Hello to all of my friends and followers,

I have just recieved my 2012 Blog review report and I must say I am very humbled and excited to see the results. People from over 33 countries have tuned in at various times to read the latest blogs and over 2000 people have viewed the blog during the past year.

I just wanted to say a very big THANK YOU to everyone for their ongoing support and I hope that the new year brings a more consistent and interesting flow of content and followers.

Please feel free to continue sharing my posts with your family and friends and I hope you continue to enjoy your time on my blog.

Wishing you all an amazing and abundant 2013, and can’t wait to share some of the journey with you all.

Here’s an excerpt:

600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 2,000 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 3 years to get that many views.

Love, Joy and Good Health,

Janie xoxo

When I arrived back home at the end of July from three glorious months living the dream in Costa Rica, Central America I was greeted by some sad news. The last of my close social circle had selfishly all shacked up in the last couple of years and had now decided to either leave town or leave the country to start new and exciting chapters in their lives. Not to mention my best friend of twenty years left a few weeks after my return to do her own six month stint around South and Central America. So here I was so pre occupied with my travel & life plans that it had never occurred to me that in just a few short months I would effectively be left on my own in Brisbane. Don’t get me wrong I still have some amazing friends and colleagues here but they are either much older or are married with growing families which limit’s their free time.

With less than six months until my thirty-second birthday and working in an organisation with only three people my opportunities of meeting new people are somewhat limited. Since my last serious relationship over eighteen months ago, I have been having the most important relationship of my life. I have been working on, embracing and enjoying having an intimate and healthy relationship with myself. For the first time in my life, I have truly discovered what it is to treat myself well, to let go of fear and embrace and accept the person that I have become. (I still have my moments…)

I have on many levels chosen to be on my own for a good part of the last eighteen months and have thoroughly enjoyed the journey of self-discovery. I have never been so clear about who I am, what I want, and how I am going to get it. Like many women I have spent my time in previous relationships giving my power over to the other person foolishly believing that if I was to give them everything they would love and want me more… Apparently after many years of research and development on this theory “It doesn’t work that way”.

So I decided to take the time to really get to know myself and ensure that I was really ready mentally, emotionally, spiritually and physically before opening myself up for love again. Ok, so maybe the Physical component isn’t quite where I’d like it to be… a few more sit ups certainly wouldn’t go astray and not just the one I do each morning to get out of bed. I digress, as I sat there having my Friday afternoon drink on my own, in my empty house with the two cats I made the decision that it was time to start the process of “Recruiting Love”. Now I spent the best part of my 20’s in the recruiting industry and I got to thinking just how similar the dating process is to recruiting for a position.

With this in mind, I logged onto RSVP, took the plunge and posted my “Position Vacant” advert. Of course the advert had to have a catchy headline, about the Company, about the role, desired candidate attributes and a call to action. I then loaded up some photos and opted for copies of the most “Liked” ones on Facebook as I figured they had all been pre-approved. Filled in a bit more detail about what I wanted… Height, Status, Children, Drinking Habits, Smoking Habits etc…

Once this was complete I then went on to include my tastes and interests before saving it all and officially putting myself back out into the “Market Place”. I have been on RSVP a couple of times over the past five years and made some nice friends but nothing romantic ever eventuated. I would get all kinds of weird and wonderful guys contacting me so this time I made sure that my profile was very clear about who I was and what I was looking for.

I was surprised at how little time it took before I started receiving “Expressions of Interest” (Kisses), some of which were really interesting and some I don’t think bothered to even read the “Position Description”. Since Friday, I have since received several “Applications” (Emails) and have my first two “Interviews” (Date) set up.

I have to say I have been really impressed with the calibre of the guys that are actually on RSVP. Could this be the start of something and could it be third time lucky?

It has been more than a year now since Angus received his diagnosis, and what a year it has been. He has been to hell and back again, having to learn how to speak, read and write all over again. In  and spent the time, recovering and healing not only physically, but mentally and emotionally too, in the loving arms of his family and friends. He has had to do a few months of rehabilitation and has been helping around the family farm while planning his next move. He is hoping to come back to Australia soon, change careers and go back to University. He will need to have regular checkups for the next five years, but so far all of his results have come back clean and clear.

I looked it up and the name Angus actually means ‘unique’ or ‘superior strength’, quite fitting I believe. Angus has shown such tremendous courage and endurance; his attitude never wavered too far from optimistic, and no matter how scared he felt inside he met his demons head on and he won the battle. He is an inspiration to all who know him and I hope that through this story everyone feels like they know him, or at least his great courage.

