Is it really more than two months since I last posted? Yikes!

Well, well, doesn't time fly when your hair is growing back and your chemo side-effects are abating, albeit slowly. Impatient though I was to stop feeling so tired and get rid of all the other niggling symptoms, I had to keep reminding myself that after six months of being steadily poisoned, you don't get rid of all that toxic junk overnight.

Mostly now I'm back to normal, but it's funny: if I overdo things or have a late night, some of my symptoms come back for a day or two - like slight nausea or a sore tongue. There's still a bit of that junk lurking.

Anyway on Monday July 31st my son and I leave our animals and home in our house-sitting friends' capable hands and return home to Canada until September 1st. I'll be in the Toronto area and if any of you want to contact me while I'm there you can email me on suzetheschmooze@hotmail.com. We will also be visiting our good friend Barb the breast cancer warrior in Minnesota (see archives for her hilarious accounts of "drive-thru mastectomies" etc.) I've never been to the "twin cities" before so this really will be a new adventure.

I dropped by the onco unit at the hospital the other day after I'd seen the doctor for a checkup (all OK so far) and had a great time chatting to the nurses and some of the patients I'd met while on chemo. I even bumped into my dear next-door neighbour Barbara who was having yet another blood transfusion (they do both chemo and haematology at the unit) and we chatted over a cup of tea to alleviate her boredom. Blood transfusions take ages. Barbara had just been diagnosed with leukaemia which was the inevitable outcome of her longterm blood condition, but had been told she had at least a year if not two, and was feeling OK. The following week she got an infection and sadly passed away. I wept at her funeral and shall miss her dreadfully. Not all warriors win.

But Barbara, being the cheerful soul she was, wouldn't want us to be sad at her passing - at least she was spared long months of weakness, pain and indignity. In her memory, here is a gag I know would have made her giggle...

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Upon arriving home, a husband was met at the door by his sobbing wife. Tearfully she explained, "It's the druggist. He insulted me terribly this morning on the phone. I had to call multiple times before he would even answer the phone."

Immediately, the husband drove downtown to confront the druggist and demand an apology. Before he could say more than a word or two, the druggist told him, "Now, just a minute, listen to my side of it. This morning the alarm failed to go off, so I was late getting up. I went without breakfast and hurried out to the car, just to realize that I'd locked the house with both house and car keys inside and had to break a window to get my keys."

"Then, driving a little too fast, I got a speeding ticket.

"Later, when I was about three blocks from the store, I had a flat tire.

"When I finally got to the store a bunch of people were waiting for me to open up. I got the store opened and started waiting on these people, all the time the darn phone was ringing off the hook."

He continued, "then I had to break a roll of nickels against the cash register drawer to make change, and they spilled all over the floor. I had to get down on my hands and knees to pick up the nickels and the phone was still ringing."

"When I came up I cracked my head on the open cash drawer, which made me stagger back against a showcase with a bunch of perfume bottles on it. Half of them hit the floor and broke."

"Meanwhile, the phone is still ringing with no let up, and I finally got back to answer it.

"It was your wife. She wanted to know how to use a rectal thermometer."

"And believe me mister, as God is my witness, all I did was tell her."

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With love to you all! SUZE