positive. They almost always involved her getting in trouble for being cheeky, or being chased by a nun.

Grandma never really dwelled on the loss of her mother. Her father was not interested either, and, knowing her like I do, even though she never really said much, I could tell it affected her view of the world.

To come up here and say she was a saint wouldn’t only be a lie, it would be an insult to her legacy. Because Grandma was a survivor. She didn’t always get it right and quite often got the wrong end of the stick, but her heart was good.

All she ever wanted was respect. Respect from the people who brought her into this world, respect from the family she worked so hard to maintain. She needed to know that nothing she did, all the hard work, all the late hours, all the cooked meals, all the cups of tea, and all the arguments were not in vain.

Although Grandma would not self-identify as a feminist, and in fact would go so far as to strongly deny it – there are so many ways that her influence alone informs how I see the world. Forced to go it alone, and never dependent on a man or any other person, we had a kinship and an understanding that, sometimes, we are forced to make our own luck. She never, ever let her beginnings or her disappointments affect her life, and even though the end of her life is a quiet one… That’s all she ever wanted. To be cared for, to be allowed to be vulnerable and yet still retain her dignity.

Which of course is ironic, because whenever I needed rescuing – there she was. She cleaned hotel rooms to help my dad keep me in school uniforms. She cooked me meals, she helped me to get my first flat. She wasn’t always the softest place to land, but given the circumstances, I understand why now. It was about keeping it together, and I often wonder what was going on in her head… And how she was when we weren’t around to see.

Because, with the suddenness of the cancer that killed her, I saw a different side to her. She didn’t fight it, and part of me thinks she knew for some time. But I knew her, and I like to think that I knew her better than anyone else and that she shared a special, softer side with me.

She was and always will be the main female influence in my life. I hope that the fighting spirit, the work ethic, and the strong sense of what is right, on some level, lives on in us all. And although this gathering is humble, she can rest knowing that she lives on, having lived a life with courage, conviction and dignity.

On a personal level, I hope that the last 2 months of her life spent with me and Jason, needing a lot of help, were as easy as they could have been. We’ll never stop missing her and I hope she’s proud of us.

Vacation

by admin on June 21, 2010 in Cancer, Death, Parenting, Relationships with No comments

Before I talk about our holiday, I need to explain something.

My husband, as much as I love him, does not do ‘impulsive’ terribly well. In fact, if you could describe him, one of they very first words you would use would be “not” and the second would be “impulsive”. For all of his excellent qualities, he’s not what you would call… a go-getter. The man still has clothes in his wardrobe from when he was 16. And a $5 note in his wallet from 18 months ago. He’s not a spender either.

So when Jason walked into my office on Saturday morning and said “hey, we should go for a drive to Busselton and stay for 2 nights”, he may as well have said “I have decided I want to be a lady and I am going to go on tour with the drag burlesque travelling circus, k?” and I would have reacted in much the same way. OK, not really, I probably would have expected the second.

But, he suggested it, and we booked into the Abbey Beach Resort based on their website. On the beach? Wireless? Check. Mini bar? Check. Restaurants with room service? Check… and check. $600 for 2 nights? Well, if it has wireless and is luxurious and has room service and a spa, well… let’s just indulge for a little while. We have a funeral on Monday afternoon we’d rather not think about.

Let’s not forget, we have 3 children – all of whom are not known for being the most flexible on the planet. But, they roll with it as much as they can and are happy to come along. Which is just as well because we blew our load on the hotel room and can’t afford a babysitter. So, it was basically a choice between a holiday or being locked under the stairs.

But of course, it doesn’t take long for the feral to kick in and I feel the urge to do both.

We arrive at a $300 a night “beachfront” resort that has glimpses of the beach (if you look past the 3 tennis courts and the giant tree), no mini bar, no room service in the apartments. The wireless costs $10 for 2 hours, but doesn’t reach our apartment. There is a queen-size bed, which we can live with but we are not used to, and our children are that lovely combination of excited and cranky at the same time. So, about every 3 minutes or so the jumping around and screaming will be interrupted by crying. And then the baby will go straight for the dishwasher buttons, then the knife drawer… whilst Jason and I try to figure out how the hell we are going to have dinner in our room because the kids are too tired for the restaurant.

So I hit up the lounge bar with my laptop, check emails and drink a glass of wine whilst I wait for our takeaway dinners. Which arrive on 4 plates and a tray. I have a laptop. It should also be noted that the restaurant is roughly equidistant to our room and the lobby… and they bring me the meals to the lobby. Which was nice of them, but I a) don’t understand why they can’t just bring it to the room and b) I now have to carry 4 plates and a tray back to our room. I smile through gritted teeth. Confused, perplexed gritted teeth. Oh and some bright spark decides to wolf whistle me on the way which, you know, made me feel sexy. Fuckhead.

