First scan results are in

It's taken me a while to get this latest update written, the week of my scan results was pretty hectic and then I went away on holiday for a few days with my family.  So far it's good news, the chemo seems to be working, the timing is perfect because my side effects have been getting a bit worse recently. It's so nice to know that it's worth going through all the crap for a positive result.

I had my CT scan a couple of weeks ago now on 31st July and was due to get the results the following Tuesday.  Unfortunately the results weren't back in time for my appointment with oncology on the Tuesday so I had to wait a bit longer, a bit of an anticlimax! The registrar (Dr B) said that he would call me as soon as he got the results and let me know.  He called me the following afternoon to tell me that firstly the scan showed shrinkage in the cancer in my lymph nodes and secondly it showed that I had a blood clot near my liver which had restricted the flow of the iodine contrast dye injection during the scan and they couldn't get a good picture. Although he did stress that there was nothing on the scan to worry about at the moment, what they could see of my liver was fine.  Although Dr B wasn't worried about the blood clot posing a threat to my health, he still wanted me to come in to the hospital as soon as possible for some blood tests and to be given a course of blood thinning injections.

So the chemo is carrying on as normal, every week as long as my white blood count is high enough,. I've done 10 treatments so far, I think I could end up having 18 in total, so I'm more than half way through.  I do my injections at home for the blood thinning and am waiting to ask more questions about treatment plans and liver scans at my oncology clinic appointment next week.

Latitude - I almost didn't make it

Last weekend was quite a roller coaster but it had a happy ending with me having an brilliant time at Latitude Festival. The drama started at 5.30am on Thursday morning (the day before I was due to go) when I woke up feeling hot, I took my temperature and it was 38.4! Not good, so I took my duvet off, opened the window and tried to cool down, I took my temperature again after about 30 minutes, it was still above 38.  First rule of chemo club is high temperature = bad news, call the emergency number straight away, follow their instructions.  Shit, all I could think about was having to miss Latitude, it had been booked for months before I was re-diagnosed and I was determined to go. I waited until 7am and woke up my older sister who was staying in my spare room.  I felt fine, just hot, when I had a high temperature on chemo before I felt awful, I felt sick and couldn't stop shivering.  This was different, not nearly as bad, but as I had a temperature it could be a sign of an infection in my body, I have to be super vigilant about this.  The lovely nurse I spoke to on the phone said I should come into the assessment unit, get my blood tested and to pack an overnight bag just in case.... Eeeek!

I arrived at the LRI Osborne assessment unit at 8am, for what turned out to be a very long day.  The nurses were amazing, explained everything that was happening, they took a load of blood, pumped me full of antibiotics (the type I'm not allergic to, having chemo twice does have its upsides!) and I waited for the results to come back.  It took a few hours, but finally good news...no sign of infection, or anything wrong with my blood tests, I was free to have my chemo! I have never been so happy to be told this before, I nearly skipped round to the chemo unit.

My chemo didn't quite go to plan though, the chemo drug I'm having every week can cause my body to have an allergic reaction, this happened before on my third week, and on Thursday it happened again.  When it happens, I get a really tight chest, short of breath and my face goes bright red.  I have to push the emergency button for a nurse and they stop the chemo drugs going in for a bit, I get injected with some more drugs to counteract the reaction, and then the nurses start the chemo again at a slower rate. It's all hands on deck when someone gets an allergic reaction on the chemo suite, they bring over the oxygen tank and everything.  Luckily it only takes a few minutes to make me feel OK again and then I go back to reading Grazia, or fall asleep in the chair.  It can be bit scary when you are short of breath but I know what's happening now so it doesn't bother me too much, I'm just determined to get to all of the drugs in and not have my chemo delayed.

I had so many needles and drugs that day I was high as a kite, 1 blood test, 2 canulas, antibiotics, piriton, ranitidine, steroids, avastin, paclitaxel, hydrocortisone, more steroids and more piriton. Nine hours at the hospital in total, my sister waited patiently through all of it armed with snacks and didn't mind me nodding off for hours in the chair.  

When I woke up on Friday morning I felt fine, so I went to Latitude.  Yipppeeee.

My oncologist was right!

I have had 4 weekly treatments of chemo so far and I'm happy to report that my Oncologist was right, it's not been too bad! Phew.  I was scared about the level of fatigue, and how I would cope going back to work and achieving a balance where I'm still not too tired to see friends for dinner or do a trip to the supermarket.  I'm relieved I've not had any problems so far,  I'm more tired than normal but it's really manageable, oh and I get nosebleeds and a sore throat, but thats quite minor on the side effects scale.  Life goes on wonderfully normally at the moment, except for the weekly trips to the hospital.

