1) YAYA MELPO'S JOURNEY

This is my mum a few months ago. A dynamo. An amazingly strong woman. Until recently a picture of health. Today is the 6th of May 2007. 3 weeks ago, on a Friday she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. She looked so well no one (not even she) knew that there was anything going wrong.
Finally some symptoms arose and she pursued them with her doctor. He ruled out certain possibilities and on Friday 20th April at 3.30 we got the news of her cancer diagnosis. I was on the 9PM flight to Melbourne, thanks to George arranging it with Singapore Air from China where he'd arrived that afternoon. George then got a seat back to Singapore whilst Noor looked after Mya until his return late Saturday night.Mum was at home despite Loretta attempting to get a bed in the Austin Hospital. But it being a Friday night there was a lack of hospital beds exacerbated by road accidents .I arrived in Melbourne at 6am on the Saturday, and by 7am I'd cleared immigration customs and got home by taxi. Loretta andI had kept my arrival a surprise from mum. Loretta answered the door whilst mum was in the shower. I had breakfast whilst mum was getting dressed....luckily mum has a hearing problem :) ...Loretta went in to dry mum's hair with the hairdryer. I snuck up behind, (and if you know Loretta and I, we actually have identical voices). I then took over the hairdryer, and continued the sentence Loretta had started. Mum and I chatted a while, as she sat there on the chair. She was still oblivious to our tricks. Loretta and I could hardly contain ourselves. Then Loretta stood next to mum, incredulous that Loretta was standing next to her and not behind her. So WHO WAS DRYING HER HAIR??? Mum got us to have a look in the mirror and she couldn't believe her eyes. Mum was SO pleased to see me. It was a wonderful moment.We left for the Austin Hospital as soon as Mum was ready, and we immediately got a bed upon arrival. Loretta had been secretly advised the night before that this would be the case. We went into Emergency and by the afternoon she had a bed in the Pancreatic and Liver surgery ward. If she'd got admitted the previous night, she would have been in a general surgery ward and would have had to wait for a specialist bed to come up. So again, what looked like bad luck last night became good luck today.Over the next few days whilst waiting for surgery, we had a ball. Hardly what you'd expect from someone dying of cancer. We were laughing, and enjoying the time together, going over the happy times in our lives. She also made sure everything was in order. Mum is always organised and her legendary lists ensures that she always has everything in order. Mum was even making lists to distribute her beautiful pot plants to her friends prior to going into surgery.
Surgery was delayed, and the stent (tube) they put between her pancreas and liver was eventually completed last Friday. Immediately the jaundice that had turned her skin almost orange started disappearing as the liver began to function again.
Before going into surgery, mum called the anaesthetist and the surgeon and told them that if anything happened and died on the operating table, “It only means it’s my time to go, don’t worry and don’t feel guilty. I have had a good life.” The Austin Hospital was really fantastic for her. Mum had been there previously for her hip operations. The hospital had recently undergone a face lift and is really bright and modern. It was also close to home for us - just a 10 minute drive. All the staff, with only the exception of only one extremely grumpy, gruff cleaner/tea lady who had the misnomer of a title "patient assistant". Ha!! We laughed!!!
Everyone else was exemplary for their respective fields. Of course, they all loved her and like all my friends since my memory serves me, wanted to adopt her. Everyone who meets her for the first time says “What an amazing woman”. Even the anaesthetist phoned us at home and said that he’s never met anyone quite like mum who has such an understanding of herself, her life and of death. Unbeknownst to herself, she has many principles in common with Buddhists.She is very strong in her belief that her time is nearly over and she wants this time to be dignified, not long and drawn out in pain, or weakened by chemotherapy. She has been adamant with ALL the doctors that she does not want resuscitation if anything should happen other than the cancer. The main aim is pain management for when it gets to that stage rather than prolonging life unnecessarily. Most people think that that is a strange way to go, but she has seen very many people in their last months of undergo chemo, others with tubes all over their body and no quality of life, and she is choosing not to go down that path. She also told the doctors to utilise their skills on younger people who have more need of the hospital scarce resources and their specialised surgical skills.

We must all remember that she spent decades working as an interpreter for the Victorian Government. Mum saw many patients’ lives in hospitals. Also, during all her years working as a volunteer with the Greek Elderly in hostels, nursing homes, and foremost as an octogenarian, she has seen many of her friends and relatives die. Mum knows what she does and does not want. She is fortunate enough that she has got her wish. She didn't want to suffer a stroke and be a burden on us all. We are also lucky that she didn’t die of a heart attack or some sudden death, because we all have this precious time to spend together.She was so pleased that in the last two weeks every member of her family came; grandson Chris immediately flew down from Queensland, son-in-law Costa drove down from New South Wales, and all of us flew in from Singapore. She has also had an endless stream of friends visit her.
It’s as if the tables have turned. After so many years of devotion to her family, and mum visiting and supporting hundreds of people during all their life crises, now it’s our family receiving the platters of homemade food to help during the difficult times. That’s what mum’s life has been based on - her family and her friends and her community.
George flew back to Asia yesterday after bringing Mya and Noor (Our Nanny) here to Australia last Saturday. He spent a week mostly with mum, and time just flew. He’s already back in Singapore.
Sunday 4th May 2007. This morning continued typing up mum's Life Story. We've been writing it together over the last 5 years, with plenty of breaks due to distance. I typed it up as much as she has written to date, so she could present it to her Creative Writing Class at the University 3A.
Then we had a lovely visit with mum, we being Loretta, Noor Mya and I. Later we went and picked up Sue and Tony, who had given us a great Aussie BBQ of 15 courses on Friday!!! We went for a drive to Warrandyte to walk along the Yarra River and eat delicious ice creams. Back to some normality.
Saturday 5th May 2007. We had a nice afternoon. After dropping George off to the airport, Trahn my Vietnamese friend with whom I used to work with over 27 years ago, and her partner Hu. They both met us in Hanoi when I was "just a mum of a few days". They came to see mum yesterday afternoon. They brought lots of interesting tropical fruit. Hu, who is a great cook, made some lovely fried rice. After visiting mum we came home for a lovely Asian home-cooked meal. Noor, our two guests and I started our cooking in the kitchen. We made prawn wantons, and a chicken and prawn stir fry. MMMMMM. Also we had some left over Okra (lady’s fingers) made to mum’s recipe. A friend of mum’s turned up with a huge platter of Greek cheese pie - not just homemade pie, but made with homemade filo pastry. Heaven!
It’s lovely to have such special friends who you feel so comfortable with who just become part of your family when they are around. We are blessed to have many friends like that.
Mum had her first pain yesterday and Loretta rushed to hospital which luckily is only a few minutes away. Fortunately by the time she got there the pain had subsided. She was looking a little bit more yellow again yesterday, but that might have been the lighting in the hospital. One thing that is noticeable is mum’s beautiful snow white hair is also looking more yellow? jaundice? lighting? anaesthetic? Or our imagination, who knows?
We’re all bearing up. Very occasionally there are some tears, the occasional migraine, but nowhere near what it could have been like had mum not been so strong. Right from the moment of her diagnosis with pancreatic cancer she set the scene, firstly asking the doctors exactly what it means, how long people with this disease usually live (1 – 3 months) and stating her wishes for a dignified and pain-free ending. She also turned to my sister and said “I don’t want tears and pity, I’ve had 85 good years, and I’m ready to go.”

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