By this point the baby is screaming and won’t go to sleep. Mina and Mr J are basically ready to hit up the drawer with the baby and have a knife fight with each other, and I am at my wit’s end because I have had to carry food across a $300 a night resort with no wifi and am grumbling to myself how holidays are so much fun with kids.

We finally get the kids to sleep around 11pm and I decide to have a spa. A spa that, as it turns out, has a drain 2/3 up the side to prevent you filling it above that point. Apparently they’ve had issues with it flooding because people overfill it. And then it occurs to me that bogans ruin EVERYTHING. Then I think “hey, I’ll have one of these “indulgent” hot chocolate sachets they’ve laid out. Mmmm, powdery, lumpy, snotty cocoa.

Did I mention that the baby threw a spatula off the balcony yet?

We then go to bed for a very uncomfortable night’s sleep and wake up with the day ahead of us. Tired, cranky children but we manage to have a nice breakfast, where the resort redeems itself just a little bit. We stop by the resort playground, where the baby manages a triple somersault onto his face and Mr J throws a tantrum or two. We hit up the beaches, go into Dunsborough, have  look around and take some photos. The kids start complaining of dying hunger (despite having huge plates of ginger pancakes an hour and a half earlier), so we go and get them McDonald’s. Yes, the Brennan children are all about our lovely local Southwest cuisine. Sigh.

And then we head down to the Busselton Jetty and go for a walk. Mina and Mr J go down onto the beach and I take some photos. And before we know it, both of my children are in the water, in full clothes, having the time of their lives. And for a brief moment, I want to tell them to get out of the water, but instead I just roll with it and take pictures. And laugh. And relax and realise that they are having fun and so am I, for the first time in a very long time, and we just enjoy the moment.

And boy, did I get some photos.

We return to the hotel room (where I have managed to purchase wireless access from the Caravan park next door), the kids are happy, soaking wet, getting out of their clothes. They jump in that crappy spa, Moo goes down for a nap (after again trying to eat a dishwasher detergent block), the kids start whingeing and Mina gets belligerent.

But I go and have a nap.

I wake up to Mina complaining she’s bored and Mr J playing Angry Birds on the iPad. Jason and I then see fit to tell our children what OUR childhood vacations consisted of: poo in a bucket, showering from a bucket (at which point I said to Jason that I hope it wasn’t the same bucket), hanging around a holiday village where the most thrilling thing was a trampoline… and 7 people in one caravan. And our daughter was complaining that the resort playground was boring. Hum. The older two again start bickering and we endure dinner in the Brasserie, where they make so much mess it is embarrassing, I am wearing dress boots with tracksuit pants (because I forgot a bag), and the baby smears $30 seafood risotto all over his face. And the carpet.

I look over at the young honeymooners at the table near the fire and realise that we are that family that either ruined their honeymoon, put them off having children for the next 10 years, or if their wedding was because of a baby in her tummy already, scare the crap out of them that they are just a few short years away from wearing tracksuit pants in a restaurant, drinking wine a little fast, and barking at her kids to sit down every 45 seconds.

Naturally, we have to leave the restaurant and take dessert back to our room because the kids are tired and bickering… and we finally get them to bed at 7:30, get to enjoy each other’s company for a little while, watch the first episode of Mad Men on DVD and then off to sleep I go because I drank my wine a little too fast during dinner.

And this morning we’ll be having breakfast, where they’ll find new and creative ways in which to embarrass us with food smears and tantrums, and then we head home for my Grandma’s funeral and one of the hardest days of my life. But, in amongst all of this, I realise that this was the best idea ever and even though holidays are exhausting, frustrating, and sometimes downright disappointing, it really is all about this moment. This $1200 moment.

Busselton 11a

Busselton 10

Numbness.

by admin on June 13, 2010 in Cancer, Death with No comments

I now understand what the song ‘Cry Me a River’ means. It’s definitely referring to the snot. After sobbing, numb for 20 minutes after that call.

A lot of crying. And a lot of snot.

And I sit here, half an hour after that call, at 3:30am, knowing that I did everything I possibly could (and then some), and my only preoccupying thought was that my Grandmother died alone.

This is always the risk when you leave the hospice for the night – and I had had this discussion with the nurse today. I thought I had till morning, but I also was prepared for the call. I had told the nurse that I had had my quality time with my Grandma. My life had come to a complete standstill for the last 7 and a half weeks – I have held her, medicated her, fed her, made her laugh, and the majority of me feels OK.

But, she died alone.

I actually wasn’t prepared for that call at all. I lied.

Grief most certainly comes in waves, and even though now it’s only been 45 minutes I have had four separate waves of grief and feel another one coming. Writing this blog post, trying to use a different part of my brain, is the only thing stopping it.

Of course, I am completely numb. My hands are shaking and I am so overwhelmed by the prospect of organising a funeral for the single biggest influence in my life, where only five people are likely to show up because, unfortunately, sometimes a person’s legacy lies in just one person who truly got them.

And all I can hope, as the next wave of sobbing and snot comes, is that I did her proud. And that I can continue to carry with me the humility, the hard work and the kindness that she taught me. And also to not put up with shit. Definitely with the not putting up with shit part.

Thanks to everyone who has been there for me. This post is not so much about being “public” as it is to get it all out of the way so I can grieve in private. But thank you for your kind words and support. I owe you all drinks when this is all over.

And now for something a bit more lighthearted…

by admin on June 3, 2010 in Cancer, Death with No comments

… like …

How FUNNY is cancer?

Seriously!

The thing that has surprised me the most over the last 6 weeks is that even in the absolute worst experiences of our lives, it can still be funny if you choose to see it that way. It’s how my Grandma always saw the world and how I do too.

I guess this is the part where I potentially piss off someone who will inevitably scream “OMFG HOW CAN YOU SAY SUCH A THING?”.

Of course Cancer, as a disease, is not funny. In fact, it’s pretty awful. But still, I have the belief that anything in life can have an upside and a funny side, and I am unapologetic about that. And when you sit around, waiting for someone to die, it very quickly becomes boring. And repetitive. And… gradual. And kinda gross. And sometimes sad.

But also… funny. And often more funny than you’d think.

But people always focus on the sad parts – you know, those Hollywood notions of what it’s like to be on your deathbed with cancer, or to watch someone you love on their deathbed with cancer… but in the real world, even the quickest-killing cancers (like the one that is killing my Grandma) have an initial “shock” period, followed by shitloads of waiting around, talking, philosophising and yes, laughing our arses off. There are no candlelight vigils at her bedside, no dramatic upward glances towards the man in the sky asking “WHY?”, no opening of old wounds or even resolution of old conflicts.

Most of the time it is just sitting around, talking. Frequently about the same thing every 10 minutes. Sometimes, because of the swelling in her brain, complete and utter hilarious nonsense. There is also a lot of hand holding, back rubbing, shoulder stroking and mouth-goober removal, as well as constant reassurance that she is not going to fall out of the bed, that she is already in her bed and no, she can’t go outside because it’s 8pm. But mostly, we laugh.

She talks nonsense sometimes, is confused most of the time and sleeps the rest. But we laugh.

She is incontinent and wears nappies. But, we find a way to laugh with her about it.

She is paralysed on her left side and increasingly losing control of her right side. But, we don’t draw attention to it and subtly move her arm so it’s comfortable and rub her feet even though she can’t feel much.

And she tells my 8 year old daughter to make sure she has sex “20 times before getting married”, says the funniest of things that I have tweeted but have since forgotten… but still make me smile at the thought of her laughing.

And when people at the Hospice, or other well wishers, give me that look like “wow, you must be doing it tough” and looks of support and sympathy, there’s a bit of a disconnect because for me, because even though I know that cancer is killing my Grandma, in a roundabout way it has been an incredibly enriching and utterly comical experience.

Except, of course, for that bit where she dies. That’s devastating. But I know that when she does go, she will want me to think of her, smile & laugh – not cry. But I will cry. But I will also laugh. And that is one of the greatest gifts she ever gave me, was to laugh at everything. Even cancer.

We are all stronger than we realise.

by admin on May 2, 2010 in Cancer, Death with No comments

I always knew it was coming, and I frequently worried how I would cope when I got that call. My Grandma Chris is 79 years old in December… and as much as I hoped she’d live forever, I knew that every year she was getting just that little bit more frail and that it would come eventually.

But not like this.

My Grandma Chris is the single greatest influence in my life. She is the woman who raised me in my formative years; the woman who laughed with me when there wasn’t much to laugh about; the woman who filled my school lunch box with so much food I was able to feed half of my class. The woman who was there for me when my mother wasn’t. Who bought me my first sanitary pads, bought, washed & ironed my clothes, lent me money, screamed at me, sometimes quite mercilessly tortured me. She was always that one constant in my pretty tumultuous upbringing. She is the source of my world view – that person who keeps me humble and who I am more like than I care to admit.

So when I say “my Grandma is sick and I need to be at the hospital every day”, I get this look, like… “it’s not your Mum“. She’s just my Grandma and Grandmas are old and Grandmas die. But to me, this is not just a Grandma. She is my rock.

She is the toughest, most hard working and kindest person I have ever met. And honestly, while I knew in the back of my mind that she was getting old, and Jason and I had often had discussions about how I will deal with her death… now that I am facing it’s inevitability, I am a little bit mad at the world.

Grandma was born in Tipperary the week before Christmas in 1931. Her mother was unmarried. In Catholic Ireland. In the THIRTIES. She had 2 older brothers and a younger sister, Josephine, who died from a tonsillectomy when she was 7. Around the same time, her mother died in childbirth. Her father didn’t give a shit, so her uncle paid for her education at a convent in Cork.

My Grandma grew up in an Irish Catholic Convent during the Second World War. She worked her whole life. She worked 2 jobs, often cleaning offices. Never smoked, never drank. Never did anything but work and raise her 2 sons. She doesn’t talk much about her childhood – her memories are always positive and usually avoid nun-dodging.

She is the toughest, proudest, most stubborn old bird you could ever, ever meet. She can be ferocious – and it would be a disservice AND a lie to not acknowledge that I was often afraid of her. But holy fuck, is she funny. She has that Irish “oddness” about her, and noone can make me laugh like my Grandma. Even now as she lays in her hospital bed, we laugh.

But the thing that makes me angry is that despite all of the shit-on-a-plate that she has been handed in her life, her faith in God is unerring. God and Mary and Jesus and rosary beads and Catholic ritual are all so important to her, she is so genuinely hurt and afraid for my mortal soul. Because I don’t believe in God. I believe in God so much less now, if that’s possible, than I did a week ago.

Because now, this woman, who has led one of the most virtuous lives I can think of, is faced with either pancreatic cancer that has metastasised to her brain and lungs; a primary brain tumour that is inoperable and advanced; or a benign brain tumour that will still only give her a year tops. The woman who worked hard; never smoke, never drank, saved every single cent beyond what was necessary – lived a very humble and faithful life – is being rewarded with a painful and potentially undignified end. So FUCK God and his plan. But I don’t say that to her.

We have been waiting 8 days to get an MRI so we can find out the prognosis. The only thing that keeps her lucid is the dexamethasone, but she is on a downward spiral. How fast it’ll happen remains to be seen, but if she can she’ll come home with us. I feel that it is the least I can do. She looked after me when she didn’t have to. She never lets her guard down with anyone but me – and for that I feel privileged. I know that she is embarrassed but she lets me help her. And it is not an obligation, it’s an honour.

And I am dealing with it much better than I thought I could. I visit the hospital every day for a minimum of about 4 hours, I do her washing, make sure she’s eating, chat to her, fuss over her, remind her again that we have taken care of everything… and in a weird way I am enjoying the time I get alone with her. And now, facing her death is not so scary. Through trying to be positive for her, I end up holding it together.

Rangus McNuggetBurger Esq. IV, aka "Moo" aka Moo Carlin. Confused little fuck.

by admin on February 28, 2010 in Birthday Letters, Parenting with No comments

Moo.

Holy shit.

Moo!

ONE!

Where the hell did the last 12 months go? On one hand, it seems like so long… and on the other… so fast.

You poor, poor forgotten third child. I need to apologise in advance for bringing you into the world last, because for some reason, you seem convinced that you are our first. You seem to think that you can do stuff – like play – without being harassed by a well-meaning but otherwise utterly boorish 4 year old. You seem to think that you can get food without a cascade of other children nagging for my attention. You seem to think that, you know, giving yourself a severe egg allergy is something I won’t whinge about every time we need to make a cake or something. You also seem to think that if you scream, I’ll actually get up – rather than assess the cry and carry on.

Boy, do I have news for you.

That’s not to say I don’t love you… of course I do. In fact, in many ways, the fact that you had such a horrible start to your life makes me appreciate you just that smallest bit more… because we nearly lost you and I can’t not think about that every single day.

When Mina & Mr J were born, I managed to write out a story about the day they were born… you know… peppered with jokes… that sort of thing. All of my pregnancies & births have been really tough, but with the other two I managed to intellectualise a lot of it as the luck of the draw, in capable hands… and find sufficient distance.

But with you, it was so different. And I want to talk about this just for a little bit because I have never really been able to until now… and I don’t want you to think that the absence of a written birth story is somehow because of the “third child” thing. It isn’t. It’s because I could never summon up the strength to talk about the worst month of my life… because if not for something within me that said things weren’t right, you probably wouldn’t be here.

And I don’t know if that is something that I can ever shake. Partially because now that 12 months have passed, I can no longer pursue any complaints; partially because I just felt so disempowered and humiliated by this doctor for demanding adequate care; and partially because the thought of you, on all those machines, on all that morphine, on all those drugs… is just too much to bear. So I never really processed it because frankly? I spent every single day of the last 12 months just trying to forgive him. I think it might take a little more time.

I will never forget that Sunday morning, when I hadn’t felt you move for a while, when I called up the hospital, went in, and found you were distressed. I will also never forget the numerous arguments with my “Doctor” over the fact that my blood pressure remained uncontrolled, that I felt sick, that I was so swollen I could barely move… and he did nothing. I asked for a second opinion and he lied to my face about the doctor being out of town. I will also never forget that Tuesday, after spending 9 days in hospital, feeling ill, not feeling you move, and hearing “oh he’s just a quiet baby” over and over again from the incompetent, bullying, private hospital midwives, and having my Doctor walk in, and discharge me with a blood pressure spike of 170/110 the night before. I will never forget asking for growth scans (having had 2 hypertensive pregnancies before) and being told “2 weeks won’t show anything new”

I will never forget locking myself in the bathroom from the stress, leaving Dad to argue with the “Doctor” in my hospital room, and finally sacking him, walking out of the hospital, and requesting that he arrange for me to be seen at King Edward by a Doctor who actually gave a crap. 2 days later, we were seen by a Maternal-Fetal Medicine specialist.

I will never forget being right. For being told by an experience sonographer that not only was there no such thing as a “quiet baby”, but that in 2 weeks you had gone from the 50th percentile to the 10th. I will never forget feeling a little relief that my blood pressure seemed to have settled down, but still being told that you needed to be born, because you were under significant stress. I will also never forget being told that if we had left this another week, your chances of being stillborn were significantly high.

But apparently, you know, 2 weeks doesn’t make a difference, and that “Doctor” we had fired, to his face, had instructed me to see him in a week at his office and discharged me. It plagues my thoughts, wondering, if I had been compliant and listened to him and his assessment. And it makes me so angry that he gets to treat women who might not be as stubborn as me.

But you know… I never could really write about it in the same way, with distance, that I did with your brother and sister… because I am still not over it.

But you know, in a way, it’s been the catalyst for me deciding to go to Medical School. All of these cumulative experiences have given me the push I needed to make the decision. Not that I wouldn’t trade that experience in a  heartbeat, but, you know.

Unfortunately you were born in the eye of a storm… because 2009 was an extremely stressful year. After the stock markets crashed at the end of last year, the clients were fairly light on, I was in hospital and your Dad had to take a whole heap of unpaid leave. We had a lot of financial difficulty at the beginning of the year, and it eventually resulted in the repossession of my car. But hey… we recovered. After you were born and I got back to work (I had a conference call at midnight the night after your were born and still in the NICU), things started to slowly recover and I managed to pay some debt.

Then, your Dad got injured at work, was bullied by his employer and the insurance company and, well… that fucked us right up for 6 months, only settling a month ago. I also got really sick, have had to battle with Doctors and all kinds of stress… and basically… we started 2010 optimistic with it slowly proving to be just as fucked as 2009.

With the settlement money not even covering our losses, we are back to square one and its stressful. But, you have your Dad home with you, and he takes care of you whilst I work. All day. Every day. I am exhausted and still quite unwell… but… getting no government support, no family support and, well, basically being on our own, I have no choice really but to make it work.

I write about this now because I find it funny that by the time you are Mr J’ age I will be pretty well on my way to being a Doctor. And by the time you are Mina’s age, I will be one. So I am just taking a moment to remind you that things were hard. In fact, I expect them to stay that way, because, well… we aren’t the luckiest people in the world… and I expect things to get worse before they get better. Because I am tired & sick, your Dad is tired & sick, and we snap at each other a lot just trying to survive.

But we do try to protect you from that as much as possible. We do that with all of you as best we can. We fail frequently but… you know… we try. We just keep on going forward, one foot in front of the other… and hope that someday all the effort pays off. Maybe it ill in the form of tenacious children… who knows what the future holds, but hey… it’s certainly not boring.

So, you know, you’re walking and getting into shit and being basically cute… and I am trying to enjoy every minute as much as I can.  I say that the only good thing to come out of 2009 was you… and I mean it. I can’t imagine our lives without Moo, and despite feeling very unlucky most of the time, I am just so blessed to have you in my life… even if I have to make you special egg-free food.

Happy birthday!

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