This was how I left this story over eighteen months ago, however this is not how things have actually panned out. I am currently in the process of writing another series of blogs which tells the story of the last eighteen months. I hope to have this finished, edited and start posting in March 2013. Thank you for following this blog and I hope you have enjoyed the story so far.

Until next time love and health to all,

Janie

Angus was admitted into hospital two days later and stayed for only five days as his first surgery was cancelled and with surgery only being performed on Thursdays it would be another week before he could have the surgery. So they decided to let him go home to spend some time with his family. It was in fact another two weeks before he was finally prepped and ready for surgery; his first surgery went for eight gruelling hours.

The tumour was extremely vascular and had developed its own little circulatory system quite separate from the head. With nearly every incision the tumour would bleed for about 15 minutes before they could continue. The first four hours of the operation was spent simply trying to block the blood from having access to the tumour which was partially done by entering way down at the top of the leg. Due to excessive bleeding the next half of the surgery was also spent trying to block the blood. Angus lost a lot of blood and required a transfusion during the operation, which was over three litres. Unfortunately due to the sheer complexity of the tumour, the neurosurgeons were only able to remove about a quarter of the tumour during this intense surgery.

Angus came out of the surgery well, and during the coming weeks he made some new friends with fellow patients as his family kept vigil by his bedside. I remember talking to him not long after surgery and he boasted that a 10cm x 10cm part of his skull was in fact still being kept in a freezer until they finished all of the surgeries. Apparently this is very common as it is such a traumatic procedure it enables the patient to recover quicker and with less pain.

He was particularly excited that his older brother had flown over from the United Kingdom to be with him. Angus kept his cheeky sense of humour throughout the whole ordeal which I believe made it easier for everyone around him to relax and not feel quite so sombre. I remember Lynda telling me how Angus was playing cards with his brother one day and Angus told him that he could see his cards, quick as a flash his brother responded that he wasn’t concerned because Angus wouldn’t remember them in three seconds anyway.

I spoke with Angus a few more times during the weeks of recovery and finally he was allowed to go home for a few weeks in between surgeries which is was very pleased about. Angus was blessed to have such a loving and supportive family unit and his friends were equally important during this time. I don’t think Angus ever realised until now just how very loved and cherished hw was by all those who knew him.

 “So, how’s the memory these days, any improvement?” I asked jovially.

“Well, it’s getting better but I still forget the names of things sometimes and my spelling is quite bad,” he informed me. “The worst thing is my sore feet”.

“Sore feet? What kind of sore feet?” I asked imagining how my feet felt after a night out in heels.

“Sometimes it feels like they are sitting in boiling hot water and other times it can feel like a thousand hot pins being dragged down the front of them, the intensity varies but it’s usually worse at night time when I’m trying to sleep,” he explained, rather matter of fact.

“Wow, that’s terrible, do they know what is causing it?” I dug deeper, becoming increasingly concerned.

“During the surgery, they may have bumped something and my brain is sending strange signals to my feet,” he clarified. “The doctors say that the brain will make new pathways over time and it should correct itself eventually after all the surgeries are finished”.

Three weeks later it was time for the final surgery. The doctors had taken some time and done their research on the kind of tumour they believed it to be, and they had worked out a new plan of attack in order to remove the remaining tumour. Again, this surgery went on for eight gruelling hours and again there was immense blood loss. This time however, the very talented neurosurgeons were successful in their quest and managed to remove 99% of the remaining tumour. They replaced the frozen piece of skull and sewed Angus up for what they hoped would be the final time.

Until the next instalment “Time”

Janie xo

On our way to drop Angus off, he called his dad and told him the very basics of what was happening, asking him not to tell his mum what was wrong. Wanting to do the right thing, and not upset his Mum and Dad any more than he had to, Angus did what he thought was right for them. I on the other hand felt that by giving such limited information was only going to make them worry even more. We finally arrived, just on dusk, to drop him at his cousin’s place. I went inside with him and met them, explaining everything to the best of my ability, and told them about his book. We said our goodbyes and I left Angus to spend his last night in Australia with his family.

The next morning I called Angus to see how he was feeling. His dad had told his mum, as I suspected he would, and with so few details they were now both in a panic. I offered to call them and explain exactly what the situation was to put their mind at ease. Angus finally agreed, under the provision that I didn’t tell them how big the tumour really was.

