Last Saturday I spent a lovely afternoon with five amazing women that I would never have met if I hadn't had breast cancer. Actually, over the past year, there are a lot of lovely moments I would not have had if I hadn't had cancer.
The last year has been scary, the treatment has been unpleasant but I have been genuinely touched by the kindness and compassion I've received from everyone I know, quite literally, everyone. So I am dedicating this blog to all those people. It might make you want to puke in places, but hey, it's the season of goodwill so I'm spreading some, I am learning from first hand experience that life is too short to leave these things unsaid!
After I was diagnosed, I took four days off work to get my head around things and then went back to work full time until I started chemo a few weeks later. I'm naturally one of those people who gets stuck for words in difficult situations, I wouldn't have had a clue what to say to me when I turned up on that Monday so I could understand that I might have some awkward encounters, but there were none. Everyone in my office was so kind and supportive, I couldn't have asked for a more friendly working environment for those few weeks. When I returned to work after treatment I had to have a chat with an occupational health nurse, she warned me that my colleagues might have a difficult time knowing how to talk to me about my illness or treatment, so I had to set her straight and explain that I had already been back in work after my diagnosis and that everyone had been fine and really supportive. Maybe it's a generational thing? Perhaps my generation are more honest, open and compassionate?
A big thankyou to the people at work who complimented me on my hair, without knowing it was a wig, and then those who complimented me on my haircut without knowing I had just stopped wearing my wig! This has led to some very funny moments, and in all honesty I would be more offended if nobody noticed.
Right after my diagnosis when I was feeling my most scared was the time when I felt most loved, my family were so supportive, all of my best friends got in touch to say how much they cared. My best friend Helen couldn't do enough for me. I have read accounts of other people who go through a cancer diagnosis where they lose touch with some friends who find it difficult to deal with the situation. Again, it's not something I can identify with, none of my friends have treated me like this. If anything, I have more friends and am closer to some people than I was before cancer.
Half way through my treatment I found out about a Facebook group specifically for younger women with a breast cancer diagnosis. This has been my lifeline, and the most unexpectedly awesome thing to come from this horrible experience. Having cancer and treatment when you're young(ish) can be such an isolating experience, but since I've been a member of YBCN I've never felt isolated. We chat, ask questions, offer advice and support, it's brilliant. When I chat about my cancer experience to people I'll often refer to 'other women'.... These are the other younger women on YBCN, whose posts I read every day. It helps to know the way I feel and the way I have approached my treatment are completely normal. I'm spending New Year's Eve with some lovely people I've met through YBCN, a fitting end to 2014!
It was reading the stories of others online that inspired me to start writing this blog, which in itself has been such a lovely, positive experience. Something I never imagined I would be doing before I had cancer.
I'm looking forward to 2015, I've not had a wobble over buying a new diary this time. There are plenty more blogs to come, as much as I'd love to put cancer behind me forever I'm waiting on results of my genetics test and I need to have another operation for reconstruction at some point soon.
But in the meantime, Happy New Year and thank you xxxx
Sunday, 28 December 2014
Saturday, 13 December 2014
Bah humbug?
This is my Christmas message, for anyone who is feeling a bit bah-humbug! Thanks to the NHS and medical science I am lucky enough to be sat here writing my blog tonight, about to go for dinner with my friends, but this time last year it was a different story, I had a crap Christmas.
On 13th December 2013 I was in hospital, I had already been there for two days and ended up being there for six. A week after my first chemo I had a temperature spike in the night and had to go to A&E . I was given IV antibiotics to combat any possible infection, but I developed an allergic reaction to these and had to be kept in. Then my white blood cell count plummeted and I wasn't allowed to be discharged until my levels were safe again, I was given daily injections to boost them. I had another temperature spike again on Saturday afternoon so they gave me a different type of antibiotic, thankfully this one worked and I started to feel better.
I was scared, this was only one week into four months of chemo and things had already gone tits up. I was lonely, I'd never been in hospital for a long period before and visiting hours just felt far too short, I had no phone reception, but thank goodness I had a TV. I was in isolation as my immune system was so vulnerable, I couldn't even leave my room for a walk about.
I wanted to call this blog 'the one where I watch X factor in hospital wearing an adult nappy' this episode was one of the moments of the last year that was so surreal it was funny. I hope some of you see the funny side? On my second night in hospital I had to beg a nurse for an 'adult nappy', the allergic reaction I had to the antibiotics had such a bad effect on my digestive system that I had to deploy extra reinforcement. I called it an adult nappy, it was really just a very big incontinence pad. It was a lifesaver, they gave me several and I took one home which I keep in a drawer for posterity. So I sat in my hospital bed on my own that evening, enjoying the X factor final, over the moon about my nappy.
Once I was discharged I was paranoid about getting another infection and having to go back into hospital, so I hardly left the house, that was where I stayed until my next chemo on Boxing Day...house bound. No carol service, no parties, no German markets, no ice skating, no shopping for presents. On Christmas day I couldn't even join my family for dinner because my brother in law's Dad was coming and he and a cold, it was too risky for me to be exposed to germs. I ate dinner on my lap in front of the TV with my little sister. It was rubbish, I love Christmas and I couldn't get involved in any of the fun stuff....oh, and my hair had just fallen out!
So if you're having a bit of a moan about battling through the crowds to do Christmas shopping, or having to listen to Slade for the fiftieth time, just take a minute to think, things could be worse.....you could be stuck in hospital wearing an adult nappy!
Merry Christmas
On 13th December 2013 I was in hospital, I had already been there for two days and ended up being there for six. A week after my first chemo I had a temperature spike in the night and had to go to A&E . I was given IV antibiotics to combat any possible infection, but I developed an allergic reaction to these and had to be kept in. Then my white blood cell count plummeted and I wasn't allowed to be discharged until my levels were safe again, I was given daily injections to boost them. I had another temperature spike again on Saturday afternoon so they gave me a different type of antibiotic, thankfully this one worked and I started to feel better.
I was scared, this was only one week into four months of chemo and things had already gone tits up. I was lonely, I'd never been in hospital for a long period before and visiting hours just felt far too short, I had no phone reception, but thank goodness I had a TV. I was in isolation as my immune system was so vulnerable, I couldn't even leave my room for a walk about.
I wanted to call this blog 'the one where I watch X factor in hospital wearing an adult nappy' this episode was one of the moments of the last year that was so surreal it was funny. I hope some of you see the funny side? On my second night in hospital I had to beg a nurse for an 'adult nappy', the allergic reaction I had to the antibiotics had such a bad effect on my digestive system that I had to deploy extra reinforcement. I called it an adult nappy, it was really just a very big incontinence pad. It was a lifesaver, they gave me several and I took one home which I keep in a drawer for posterity. So I sat in my hospital bed on my own that evening, enjoying the X factor final, over the moon about my nappy.
Once I was discharged I was paranoid about getting another infection and having to go back into hospital, so I hardly left the house, that was where I stayed until my next chemo on Boxing Day...house bound. No carol service, no parties, no German markets, no ice skating, no shopping for presents. On Christmas day I couldn't even join my family for dinner because my brother in law's Dad was coming and he and a cold, it was too risky for me to be exposed to germs. I ate dinner on my lap in front of the TV with my little sister. It was rubbish, I love Christmas and I couldn't get involved in any of the fun stuff....oh, and my hair had just fallen out!
