Jack of All Trades, Mother of Two

 I was inspired to write this by something that the Princess of Wales said recently about her own cancer journey as it really resonated with me. Basically she was talking about the hardest time being after you’ve finished active treatment. I read it and thought God, she is so right! So you finish your last active treatment (for me that was radiotherapy) and you ring the bell. I’m sure some people think you ride off into the sunset on a bloody unicorn after that! I had a friend stop me in the street this week. I hadn’t seen her for a bit and the first thing she said to me was “are you back to normal now?” I physically restrained myself from saying no I’m not back to fucking normal and just smiled and said that I was ok. It struck me after this that many people probably don’t realise what actually does happen next so I want to talk a bit about what’s been going on with me lately. I was given about 3 weeks off after finishing radiotherapy and then it was back to the oncologist. I had ...

So I haven’t posted for a bit as basically all my energy has gone into surviving chemo. Anyway, I had my last chemo 6 days ago and although I feel like absolute crap, it’s good to know that it is finished and I will feel better very soon! I didn’t see any point in going through every infusion in detail so I’ve tried to think of things that I would have thought were useful to know, so here goes - Chemo is fucking hard! But you will get through it especially if you take it just one day at a time. Cold capping works for some people but there’s no guarantee. I’ve kept maybe 40-50% of my hair but the lady next to me at chemo lost the lot. However it’s worth remembering that cold capping protects hair follicles so you will hopefully get regrowth quicker. Keep a diary of your side effects. They tend to occur on the same days so it’s good to know what to expect! HYDRATE! This is really important both before and after each infusion. Beforehand it helps your veins stand out which is particularly...

 So it’s over a week since my first chemo infusion and I seem to be dealing with most of the weird side effects ok now although it’s scary to think that I have five more infusions to go and the effects are cumulative so I can expect the side effects to get worse! It’s a very long process to go through! Firstly I had a heating pad on the back of my hand for about 20 minutes to try and make my veins more visible. I have tiny veins so they are always an issue! I then had the cannula inserted and a saline drip started while they sorted out my cold cap. This is supposed to help me keep at least some of my hair and works by freezing the hair follicles. Imagine the worse brain freeze that you’ve ever had from eating ice cream too fast and then multiply that by 100. That’s what the first 10 minutes felt like to me. I considered giving up but thankfully my head went numb so it became bearable. The cold cap takes 30 minutes to get cold enough then stays on through the whole infusion and for ...

 It’s been quite a hard seven days, to be honest. I had my first medical oncologist appointment in which they set out the treatment plan for me. This involves them bombarding you with information and getting you to sign consent forms for various things. The good news was that chemo is shorter than expected with only six infusions. The thing that is causing me a lot of stress is the hormone therapy that will follow active treatment. They want me to take an aromase inhibitor for 10 years plus infusions of a bisophosphate every six months for three years. This appears to be the NHS standard care for post menopausal women.  I was sent home with additional info to read about all this when I got home and that’s when I started to see problems. All aromas inhibitors contain lactose. I am strongly lactose intolerant. The inhibitors also thin your bones. I already have arthritis in my back and both knees. The 3 years of bisophosphate infusions are supposed to counteract the bone thinnin...

 So here we are again. I’m now 6 days post a full mastectomy and I’m actually feeling ok. Physically I have very little pain. Whether this is due to nerves being cut, I don’t know. I also have a wound vac across my chest at the moment which may be protecting me from soreness. That’s due to be removed tomorrow and replaced with a normal dressing so I’ll find out then if pain levels rise. This nifty little gadget is called a Pico Vac and is supposed to make healing much quicker! So I lose that tomorrow but I also have a surgical drain to get rid of excess fluid. That stays in until the fluid draining is less than 30ml for 2 days. Yesterday it was 70ml so I’m heading in the right direction. The actual operation day was fairly smooth. I’d pleaded with my consultant and he’d put me first on the list this time so no hanging around this time. The only hiccup was when the anaesthetist had got the cannula in my hand to administer the meds (I have very small veins so that’s a bit of an achie...

 So about a month ago I went back to see my consultant for a post op check up and to get my pathology results. I went in there feeling pretty good and expecting just to talk about radiotherapy. Ha! I couldn’t have been more wrong!! Firstly the pathology results. I knew there were 3 small tumours but pathology found an extra one making four in total. They also found 3 clusters of DCIS which is a type of non invasive cancer that has the potential to become invasive. Also surgery did not have clear margins on one side. All the lymph nodes were removed, I knew the 2 biopsied had cancer cells but pathology found 7 positive nodes out of the 22 removed. None of this was good news! The amount of tumours and the unclear margin made a mastectomy a necessity. The number of positive lymph nodes meant the chances that this had spread elsewhere had increased. My consultant said I would need a bone scan and ct scan before progressing. He tried to reassure me that the surgery had got all the visib...