So I called his Mum, Lynda, who was beside herself with worry, however after explaining the whole story again I finally heard Lynda start to relax on the end of the line as she thanked me for looking after him. I told her that she needed to arrange for a doctor to meet with Angus as soon as possible to refer him to a neurosurgeon as a matter of urgency. After we hung up I emailed Lynda an even more comprehensive list than I had in the book as she was concerned he might lose the book, and I reiterated that I was available to talk to anyone should they need any more details.

Angus called me a few hours later to let me know that he had switched his flight for a later one. As it would happen, friends of his cousins were going home on that flight and felt it would be safer to travel with them than alone. He also told me that his mum had arranged for their family doctor to meet with them first thing the following morning and asked if I’d mind them calling me to talk to the doctor. Of course I agreed without hesitation. I finally started to relax and accept that my role in this surreal episode was almost done. That night the gravity of the whole situation really started to set in and I struggled to sleep soundly; it didn’t help that I was expecting a phone call at about 5am from New Zealand, a phone call which never came.

I finally got through to Lynda at about 11am and she informed me that they had given the email and book to the doctor who proclaimed “Who is this girl? Is she a doctor or something?”

Needless to say I had provided more than enough information to set the wheels in motion and Angus was now in the care of his loving, supportive and very worried family. Despite being advised to go straight to hospital and prep for surgery, Angus was determined to spend at least one night at home on the family farm just in case he never got the opportunity to do so again after going into surgery.

Until the next chapter “Trust”,

Janie xo

We found a parking spot and made our way to the surgeon’s office. I don’t think I’ve ever taken as many deep breaths as I did making that long walk to the doctor. Sitting there in the very impressive modern waiting room with its spectacular wall art was the first time we had all had a chance to just sit, and let it all catch up with us.

Since returning from the doctors that morning I realised that Angus’s normal child like behaviour of forgetting words and conversations was worsening. Was it the shock or was it the tumour? I didn’t know.

After about twenty minutes we were invited into Dr Walker’s office. In keeping with the waiting room his office was just as lovely, modern, open and with panoramic views of the neighbouring suburb. Dr Walker greeted us by firmly shaking our hands and gesturing for us to take a seat. He was tall with a kind face; his voice was gentle but manly, and he had a warm and inviting presence about him. However nothing  removed the uncomfortable feeling that we could have been on RPA or a similar medical TV show, and thinking this kind of thing only ever happened to other people…didn’t it?

First Dr Walker spoke with Angus, asking specific questions to gain a better understanding of how the tumour was affecting him, how he felt and when he remembered little things starting to change. He then turned his attention to me and I was able to give him a full run down of exactly what had been going on for the past ten weeks. Once he had enough information he pulled out the scans to assess the situation. He made a few tuts, Hmms and mumbled comments to himself before turning to face us again.

“Well Angus, you certainly have yourself a sizeable tumour,” he began. “This particular tumour looks like it is actually growing up from the base of your scull, like a mushroom, and pressing up into the left temporal lobe of your brain. It is very possible that it could have been there for months undetected and recently started growing more aggressively.” He paused.

We just stared at him wide eyed and he continued his explanation. “Normally what happens with these types of tumours is that you will have a few symptoms here and there but they are far enough apart that you don’t connect the dots. The brain is very clever and as cells stop working, other cells step up to carry the burden until they can no longer do so. That is when you have the kind of symptoms you have been experiencing. Unfortunately, in a lot of cases you don’t realise until it gets to this stage,” his tone was calm and matter of fact.

“Now, without having any other test on hand, I would suggest that it doesn’t look malignant, however you really can’t tell until you operate. Like any tumour there are major risks involved with operating but the risk of not operating is far worse,” he smiled encouragingly. “If you weren’t so determined to go home to New Zealand for treatment I would be booking you in immediately for further scans and prepping you for surgery as early as next week,” his tone turned serious. Angus wasn’t deterred and so Dr Walker talked us through the risks of flying and prescribed the medication required to minimise the risk of the tumour erupting from the cabin pressure. Dr Walker was excellent, and for the first time since we’d found out about the tumour, I felt a small glimmer of hope that Angus might just beat this.

Until the next chapter “Family”,

Janie xo

Understandably, his first reaction to fear was flight and go to family living close by before flying home to New Zealand to get this fixed. It’s amazing how quickly you can step up and take control in such a terrible situation, when no one else can. I’m not sure if it was shock, adrenalin or what exactly but I quickly found myself snapping into survival mode; all emotion was put on a shelf because right then, in that moment, I needed to be the strong one, and I needed to be in control.