So if you're having a bit of a moan about battling through the crowds to do Christmas shopping, or having to listen to Slade for the fiftieth time, just take a minute to think, things could be worse.....you could be stuck in hospital wearing an adult nappy!
Merry Christmas
Monday, 8 December 2014
Moving on
I cycled into town today to do some shopping, it's bloody freezing and my hands turned to ice because I forgot to wear gloves, but life is too short to be spent sitting in a queue for the car park and I had a very important mission; buying a dress for my work Christmas party! This time last year I had just started chemo and I had to cancel my ticket to the party, this made me sad. So this year I'll be there, dancing around like an idiot with some reindeer antlers on my head, mine sweeping bottles of beer from the tables... The significance of these moments is huge for me, however inconsequential the occasion, if it makes me feel alive, then it brings a great big smile to my face. Each small life affirming moment like this is a poke in the eye to cancer, seeing as it's the party season, I've borrowed some lyrics from Elton! Kind of says it all...
I've been so busy recently I've not had as much time as I'd like to keep writing the blogs, I love being busy, I love making plans. I'm single, I don't have kids, I love spending time with my friends and family, travelling up and down the country, seeing people, staying over, staying out late, having a few drinks, eating nice food, going to concerts, exhibitions. This was what I missed most during treatment, your life goes on hold, you press pause for six months and resign yourself to missing out on things, I HATED missing out. One of the first things I had to do after being diagnosed was cancel the flights I had booked to go to South Africa with my sister. We had planned to go the following February but I would still be in the middle of chemo so a trip abroad was out of the question. (Although I did buy a fancy iPad with the money I got back...every cloud and all that). What I felt before I started treatment was a kind of grief, a sadness for the life I thought I was leaving behind, this was one of the times when I felt my most sad and hopeless. At this stage, there were still so many unknowns about treatment, you aren't sure exactly when you're going to come out the other side.
I've already written about how my surgery was a breeze, but the chemo exhausts you, physically and mentally, your brain is dulled, you lose motivation to even get dressed in the morning, everything in your life is dimmed or muffled. It's hard to get joy from the things you used to love, I'd meet with friends and not have a lot to talk about except for treatment, side effects and even more treatment. I didn't enjoy reading, or watching films, I felt like an outsider looking in at people getting on with their 'normal' lives. You lose a lot of confidence, you look different, you feel different, you're worried that you might die. Sometimes you spend hours just staring into space without the energy to do anything. For me it was the side of treatment I least expected, that you lose a sense of who you used to be. Being a cancer patient is your new identity, it's what takes over your diary and your brain.
So imagine the relief when it's finally all over, it starts small, because you still don't feel quite like your old self, but it happens slowly and gets better and better as the weeks go by. After months of hardcore treatment and regular hospital visits you are more or less left to your own devices to pick up the pieces again, I wasn't sure how I was going to cope, so I just started making plans. I was determined to get back to work as soon as I could, I work with some lovely people and I genuinely enjoy what I do. I wanted to be normal, to drive in rush hour traffic, to be part of the real world again. I had to have a chat with the occupational health nurse before I went back to work, she wasn't used to dealing with young people with cancer, I told her I had my surgery a month before and she was shocked, when I told her it was in April, she assumed I meant the previous year! I started off working just mornings for a couple of weeks and then started back full time. I was two months post chemo and one month post op, this was quick but it felt right and in hindsight it was the best thing I ever did. I wanted to put the past six months behind me as quickly as I could, and sometimes it all felt like it had happened to someone else.
I still had radiotherapy to tick off the list and this was more of an inconvenience than anything else. It required going to the hospital every weekday for four weeks to get zapped by a machine for five minutes, totally dull. They were nice enough to work some appointments around my social engagements....like my friend's hen weekend in Brighton, being in the middle of radiotherapy didn't stop me from dressing up as a mermaid and dancing in a nightclub until the small hours. Radiotherapy generally has pretty minor side effects, it can make you tired, but I never really noticed, compared to what I had experienced on chemo, this was so easy. So, on 19th August 2014 after 4 weeks of 'zapping' I was officially signed off from Oncology and they booked me in for an annual check up in 2015.
When you finish treatment and you're still in one piece it feels amazing, like you've dodged a bullet. The feeling of relief is similar to when you have a bad dream that you wake up to realise isn't true. You have 'that Friday feeling' every day of the week. The old sayings are totally true, I have becoming a walking, talking cliche... I wake up every morning glad to be alive, feel the sun on my face and the wind in my (very short) hair.
If I could go back in time and visit the me from last year, who was just starting chemo and terrified, I would tell her that she's going to be OK actually and she's going to be a lot lot stronger than she ever thought she could be, and that it will finish sooner than she thinks and she's going to look back on it all and feel very proud of how she coped.
This is me moving on, watching Kasabian in Leicester in June with my lovely friend Hannah and in Birmingham a couple of weeks ago with Rich; my brother in law. What a difference six months and some hair dye makes!!
Don't you know I'm still standing better than I ever did
Looking like a true survivor, feeling like a little kid.......
Looking like a true survivor, feeling like a little kid.......
I'm still standing yeah yeah yeah
I'm still standing yeah yeah yeah
I'm still standing yeah yeah yeah
I've been so busy recently I've not had as much time as I'd like to keep writing the blogs, I love being busy, I love making plans. I'm single, I don't have kids, I love spending time with my friends and family, travelling up and down the country, seeing people, staying over, staying out late, having a few drinks, eating nice food, going to concerts, exhibitions. This was what I missed most during treatment, your life goes on hold, you press pause for six months and resign yourself to missing out on things, I HATED missing out. One of the first things I had to do after being diagnosed was cancel the flights I had booked to go to South Africa with my sister. We had planned to go the following February but I would still be in the middle of chemo so a trip abroad was out of the question. (Although I did buy a fancy iPad with the money I got back...every cloud and all that). What I felt before I started treatment was a kind of grief, a sadness for the life I thought I was leaving behind, this was one of the times when I felt my most sad and hopeless. At this stage, there were still so many unknowns about treatment, you aren't sure exactly when you're going to come out the other side.
I've already written about how my surgery was a breeze, but the chemo exhausts you, physically and mentally, your brain is dulled, you lose motivation to even get dressed in the morning, everything in your life is dimmed or muffled. It's hard to get joy from the things you used to love, I'd meet with friends and not have a lot to talk about except for treatment, side effects and even more treatment. I didn't enjoy reading, or watching films, I felt like an outsider looking in at people getting on with their 'normal' lives. You lose a lot of confidence, you look different, you feel different, you're worried that you might die. Sometimes you spend hours just staring into space without the energy to do anything. For me it was the side of treatment I least expected, that you lose a sense of who you used to be. Being a cancer patient is your new identity, it's what takes over your diary and your brain.
