Kyogle mayor Danielle Mulholland is undergoing radiation and chemo treatment in John Flynn Hospital.

She’s writing a diary about her experience – you can read Cancer – a diary of the Journey on Facebook and Diaries on Cancer at Instagram.

She has set up these pages to separate her writing about her cancer journey from her mayoral duties.

Writing about her treatment helps, she said. Her wit and blunt truth shines through in her writing.

Here’s her latest offering.

Sunday, September 21: John Flynn Hospital

Ah, Sunday.

The day the cavalry arrives. Not the glamorous cavalry with trumpets and banners — my cavalry comes armed with clean undies, compression socks, and the kind of determination only love or madness explains.

Last week, the veranda of the oncology ward was packed: Mum, Simon, my sister, my brother-in-law Graham.

The veranda is really a glass box thick enough to stop a tank shell, because apparently cancer patients are prone to spontaneous cliff-diving.

That may also be a side effect of having the World Games blaring 24/7 on Channel 91 — constant reruns, endless commentary.

After a while, you start to think: yep, I could clear that railing. Inspiration comes from all sorts of places.

The consolation prize is a view of Gold Coast Airport, where Simon delivered a riveting, blow-by-blow commentary on every plane: “Twin-engine… turbo prop… jet.” 

Bless him – it’s a great distraction. We spiced things up with Scrabble, which devolved into slapping tiles on at random until they dangled off the edge.

Because when you’ve had enough ‘fun’, efficiency trumps the Queen’s English.

Today, it’s Mum and Simon coming to visit. They drive up from Grady’s Creek every week—Mum, nearly 80, powering through the trip like a saint on a mission. They burst in, raid my dirty laundry, and replace it with clean. Forget roses; the real perfume of love is freshly laundered knickers.

They will settle into the visitor chairs, and I will break the bad news: the coffee machine is dead. Cue instant coffee—because nothing says “life is worth living” like caffeinated dishwater. At least they won’t have their eyeballs rolling out of their sockets like blood-shot marbles.

We’ll do our ceremonial lap around the ward—exercise, or at least the illusion of it. Mum will unpack pears, her holy grail of bowel regulation.

Simon will hand out guilt-snacks to the staff, an edible apology for me being a nightmare patient in the past. (This round I’ve behaved. Still no gold star.)

Mum will freak when she checks my medication cabinet. It’s a little lockbox with pills, vitamins, and things that apparently need to be protected from desperate vitamin junkies. If someone’s freebasing Mega B, I want in.

Nilstat drops are also on the menu—allegedly ‘cherry flavoured.’ Cherry flavoured, my left foot.  More like cherries that drowned in foot sweat and despair.  Sleep is a joke.

Even a fluorescent DO NOT ENTER sign nailed to my door is treated like a polite invitation.

Hospital staff interpret boundaries the way toddlers interpret vegetables: throw the sign on the floor, slam the sticking door open like it’s the entry to a barracks, and bellow instructions as if I’m hard of hearing and in boot camp. 

I jack knife up in bed, stare at them blearily and conclude that apparently it is time to get up.

So yes, I love seeing Mum and Simon. Who doesn’t want their mum when they feel like death reheated, or their husband when they need to cry like a big old sook?  

But fatigue is savage.

I don’t always have the strength for overpriced cheese cubes and crackers from the local cafe that cost more than my dignity ($7.50 for three water crackers and three little headstones of cheese), with my knee high compression socks, grey shuffle slippers and my hair doing the dandelion dance.  

Sometimes all I can manage is holding a hand while drooling into a pillow.

What kills me is the look on their faces. Stress carved into their expressions, like cancer took a chisel to them too.

And yes, I know it’s not my fault—technically the parasite chewing through me is to blame — but try telling my guilt that. All I see in their eyes is: cancer… chemo… is she eating… cancer… how can I fix this… cancer.

Here’s the brutal truth: being the loved one is often worse. I get front row seats to the horror show in my body.

They get stuck in the cheap seats, powerless, watching the slow motion train wreck.

Their only weapon is showing up, every Sunday, to prove I’m still worth the fight.

And God help me, that’s everything. And I love them for it.

Read more about Danielle’s journey Swallowing becomes harder than saying Worcestershire Sauce and other effects of chemo — from the mayor’s hospital bed.

This article appeared on indyNR.com on 21 September 2025.