The Ball!!

Me, Brigid (the Rose of 2006) and Nic - my Cue girls, aren't they gorgeous?? Brigid was wonderful and almost has me convinced to try the whole Rose thing next year..

The ball was so much fun! will post more intermittently but wanted the photos up first.

Mum, Dad and I - don't they scrub up well?? :)

Me and Ian - he doesn't scrub up half badly either ;)

Paula (another Cue girl) me and Nic out later.

the birthday

Mum and I 24 years on :)


I have had a lovely day - Thank you so much for all the beautiful messages and thoughts that I have received all day! It has meant so much to know that you are all thinking of me! it really touched me! This morning I got up and did breakfast with my parents. I have actually been rather sick today :( so I ended up sleeping through most of the afternoon but then went out to dinner to one of my favourite restaurants tonight. It was a really lovely evening!

Mum and I before the dinner

The parentals and me.



Ian and I after the dinner... a lot fuller he he. Practicing for Saturday night!
and yes - I made everyone dress up! he he. Thank you all once again. xoxo

let the greying begin :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!

Although I am sad to leave my 23rd year (being born on the 23rd it was kinda cool ;)), 24 seems to be fitting me just fine.

may the rest of my day continue as the first hour of my birthday began :)

can't leave my hair alone :)

as the weather gets 'colder' my hair gets shorter.. guess there go the plans for wearing it up for the ball ;)

back to the beginning

Dr's visit:
Everything is as bad as it was pre-injection. I will be on steroids on and off for the next forever. I will need regular injections to just try and alleviate the swelling - even if only for a few days. I don't know that I will be able to survive the nausea and headaches of the injections though.
The doctor said at least there had been some reaction to the steroid, so at least it isn't all dead in there - yet.
I am getting so sick of having even small amounts of hope taken away again.

Nothing else ever seems to change either. I just keep getting presented with the same situations dressed in slightly different clothing. I have some fairly weighty decisions to make and am not feeling anywhere near up to making them. If you know me at all, you will know what my automatic reaction to situations is. This time I just don't know who/where I am running to or from anymore.

and the verdict is:

Today I had the follow up appointment with my doctor. I am really really lucky I think. I don't know in which other 'capital city' my doctor would turn up on a saturday just to see me (resplendent in gardening clothes ;)).

I CAN READ 4 WHOLE CHARTS!!! which is huge considering till now I have managed the first two letters and that is it! Unfortunately he said that this improvement will be extremely short-lived ie. about 2-3 days. What they were trying to do was just get the swelling down enough that some blood could get through for a minute. He hopes that the veins won't swell up as quickly again this time. He told me more about the drug too. It is something used normally on patients whose brains have swollen and are about to go down the spinal column ie. from car accidents etc. He has never used it on an eye before. It is also not to be injected -ever (the pharmacist washed his hands of us) But he saw this as his one chance. It has left me not sleeping (what a wonderful storm we had at 4am :)), constantly nauseous (Morning sickness can have nothing on this) and slightly short tempered (sorry!!!). My headache is also fairly constant. So it's not all fun and games but I am glad to have it behind me.

I finished all my assignments, worksheets and exams (although thanks to my drugs yesterday, I managed to completely forget actually sending any of them off and thus gave myself a minor heart attack). Today I also found an amazing ball gown! (I am going to the Rose of Tralee ball on the 26th with Ian to see Brigid (my friend and co-worker at Cue) hand over her crown) So I am excited about that too!

The needle

OUCH!

I went there this afternoon and got drugged up.. so crazy how much panadeine forte does to my warped body :) I was also on mum's "relaxants" he he nothing was going to get me stressed! I thank you all so very much for your thoughts and prayers and love. It helped me no end and I knew that it just had to be ok with all of you thinking of me!

