Increasing pain led to my diagnosis. I taught Italian language to primary school students part-time. After I couldn’t walk, and while my pain medication and constant vomiting was being sorted out in hospital, I used up all my sickness leave. Now I can walk, but not far. I am too tired to work – pain sets in if I hang out the washing. I do voluntary translations and keep up with friends. I am grateful to be able to live on a disability pension. I miss aspects of my work – but I am so grateful that I don’t have to go. I don’t have the strength or resilience anymore.

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Friends went and packed up my classroom for me. The materials were donated to a starting teacher. All my work for so many years! At least it wasn’t thrown into a skip! Sometimes I wonder if I would like to try to write a textbook or online resources for teachers of primary school Italian.

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My days are unpredictable – I don’t know if I will have the energy to stay awake even to write a text. If i have an outing or a visitor or an energetic morning, i usually have to pay for it afterwards. I don’t imagine i could ever teach again. I am fairly stable on my current medication: Capecitabine for the cancer, and Jurnista and Dilaudid for the pain. My cancer blood count dropped from 14,000 in May 2020 to 95 in July 2021. But i have new shadows on a scan of my arms and legs.

Increasing pain led to my diagnosis. I taught Italian language to primary school students part-time. After I couldn’t walk, and while my pain medication and constant vomiting was being sorted out in hospital, I used up all my sickness leave. Now I can walk, but not far. I am too tired to work – pain sets in if I hang out the washing. I do voluntary translations and keep up with friends. I am grateful to be able to live on a disability pension. I miss aspects of my work – but I am so grateful that I don’t have to go. I don’t have the strength or resilience anymore.

‍

Friends went and packed up my classroom for me. The materials were donated to a starting teacher. All my work for so many years! At least it wasn’t thrown into a skip! Sometimes I wonder if I would like to try to write a textbook or online resources for teachers of primary school Italian.

‍

My days are unpredictable – I don’t know if I will have the energy to stay awake even to write a text. If i have an outing or a visitor or an energetic morning, i usually have to pay for it afterwards. I don’t imagine i could ever teach again. I am fairly stable on my current medication: Capecitabine for the cancer, and Jurnista and Dilaudid for the pain. My cancer blood count dropped from 14,000 in May 2020 to 95 in July 2021. But i have new shadows on a scan of my arms and legs.