I cancelled my meetings for the day and promptly called my best friend, a travel agent, and booked him the first flight back to Christchurch the following day. I felt that I was missing something and as always, whenever I’ve been faced with a medical emergency I turned to my Aunty Cherrie. With over forty years experience in nursing and hospital management she always knows the best course of action. Cherrie was a godsend and was very understanding; she told me that there was no way Angus could fly before seeing a neurosurgeon and that I needed to get him in to see one today. I called his doctor as Angus lay on his back across my bed with his face in his hands; he had abandoned the packing and was now unable to communicate.

His doctor sounded as thought the course of events that morning had really shaken him and he couldn’t be more helpful. He was slightly uncomfortable talking about Angus’s case with me at first, however when I explained the state Angus was in he relented. I was still annoyed at the doctor for being so incompetent (in my opinion at least), and for not thinking to refer Angus to a neurosurgeon in the first place. After all wasn’t that his job? I wisely decided that now was not the time to let that be an issue and hoped that he had perhaps learnt some valuable lessons today.

At first he was only going to give me the number for the neurosurgeon before I bluntly told him that I thought it would be best for him to organise an appointment for us as soon as possible seeing as he would know exactly what to tell them. Thankfully he was now doing what he could to help and called back only minutes later to say we had an appointment at 2pm at one of the larger hospitals in Brisbane with a neurosurgeon by the name of Dr David Walker. I couldn’t help but wonder had Dr Chris O’Brien helped diagnose from the grave?

Until next the next instalment… “Hope”

Janie xo

“He reckons it sounds like there have been a lot of big life changes for me over the past year and suspects that a lot of this is due to stress and quite possibly psychological. However he said that if it will keep my house mate and me happy, he would book me in for a CT scan tomorrow,” Angus concluded.

I was relieved at the thought that the medical professionals thought it might be nothing but also angered at the doctor’s casual approach to such obvious symptoms of what might be something quite serious, after all it was all there in black and white wasn’t it?

***************

“Mum, do you remember me telling you a few months ago that something in my life had been set in motion?” without waiting for an answer, “Well I think it’s about to reveal itself. I can’t explain it really but whatever it is it’s just picked up momentum”.

 ***************

The following day I took Angus to the local hospital, dropped him off for his scan and picked him up two hours later. “How was it?” I asked concerned.

“I had a CT scan a few years ago and they certainly aren’t the most pleasant things to have done but it’s ok however I feel like I need a nap now though,” he yawned.

“When will you get your results?” I pressed.

“I have an appointment with the doctor in the morning at 9am,” he seemed vaguely distracted.

“Angus, I’m sure it’s nothing and it will all be fine,” I tried to hide the doubt in my voice. We went home and had a quiet night; no one mentioned the scan again.

“Good luck!” I called from the bathroom as Angus was leaving for his appointment the following morning.

I was frantically getting ready for a client presentation with my boss and just as I was getting ready to leave, Angus arrived back from his appointment like a man on a mission; there was an energy that followed him that was so tense you could almost cut it with a knife. My heart sank as I registered the look of shock and disbelief on his face.

“What did the test say?” I asked already knowing the answer.

“Not good Jay, not good at all! I need to pack, I need to go home as soon as I can,” he said hurriedly as he handed me the X-ray’s on his way past to his room. I will never forget the feeling I had as I slid the scans out of the envelope and my darkest fears were confirmed. Like most of us, I enjoy being right, but this was definitely not one of those moments.

Until the next instalment “Revelation”,

Janie xo

He had been diagnosed with malignant brain cancer four years earlier and was talking about the signs of someone having a tumour and what to look out for. I remembered being fascinated by his story and thinking how valuable that information was to know and that if I ever came across those symptoms I’d recognise them. I was so enthralled by the interview that when I stopped in at Hungry Jacks in Gympie, for an ice-cream, I parked for about fifteen minutes before going through the drive through so I wasn’t interrupted.

About four months after I heard his story I had what I now know to be a stress headache which lasted for about three weeks. Dr O’Brien’s words haunted me, “If you ever wake up because of a headache, there is a 99% chance you have a brain tumour.” I hadn’t woken up because of it but I found myself with a headache almost straight after waking so I did some research on the net and looked up brain tumour symptoms. I found the information fascinating; despite knowing straight away I didn’t have a brain tumour. The memories of the radio story and my research into those symptoms rolled around my weary mind as I finally drifted off to sleep.

The next morning as soon as Angus woke up I confronted him, “What are your plans today?” I asked with a determination I hadn’t previously felt.

“I might go for a walk, might try and find a doctor…” he trailed off as he registered the stern look on my face.

