Planning our Trip Home

It's been 25 days since we were told that my hubby's cancer is terminal. It's consuming and I'm finding that difficult to cope with.

Our daughter has been staying, while she recovers from her back surgery. She's returning home, when we fly to Sydney this Wednesday. I know already that I will miss her something wicked, when we return from NZ.

We have a HUGE few days planned before we fly to New Zealand.

We're flying to Sydney on Wednesday and my hubby is going to a Trade Show on the Thursday. He wasn't going to bother, but he's been getting phone calls from people he's worked with over the years, who want to see him, and this is a good opportunity to do that. Friday and Saturday will be spent with our kids, and that includes going to the Bledisloe Cup Rugby Union game on Saturday to watch our much loved All Blacks play Australia at our favourite sport!

We're staying at our favourite spot, overlooking the harbour ... so hopefully that will allow us time to refuel before our flight across the ocean.

My main wishes at this time are ... that my hubby will enjoy his time back in New Zealand, and that I will become strong and be able to support him better!

Trip to New Zealand

We are booked to fly Sydney to Christchurch on Monday, 28 July 2008.

We will then drive to Dunedin/Mosgiel over four nights. Spending four nights with my hubby's Mum in Mosgiel, before flying to Wellington. We'll be spending one night in Wellington and then a friend will drive us to his place for three nights. We'll then fly to Auckland for one night, before flying back to South Aussie.

We're not looking forward to this trip, but we know it's necessary to visit family and friends while my hubby is still feeling strong.

I loathe having to be practical ...

Today we visited a lawyer and wrote new wills, including the Power of Attorney stuff. I'm finding this being practical really tough ... but I know we need to do this and my hope is that when the practical stuff is over, we will live a full and happy life!

In my dreams, life is as it was always going to be ... and now I have to work to get my awake mind feeling this way also! My hubby is being so strong and so positive ... I really don't know where he get's his goodness from!

I love him today, I loved him yesterday and I know I will love him even more tomorrow!

Visited our kids ...

Last weekend we both flew to be with our kids in Sydney.

Our daughter was having back surgery, so I was already booked to go over and spend time helping her. Now with the dreadful news we had just been given, we felt it was important for the four of us to be together, as this was a time of great sadness, but also of support for each other.

We had a sad but wonderful time together.

Our daughter's surgery went well and she's now joined us in South Aussie.

Our son had two days off work and didn't play or sing in any bands while we were visiting, so we were able to be together as much as possible.

Much grieving was started. Hard, but important.

Those words ...

Last week my hubby had his first post chemo/radiation appointment. It was worse than we could have imagined. The doc had to tell us that after six weeks of treatment, the tumour showed no improvement and was therefore inoperable. His advice to my hubby is to do whatever he wants, whenever he wants, as his chances of survival are not good. He said that with the type of cancer he has, there's a survival rate of 20% at one year, and he wouldn't comment about after that.

He said the cancer will spread ... lungs, liver, kidney, bones etc.

To say we were both shattered, would be a massive understatement!

We're to continue seeing this doc at the end of each month.


What now ...

We're planning a trip home to New Zealand to visit family and friends. My hubby wants to fly business class.

We'll meeting with our real estate agent, as we think we'd be best to sell the house we're currently building.

We've cancelled our trip to Europe.
We're taking the Ghan to Darwin.
Hubby will go barramundi fishing in the Northern Territory.
... and any thing else that he wants to do.

We're both continuing to work ... but my hubby is only doing part days and having his second and third in charge, do much of the work. The directors of the company he runs have been excellent so far.