So imagine the relief when it's finally all over, it starts small, because you still don't feel quite like your old self, but it happens slowly and gets better and better as the weeks go by. After months of hardcore treatment and regular hospital visits you are more or less left to your own devices to pick up the pieces again, I wasn't sure how I was going to cope, so I just started making plans. I was determined to get back to work as soon as I could, I work with some lovely people and I genuinely enjoy what I do. I wanted to be normal, to drive in rush hour traffic, to be part of the real world again. I had to have a chat with the occupational health nurse before I went back to work, she wasn't used to dealing with young people with cancer, I told her I had my surgery a month before and she was shocked, when I told her it was in April, she assumed I meant the previous year! I started off working just mornings for a couple of weeks and then started back full time. I was two months post chemo and one month post op, this was quick but it felt right and in hindsight it was the best thing I ever did. I wanted to put the past six months behind me as quickly as I could, and sometimes it all felt like it had happened to someone else.
I still had radiotherapy to tick off the list and this was more of an inconvenience than anything else. It required going to the hospital every weekday for four weeks to get zapped by a machine for five minutes, totally dull. They were nice enough to work some appointments around my social engagements....like my friend's hen weekend in Brighton, being in the middle of radiotherapy didn't stop me from dressing up as a mermaid and dancing in a nightclub until the small hours. Radiotherapy generally has pretty minor side effects, it can make you tired, but I never really noticed, compared to what I had experienced on chemo, this was so easy. So, on 19th August 2014 after 4 weeks of 'zapping' I was officially signed off from Oncology and they booked me in for an annual check up in 2015.
When you finish treatment and you're still in one piece it feels amazing, like you've dodged a bullet. The feeling of relief is similar to when you have a bad dream that you wake up to realise isn't true. You have 'that Friday feeling' every day of the week. The old sayings are totally true, I have becoming a walking, talking cliche... I wake up every morning glad to be alive, feel the sun on my face and the wind in my (very short) hair.
If I could go back in time and visit the me from last year, who was just starting chemo and terrified, I would tell her that she's going to be OK actually and she's going to be a lot lot stronger than she ever thought she could be, and that it will finish sooner than she thinks and she's going to look back on it all and feel very proud of how she coped.
This is me moving on, watching Kasabian in Leicester in June with my lovely friend Hannah and in Birmingham a couple of weeks ago with Rich; my brother in law. What a difference six months and some hair dye makes!!
Wednesday, 26 November 2014
The one where I feel ok about losing a boob...
When I started writing this blog I knew that I wanted to portray my story in a positive way, I have made it through the worst year of my life and I've coped so much better than I ever imagined. I know I've moaned a bit about chemo in my previous posts but even that was so much easier than I expected, I felt poorly for about a week after each dose but I still had two weeks of feeling pretty normal and I could get out and about, see my friends, go out for dinner, all the normal things. My mastectomy operation posed a new set of challenges and I wasn't sure how I was going to deal with them. I knew right from the start of treatment that I would need to have a mastectomy, as I was having my chemotherapy before surgery I had about 5 months to get my head around it. I felt sad about it but that was about all I felt, I had a lot of time to think about my emotions and how I might feel after the operation, but even then I still didn't feel anything strongly. Some people feel angry at their body for letting them down, some people can't touch or look at their boob, but I never felt like this, I just felt a bit sorry for it, as if the cells in it had just got a bit confused. I didn't feel an overwhelming urge to have the cancer cut out of me, it all felt too abstract to get my head around, that this lump was trying to kill me.
During chemo my Oncologist was so happy with the way my lump was responding (getting smaller) he sent me back to my surgeon for a consultation to see if she wanted to operate sooner than planned. She was happy to let me finish all my chemo first before operating, but it gave me a chance to get a date agreed for my operation: 22nd April 2014. I was to have a mastectomy of my right breast, all my lymph nodes removed in my right armpit and an expander implant inserted into my chest, on the right side where the breast used to be. The expander implant was my surgeon's suggestion, this meant that I'd have an empty implant inserted and then once my scar had healed the implant would be slowly filled up with saline to help my skin expand and give me something that looked like a normal breast. The expander implant can only be kept in as a temporary measure so the ultimate aim is the stretch your skin sufficiently to enable the expander to be replaced with a silicone implant at some stage if that's the recon option I choose.
I was fine with all of this, I was happy to have all the surgery I needed to give me the best chance of recovery and the biggest lesson I have learnt through all my treatment is to trust my instincts, how I felt before my operation was exactly how I felt after, nothing had changed, bits of my body had been removed and it looked different but it didn't make me feel any different.
The night before my operation I was scared, I was going to be under general anaesthetic for about four hours, I've never had an operation before, this frightened me. I was scared of not waking up, or waking up and feeling so poorly or in pain that I wished I was still out of it. My Mum (as usual) was a brilliant support, she has had several major surgeries in recent years and she reassured me that I would be OK. I think I just needed to get it off my chest that even though I appeared to be brave, I was actually pretty scared. We were at the hospital the next day at 7am, I hadn't even been awake before 7am in weeks, let alone up and dressed! That was probably the worst thing about Tuesday 22nd April, having to get up at the crack of dawn because the rest of the day could not have gone any better. The first lady on the list for surgery hadn't turned up that day as she was poorly, I was second on the list so it was all systems go to get me ready for theatre.
First they gave me those those horrible surgical stockings to wear, then a Doctor came round to draw some lines on my chest to make sure the surgeon chopped the right boob off. This is where my Mum got upset, she found it hard to watch me getting marked up for surgery, I am young and healthy(ish) and it broke her heart to think that my body was never going to be the same again. So they whisked me off at about 8.30am, my Mum was crying when I went but I was hard as nails, not a tear in sight, this took some determination but I'm very proud to say that I didn't cry. I thought it would be silly to cry about having life saving surgery, I'd got it out of my system the night before. It would have made my Mum feel worse too, knowing I was on my own getting prepped for the op, sobbing my eyes out. The anaesthetist had 2 big syringes to inject into me ( I was very used to big syringes by now and I watch every needle that goes into my body with enthusiastic curiosity) he told me the first one was a painkiller that might make me feel a bit drunk...he was right. Then I asked what the next one was, 'anaesthetic' he replied, that was the last thing I remember for four hours...
Until I woke up in recovery. The memories of everything post op are very vivid and very funny... I was obviously high as a kite on painkillers. I could hear everything going on around me perfectly but I was still so groggy I couldn't open my eyes or speak. I was wheeled back onto the ward and my parents came to the side of my bed, I could hear them, my Mum was holding my hand, I still couldn't speak or open my eyes so I just smiled, as wide as I could to let them know I was OK. In my drugged up state I knew that this was my way of communicating silently to them not to worry, but I just looked like an idiot, it didn't help that they had put my headscarf back on after theatre and it was a bit wonky. My Mum said I looked very funny! I didn't feel sick, I wasn't in any pain at all and I just remember thinking how lovely and comfortable the bed was. I never asked what it was they gave me but it felt lovely. As soon as I was awake enough I wanted to see what my boob looked like, I looked down the front of my hospital gown and was amazed, I was very unprepared for how normal my chest looked, it was as if they had taken all the stuffing out of my boob, cut the nipple off and sewn it up again. All the skin was still there, I didn't have a big crater-like wound on my chest. I got my Mum to have a peep down the gown to see, my Dad couldn't be persuaded to look...
