Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Illness and recovery

Over the summer two of my closest friends came face to face with mortality. One is married to a man who not long ago was diagnosed with lung cancer, with an initially really terrible prognosis. Then, quite unexpectedly, the tumour turned out to be operable. He's now staring down chemo and radiotherapy, but the women in his life -- his wife, his mother and his 19-year-old daughter -- are all very happy Vegemites.

The other is my dear friend Stephanie, who spent the summer undergoing treatment for breast cancer and blogging brilliantly about it at Humanities Researcher. When I saw her in February she was well enough, but only just, to come over to Adelaide from Melbourne for a conference.

Here's what she'll be doing on Friday.

2 comments:

This old world is a new world said...

Oh thank-you, dear Cat. I must admit there were moments about a week ago when I thought I must have been crazy to make this trip, but the paper is over and done last night, and while I was sadly back in the library today, I have just splurged on three different kinds of "artisan chocolate" for the folks back home. So on balance, life, yes, is looking pretty damn fine from where I'm sitting.

genevieve said...

Brava, Stephanie. Enjoy that fine seat.