Bit of a bumpy ride at our place in recent days.
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My girls popped in to see their Nan after she suffered a fall on her hard laundry tiles and spent a couple of nights in hospital.
Then hot on the heels of my mother-in-law taking a tumble, we found out that my mum, Nanna, is headed for a short stay at Saint John of God, after what we suspected was a fracture, turned out to be a three inch plasmacytoma growing on her spine at T12.
So, building on my recent familiarisation with the road to Ballarat for the bone marrow sample and then the MRI, I'll be off again this week ensuring my mum can robe-up for a biopsy and treatment of some kind that may include radiation and will definitely include a fair bit of pyjama time and plenty of painkillers.
Mum has had to tell Probus, Ladies Auxiliary, the Art Gallery, her fellow church elders and her painting pals that she'll be absent for a bit, but she's paid all her bills, got her neighbours lined up for their usual assistance collecting the mail, watering her myriad pot plants and generally keeping an eye on the place and she's packed her overnight bag with lots of crossword puzzles and a good Thesaurus or two.
Diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma seven years ago, mum is on very familiar terms with her wonderful oncologist; we've shared wedding photos of George's offspring and rejoiced over snaps of his grandchildren as each one has arrived.
At 80 years of age now, the first sign of trouble for mum was when she had a fractured spine for no particular reason in the summer of 2015.
After seven years of working her way through a series of treatments until they each became ineffective, those darn rogue plasma cells still continue to accumulate in mum's bone marrow to crowd out her healthy cells.
Mum has holes in her bones all over the place but surprisingly this hasn't slowed Rosalie Colbert down as much as you'd think - she's only just finished off the fruitcake she won at lawn bowls earlier this year.
The most courageous woman I know by far, I cannot imagine any way I could be prouder of my mum.