My surgeon came to see me, she said the operation had gone very well and that I could go home that evening if I wanted to. I had to fulfil some criteria before I was allowed to contemplate going home, I had to get up out of bed to walk to the toilet and eat something a bit more substantial than a biscuit. I never believed that it would be this easy, major surgery in the morning and skipping out of the hospital in the evening, except that I had to work out how to manage at home with a drain in. I didn't notice the drain until later on in the afternoon, the tube was poking out of a hole under my armpit, I had never even seen a drain before and now I had one, it was a bit horrible to look at, draining off the extra blood and fluid my body still making for the space where my boob used to be. I had to take it home from the hospital in a special fabric bag that was purpose-made for carrying drains, I even had a choice, checks or stripes? (I went for stripes). The drain stayed in for four days until I went back to the hospital to have it removed. Very slightly annoying trying to get dressed, wash, go to the toilet with a tube poking out your armpit. For once I was so grateful to not have any hair to wash.
I've just realised that I've written this whole post about my mastectomy without a single mention of pain, that's because I didn't suffer any pain, just a weird dull ache. After I came back from theatre the nurses came round to check my pain levels, I didn't have any pain, I kept asking if this was right, was it about to start? Not only had I just had a mastectomy, I also had all of the lymph nodes in my armpit removed, all 13 of them, so there must have been a bit of rooting around in there too but nothing really hurt.
I couldn't wait for the dressings to come off so I could see what my scar looked like, I'm not a squeamish type of person, I have a few scars already so my new one was going to be in good company. I had read up on line about different women's reactions to having surgery for breast cancer, I couldn't relate to it at all, I couldn't imagine feeling 'mutilated' and not being able to look in the mirror at the changes to my body. It never bothered me remotely, I was fascinated with the whole process, it saved my life and I still looked like I had a real boob. I was honestly amazed at what my surgeon had done for me, I was happy to show anyone who expressed a passing interest.
I went back to the surgeon for my results two weeks later, they sent everything they removed to the lab for testing after the operation and they found that the tumour had shrunk from 5cm to 2cm, although there were still active cancer cells in it, of the 13 lymph nodes they removed only one showed evidence of disease and there was no lympho-vascular invasion, meaning that cancer cells had not penetrated the blood vessels in my breast. Good news all round!! Phew, the 6 rounds of chemo were worth it in the end.
During chemo my Oncologist was so happy with the way my lump was responding (getting smaller) he sent me back to my surgeon for a consultation to see if she wanted to operate sooner than planned. She was happy to let me finish all my chemo first before operating, but it gave me a chance to get a date agreed for my operation: 22nd April 2014. I was to have a mastectomy of my right breast, all my lymph nodes removed in my right armpit and an expander implant inserted into my chest, on the right side where the breast used to be. The expander implant was my surgeon's suggestion, this meant that I'd have an empty implant inserted and then once my scar had healed the implant would be slowly filled up with saline to help my skin expand and give me something that looked like a normal breast. The expander implant can only be kept in as a temporary measure so the ultimate aim is the stretch your skin sufficiently to enable the expander to be replaced with a silicone implant at some stage if that's the recon option I choose.
I was fine with all of this, I was happy to have all the surgery I needed to give me the best chance of recovery and the biggest lesson I have learnt through all my treatment is to trust my instincts, how I felt before my operation was exactly how I felt after, nothing had changed, bits of my body had been removed and it looked different but it didn't make me feel any different.
The night before my operation I was scared, I was going to be under general anaesthetic for about four hours, I've never had an operation before, this frightened me. I was scared of not waking up, or waking up and feeling so poorly or in pain that I wished I was still out of it. My Mum (as usual) was a brilliant support, she has had several major surgeries in recent years and she reassured me that I would be OK. I think I just needed to get it off my chest that even though I appeared to be brave, I was actually pretty scared. We were at the hospital the next day at 7am, I hadn't even been awake before 7am in weeks, let alone up and dressed! That was probably the worst thing about Tuesday 22nd April, having to get up at the crack of dawn because the rest of the day could not have gone any better. The first lady on the list for surgery hadn't turned up that day as she was poorly, I was second on the list so it was all systems go to get me ready for theatre.
First they gave me those those horrible surgical stockings to wear, then a Doctor came round to draw some lines on my chest to make sure the surgeon chopped the right boob off. This is where my Mum got upset, she found it hard to watch me getting marked up for surgery, I am young and healthy(ish) and it broke her heart to think that my body was never going to be the same again. So they whisked me off at about 8.30am, my Mum was crying when I went but I was hard as nails, not a tear in sight, this took some determination but I'm very proud to say that I didn't cry. I thought it would be silly to cry about having life saving surgery, I'd got it out of my system the night before. It would have made my Mum feel worse too, knowing I was on my own getting prepped for the op, sobbing my eyes out. The anaesthetist had 2 big syringes to inject into me ( I was very used to big syringes by now and I watch every needle that goes into my body with enthusiastic curiosity) he told me the first one was a painkiller that might make me feel a bit drunk...he was right. Then I asked what the next one was, 'anaesthetic' he replied, that was the last thing I remember for four hours...
Until I woke up in recovery. The memories of everything post op are very vivid and very funny... I was obviously high as a kite on painkillers. I could hear everything going on around me perfectly but I was still so groggy I couldn't open my eyes or speak. I was wheeled back onto the ward and my parents came to the side of my bed, I could hear them, my Mum was holding my hand, I still couldn't speak or open my eyes so I just smiled, as wide as I could to let them know I was OK. In my drugged up state I knew that this was my way of communicating silently to them not to worry, but I just looked like an idiot, it didn't help that they had put my headscarf back on after theatre and it was a bit wonky. My Mum said I looked very funny! I didn't feel sick, I wasn't in any pain at all and I just remember thinking how lovely and comfortable the bed was. I never asked what it was they gave me but it felt lovely. As soon as I was awake enough I wanted to see what my boob looked like, I looked down the front of my hospital gown and was amazed, I was very unprepared for how normal my chest looked, it was as if they had taken all the stuffing out of my boob, cut the nipple off and sewn it up again. All the skin was still there, I didn't have a big crater-like wound on my chest. I got my Mum to have a peep down the gown to see, my Dad couldn't be persuaded to look...
My surgeon came to see me, she said the operation had gone very well and that I could go home that evening if I wanted to. I had to fulfil some criteria before I was allowed to contemplate going home, I had to get up out of bed to walk to the toilet and eat something a bit more substantial than a biscuit. I never believed that it would be this easy, major surgery in the morning and skipping out of the hospital in the evening, except that I had to work out how to manage at home with a drain in. I didn't notice the drain until later on in the afternoon, the tube was poking out of a hole under my armpit, I had never even seen a drain before and now I had one, it was a bit horrible to look at, draining off the extra blood and fluid my body still making for the space where my boob used to be. I had to take it home from the hospital in a special fabric bag that was purpose-made for carrying drains, I even had a choice, checks or stripes? (I went for stripes). The drain stayed in for four days until I went back to the hospital to have it removed. Very slightly annoying trying to get dressed, wash, go to the toilet with a tube poking out your armpit. For once I was so grateful to not have any hair to wash.
I've just realised that I've written this whole post about my mastectomy without a single mention of pain, that's because I didn't suffer any pain, just a weird dull ache. After I came back from theatre the nurses came round to check my pain levels, I didn't have any pain, I kept asking if this was right, was it about to start? Not only had I just had a mastectomy, I also had all of the lymph nodes in my armpit removed, all 13 of them, so there must have been a bit of rooting around in there too but nothing really hurt.
