The Sun in my Son

Me: "Can I take a photo of your scar and post it onto my blog?"

Dave: Laughs, shakes his head in disbelief.

He won't let me ..... but his scar looks so cool. It's a thick, angry line, coming straight down his belly and stops just before his belly button. So it looks like an exclamation mark. I told him his scar is saying ..."OH MY GOD WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED!!!" Because it was all just so quick - about to have a baby, husband gets sore tummy, thinks it's a hernia but was some tumours instead, exploratory surgery, BAM. Welcome to cancerland.

I'm now having flashbacks, strange and freaky and spinning me out. I want to just be over this already, but it's taking a while to process. I take a lot of pride in the things I have already overcome in my life ... but this one, this is a biggie. I saw my friend recently, nine months pregnant and about to pop. We were in a crowded cafe ... I wanted to lean over, and whisper in her ear .... "Imagine finding out your husband had cancer, right now when you are so pregnant."

The thought startled me and made me feel sick.

I went to the GP, he asked me how I was going. I didn't really know .. then I got home and the word came. Traumatised. Completely fucking traumatised.

My bloggy peep had a baby recently, and wrote ... "the first two weeks are just so hard." And I thought of Roccos first two weeks. And felt sick again.

Our family is truly on the up, though. Shifting and changing shape again. Intellectually, I knew that my marriage took a massive hit last year, but we have just been playing catch-up now. Dave and I bunkered down to save ourselves, but now we are coming back to each other again. Like how it was before he got diagnosed .... how it was when I was pregnant. He is strong again, and so am I.

It was a turbulent Christmas time, which was a shame.

Last week, Max called me into his room to show me his drawings. This one .....

.... was hanging on his wall. He explained it to me.

"Ok. So, here are the two parents. Fighting, fighting fighting. The baby is locked outside and has done a poo in its pants and it's crying. The middle-sized brother has gone for a drive to the shop with the oldest brother. The parents are arguing so loud that the bricks and wood are falling down."

I stared at the picture, and gently asked, "So did the parents ever stop arguing?"

He said they did.

"And, how did the middle-sized brother feel?"

"Oh, he was ok."

I have been loving on Max so much, this past week. All of my energy has gone in to having happy and fun family time. We all went swimming together at the pool. We stayed down in a fancy hotel in Sydney for one, night, impromptu ... Max and I had to go to the chemist to buy us all toothbrushes and we wore our same clothes again the next day. To celebrate Australia Day, we ate four different kinds of gelato from Leichardt - pavlova, beer, lamington, and vegemite.

Tip: don't ever eat vegemite gelato.

Maxs "angry parents" picture has stayed up on his wall, but he has thrived under my attention and love this week. Tonight, we were in the shower and he goes "Mum, I just love you. You don't even have to try. I love you so much."

I said it was the best, most awesomest thing I have ever heard in my life. I told him again how proud I am of him for handling last year like he did. I told him I love being his mum more than anything else in the whole world.

He goes into Year Two tomorrow. His clothes are laid out on his bedroom floor "in the shape of a boy." His lunch is packed, textbooks are labelled, and his Spirit is nurtured.

_____

I'm about to blog much, much more. Renewed, refreshed and recovered ... the Hiatus is over. My spring has suddenly sprung, in the middle of summer!! Woot!!!

XOXOXO