Chemo Cocktails, Healing Crystals & Kind Humans

WORDS: Corrine Barraclough PHOTOGRAPHY Corrine Barraclough

CB’s BC Journal

Sound the air horn; this week is my last of part 1 of my treatment! That’s four cycles of dose dense AC with Doxorubicin, Cyclophosphamide and Pegfilrastim completed. I know, catchy names aren’t they! Doxorubicin is known as the “red devil” or “red death”, and one of the most powerful chemotherapy drugs ever invented. It can kill cancer cells at every point of their life cycle, but it really knocks your body around.

Although, personally, I’ve found Pegfilrastim makes me super nauseous so I’m really hoping my next chemo cocktail is a little easier.

Well, we can hope, can’t we?!

In the waiting area at the chemo ward I go to for treatment at Gold Coast University Hospital, there’s a whole bunch of informational signs up on the wall. One says, “Complimentary Therapy” and talks about “non-standard medical therapy such as yoga, relaxation, massage, aromatherapy and meditation, that is used together with standard medical treatment”.

I love that, even in hospital, the medical experts are being inclusive of other treatment avenues people may wish to explore, in addition to their prescribed medications.

On my first chemo visit, I posted a photo on my Instagram of me holding a tiger’s eye crystal. One of my AA sponsees kindly leant it to me in support.

A local jewellery designer, North Shore Beach Jewellery (find her on Insta), messaged me to say she’d seen my post and noticed I was holding tiger’s eye through my chemo. She went on to explain that she has a jewellery business and said she’d like to make me a bracelet to wear during my treatment.

How kind is that?

Seriously, can we take a minute to say a heartfelt thank you to the good humans walking this earth, who will take the time to go out of their way for a fellow human? I just loved her warmth when I was feeling pretty low so much!

She wanted to work with a stone called Mookaite, an Australian Jasper which comes from Mooka Creek in the Kennedy Ranges of Western Australia. “It’s a nurturing stone that supports and sustains during time of stress. It brings peace and a feeling of wholeness,” she explained. “Possibly the most unique energetic benefits Mookaite is known for is anti-ageing. It embraces the power of an ageless spirit, which helps one to understand the correlation between the body and mind… Basically it helps us in stressful situations”.

We went back and forth a few times, I gave her my wrist measurements, and a couple of weeks later she hand delivered it to my door.

I wasn’t even home when she called by; I was at hospital having chemo.

The bracelet is so beautiful, I’ve had so many compliments wearing it, and I’ve rarely taken it off.

It’s been an ongoing, striking reminder that good humans with kind hearts walk this earth. And I feel incredibly grateful for that!

More next week,

Corrine x

Corrine was diagnosed with Stage 2B breast cancer, which has spread to her lymph nodes. Her medical oncologists are pursuing a “cure”, which will begin with a six-month course of chemotherapy at Gold Coast University Hospital, followed by surgery at Robina Hospital and then likely further treatment.
Corrine will be writing a weekly blog journaling her personal journey for Ocean Road Magazine throughout her breast cancer.