I couldn't wait for the dressings to come off so I could see what my scar looked like, I'm not a squeamish type of person, I have a few scars already so my new one was going to be in good company. I had read up on line about different women's reactions to having surgery for breast cancer, I couldn't relate to it at all, I couldn't imagine feeling 'mutilated' and not being able to look in the mirror at the changes to my body. It never bothered me remotely, I was fascinated with the whole process, it saved my life and I still looked like I had a real boob. I was honestly amazed at what my surgeon had done for me, I was happy to show anyone who expressed a passing interest.
I went back to the surgeon for my results two weeks later, they sent everything they removed to the lab for testing after the operation and they found that the tumour had shrunk from 5cm to 2cm, although there were still active cancer cells in it, of the 13 lymph nodes they removed only one showed evidence of disease and there was no lympho-vascular invasion, meaning that cancer cells had not penetrated the blood vessels in my breast. Good news all round!! Phew, the 6 rounds of chemo were worth it in the end.
Monday, 10 November 2014
One year on
Today is my 'Cancerversary' it's exactly one year to the day since I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I have felt emotional about this recently, going over the memories of that day when I got the news. I knew I would feel this way, I could feel it bubbling under the surface for a while now, since the summer finished and November approached.
I decided the only way to combat the feelings is to turn this day on it's head and celebrate, this time last year I didn't know the extent of my cancer, I didn't know if it was curable or incurable, I didn't know if I would still be alive right now. Even in the last year whilst having treatment I actually thought twice about buying a 2014 diary, I wasn't sure whether to waste £70 getting my passport renewed. But here I am, still standing after 6 months of treatment, sometimes it feels so surreal, like it all happened to somebody else.
A few months ago I met Sarah, a brilliant woman who writes the best blogs about what it's like to experience a cancer diagnosis as a young person. I'll quote directly as she describes it so perfectly:
It's "Not a journey. Not a rollercoaster. It's a whirlwind.
It's unstable, turbulent, dangerous, damaging. You'd like to think that there is some sort of predictability to what will go on, some sort of pattern, but actually the whole experience is very unpredictable. And the whirlwind itself is accompanied by various other storms too. Your world, that you spent your life building and creating, is suddenly ripped apart. It happens out of the blue, and fast. Before you've even had chance to comprehend that a whirlwind just struck, you're seeing a ground zero in the place that used to be your world....
So now you have a choice. Sit around, helplessly looking at the mess, mourning everything you lost. Or, occasional meltdown and tantrum aside, take it as an opportunity to build a fucking ace new world. (I am going with the latter. Obvs.)
Rebuilding is a big job, hard work, takes time, and of course there are points when you're tired, in pain and overwhelmed. (That's when you need those friends with the first aid kits, blankets and cups of tea.) But it's also a really exciting challenge. You get to create a new world. One you can design from scratch, that is perfect for you, that you love to be in. It will be stronger than the last one - you've learned from experience that whirlwinds can strike so you can be much better prepared for any future storms. It will be fit for purpose - you have a much clearer sense of what you want from life and what is and isn't needed for that. Most importantly it will be a beautiful and welcoming world with plenty of room in it for all the other people that you know will make it even brighter, warmer, happier.
As for yourself... A few scars. A few lessons learned. A bit stronger. A clearer perspective. A bit more faith in yourself. A lot of love for a lot of people. A precious life... and this time with an understanding of just how precious it is"
You can read the whole of Sarah's Blog post here, she writes some brilliant stuff.
So today I'm celebrating life, and love, and family, and being alive. Tonight I'll be with my sisters, parents, nieces and brother in law; drinking champagne and setting off fireworks. Living in the moment, appreciating every hug, every smile, every tear. Having been faced with my own mortality I am now incredibly grateful, grateful that my treatment has been successful, grateful for everyone in my life who has helped me through it, grateful to simply wake up every morning. I don't know how many more times I'm going to get the opportunity to celebrate 11th November, so I'm going to make this one count!
I decided the only way to combat the feelings is to turn this day on it's head and celebrate, this time last year I didn't know the extent of my cancer, I didn't know if it was curable or incurable, I didn't know if I would still be alive right now. Even in the last year whilst having treatment I actually thought twice about buying a 2014 diary, I wasn't sure whether to waste £70 getting my passport renewed. But here I am, still standing after 6 months of treatment, sometimes it feels so surreal, like it all happened to somebody else.
A few months ago I met Sarah, a brilliant woman who writes the best blogs about what it's like to experience a cancer diagnosis as a young person. I'll quote directly as she describes it so perfectly:
It's "Not a journey. Not a rollercoaster. It's a whirlwind.
It's unstable, turbulent, dangerous, damaging. You'd like to think that there is some sort of predictability to what will go on, some sort of pattern, but actually the whole experience is very unpredictable. And the whirlwind itself is accompanied by various other storms too. Your world, that you spent your life building and creating, is suddenly ripped apart. It happens out of the blue, and fast. Before you've even had chance to comprehend that a whirlwind just struck, you're seeing a ground zero in the place that used to be your world....
So now you have a choice. Sit around, helplessly looking at the mess, mourning everything you lost. Or, occasional meltdown and tantrum aside, take it as an opportunity to build a fucking ace new world. (I am going with the latter. Obvs.)
Rebuilding is a big job, hard work, takes time, and of course there are points when you're tired, in pain and overwhelmed. (That's when you need those friends with the first aid kits, blankets and cups of tea.) But it's also a really exciting challenge. You get to create a new world. One you can design from scratch, that is perfect for you, that you love to be in. It will be stronger than the last one - you've learned from experience that whirlwinds can strike so you can be much better prepared for any future storms. It will be fit for purpose - you have a much clearer sense of what you want from life and what is and isn't needed for that. Most importantly it will be a beautiful and welcoming world with plenty of room in it for all the other people that you know will make it even brighter, warmer, happier.
As for yourself... A few scars. A few lessons learned. A bit stronger. A clearer perspective. A bit more faith in yourself. A lot of love for a lot of people. A precious life... and this time with an understanding of just how precious it is"
You can read the whole of Sarah's Blog post here, she writes some brilliant stuff.
So today I'm celebrating life, and love, and family, and being alive. Tonight I'll be with my sisters, parents, nieces and brother in law; drinking champagne and setting off fireworks. Living in the moment, appreciating every hug, every smile, every tear. Having been faced with my own mortality I am now incredibly grateful, grateful that my treatment has been successful, grateful for everyone in my life who has helped me through it, grateful to simply wake up every morning. I don't know how many more times I'm going to get the opportunity to celebrate 11th November, so I'm going to make this one count!
Sunday, 9 November 2014
The one where my hair falls out...
Exactly two weeks after my first chemo my hair started to fall out. I knew it was definitely going to happen but the prospect of losing my hair didn't bother me, which is weird as I'm a pretty image conscious person and I love my hair, although I have changed it a lot in the past, long, short, brown, blond...perhaps it was because I wasn't scared to rock a different look for a few months?
I didn't really have much of an idea how it would happen when it did, until I got out of bed one morning and saw that there were quite a lot of hairs on my pillow, not a lot, just a few more than normal. During the day I noticed that more hairs were starting to gather around my collar, and if I pulled a few strands of my hair they came away without resistance, it was a very strange feeling. The next day it was a bit worse, when I brushed my hair, loads came out in my brush, if I washed it even more came out. All this shedding happened in the space of about 4 days, so I stopped washing and brushing it, straightening was also completely abandoned. After the 4th day I decided my hair looked so shit I decided to take control and shave it all off. (This is where I have to thank Stephen Hayes, who kindly lent me the clippers with which the deed was done). I sat on a chair in the kitchen and Mum started by pulling out clumps of hair, a fistful at a time because we thought this would make it easier to shave, then my sister took control of the clippers and shaved my head so it was nice and even. That was it, the one and only time I had to shave it whilst on treatment, until about May this year I had no hair, I had a great collection of hats and scarves that I wore out and about, and a very realistic looking wig that we nicknamed Polly. This is me the day we shaved my hair off.
After my first four cycles of chemo my Oncologist switched me onto a different drug, this came with another load of horrible side effects. But what distressed me the most was that this one made my eyelashes and eyebrows fall out. Up until now I had been able to scrub up OK with some make up and my wig on, if I met up with friends or went out for dinner I looked pretty normal. The picture below is of me with my sisters, after three cycles of chemo. Looking OK!!
I now looked like a cancer patient and I hated it, I had to spend a long time with liquid eyeliner and eyebrow pencils trying to create the illusion of normality. I didn't want the tell-tale signs to show, and the looks of pity when people notice. Once my chemo finished I was on constant eyelash watch, inspecting twice a day for any signs of growth with a bright light and magnifying mirror. Not a day goes by that I put on my mascara without rejoicing in the re-appearance of my eyelashes.
Obviously, hair loss isn't the only side effect of chemo, there are so many weird and horrible things that happen as a result of the drugs. Some last a few days, some last for months afterwards. The first week was always the worst when you have no energy and all the side effects are at their peak, then you gradually start to feel better. I always thought it so cruel that just when you feel back to 'normal' is when you go back to the hospital for another dose of the nasty stuff. I would have all my energy back, I could taste again, I would be bounding up the stairs to the chemo suite for my Oncology appointment the day before chemo, sad in the knowledge that in a few days time I would hardly have the energy to get out of bed.
OTHER WEIRD SIDE EFFECTS
The worst I suffered on chemo was when I had new drugs on my fifth cycle, the chemo gave me such bad stomach pains and joint aches I could hardly eat or sleep for two days, at least I was able to plan my weeks of hibernation after each chemo so that only my family saw me when I felt really bad. One morning really sticks in my memory from that time, I looked awful, with my bald cancer patient face, I had shuffled my aching body downstairs to the kitchen, I was sat at the table eating my breakfast when my nose started bleeding, I just grabbed a tissue and carried on eating... I must have appeared so sickly and pathetic, I don't know how my Mum looked at me that morning without crying. The photos below were only taken a couple of weeks apart after I finished chemo, what a difference a wig and a bit of make up can make!
OTHER WEIRD SIDE EFFECTS
- It's common knowledge that you lose your head hair as a result of chemo, but you really do lose ALL your hair.... armpits, eyebrows, eyelashes, nose hairs ...lady garden. I felt like a baby; bald and chubby.
- Some chemo drugs can cause your nails to fall off, the second of my big toe nails has just come off and I'm 7 months post chemo.
- The anti sickness drugs have their own set of lovely side effects, you're sent home from the hospital with a massive bag of drugs to take for several days...they caused chronic indigestion and constipation, you then need more drugs to make these go away, I had to download an app to keep track of all the tablets, potions and injections!
- Taking a whole pharmacy's worth of drugs on top of the chemo means you can't concentrate properly, I imagined on good days that I'd be happily working my way though Breaking Bad or some other gritty box set. Some days I didn't have the energy or motivation to change channels on the TV let alone anything else.
- Everything you eat tastes like hairspray for about a week. Even cups of tea! You crave savoury food as a result, like when you're hungover. I think I ate my own body weight in baby bels and mini cheddars.
- I had tingly hands and feet, (posh word for this is peripheral neuropathy) it can last for ages. I still have slightly numb feet months later.
- The drugs that made my whole body ache have left me with creaky knees, so no more attempting to 'slut drop' on the dance floors of Leicester, believe me, I tried it and had to bail out halfway down!
The worst I suffered on chemo was when I had new drugs on my fifth cycle, the chemo gave me such bad stomach pains and joint aches I could hardly eat or sleep for two days, at least I was able to plan my weeks of hibernation after each chemo so that only my family saw me when I felt really bad. One morning really sticks in my memory from that time, I looked awful, with my bald cancer patient face, I had shuffled my aching body downstairs to the kitchen, I was sat at the table eating my breakfast when my nose started bleeding, I just grabbed a tissue and carried on eating... I must have appeared so sickly and pathetic, I don't know how my Mum looked at me that morning without crying. The photos below were only taken a couple of weeks apart after I finished chemo, what a difference a wig and a bit of make up can make!
Wednesday, 29 October 2014
My first chemo
Originally I intended to write one post about having chemo, I've had to re-think this, I started writing and I just couldn't stop! I found it hard to condense my ramblings about 18 weeks of weirdness that are quite impossible to describe. Having chemo is like a strange fog descending on you that affects your mind as much as your body, it takes some serious determination to go back for it 6 times, that 6th one was so much more of a mental challenge of endurance than anything physical.
A lot of women with breast cancer have surgery as the first part of their treatment, not me, I was different. My cancer was an aggressive grade 3 tumour and it was discovered that it had already spread to at least one of the lymph nodes in my armpit. Because the cancer cells were on the move around my body already the best way to improve my chances of being cancer free was to blast my whole body with chemo to kill any cancer cells, anywhere. Also, my surgeon wanted to shrink my lump before I had surgery, there could have been a chance I might not need a mastectomy.
My first chemo was scheduled for Thursday 5th December, just 3 weeks after I had been diagnosed. Whenever I tried to imagine what chemo might be like, all I could envisage were scenes off the TV or things I had seen in films where people got really, really sick! I was so scared that this would happen to me. I thought I would be spending the next 18 weeks too tired to get out of bed, throwing up all the time. My surgeon had been very reassuring about the effects of chemo when I was first diagnosed, she said some people don't suffer too badly from side effects and they actually carry on going to work during their treatment, as this was from someone in the medical profession I tended to believe her. My Gran had chemo when she had non-hodgkins lymphoma about 10 years ago and she was never sick.
I always find myself wanting to write 'I don't know how I did it?' and looking back now I think I just went into autopilot, I had no choice but to have chemo, no going back, no running away, what was the alternative? The phrase I used at the time was that I just had to 'suck it up' and that's how I approached the inevitable, with grim determination. Its strange to admit that I had a weird curiosity about how it was going to affect me, when would my hair fall out? What would I look like bald? I spent the 3 weeks before chemo in a hospital whirlwind, having scans and tests, but still working full time, only having time off for appointments, I even went into work the morning before my chemo, I was bonkers. I just wanted that final bit of my normal independent life for as long as possible until I had to put it all on pause to go through treatment.
The actual process of receiving chemo is surreal, having something so poisonous put into your body shouldn't be so relaxed and normal. It's as if you expect a more dramatic fanfare for the hideousness that's about to happen, an explosion, an alarm, an electric shock... The reality is such a non-event. You are handed a cocktail of anti sickness pills to swallow whilst you sit in a comfortable chair with a lovely nurse chatting to you. All the time she is slowly and gently injecting syringe after syringe of toxic chemicals into the canula on your hand. You look round the room and everyone else is the same (albeit a lot older than me!) sitting there patiently waiting for the drugs to go in, no drama, just chatting with a friend or reading a book.
After about an hour, the nurse takes the canula out and you're allowed to go home with just a plaster on your hand and a bag of anti sickness drugs to show for it. You feel pretty much the same as when you walked in. I had a made a chemo plan with my parents, I was going to stay at their house whilst recovering from each chemo so that I could completely relax and concentrate on getting better. So after my first chemo we had to drive back to Solihull, a 45 minute journey, I sat in the back of the car with Mum clutching a bottle of water and a plastic bag in case I was sick. Before I had left the hospital my chemo nurse scared me by saying that if I was going to suffer from sickness it could come on quickly, so I was prepared to put the bag into action at any second.
It never happened, my worst nightmare never actually materialised. Minutes passed, and then hours
passed and I still felt fine. I know I am extremely lucky to have tolerated the chemo this well for the
first few days. I took my anti sickness meds religiously and after 6 days I thought I had got away lightly with the dreaded side effects. Sadly, I was wrong, almost one week after chemo I woke up in the middle of the night , sweating and shivering, with a temperature over 38 degrees. This is what the Oncologist warns you about, this is what the Chemo Information session warns you about, this is why you are given a 24 hour emergency helpline number and a red card to flash in every A&E department to ensure you get treatment immediately. A high temperature is a sign of infection, chemo destroys your natural immune system so you need to go to hospital to be given intra-vinous antibiotics. Damn! I thought I had got away with it, this had just got a lot more serious, up until now I hadn't felt like a cancer patient, I hadn't even lost my hair yet, but now my sister was driving me to A&E in the middle of the night. It was the beginning of the longest six days of my life, I had an allergic reaction to the antibiotics they gave me, then another temperature spike, then my white blood cells went too low for them to allow me home. I was given a private room at the hospital as I had to be protected from infection but there was no phone signal, no wifi, I was so bored, and lonely and miserable.
A few days after I was discharged, my hair started falling out. When I returned to the hospital for my second chemo I felt like I had earned my place in that waiting room, there were no strange stares from other people trying to work out who the patient was, it was bloody obvious now. The photo below is me having my second chemo, on Boxing Day 2013, Merry Flippin' Christmas!!!
A lot of women with breast cancer have surgery as the first part of their treatment, not me, I was different. My cancer was an aggressive grade 3 tumour and it was discovered that it had already spread to at least one of the lymph nodes in my armpit. Because the cancer cells were on the move around my body already the best way to improve my chances of being cancer free was to blast my whole body with chemo to kill any cancer cells, anywhere. Also, my surgeon wanted to shrink my lump before I had surgery, there could have been a chance I might not need a mastectomy.
My first chemo was scheduled for Thursday 5th December, just 3 weeks after I had been diagnosed. Whenever I tried to imagine what chemo might be like, all I could envisage were scenes off the TV or things I had seen in films where people got really, really sick! I was so scared that this would happen to me. I thought I would be spending the next 18 weeks too tired to get out of bed, throwing up all the time. My surgeon had been very reassuring about the effects of chemo when I was first diagnosed, she said some people don't suffer too badly from side effects and they actually carry on going to work during their treatment, as this was from someone in the medical profession I tended to believe her. My Gran had chemo when she had non-hodgkins lymphoma about 10 years ago and she was never sick.
I always find myself wanting to write 'I don't know how I did it?' and looking back now I think I just went into autopilot, I had no choice but to have chemo, no going back, no running away, what was the alternative? The phrase I used at the time was that I just had to 'suck it up' and that's how I approached the inevitable, with grim determination. Its strange to admit that I had a weird curiosity about how it was going to affect me, when would my hair fall out? What would I look like bald? I spent the 3 weeks before chemo in a hospital whirlwind, having scans and tests, but still working full time, only having time off for appointments, I even went into work the morning before my chemo, I was bonkers. I just wanted that final bit of my normal independent life for as long as possible until I had to put it all on pause to go through treatment.
The actual process of receiving chemo is surreal, having something so poisonous put into your body shouldn't be so relaxed and normal. It's as if you expect a more dramatic fanfare for the hideousness that's about to happen, an explosion, an alarm, an electric shock... The reality is such a non-event. You are handed a cocktail of anti sickness pills to swallow whilst you sit in a comfortable chair with a lovely nurse chatting to you. All the time she is slowly and gently injecting syringe after syringe of toxic chemicals into the canula on your hand. You look round the room and everyone else is the same (albeit a lot older than me!) sitting there patiently waiting for the drugs to go in, no drama, just chatting with a friend or reading a book.
After about an hour, the nurse takes the canula out and you're allowed to go home with just a plaster on your hand and a bag of anti sickness drugs to show for it. You feel pretty much the same as when you walked in. I had a made a chemo plan with my parents, I was going to stay at their house whilst recovering from each chemo so that I could completely relax and concentrate on getting better. So after my first chemo we had to drive back to Solihull, a 45 minute journey, I sat in the back of the car with Mum clutching a bottle of water and a plastic bag in case I was sick. Before I had left the hospital my chemo nurse scared me by saying that if I was going to suffer from sickness it could come on quickly, so I was prepared to put the bag into action at any second.
It never happened, my worst nightmare never actually materialised. Minutes passed, and then hours
passed and I still felt fine. I know I am extremely lucky to have tolerated the chemo this well for the
first few days. I took my anti sickness meds religiously and after 6 days I thought I had got away lightly with the dreaded side effects. Sadly, I was wrong, almost one week after chemo I woke up in the middle of the night , sweating and shivering, with a temperature over 38 degrees. This is what the Oncologist warns you about, this is what the Chemo Information session warns you about, this is why you are given a 24 hour emergency helpline number and a red card to flash in every A&E department to ensure you get treatment immediately. A high temperature is a sign of infection, chemo destroys your natural immune system so you need to go to hospital to be given intra-vinous antibiotics. Damn! I thought I had got away with it, this had just got a lot more serious, up until now I hadn't felt like a cancer patient, I hadn't even lost my hair yet, but now my sister was driving me to A&E in the middle of the night. It was the beginning of the longest six days of my life, I had an allergic reaction to the antibiotics they gave me, then another temperature spike, then my white blood cells went too low for them to allow me home. I was given a private room at the hospital as I had to be protected from infection but there was no phone signal, no wifi, I was so bored, and lonely and miserable.
A few days after I was discharged, my hair started falling out. When I returned to the hospital for my second chemo I felt like I had earned my place in that waiting room, there were no strange stares from other people trying to work out who the patient was, it was bloody obvious now. The photo below is me having my second chemo, on Boxing Day 2013, Merry Flippin' Christmas!!!
Monday, 20 October 2014
The day I was diagnosed
My sister Clare set up this blog for me last year, just days after I was diagnosed with breast cancer. It has taken me a while, but I now feel that I'm ready to share my story. The past year hasn't been at all how I expected, I have now finished all my treatment and I'm feeling brilliant. I'm not fighting back the tears as I write this, having had cancer doesn't make me particularly sad, at the moment it makes me incredibly grateful to be alive. But I'll start back at the beginning, in the cold and dark month that was November 2013...
