Onwards

Operation over and done with, best case scenario achieved, fatty tissue!  No more procedures or operations in the near future, for the first time in four years I feel I can move on and just take things as they come.  Yes, September is just around the corner and with that comes all the usual specialist appointments but they are just routine now and I am hoping that that will be it for at least six months and hopefully twelve.

After almost a week off work I am going back tomorrow.  I know I will have to hit the ground running as I am incredibly behind with almost everything.  I am still extremely tired and at my heaviest and most unfit that I have ever been.  I need to make an all out effort to shift the weight and get moving but this won't be easy as I leave home before 7 and sometimes don't get home until nearly 7.  Enough with the excuses though, this is my health and my future so I need to start putting it first.  I have been working long hours to get through my work and I need to back off a little, if the work doesn't get done then it doesn't and that is not going to be my problem any more.  I shall do my best but that is all.

Soooo, from tomorrow I am going to eat healthy nutritious soups for lunch, for a while anyway.  I promised the oncologist I would lose weight but I am guessing that I have actually gained.  I have about a month until my appointment with her so will try my hardest to drop some of that weight before then.  I have no time (or energy) to exercise so need to sort through that.  I will take my walking shoes to work and walk during my lunch break.  As it is still dark when I return home I am going to try and get some kind of exercise routine going there.  It won't be much but better than the big amount of nothing that I do now.  OK, I have written this all down now so that means that I have to do it, doesn't it?

Pete is still not working so by rights he should be doing all the cooking but unfortunately his lack of experience and willingness doesn't match the chore at hand.  I need to take control of what I eat which means taking over at least the planning of my meals.  

Anyway I think I will make a meat loaf for later in the week and some chicken kievs and a lovely garlic beef stir fry.  These sound bad but if you have never tried the Symply Too Good To Be True recipe books then I can highly recommend them.  Now I just need to decide which soups to make for lunch.

Will let you know how I go.

Four Years On

Nearly four years on from my diagnosis and I am still in and out of hospital.  I am so over 'procedures' and just wish I could have my life back.  Breast cancer is such shit.  Some people can have their treatment and move on as though nothing had ever happened.  Some people struggle with their ongoing treatments and life just revolves around trying to be as comfortable as possible.  Others more unfortunate move on to stage 4 and life is a constant struggle to stay alive.  I fall somewhere inbetween the first and second group.  Most of the time I can almost forget that I have had cancer but I do have the constant tightness in my stomach and the numbness and pain in my arm which I still don't have full use of.

 I do appear however to be on the doctor merry go round and feel like I will never get off.  As part of my hormone therapy my oncologist advised me to have my ovaries removed.  This would make me post menopausal and therefore able to change my medication from Tamoxifen to Femara.  Apparently studies show that women do better after breast cancer if they do a few years of Tamoxifen and then a few of Femara.  OK, this seemed a little price to pay if it was going to increase the odds of survival.  Since September 2009 I have had a mastectomy, four months of chemotherapy, six weeks of radiotherapy, a 10 hour operation in which a new breast was made out of my tummy fat, a follow up operation to tweak the reconstruction, nipple reconstruction with areola tattoo, D & C with hysteroscopy and a bilateral salpingo oophorectomy (removal of ovaries and fallopian tubes). This last operation has always been on the cards but we were hoping that it would become unnecessary as my ovaries gave up the ghost naturally.  Anyway, no big drama, I would have them removed, change to the new drug and then finally move on and end this stream of doctors' appointments.

As is the way, nothing ever goes to plan.  The operation went well and I was back at work a week later, however, whilst in there the surgeon noticed a growth on the outside of my colon.  He took a photo and showed it to a colleague who is a colorectal surgeon (remember the good old proctologists?) So just when I thought things were moving on I now have yet another specialist to visit with.  I have to say that I have been very lucky with the specialists that I have had and this man is no exception.  He told me that he is fairly sure that it was nothing sinister but he wanted to do a colonoscopy just to make sure.  Great, that makes pretty much every last shred of dignity gone, I have been poked and prodded everywhere now.  After a weekend of bowel preparation which we won't go into I went off for yet another procedure, a colonoscopy.  Upon waking I was told that it looked good and was all clear.