The actual procedure was indeed painful. Mum told me to scream so that I'd stop whimpering... he he But it was over after about 3 minutes. The pain wasn't but the drugs had me barely walking out of there! So that was a bonus. Apparently though I am not going to have such an easy time of it in the next few days. For anyone who knew the sideeffects from the tablets, times that by 3.... So those two hours sleep a night I was getting by on? Maybe I can count on 15 mins now ;) I hope that it is not that bad but in essence it was an injection of 150mgs of Steroids straight into the back of my eye. ie. right next to my brain (The highest tablets I was on were 50mgs). So tomorrow I go back to the hospital and they do a major check up to see what it has doen to me so far BUT I am positive that this is going to finally change things and going to help me be alright! Fingers crossed and once again -
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOU LOVE, THOUGHTS AND PRAYERS.

mindil markets

last night was the first time I'd been to the mindil beach markets since 2004!! The sunset was awesome- this photo is of Chris, my since forever friend, and I

My friend Jess from DEC and I - it was her first market experience :) we had fun!


Ian, who i met a few weeks back at DEC and James (anyone remember his visit to Switzerland?) who was randomly driving through Australia for a month and happened to be in Darwin!

All in all it was fun and I may be shooting for Parap on Sat. if anyone is interested!

AND - Ian wins hands down for the damsel in distress award ;) Damn Nightcliff Foreshore for locking the gates early and thanks to the bunch of delinquents he convinced to help him lift boulders out of the way so we could get the car down the bike path .. he he never a dull moment.

please pray, send love, positivity, happy thoughts etc.

I just got back from hospital:

The injection is happening tomorrow at 1.30pm. I am really feeling scared. It took them a week to get the drug into the country and up here. Everyone has seemed amazed at the high dose. The doctor was really sweet today and is just fitting me in whenever I feel comfortable tomorrow. I only get to take 2 panadeine forte and then have local anesthetic to the eye. my Doctor says I will feel as if someone has punched me in the eye - hard - for the next day and a bit. I also have to have daily pressure check ups etc. So here's hoping that it does something amazing and this will be the only one I have to do. The very thought about it really freaks me out... blagh. So I would greatly appreciate any happy thoughts.

1 down

SO one major assignment down (70 pages later :)) and 2 to go! So to celebrate I went out to the seabreeze festival tonight. One of my good friends from DEC, Andrew, is the publicist for the whole event so I got in for free :) Tonight Neo were playing. Not sure how many of you remember my rock climbing days, but these guys were part of the first gig I organised down there and I was part of their photo shoot - getting hoisted up the wall as one of them fell seeing as I was so small and they, well, weren't! It was a really fun night -that's something I love about darwin- all the outdoor concerts and bands.

FOR ALL DARWINIANS- SPAGHETTIFEST IS NOW ON THE 01.06.2007!!! See you there :)

ha ha

I am over hospitals, dr's and all the rest.

The specialist from Adelaide was really nice. He asked a lot of questions, did a lot of looking and poking and prodding and reading. And then, as all have done before him, said - you have GOK disease.. ha ha - get it? God Only Knows. In any case, between the two of them there today, they came to the conclusion that I have to have something done drastically and quickly - They are ordering a drug in to Australia for me. We don't have it here. It is a very very high dose steroid. and yes, I am going to need it injected. Afterwards I am not allowed to do anything because the pressure in my eye will be so great. it will be to the back of my eye socket and will happen as soon as they can get the drug. They are ordering enough to give me four shots of it before I leave although they are very worried about what effect that could have on me seeing as they are giving me 2 mg's per Kg of me. which is unheard of. The specialist has only done this once before - for an old woman who had been in a car crash and was dieing. umm.. what else... I have to have surgery later because of the way the veins are building and because the occlusion won't budge.

I am really down about this. I had thought that it was going to get slowly better - that I had made it through the worst. Obviously this year is still laughing at me. But I'll get there.

I got an email from my new family in Berlin today saying how excited they are, how they can't wait for me to be there with them, how they have so much planned for us for the summer and they are just so excited - and it is catching! I can't wait either! SO I will focus on my PJ's, my plane tickets, my new life about to begin again and I'll be happy.

thanks for the love, support and prayers