Comments on: Anna Donald on the joy of carers and nasogastric tubes

By: Margot Wood

Margot Wood — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 00:48:21 +0000

Dear Janet, Tom, Bruce and Michael,

I just heard the sad news, and am so sorry. Anna was my best friend during primary school years , and all these years later I still think of her (and her family) fondly and often. My thoughts and heartfelt wishes are with you all. My parents , John and Yvonne, send you their sympathy and best wishes too. She will be sorely missed by so many.

Love Margot

By: Jean Martin

Jean Martin — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 05:36:09 +0000

Dearest Janet, Tom and Michael,
Just received Michael’s email this morning. Anna graced the world with her amazing indomitable spirit — in my conversations with her over many tea cups, dim sums, chocolate bars and emails, she made everything seem possible and with her, it always was. I will miss her so.

With warmest love to you all,
Jean

By: Francis and David

Francis and David — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 18:26:45 +0000

Just heard the sad news. Our thoughts are with Anna’s family - Janet, Tom, Michael - thank you Anna for your love. Francis and David

By: Helen

Helen — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 11:28:37 +0000

She glowed in life.
And will continue to do so.
Helen

By: Vivian

Vivian — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 09:40:46 +0000

Many blessings to you Michael. I’m so sorry. Vivian

By: Rob

Rob — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 07:20:24 +0000

Goodbye to a truly exceptional and courageous woman who deeply touched so many who met her.
Michael, my heartfelt thoughts are with you.
Anna, the world will miss you.

By: Michael

Michael — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 22:24:34 +0000

Anna died on the morning of 1 February, Sydney time. She was surrounded by her family and by the prayers and thoughts of her friends around the world.

Anna took great comfort and encouragement from the comments made on this site, and her blog was one of her great delights over the last few months. Thank you to everyone who has taken part.

By: Emma

Emma — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 13:34:48 +0000

Dear Anna,
I am so very humbled to have crossed paths with you and will forever be grateful for our meeting. Your courage, incredible wisdom, ability to love and your humour have been an inspiration for so many and your discoveries along your journey will support and help others for many years. You have been, and will continue to be, a true gift to the healing community. Holding you and the family you love so much in my prayers and thoughts as always.
Much love, Emma

By: Diane Fowler

Diane Fowler — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 12:18:40 +0000

Dear Anna, you are in good company as you leave us. Debbie Bertaud, a fellow cancer sufferer who contributed to your blogs, passed away on 30 January. I hope as you journey onward you will meet her in person. Two bright spirits. I can only hold you both, and all your loved ones, in my prayers.

By: Lesley

Lesley — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 11:58:19 +0000

Tom,

Anna has been such an inspiration to so many - I feel privileged to have been able to share her experiences.
Even if she is ‘gone from our sight’, as Henry van Dyke put it, her influence will live on in the lives she has touched.

By: Diana

Diana — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 01:59:40 +0000

Vale dear one.
Lots of love Diana

By: Vivian

Vivian — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 00:30:11 +0000

Dear Anna, I know you won’t read this but I want to say to you how much you have touched me through your soul filled writing of your experience of advanced cancer. I have laughed and cried with you in these blogs. So many obstacles you met with courage and humour; the brightness of your humanity! I wish you peace and my prayers are with you and your wonderful family. Vivian

By: Sam

Sam — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 23:18:42 +0000

Tom, our thoughts are with Anna and her family and friends. Anna is a truly wonderful person and Luis Gabriel is right, we are priviledged to have known her and been able to call her a friend. Much love. Sam & Steven

By: Luis Gabriel

Luis Gabriel — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 06:38:50 +0000

Tom, our prayers remain with Anna, our thoughts with you the loving family and friends she is so proud of. We are very priviledged of being touched by this inspiring woman and entering a wonderful international network of people who feel touched by her wise lucid and very humane comments.

By: Sarah Godwin

Sarah Godwin — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 20:00:55 +0000

Dear Anna and family
Praying for you tonight. God bless you. Sarah G

By: Tom

Tom — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 14:33:29 +0000

Anna is leaving us.
Please pray for her.
Tom (her brother).

By: Michelle

Michelle — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 00:49:07 +0000

Hi Anna,
Reading your blog always makes me stop to think and reflect on life, and most of all to appreciate things. Thank you for your sharing your wisdom and humour with us all, a truly remarkable thing to do.
I hope and pray that you are peaceful despite all you have been through - you are so very courageous.
Love and prayers for you,
Michelle

By: Anna Donald

Anna Donald — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 01:57:48 +0000

Cor blimey, ……. reading your blog on the joys of …………
I can only say, YOU are the joy.
(the other) Anna Donald

By: Ruth

Ruth — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 23:12:31 +0000

love love love,my little possom suddenly asked about you last night before bed, it was very sweet his concern and so we sent you our love together.

