Just like some people do crosswords, bake, crochet, or play guitar to unwind or relax, I like to write stuff. It’s something I have done since I was a child. From short stories to song lyrics to complete nonsense, I find it therapeutic and it keeps me sane.
And although I really appreciate your lovely comments and support I don’t write these blogs for platitudes, I pour my story onto these pages to hopefully be informative to anyone in a similar boat but mainly as an outlet, because, without it, I’d probably explode. And that would be messy (clean up in Aisle 6).
My cancer story certainly doesn’t make me inspirational or special. I am just one of 2.3 million women worldwide diagnosed with breast cancer annually, who get up, straighten our wigs/headscarves, put one foot in front of another as we go about our day, and do our best.
And that day could mean we are either cartwheeling like Simone Biles or rolling around on the floor like Raygun. And after the last chemo dose, and being a good girl and taking my tablets, I was thankfully doing more handstands than floor shuffles post-chemo. Steve the Steroids were an absolute game changer. Hubby found me at 5am one morning wide-eyed and beavering away on my laptop bashing out an idea to hold a charity fundraiser like a woman possessed. Pharmaceutical drugs have their benefits! You get shit done.
So, what else has happened these last three weeks I hear you ask? Well, my eyebrows have finally given up and disappeared and I’m down to about a dozen eyelashes! Strange how bland your face looks without hair. And the big question is, where does this hair go? Because it ain’t on the pillow.
Meanwhile daughter returned from her 12-month stint in South Africa, although before she could say “When I was in Africa…” I packed her and her brother off for a holiday in the UK to visit family, whilst hubby and I managed a couple of very relaxing and peaceful nights away up in the mountains just an hour away from home for our 10th wedding anniversary.
Unfortunately, at the same time I got an ingrowing hair on my leg (the irony of which did not go unnoticed in my hairless state) which became infected resulting in me shuffling around with a gammy leg on top of looking like Bod. But it was a quirky beautiful place to hobble around and nap in, if nothing else 😊
This afternoon I’m off for my penultimate chemo after yesterday’s bloods and consultancy with the returning Dr. Kildare looking very tanned and refreshed after his holidays.
We talked about my baps and impending operation.
I’ve always been reasonably comfortable with my boobs. Fed two children and although these puppies have long since headed south for winter, I’ve never been vain enough to give it much concern.
However, one is now trying to kill me, and that has brought a level of hostility into the game.
The discussion with the doctors to date has been lumpectomy and when treatment began I had a ‘marker’ inserted which was basically a big needle that pumped (as I understand it) a sesame seed-sized piece of titanium at the source of the cancer. So once the chemo has shrunk all the cancerous cells surrounding the tumour the surgeons can go in and find the naughty little beastie which started all this and chop the bugger out. They will also whisk out any underarm lymph nodes which are still harbouring the nasty cancer cells.
I enquired about a double mastectomy. Being either flat-chested, or having some nice pert plastic ones is a preferable option to recurrence and going through all this ever again. One benefit is no radiotherapy after a mastectomy.
But according to Dr Kildare the likelihood of the cancer returning to the breast with Triple Negative (ie: non hormonal breast cancer) is slim. If anything if it returned it would head elsewhere (oh joy) so a mastectomy is not always the best option (unless you have the BRCA genetic gene of course).
A Canadian study of 661,000 women with breast cancer of various stages/types found that those who underwent a lumpectomy or mastectomy had only a 7 per cent chance of it reappearing in the other breast.
Like anything, if you look hard enough there are studies for and against both options.
In reality, it’s like tossing a coin with two tails on it.
So now waiting for the surgeon to call me in for a consultation to examine me more thoroughly and discuss the options ready for a surgery date probably end of September.
In the meantime one more chemo about to be ticked off. And that is something definitely worth attempting a headspin for.
two steps freelance 