Jack of All Trades, Mother of Two

 I thought I would just cover a few things here that anyone who is themselves or who has a loved one going on this rollercoaster journey like me, might find useful or interesting. 1. You will feel better once you’re home, everyone does, but don’t expect to feel normal! Get help, don’t do too much and if help isn’t automatically offered then demand it!! 2, if you come home with a drain, stick it in a tote bag that you can put on your shoulder. Easiest way to carry it and not forget it.  3. Take the painkillers and don’t be a hero! You will know your own pain tolerance so judge it accordingly. For me, so far paracetamols have been enough. I took codeine once but didn’t like how I felt. 4. Your bowels will be a bit buggered up. Surgery does this and codeine can make it worse. I was given medicine to help and also am eating fruit and prunes! 5. Rest but walk as well! Energy levels will vary but I have found that once I started walking more, my general health felt better. 6. Do you...

 Well, here I am! Operation was on Wednesday and today is Friday. It’s been quite an intense few days. So we were told to get to the hospital by 8am on Wednesday to have guide wires inserted. This is when they use ultrasound to place wires into the areas to be removed to help guide the surgeon.  Only issue was that the radiologist had called in sick. They had managed to get another one to cover but we had to wait for her arrive. It was about 10 when she saw me. I was supposed to have 2 wires inserted - one for Damien the bastard tumour and one for an area that hadn’t been biopsied but that looked a bit suspicious. The radiologist though spotted a 3rd tiny area that she felt looked dodgy. She wanted to put a wire in it to ensure it was taken out too but had to get my surgeon to agree first. He was in theatre so there was a huge delay but he did agree. So by lunchtime I had 3 wires stuck in my boob and was waiting on the ward. Now I’d been told my op would be at 8:30am but at th...

 I didn’t expect to feel so tired when I haven’t even started treatment yet and I’m still 10 days from surgery. Apparently Damien the bastard tumour may be releasing proteins into my bloodstream that can cause fatigue, that’s nothing to do with it spreading, by the way. Also I’m taking no supplements at the moment so my hormones are completely mental which may account for some of the fatigue. Plus stress is probably another factor! As for fear. It’s there all the time. After diagnosis I had to go to bed completely exhausted so my mind didn’t start the spiral of blind panic. Now it’s pretty much a constant low level of fear with moments still of knee trembling terror. I think it’s normal to be scared and also I’m not good at waiting for things. It’s also a lack of control and fear of the unknown. So much depends on the surgery. It goes well with clear margins and my treatment plan simplifies. Worse case scenario means another 8 hour surgery with 12 weeks recovery. Then chemo, radiot...

Ok, deep breath, here I go. So breast cancer has been a lurking presence in my life for a long time. My mum had it twice. First time she had a lumpectomy and radiotherapy. Second time after repeated lumpectomies she ended up with a mastectomy and a decade on hormone treatment. I had it drummed into me about how to check and what to do to mitigate the fact that I was higher risk because of my mum.  Anyway on 26th April I found a tiny lump while in the shower. We were going to Coventry that weekend so I brooded on it until Monday and then pulled on my big girls pants and got an emergency doctors appointment. She confirmed it was there and very small (1-2 cm) she referred me immediately to the hospital and I got an appointment for 9th May.  I spent the time waiting for the appointment googling different things it could be apart from cancer. My appointment included a multitude of tests. I had a mammogram first, then a second one with higher contrast,  then an ultrasound where...

  I’ve always had stomach issues. It dates back to a particularly bad bout of gastroenteritis I caught in Ibiza when I was nineteen which resulted in me losing half a stone in five days and having to fly home early. The aftereffects lasted for a few years until I had a colonoscopy and my consultant prescribed me tablets that he said were strong enough to kill any unknown lurking parasites.   After this my stomach problems rumbled on and on and I learnt to deal with it. It got worse again about 18 years ago, and my doctor diagnosed IBS and a bowel infection. It was easy after this to assume that every stomach flare up or issue was IBS.   Things only changed earlier this year when I noticed that my stomach was worse after a few particular meals. Cheese seemed to be the only common factor and Google told me that the ability to digest cheese properly get less as you age. So, I put it down to that. Over the next couple of weeks, the symptoms seemed to increase, and I could alw...

  The tragic case of Sarah Everard has brought the sexual harassment and abuse that women must deal with in their day to day lives to the forefront of public attention. I have been both deeply moved and horrified by stories shared on Twitter. I found myself thinking more and more about Sarah’s family and the unimaginable grief that they are enduring.     My daughter is a survivor of rape. I will not call her a victim; she is a survivor who has risen above what happened to her. I will not go into the details, that is her story to share not mine, but I felt compelled to talk about how what happened has impacted on me and the rest of her family. You see, rape does not just hurt one person.   She told me over the phone the next morning. She was at university and it was not feasible for me to get to her immediately I remember that phone call as an almost out of body experience to me. I stayed calm, talked about practicalities with her and made sure she was not alone. When...

  2020. Where do I start? A lot of people would just say that it was a really shit year. For many people it was the most awful year of their life with loss and tragedy across the entire globe. Words that had never been part of our vocabulary such as lockdown, the R number and quarantine quickly became daily phrases. We all lived through a year that we could not have anticipated or imagined.   Now we have reached the very last day of 2020 and I ‘ve been thinking about whether, amongst all the bad stuff, was there anything positive? Has 2020 left me with anything good that I can take forward into the new year? I started thinking about things that I had achieved during the year and even made a list. ·         Learnt to make sourdough bread ·         Started riding a bike for the first time in 40 years ·         Grew lots of fruit and vegetables myself ·    ...