XRuth

By: Ruth

Ruth — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 13:06:02 +0000

Hi Anna its midnight Im up on the putie and Im thinking of you loads of love!xxxxxxxxxRuth

By: Belinda

Belinda — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 19:55:20 +0000

OK So if you can do Cornettos and you can do Lemon lime and bitters, maybe you could manage a pine-lime splice? OR a mango weiss bar? Or a lemonade icy pole? I could murder one of those about now myself. Putting your name up there every night girl. Urging the healing to come down. Love love love. B.

By: Suzanne Marks

Suzanne Marks — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 21:38:25 +0000

Hello Anna Darling: It is so good to find you again on your blog. I offer you (belatedly) the blessings and hope of the Christmas season - and fun and fulfillment in 2009.

I keep you close in my prayers and meditations every day and alway swathed in the green light of healing.
Janet and I had dinner last night. The first time in ages we have been able to catch up. It was such a delightful time. She loves you so dearly - as do I.

With love

Suzanne (Marks)

By: m

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 13:29:56 +0000

Anna you won’t remember me but you did teach me in Oxford about 8 years ago. You were very inspiring and my professional life changed as a result.

You are still inspiring and I am now a teacher currently preparing a learning unit on ‘deconstructing evidence-based practice’. I will be leading my students to your blog.

Keep writing and keep well.

By: Vivian

Vivian — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 07:22:08 +0000

Hi Anna, I think of you each day, often in that change between sleep and wakefulness. I truly hope you are beginning to feel better as this new year has come. When I was so sick it was at the time that all seemed the very worst that was the change point to health. I remember calling the Cancer Care nurse and saying, “Do people ever feel better than this? Does this chemo help people get well?” “Yes,” she replied,”they do.” And it did help me to hear the surety in her voice though I felt so utterly bad. I got well and I think it was partly totally relaxing into being ill that helped the other come about.
I’ve never written to a blog like this and trust my replies are not too long winded, but I remember how awful I felt and how much I wanted to hear from someone that it is possible to get better. It IS possible. Metta, V

By: Justin

Justin — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 23:25:42 +0000

Anna - i’m so glad you’re back blogging and got home for Xmas. Happy new year from me, Polly & the girls and thanks for those lovely books. We miss you!

Justin

By: sam

sam — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 13:34:40 +0000

Dear Anna
I hope and pray that you are feeling better.
happy new year!

By: Ruth

Ruth — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 05:32:39 +0000

Hey! Bring on a New Year!xxxxxx

By: Ruth

Ruth — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 05:29:38 +0000

Anna! Im so glad Ive found you in here somehow connecting with us all, my beautious love! I have to tell you that tho I totally get the unbelieveable agony and unrelenting details that you are constantly human being-your sense of humour is palpable in each entry recently and it is quite astounding in itself. You well know its really easy to discern someones emotional state just by sensing through the written word. I love you I love you I love you.

Yes the confusion with remedies/medics I totally can get.
I’m having a beaut time with the Bruno Groning heilstrom method which really surprises me. Its not so much making a physical difference…I believe the epsom salts/oil is-tho i still cannot help Harry there. But mental emotional relief is truly apparent, I feel energy shifts during and afterwards especially in my heart but mind too, I can currently live with our symptoms rather than in resistance to them and its like a reclaimation of self.

Anna Ive been perenially such a resistor to the moment that I truly take heart from your capacity to include us and the whole of the medical model in your debilitating state. You are a living gift of love!Thank you its very hard to know what to say, you live so fully so fully…

Im organising a Byron Katie w’shop down here in Feb with my fab teacher Rosie. Ive so missed my regular group in Canberra this past year…maybe we will create a regular group down here? I do the Bruno Groning Circle of Friends work solo and meet up with them on phone/online.What Ive found is I have an easy sense of gratitude around it and thats gotto be healthy!love love love Ruth

By: geraldyn.jackman

geraldyn.jackman — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 20:37:52 +0000

It seems I cant spell very good either Anna

Geraldyn

By: geraldyn.jackman

geraldyn.jackman — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 20:37:04 +0000

Dear anna

may i wish you from a cold Ireland, A happy happy new year. I wait anxilusly for your blogs and enjoy everyone.

