The Full Bush Rat

Blogs have been defined as the media phenomenon responsible for the publication of more self-indulgent nonsense than any other in the history of the world. This definition brings me a huge amount of pleasure given I am the queen of self-indulgent nonsense.

Unlike most blogs, I have no wisdom to impart. I’m not here to sell t-shirts, raise awareness for coral bleaching or find a new job. This blog is intended as a purely self-indulgent, creative, entertaining outlet for my nutty ramblings. There is no deep, meaningful, hidden agenda. It is, for the most part, a rave about how shit it is having breast cancer.

It contains bad language and images of medical procedures which some folk may find uncomfortable.
 
There are also lots of pictures of my dog 🐾

Friends would describe me as kind, quirky, fun with a splash of reckless abandon. I am well mannered, generous, can hold my knife and fork correctly and don’t wear ugg boots in public. I Iive in a teeny tiny 1886 cottage outside Bungendore, NSW. My companion is a 10-year old Kelpie, Lucy, aka shit-of-a-dog who has arthritis, dementia and a penchant for paw paw cream and wombat poo.

Why write a blog?

In 2022, quite a few shit things happened (actually, quite a few shit things happened in the years before that, I’ll write about those another time) … there was a cancer diagnosis, then treatment (surgery, chemo, radiation). At the same time, my 5-year relationship fell apart. It was a very painful and lonely year. Summed up by Liz in her 1992 speech, it was “… not a year on which I shall look back with undiluted pleasure. In the words of one of my more sympathetic correspondents, it has turned out to be an ‘annus horribilis.”

I am slowly recovering – though have come to the realisation I will never be the same person I was BC (Before Cancer). That’s a tough thing to reconcile because I quite liked the old me – warts and all. Sometimes I find it hard to remember the good stuff. When it all gets too much, I retreat into my burrow with a glass of champagne, my dog and write.
 
Writing my K2B2 blog was not only a way to practically share my shit ‘journey’ with faraway friends and family, it was also cathartic (don’t underestimate the healing power of smashing your anger and sadness out on a keyboard). As I hammered away, there were times I found myself smiling – laughing even. In fact, if the only reason I write this blog is to make me – and possibly someone else – laugh, I think that is reason enough 🙂