Yesterday I had the post surgery consultation with the surgeon and and he confirmed that all looked great but there is still the issue of what this growth is.  He reiterated that he still didn't think it was anything sinister but he wants to go in and have a look at it.  So yes, yet another operation much the same as the oophorectomy which was keyhole.  My poor pretend bellybutton is still healing from the last time they shoved a camera down it and now here we go again.  I did ask the doctor what it could be and got told of four things.  Cancer of which I always imagine breast cancer but I'm not sure if there is some other type of cancer it could be, a simply fatty deposit, diverticular disease or endometriosis.  Of course the worst case scenario is if it is breast cancer but he assures me that breast cancer doesn't often spread to the colon and the few women who he has seen with mets to their colon did not look like this.  He is fairly sure it is not that.  Diverticular disease is quite common, not nice but not life threatening, I'm not sure if he will remove it if it is that or just let it go.  Same with a fatty deposit, will he remove it or will he just take a biopsy and leave it there?  I don't know.

Mondayitis

A couple of weeks ago I was hit with a strong sense of Mondayitis, I just didn't want to go to work, the thought filled me with dread. I then thought back to two years ago when my future was unsure and my weeks alternated between lying on the couch with no energy to do anything and having just enough energy to drag myself to work and home again. One thing about having a life threatening disease is that it does help you kick yourself in the backside when you need it. Fancy not wanting to go to work! I am damn lucky that I am well enough to work and that I have a job to go to.

I decided to find good things about working and believe it or not there are good things. I have gone back to travelling by train to work and because I get on at the end of the line I always get a seat of my choice. I sit by the window near to the door for ease of getting out at my stop and I usually start my trip with a coffee. As the train pulls out of Lilydale there is the lime quarry on the left hand side and on the right there are rolling paddocks dotted with the occasional gum tree and cows. I love watching them and only wish I could post a pic of it here but I can't. Once I get past the countryside and the suburbs take over I turn to my book and if possible read for the rest of the trip. This gives me a good 1 1/2 hours of reading each day which is an incredible bonus and makes up for any inconvenience that commuting by train may otherwise throw at me.

I quite enjoy my work, I like all the people that I work with and get lots of laughs out of most days. I took a step back a few years ago and am more than happy doing what I do in the Finance Department of a printing supplies company. I'm not craving a massive pay packet or a great career challenge, I am just happy to go to work, do my work, come home and forget about it. Another thing I look forward to each day is having lunch with a couple of colleagues. Most days I go for a walk, either up to the shops or just around the block looking at the beautiful period homes and their matching gardens. Sometimes we go to a local cafe and sit and have a sandwich and coffee. All in all it's relaxing and makes a nice break to the day.

So the plusses of working and putting up with Mondayitis? I am lucky to be alive and well enough to work. I am lucky to have a job that I enjoy and does not stress me too much. I am lucky to be able to get a reasonable amount of reading done on a daily basis without using up precious home time that I need for other things. I am lucky enough to be able to enjoy spending time with people I like. I am lucky that I can do all these things and come home with a pay packet each month that helps finance other hobbies that I can do on the weekends or evenings.

Thanks for listening, until next time...........

Current Read: Lola's Secret by Monica McInerney

An easy to read chick lit book based in Clare, SA

Australia Day

While the rest of Australia was out celebrating Australia Day at various barbeques we chose to have a low key relaxing day at home. I spent a bit of my time lying in my hammock reading my book and just enjoying the peace and quiet of the day.

I did take time to reflect on what makes Australia the great country it is today. I remembered the soldiers that gave their lives so that I can still enjoy days like this and I listened to the sounds of other people doing their business. I heard someone mowing their lawn and a dog barking. I heard someone calling out to someone else. All these were far enough away to not be annoying and intermingled with the birds, I quite enjoyed hearing them.

I also chose to read Missus by Ruth Park as an appropriate book for Australia Day. Ruth Park is a classic Australian author who wrote the Harp in the South Series. I loved both Harp in the South and Poor Man's Orange and Missus is the prequel to these and explains the background of the main characters. I'm finding it a little slow to be honest kind of like the bible where so and so begat so and so etc. OK, not quite that boring but much the same. I am hoping now that I am up to where the two main characters of the other books find love with each other it will start to move along.