“No Angus, you are not going for a walk and MAYBE finding a doctor. You have been saying this for the past few weeks and after Thursday night enough is enough!” I spoke with the authority of a parent as I started dialling the number for the local doctor’s surgery.

The earliest I could get him in was for 11am the following morning, which I wasn’t overly pleased about but at least he had an appointment and there were no more excuses. I think in hindsight Angus knew something was seriously wrong and wasn’t ready to confront it just yet so putting it off was the easy thing for him to do.

That night as we all sat and watched a movie, which ironically was all about a world famous neurosurgeon, I wrote out a full page of possible symptoms and all the things that I had noticed Angus was experiencing. Angus was so forgetful and vague these days that I didn’t trust him to remember to tell the doctor everything. “Now, I’m fairly certain that the GP will try and palm this off as just stress or something psychological, but it’s really important that you don’t leave there without a referral for a CT scan or something similar. You really need to eliminate all possibilities” I lectured. Angus nodded in agreement as I included this on the sheet of paper for the doctor. I wasn’t sure if Angus was just humouring me or if he was really concerned.

Until the next instalment “Waiting” may you all have good health,

Love & Joy

Janie xo

He also made random comments about the noise of the traffic on the street outside and how it made him feel strange. He would often complain of feeling like he had a hangover when he hadn’t had anything to drink, and he stopped helping around the unit and spent more and more time on the couch surfing the net or watching TV, which I’ll admit annoyed me but also really concerned me. There was several times where he would lie on the couch with a migraine for days on end blaming the heat.

He suffered from memory loss regularly, double vision, loss of vision, nausea, and change in taste and hot flushes which became more and more frequent. He would talk to me often about how he had thoughts in his head that he couldn’t quite make sense of but he couldn’t shake them either and didn’t understand what they meant. More than once he told me that he was never like this before and his head just didn’t feel right, like it was just full of wool and not brains anymore. When I asked him how long ago he noticed these changes he realised that it was really just in the last six months, but more intensely in these past three months.

About a month after he quit his job, a friend of mine from Canada, Kara, who had stayed with us briefly when Angus first moved in, came to stay for a few weeks. This was great for me as she was also able to see the dramatic change in Angus compared to her first meeting him, and she confirmed that I was right to be concerned. It was also great to have someone else to keep Angus company while I worked, but at the end of each day Kara would report more frequent and more subtle oddities that had happened with Angus. Of course we couldn’t help but have a little giggle now and then, but not in a malicious way, more like a mother would when her toddler did something silly.

Now I am naturally a maternal person and whether you are five or fifty-five I will mother you to some degree, but I was starting to feel very much like Angus’s actual mother as he regressed further and further. Despite still being an intelligent man he had such a child like manner these days that it was hard not to think of him as one at times. He would ask the same questions several times over, have the same conversation several times over and struggle to find the words he needed to string a sentence together. As an example he told me once about a bath toy he had bought as a present for his niece.

“You know, they live in the snow have webbed feet and they are black and white?” he tried to explain.

“Penguin?” I offered.

“YEAH, that’s the one” he laughed “I knew what I wanted to say I just couldn’t get it”

I regularly had to remind myself that Angus was a grown man and could look after himself, but I was torn between my instincts screaming at me that there was something seriously wrong and my logic saying that he was fine and to just let him go. It was a Thursday night and Angus was going out with some friends he had met during some of his travels when he first arrived in Australia. Later that evening he arrived home with his friends and he called to me to come and meet them. Turning to face me after introducing his friends he went white as a ghost and the look on his face said it all as he mouthed to me that he couldn’t remember my name. Shocked as I was I quickly intervened and introduced myself before returning to my room. The various memory games he had been trying to help him remember were certainly not working.

The most noticeable and consistent quirk with Angus was his inability to remember people’s names, yet he had always remembered mine, so for him to forget mine had unnerved both of us. The next morning I was back on his case about seeing a doctor. He told me that he would go and find one and get it sorted; that day he got his eyes tested which was at least a start. The optometrist told him that there was nothing wrong that he could see and casually mentioned it might help to see a doctor if he was still concerned.

That Sunday night, our guest Kara asked Angus how old he was, and without hesitation he responded that he was seventeen. When she questioned his answer, he gave her the same response before quickly realising it wasn’t right. He thought for a few seconds trying to find the magic number in his mind before finally answering with unsure confidence that he was in fact twenty-seven.

Until the next chapter ‘Signs’ have an amazing day!

Janie xo