When I had chemo before for my primary diagnosis, the dose was so strong that I used to leave hospital with big bags of drugs to combat all the side effecta, I had 3 types of anti sickness tablets, antibiotics to combat any possible infection, injections to boost my white blood cell count, laxatives to counteract the anti sickness medication that bungs you up.  This time is very different, I only have my indigestion tablets to take in the morning and the rest of the week no drugs.  It really helps to keep my brain clear and I feel like less of a cancer patient because of it.

There is one big side effect that's starting to happen...my hair is falling out, not as fast as last time but it's getting more and more each day.  It's held onto my head with a combination of hairspray and hope at the moment.  I'm going away with my boyfriend this weekend and I'm desperately hoping that it stays put for another couple of days.  Most of my morning routine is spent collecting up the hair....off my pillow, from the plug hole, out of the brush, from the bedroom floor.  I am prepared with a lovely new wig for when the time comes to say goodbye to my real hair.  I've gone all out this time and got an expensive one, this is when it seems perverse to appreciate having cancer for a second time, I know all the tricks, the best wig shops to go to and I don't feel like a rabbit in the headlights this time. So very soon I'll be sporting my super wig, she's called 'Cody' (not my choice, this is what it says on the tag).

As far as success of the treatment goes, I should be getting a CT scan around week 12 (mid to end August) this will monitor the effect the chemo and Avastin have had on my lymph nodes and liver.  In the interim my Oncologist has said that the weekly blood tests I have could also show an indication of the success of the treatment, they monitor my liver function and calcium levels in the blood so will see if anything major is going wrong with my liver and bone mets.

The photo below is of the hanging basket my Dad bought me, he's jet washed my patio, bought me new flowers and donated a table and chairs.  It's the practical things he can do because he can't control what's happening to me health wise, and it's so lovely to sit out in the summer evenings and have my dinner Al fresco.  It's the little things that count when you're going through crap like this, we both love fuschias and I sent this photo yesterday to prove that I had kept them alive.

Then some more of me having a lovely time with my best friends and family (hair still clinging on).

Diagnosis #2 cancer comes back

I've wanted to write another update for days now but I've not been able to find the right words. So I've decided there are no right words because all the words to describe my latest diagnosis are wrong and scary but most of all just bloody depressing.  This is my problem, I want people that care about me to know what's happening but I don't want anyone to be sad for me, I'm not upset, I don't cry and I don't want anyone else to either.

I now have secondary breast cancer, otherwise called metastatic breast cancer or stage IV cancer.  It's when cancer cells from the original breast tumour spread around the body to other areas, I have cancer cells in the lymph nodes of my chest and neck and also in my liver.  This type of cancer is incurable.  The terminology in the cancer world is very specific, I'm not 'terminally ill', the way it is viewed at this point is similar to having a chronic illness where my condition can be stabilised or controlled for some time through medical treatment. Nobody can predict right now the amount of time I'll have, it depends on how well I respond to the wonderful drugs the NHS have on offer.

Since my last post I have now met with my lovely new oncologist and have a treatment plan.  First step is more chemo, I'll be having weekly doses of Paclitaxel via IV infusion, starting on Tuesday.  It's a lower dose than the chemo I had before and it's given on a weekly basis, I've been told that the side effects should be minimal and my immunity to infection won't be as low as when I had chemo before.  I'm hoping to be able to continue working, just on reduced hours and more importantly keep seeing all my friends and family as much as I possibly can.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I'll be well enough to make it to Latitude Festival in July.

I'm taking part in a clinical trial for this next round of treatment, it's to test a new targeted therapy drug along with the chemo. There's still a 50/50 chance I will get the placebo instead of the real drug but it means my response to treatment is going to be closely monitored over the next few months, more so than if I wasn't on the trial.  My Oncologist is also sending me for more gene testing, as I'm young with triple negative breast cancer it's likely to be a genetic fault that has caused me to be susceptible but not one of the main BRCA genes I've already been tested for.

So that's the sciencey bit over with.  Coming to terms with my new situation has been surreal, I always thought I would lose control if this ever happened and have to live out the rest of my days high on Valium.  It's all felt weirdly calm and after a week spent with my family I went back to work. I have just been carrying on as normal, pretending like nothing happened.  At the moment there are two things I'm very grateful for: going to the doctors as soon as I found the lump above my collarbone and then delaying getting my results until after my trip to Paris.  I had an amazing time, even cancer couldn't ruin it.

I'm sorry for the downbeat nature of this blog, I had an overwhelming desire to spell out the facts first  and then I'll follow up with the most sickeningly, life affirming blogs you've ever read.  I promise! 

Me and my wonderful friends in Paris, nearly 20 years of good times and lots more to come ! 

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

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...

Don't you know I'm still standing better than I ever did
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'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!!

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!

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

• 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! 

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!!!

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.