All in all a lovely, relaxing day that I hope to have many more of this summer.

Here I Go Again

OK, time to really pull my finger out and start blogging. It's a beautiful sunny day here in Melbourne and tomorrow is Australia Day which means no work!! This morning was what I had hoped would be the last step in my breast reconstruction, the areola tattoo. I went off to the swanky beauty salon that houses my plastic surgeon and met with the lovely Melissa who was going to tattoo some pigmentation around my new nipple making it look like I had a proper areola. It is amazing what they can do these days. Luckily it didn't hurt at all because that breast is numb. She did an amazing job and I have to look after it and go back in six weeks to have it checked and any touching up (so to speak) will be completed then. She asked me if I felt the reconstruction was worth the money, pain and emotional stress and I have to say YES YES YES! It was only two years and four months ago that I felt I would never look 'normal' again and here I am with not only two breasts, areolas and all but I have a much flatter tummy to go with it. I can't complain about that. It's almost difficult to remember what it was like to only have one breast. Amazing how our minds work and block out the bad so quickly.

On my way home from the tattooist's I popped into my favourite op shop (thrift shop for those non Australians) to check out the books. A friend at work is trying to hunt out Spot books for her young daughter and of course I offered to have a look too. I mean I don't need any more books but how could I possibly not help out a friend in need, hehe. I found Spot's Windy Day and other stories so was then free to check out the adult books. Not that kind of adult! There were just so many books I could have bought and I felt quite righteous that I left with only three books, one of them being Spot.

Still on my way home I rang a friend who is unwell at the moment to see if there was anything he needed. He said that if I was going to the supermarket could I get him some Frosty Fruits for his sore throat and some milk as he was out of it. So while shopping for dinner for the family I popped these extra items in my car and went on to deliver them to the patient. He was feeling quite down and really did look like a sad sack but still offered me a coffee which I happily accepted. He made me a lovely cafe latte, sprinkles on top included and I set to to try and take his mind off his woes. I finally managed to get a smile or two before I left and he then asked me if I could do him another favour and drop a letter in the mail for him. Of course I could do this but as it was an overnight envelope it had to go in one of the special boxes which meant going to Croydon which has two very good op shops with lots of books! Now, being the good friend that I am, I had no choice but to visit these shops and see if Spot was residing at either of them. Unfortunately Spot wasn't there but there were lots and lots of adult literature. I was lucky to get out of there with only three books bringing my stash to five.

My new friends (books) that came home with me are as follows:

Digging to America by Anne Tyler (one of my favourite authors)

Missus by Ruth Park (a wonderful classic Australian author)

Washington Square by Henry James (a penguin classic for my collection)

That'd Be Right by William McInnes (a lighthearted true life story telling by one of my favourite actors) &

Nanny Returns by Nicola Kraus & Emma McLaughlin (chick lit but a sequel to the popular Nanny Diaries)

When I will find time to read these books is beyond me but I am enjoying just looking at them for the moment before they get swallowed up in my overstocked bookshelves.

Finally it was time to really go home and off I went. After being home for about five minutes I remembered that I had some things to return to my girlfriend so back in the car and off I went for the lovely drive through Silvan to see Lynda. She had lent me some chairs for my 50th which was over two months ago and I needed to return the hats that her boys had accidentally left behind as children do. I also bought her two Pandora charms which I was anxious to hand over to her. I seem to have a newfound love of shopping that has been nurtured over the last six months and it looks like Lynda is the one to benefit this week, hehe. I love buying things for people who will really appreciate it which Lynda did.

So after a cup of coffee and a long natter it was back home for me. I spent a little time outside in the glorious sun watering the back garden and then repotting a new plant that I bought on the weekend. No time to lie in the hammock reading before cooking tea so I shall leave that for another day.

All in all a wonderful wonderful day, I couldn't have asked for more. New areola, new friends (books), time spent with old friends (John and Lynda) and a nice new potted plant.