On Monday 11th November 2013 I was told I had breast cancer. I didn't feel like I had cancer, I felt really well, I'd been at the gym the day before, working up a sweat on the cross trainer. I was in total shock, it had been almost a week since I went to the hospital for my tests, but I just never believed it would be cancer. Thinking about it now, the tests were pretty hardcore so they must have suspected something, but I was completely oblivious. I had an ultrasound and they couldn't work out what my lump was, so they did a core biopsy, this involved a local anaesthetic and a scary contraption for gouging out a piece of tissue from inside my boob. I took it all in my stride, totally convinced that my lump was a just a cyst and went back to get my results, on my own.
When you're told you have breast cancer the hospital are kind enough to make sure that there is someone in the room to help you digest the terrible news, they call them Breast Care Nurses, mine was called Nina... I hadn't told a single person that I had found a lump, or gone for tests, so this was the next painful hurdle, telling people. Nina wouldn't let me think about going home that night without me arranging for someone to be there when I got back (I'm single and I live on my own) so I had to call my parents. Thinking about it now, I don't know how I did it, I don't know how I summoned the strength to press the buttons on my phone and physically get the words out. I can't even remember what I said when my Dad picked up the phone. Whatever I managed to say obviously did the trick as they packed some things and drove straight to my house.
As I put the phone down, the enormity of what I had just been told finally sank in, and I started the real crying. The real crying you expect to be doing when you've been given such awful news. Up until now it had just been a low level weeping, but I couldn't hold back any more. All the other reactions you think you might have just never appeared, I didn't fall on the floor, faint, or throw up, apart from a having good old cry I just sat there and calmly digested the facts. I've only experienced this level of sadness about my illness a couple of times, you would think it might be more, I was surprised, it is cancer after all....In those early days I focussed on the long months of treatment I had ahead of me, I felt like I should be saving the hysterical sobbing and dramatics for times when it might be required, I had 4 months of chemo ahead, my hair was going to fall out, I would have a boob chopped off, if I sunk to the depths of despair at the very start, where else was there for me to go?
At this point Nina came in to her own, she gave me a hug and got me some tissues! People have asked why I didn't tell anyone that I was going for tests because then I might have had someone with me for the results, but in hindsight I don't see how that would have helped, who wants to witness that? Someone you love receiving that kind of news? I'm so glad nobody else was there, nobody else has to lie awake at night playing the moment back in their mind like a sad movie.
I stayed at the hospital for about an hour, they wanted me to have a mammogram and do a test on my lymph nodes as they suspected the cancer had spread there too. I felt so guilty walking between the rooms at the hospital with tears streaming down my face, there were worried looking non-cancer ladies sat in the waiting room about to have their tests, I probably put the fear of god into them. I asked Nina if I had mascara all down my face, she said I looked fine, I asked her if I was going to get into trouble as my pay and display ticket had run out, she told me not to worry.
I had a chat with the surgeon who told me I would definitely need chemotherapy, this would be starting first, before the surgery and probably radiotherapy afterwards. They wanted to try and shrink my lump (it measured about 5cm on scans) before operating. I would probably have 6 sessions of chemo, at 3 weekly intervals. I was worried how I was going to cope with chemotherapy, I have a proper phobia of being sick. They sent me home with a handful of leaflets, I had so much to learn about cancer and all the treatments I would be having.
I remember everything about it that night, exactly what I was wearing, what was on the radio when I drove home, but most of all I remember that it wasn't the gut wrenching, soul crushing, despair ridden time I expected it to be. When I got home my parents were already there, I had some food, a glass of wine and watched 'you've been framed', I think I might have even laughed a few times.
On Monday 11th November 2013 I was told I had breast cancer. I didn't feel like I had cancer, I felt really well, I'd been at the gym the day before, working up a sweat on the cross trainer. I was in total shock, it had been almost a week since I went to the hospital for my tests, but I just never believed it would be cancer. Thinking about it now, the tests were pretty hardcore so they must have suspected something, but I was completely oblivious. I had an ultrasound and they couldn't work out what my lump was, so they did a core biopsy, this involved a local anaesthetic and a scary contraption for gouging out a piece of tissue from inside my boob. I took it all in my stride, totally convinced that my lump was a just a cyst and went back to get my results, on my own.
When you're told you have breast cancer the hospital are kind enough to make sure that there is someone in the room to help you digest the terrible news, they call them Breast Care Nurses, mine was called Nina... I hadn't told a single person that I had found a lump, or gone for tests, so this was the next painful hurdle, telling people. Nina wouldn't let me think about going home that night without me arranging for someone to be there when I got back (I'm single and I live on my own) so I had to call my parents. Thinking about it now, I don't know how I did it, I don't know how I summoned the strength to press the buttons on my phone and physically get the words out. I can't even remember what I said when my Dad picked up the phone. Whatever I managed to say obviously did the trick as they packed some things and drove straight to my house.
As I put the phone down, the enormity of what I had just been told finally sank in, and I started the real crying. The real crying you expect to be doing when you've been given such awful news. Up until now it had just been a low level weeping, but I couldn't hold back any more. All the other reactions you think you might have just never appeared, I didn't fall on the floor, faint, or throw up, apart from a having good old cry I just sat there and calmly digested the facts. I've only experienced this level of sadness about my illness a couple of times, you would think it might be more, I was surprised, it is cancer after all....In those early days I focussed on the long months of treatment I had ahead of me, I felt like I should be saving the hysterical sobbing and dramatics for times when it might be required, I had 4 months of chemo ahead, my hair was going to fall out, I would have a boob chopped off, if I sunk to the depths of despair at the very start, where else was there for me to go?
At this point Nina came in to her own, she gave me a hug and got me some tissues! People have asked why I didn't tell anyone that I was going for tests because then I might have had someone with me for the results, but in hindsight I don't see how that would have helped, who wants to witness that? Someone you love receiving that kind of news? I'm so glad nobody else was there, nobody else has to lie awake at night playing the moment back in their mind like a sad movie.
I stayed at the hospital for about an hour, they wanted me to have a mammogram and do a test on my lymph nodes as they suspected the cancer had spread there too. I felt so guilty walking between the rooms at the hospital with tears streaming down my face, there were worried looking non-cancer ladies sat in the waiting room about to have their tests, I probably put the fear of god into them. I asked Nina if I had mascara all down my face, she said I looked fine, I asked her if I was going to get into trouble as my pay and display ticket had run out, she told me not to worry.
I had a chat with the surgeon who told me I would definitely need chemotherapy, this would be starting first, before the surgery and probably radiotherapy afterwards. They wanted to try and shrink my lump (it measured about 5cm on scans) before operating. I would probably have 6 sessions of chemo, at 3 weekly intervals. I was worried how I was going to cope with chemotherapy, I have a proper phobia of being sick. They sent me home with a handful of leaflets, I had so much to learn about cancer and all the treatments I would be having.
I remember everything about it that night, exactly what I was wearing, what was on the radio when I drove home, but most of all I remember that it wasn't the gut wrenching, soul crushing, despair ridden time I expected it to be. When I got home my parents were already there, I had some food, a glass of wine and watched 'you've been framed', I think I might have even laughed a few times.
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