May you and yours have a great new year

Geraldyn

By: justin jewitt

justin jewitt — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 09:53:28 +0000

Anna

Hope you had a super Xmas. Its good to hear the progress you are making, and how much insight you have into yourself, your disease and life itself.
What makes a good carer for you? I have got a reasonable sized home care business established so your views on any actions/traits both good and bad would achieve improvements in care for many others.
I believe that the fundamental need for a care worker is to CARE but they need to be trained in how to provide the right actions at the right time for people with different needs ( and strange food tatses!).Give me any help/advice/thoughts on how to get this right and I promise you I will introduce it to over 500 careres in the UK.

Very best wishes for 2009

Justin J

By: Dr.priya thorat

Dr.priya thorat — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 15:31:12 +0000

Dear Anna
I hope and pray that you are feeling better.
happy new year!

By: Karen

Karen — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 11:47:36 +0000

Dear Anna, So sorry to hear what an awful time you have been having lately. It puts me to shame for moaning and groaning about my late pregnancy woes. Take good care and be gentle. Lots of love and huge hugs. Karen xxx

By: Suzanne

Suzanne — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 01:44:08 +0000

Dearest Anna,

I had missed you these past few months as we had lost contact, and then I discovered your blog and have been reading the ‘reruns’ and catching up on your life for the past several months. Thank you for writing, for sharing, for being so candid and so full of ‘you’ in all this. You are contributing more to the universe of cancer than all pharma companies combined.

Sending you all of my love and love to Michael as well.

Suzanne

By: Dr.Viveck Atheya

Dr.Viveck Atheya — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 14:32:22 +0000

MANY HAPPY RETURNS OF THE DAY,ONCE AGAIN

By: Neelima

Neelima — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 12:24:34 +0000

anathor interesting blog from you Anna.Keep writing

By: Ceilidh

Ceilidh — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 11:24:23 +0000

Dear Anna

So glad you are home and back at your computer. I thought a lot about you during rare moments of cogitating and peregrinating in Devon recently; with some anxiety that I might be missing your recent postings. Wonderful to be reading your words again.

(Thank you too for our hamper of delicious goodies…)

Lots of love to you over the holidays.

Ceilidh

By: Sergio Stagnaro MD

Sergio Stagnaro MD — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 08:59:33 +0000

Dear Anna,
your words are, once again, paramount fuel to my vacillating enthusiasm, nowadays not so great as in the past. I’m sure you can understand what I mean, in spite of my poor English.
I thank you very much.
During my 43 year long work, as GP, I have been saying to my patients, that we physicians have a limited power,unfortunately, but GOD is able to do everything!

Buon Natale e Felice Anno Nuovo

Sergio

By: Vivian

Vivian — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 00:27:17 +0000

Dear Anna, I awakened this morning with you in my awareness. We don’t know one another but you’ve touched me. This blog expresses well much of my medical journey and I’m grateful you are writing it. More than anything, I wished the doctors could know that under the emaciated body, the dreadful sicknesses, there was a real person who thinks, feels and is ALIVE, no matter how ill the body. I often felt I was just a body in the bed, a blob in the waiting room, a medical statistic. By writing this blog when so ill you show that lucidity and spirit exist in illness. Where there is breath indeed, there is life.
I experienced the symptoms you describe - the gripping guts, the sudden throw-up not related to food (seemingly). I took a bucket with me everywhere. A blue one. My experience may be of benefit to you or someone else who reads this blog. It was finally discovered I had become lactose intolerant and much of what I ate to settle my guts was milk based (there is also lactose in lots of anti nausea drugs). I also found too much soy upset the guts. I finally started living on Ensure (from the chemist in Oz) a milk free food substitute drink. Good for the nose tube (though I do hope you are through with that). I also found stemetil suppositories very helpful. I cut a 5 mg in half and use that to calm things down without making me sleepy. If I need more, I just insert the other half or more. If really sick and can’t stop throwing up, then I get a stemetil shot that puts me to sleep and settles the whole mess down but I try to use less than the usual amount as it leaves me foggy the next day.
I have noted with my mindfulness meditation that while I can ‘watch’ most things and there is some relief, nausea does not have a point of origin and I never find relief with meditative awareness. Nausea just arises and a throw up happens without warning. Nausea is a dreadful malaise.
The other thing I have found with guts is that slippery elm (1 tsp in a bit of water and swallowed quickly before it turns gluggy) seems to have helped the gripping but I have to take it each bedtime and it took a few days to make a difference. (I am not a medico but I think my guts grip on themselves when they haven’t anything much to push along due to lack of solid food.)
Like you, I have an arsenal of remedies of all sorts but thankfully, I don’t need them so often now. Gradually I found what worked for me and I hope you do also. The final thing, I found the dreams seemed to heal me from inside out without me having to do anything. May your Christmas be blessed.
Metta, Vivian

By: Tom

Tom — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 17:04:17 +0000

Woman can live on Cornettos alone, surely!
Besos y amor.