Goodbye 2010 and hello 2011

As we move into the New Year I find myself reflecting on the past year and all that it brought with it. I remember this time last year thinking if one more person told me that it was going to be a better year I would scream (in fact I think I did scream.... several times). Yes I had had my surgery but was still only two months into six months of really harsh treatment, I had no hair and no energy, and my whole body was bloating from the chemo and all the medication that goes with it. Money was also starting to become an issue. I felt like a freak and just didn't have the energy to do anything about it, if there was in fact anything I could do. Happy New Year back at you!!

It's very difficult for me to describe what chemo was like. In some ways it was nowhere near as bad as I had expected yet in others it was absolutely awful. The actual transfusion was nothing to be scared of. I refused a PICC Line which in hindsight was probably a silly thing to do as it might have saved my veins and as I can only have blood tests in one arm now it would be nice if there was more than one viable vein. For someone who has always been very scared of needles and blood tests I handled the insertion of the cannula quite well. Hats off to the extremely caring and competent phlebotomists that administered the chemo, they are truly angels. Once hooked up there was nothing to it, just lie back and sleep, read or watch everyone else. It was quite amazing how quickly those 3-4 hours went and if I was lucky the hospital even provided me with some nice sandwiches.

Once home I felt surprisingly good if not a little tired. The day after was a day that I relished during that time. It was my me day where I didn't have to work yet I still felt reasonably good, it soon became the one day in each three week cycle that I looked forward to. I couldn't go anywhere as I didn't like to drive with all those drugs coursing through my system so a friend used to come over to keep me company. This was a really good time to catch up with her and get to know her all over again. The five to ten days after this are best not revisited. I find that I can look back on chemo and say oh it wasn't so bad until someone asks me about something specifically or a smell, taste or sound (like a tv show) reminds me of it, then it all comes flooding back and can bring me to tears in an instant. I was fairly lucky with my side effects, I hate to think what other people go through.

I'll never forget the dates 22 October 2009 and 2 February 2010. These are the days I started chemotherapy and finished it. Once diagnosed with something like cancer you have a whole new set of dates to remember as anniversaries. Hopefully these dates will get harder to remember over the years but I doubt it. 8 February I start radiotherapy. I had already had my planning appointment and that in itself was interesting. It involved having a CT scan but luckily without the dye being injected which meant no needles and no feeling like I had peed my pants. I had to disrobe from the waist upwards and the nurse was nice enough to ask if I wanted to do that in another room. Hmmm.... let's see, go into another room, disrobe then walk out in front of people with no top on to lie down on a table or just whip my top off and lie down. Great choice, I chose to just do it there. Once lying on the bed/table I had to put both arms up over my head. This seems like an easy task but believe me it took a lot of time and effort not only on my part but the nurses. The idea is to put your arms up over your head and then the bed/table/mortuary slab will move and slide you through a 'big' donut which takes scans of the affected area. Unfortunately the arm where I had the axillary clearance didn't have a great deal of movement and after much grimacing I managed to get that arm up and hang on to a handle that was there for people who had difficulty. Of course no problem with my right arm until they tried to move me through the donut. Now I am large but not that large. Surely a hospital that does these kinds of tests every day, a hospital that specialises in cancer and has many breast cancer patients filing through it each day would have a machine that you could fit through with your arms over your head if that is what they needed. After much rearranging of arms and pushing and shoving and two people I have never met before discussing how to fit me in they decided that I didn't need to have that arm up and I could lay it by my side with my hand resting comfortable on my tummy...... phew. Bear in mind that all this was going on whilst I was naked. I have no idea what they would have done had I had a bilateral mastectomy.

Now the fun starts. The door opens and yet another stranger walks in, this time the radio oncologist. He pulls out a texta and starts to draw all over my chest, both sides. Interesting, just lie here Judy and try not to think about it. I think it took him all of two minutes to totally cover my chest in blue lines. He then leaves the room and the nurses get busy again. They start calling out co-ordinates to each other and recording them so that when I get zapped I am lined up exactly the same way every time. A piece of paper is put over my chest and one of the nurses gets to trace all the markings. