Ear Ear....

What? Eh? Sorry? I can't hear you! That is now me.

After nearly a year of treatments I caught a cold. I'd had no infections at all during Chemo. Fellow chemo-ites fell by the wayside, but not me! My Manuka honey, ginger and Green tea built up a defence to help with my non existant immune system. It was probably more to do with luck really, well that and removing myself from society! So just when I thought I was safe, I succumbed to a sore throat, a thick head, dribbly nose and gunky eye. Then one afternoon my head kind of filled up. Felt like all my sinuses were full and my ears were underwater. My ear did a few loud popping noises then a mega loud long slow scratch like a needle dragging across a record and my ear starting to leak! My eardrum had perforated!!! I didn't have a clue it was going to happen. If I'd had warning I would have done all those blocked sinus things like steaming and hanging your head over the end of the bed! But no warning, just bang, perforated. Because it was leaking, I stuck cotton wool in my ear and looked like one of those sad people trying to say....look at me, I've got earache! Next day the doctor prescribes antibiotics and tells me to stay away from anyone with infections. She also says it will take a minimum of four weeks to repair itself!! Four weeks!!! It's driving me nuts. Push the palm of your hand flat against your ear, that's what it's like, deaf but with a swooshy noise. The weird thing is, I can't tell where any noise is coming from. If my phone is on my deaf right side, I hear it in my left side and so look to the left. I become very puzzled as to why I can hear my phone but can't see it!! I have sympathy now for those cotton wool ear types!


The really bothersome thing about it is my Herceptin treatment got postponed for a week. I know it's only a week but I didn't want to see that end date get extended. I had been lucky and had been well enough to not have any treatments postponed until now.

On the positive side, I'm sleeping really well, because if I lie on my good ear, I can't hear a blinkin thing and nothing is disturbing me!

Five to go......

Be careful what you wish for....

Tomorrow is two thousand and sixteen
Changes are ahead of which I'm very keen
My body is becoming chemical free
Which means a more normal furry me
Oh yes, my hair is slowly returning!
It's a state I have been yearning
I've now got tiny little eye lashes
My brows are rows of dots and dashes
Once naked nostrils are no longer bare
The covering on my head is soft and fair
Actually it's soft and grey
But grey is cool now so they say
The colour doesn't matter to me
I just look forward to being wig free
It's not yet quite long enough
For my head to be in the buff
So slowly grows all the hair I want to see
Speed up please I'm impatient me
For the place that is growing so very fast
Is not on my head or lashes, they are last
It is my legs, yes my legs have lots of hair
It's some kind of retribution I could swear!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!! xx

Radiotherapy

One week of Radiotherapy done, 4 weeks to go. My very first session had me giggling to myself. They have to line you up to the dots tattooed on your body, this takes a bit of time and patience on the first session. They had trouble lining me up, the Radiographers were shifting me slightly up, down, side to side. The lady radiographer in charge happened to have a German accent, and I struggled not to giggle when she said “You may zink you are lying down properly but you are not. Get up, get up. Walk around ze bed and get back on”. So I did, rather briskly, given that I was naked from the waist up and was following orders!!!! I lay back down. “Zat is better”, thankfully my dots lined up this time, I was not looking forward to what may happen next if they had not! The Radiography itself is rather strange. The zapping bit of machinery is positioned and the Radiographers leave the room. There is no window from their room but there are cameras so I assume they can see me. When they leave they switch the lights on, so there is no visual indication of any zapping. The only noise is a bit of clunking. It feels rather odd, perhaps vulnerable, you lie there still and semi naked as they remotely operate the equipment and then wait for them to reappear to move the equipment to its next position. You don't know if it has finished or not. I have wondered if they grab a quick coffee before coming back because it does take a while sometimes. It's also occurred to me that if anything happened to them, how long would I lie there for? At what point would I think they are not coming back and decide to get up?? “You vill lie there until I zay” ran through my mind!! At what point would I defy the authorities and just get up? Would the machine still be issuing radiation rays and would I get zapped in the brain as I sat up? Luckily at this point the Radiographers did reappear, actually it didn't take too long, just enough time for my overactive imagination to have kicked in!!

The only side effects so far are lightheadedness, feeling very tired and bit off my food. I also have one slightly tanned boob (or toasted as my Mother In Law said!). All of which are nothing compared to Chemo. My wonderful MIL has been taking me there and back and we have of course disseminated the others in the waiting room! Most people are lovely though, apart from the ones the MIL has heard moaning about having to have treatment! Not sure if they think about what may happen to them if they don't have treatment! Takes all sorts.

On a nice Christmassy note, I went to my works Christmas party. I managed a couple of dances and a couple of glasses of wine but then I needed to lie down and people may have wondered why I was lying on the carpet under the table (but then again from previous years, maybe not!), so I headed home at 10pm. Am glad I went but suffered for it the next day. It was my cancer treatment equivalent of a hangover! Loved seeing all my work friends though. Fab people xx.

Last Chemo Tomorrow!

My last Chemo is tomorrow!  

What a momentous occasion!  I am so excited, not because any lingering cancer cells will have been killed off by the end of this treatment, nope, I am excited because I won't have to go through side effects again and a bit of normality will return.  Oh my good God what a relief that will be. To counter my unbounding joy at this, I have got a year of Herceptin injections ahead and we don't know yet what the side effects of that will be as the two injections I've had, have been at the same time as Chemo. 

But I am choosing to ignore that, I've decided that it won't affect me at all. So back to the positive stuff.

I can't wait to feel normal again (what is normal? My normal!).  No more feeling yuckety yuck.  Plus plus plus....My hair will start to grow.  I can't wait to have hair again.  I will never diss my thin lacklustre locks again! I want hair!!  Any will do.  It will be whatever colour comes through, mouse with grey I think.  I've not seen my own colour since I was 14 when me and Karen Harris started splashing lightening setting lotion on our heads!  No such thing as home highlight kits then!!  So mouse grey will do.  It may also grow back curly, so grey afro here we come!  They say it may come back thicker which would be amazing, but I'm not greedy, thin and scraggy will do!!!!  Eyelashes too!  I've missed my eyelashes!  How daft is that? When I rub my eyes it just feels wrong.  I miss putting on mascara.  I've got false lashes but it's really hard to put them on without an existing line of lashes to guide you.  My eyebrows were never thick, a youth spent overplucking to blame for that,  but to have a complete line would be lovely.  As for hairy annoying legs, armpits, moustache, chin, nose, lady bits, well you can keep all that! That's been the one and only good thing!!!!  I should have been listing all the yuck stuff that happens and saying I'm so glad this is the last time for all of that, but just take that as read.  I'm just excited about hair!!!  Am I shallow?  I think I must be.  But who cares?!!  Just give me hair!!  My nails are another matter, I think they may take longer.  They are currently starting to show signs of distress and it may take a good few months for it to grow out, so I'm ignoring them for now.

Apart from the shallow stuff above, I also can't wait to go out. Out anywhere!  Because my immune system drops down to nothing on this second drug regime, I took the decision (mine not Docs) not to risk mixing with people and picking up infections.  I have injections for 8 days after the Chemo to help boost my count back up, so why would I want to undo all the good I've done?  So apart from the hospital, I have been nowhere.  After this next lot of side effects are done, in three or four weeks time or so, I'm going shopping!  I'm going to stand in the city centre and see more people than I have done for God knows how long and I'm going out for a meal and I'm going into the office.  Freedom!!!!

Just slowly and gently, I'm not going to go crazy, I need to build my body back up. I feel like a gorilla born in captivity that they slowly reintroduce to the wild!!!

So it's hair, shops, meals, work (yes sadly).

I can not wait.

Look for Lumps = Look for Life

Be honest ladies, how many of you have run your fingers over what felt like a lump, had a mini electric shock of fear course through you, then hurriedly move your fingers away and ignored what you may have just found?  

My hands are up, I've done it in the past!  My boobs are naturally lumpy anyway and whenever docs and nurses had a rummage in them, they always found something, but it was always a harmless natural lumpiness.  Anything that I found I always put down to that too. I quite simply sectioned it off to those compartments that us girls have in our heads, that are titled "nothing to be worried about". We don't want to make a fuss and take up the time of NHS staff for simply nothing. But that really isn't the right attitude nowadays.  

I bet you will know not only 1 person with Breast Cancer, but more likely at least 2 or 3 if not more.  You may even know people that have passed away from it.  It does seem to be everywhere now.

Thankfully when I felt my lump, I just knew it was a nasty one.  It felt different.  But I did have that fleeting moment of thinking "Ignore it", seriously I did!  Luckily that disappeared from my brain in a nanosecond.  But what if it hadn't?  What if I had ignored it?  Not wanted to make a fuss, not wanted to go through the awful waiting for results? The period of keeping it quiet in case it was nothing and I looked a fool for making a song and dance over nothing? Quite simply, my lump would have grown and spread, I would be looking at a very different scenario than the one presently before me.  

Once you can feel a lump it has the ability to spread, this means you have to leap into action, not sit around pondering whether to do anything about it!   Did you watch "The C-Word" recently on BBC1?  It was raw watching for me as I had only just been diagnosed, but a Mammographer that I know, reported an increase of 30 women who, following the programme, noticed changes in their boobs and followed it up, 3 of those women were diagnosed with Breast Cancer.  That was just in one hospital in one town.  Potentially that one programme has saved 100's of lives.

So you see if you find it early enough and follow it up, you may well save your life!  We have to accept that Breast Cancer is out there and its likely to get you, so let's stop it in its tracks!

I want looking for lumps not to be equated with a dire outcome, but a positive one, looking for lumps should equal looking for life.  Go looking for lumps, understand your boobs, know their road map, know how they feel throughout your cycle, you will then stand a good chance of feeling any changes and acting upon them straight away, look for life.  Impress on your daughters and granddaughters that this should become a habit for life.  I support the Coppafeel charity because they start with the youngsters, they offer a free checking reminder service. Take up that service whatever age you are.  Lets make lump finding a positive thing. Please also remember it's not just lumps, but any other changes too.  Get to know your boobs!

I've had the results of my scans

I've had the results of my scans......

We had been fairly petrified of what we were going to hear, a bad result meant we could be given a scenario of how many years I had left, but praise the Lord and hallelujah, the results were, no secondaries! This means my cancer has been contained, so my surgery and chemo etc should all be effective at knocking it on the head! (We will need to wait until treatment is finished for those results). So at this moment, after the scan results, I am very grateful and much relieved!

But....

I have to say "But". Why? Not because I am the most negative, pessimistic soul ever, but because I am a realist. I like to have all my facts and figures, know what the reality is, decide on my course of action. I also say "But" because I need to look after everyone around me. I need to be careful with their emotions and feelings. I care for them because they care for me. If after my treatment, I was to say I'm "all clear" they will quite rightly rejoice and feel relieved!! However if after 1 year, 5 years or 10 years, my cancer comes back, they may think, she told me she was all clear, what has she done to herself? Did she not look after herself? Didn't she do all the correct things she was supposed to do? I know they may think this, because I've thought it myself of other people. Have you not been a little bewildered by people you've known who have gone through all the chemo etc and said they've beaten it, but a year or so later it returned? I was. I now know that it comes from a complete lack of understanding of how breast cancer behaves, or rather misbehaves! This is how it goes, the surgery, chemo and radiotherapy should kill off anything that exists. The hormone and targeted therapies will help to reduce the risk of recurrence. So BC can then just decide to pop up again either as a repeat of the first time or as secondaries in other parts of the body. This is where my "But" comes in, I know my statistics, I am aware. I have less chance of recurrence than someone who smokes dying prematurely, 50% of smokers will. Most smokers live in a dream world of denial. I'm not in denial. If cancer dares to strike me again in the future, I will be prepared. If I told people it was beaten and then it came back, how puzzled and mystified would they feel? I have accepted, that albeit in the low percentages of chance, there is a possibility it could return, the rate is approx 25%. (To all smokers out there, look at me and realise that I have a better chance of living longer than you!!! That might make you give up!!). The recurrence rate is roughly the same for all Breast Cancer club members. It's the only cancer where you can't say after five years it's all clear, because it can come back after even 20 years! You can however, say that your cancer has been treated. Treated and cured, I have learned, are two different things. Now please believe me when I say I am incredibly positive and I am not being negative in any way, I am just being realistic. I have a future. A future filled with laughter and love, my future. What this future will have to contain though is for any lumps, bumps, aches or pains that arise, I will have to view them with a little more suspicion. Now trust me, I can handle that! The answer I will be looking for is, there is nothing wrong. I will not be spending my life thinking it may be cancer, now that is negative! However it is a conundrum, looking for lumps and aches all the time is negative, but ignoring them is negative! What's the one thing that we are all persistently told? Examine yourself, get it checked out. So why then after a diagnosis would you not follow that advice? It is the most positive action ever. I've saved my life once already by finding my lump in time, I'm definitely up for saving it again should those pesky blighters dare to return!! I believe taking a pro-active stance is positive. This can't be viewed as having a negative outlook. So when I say I have "no secondaries...But" you now know that it's a positive thing to say "But", it will help those around me to deal with possible future shock and most importantly, it may well just save my life! Again.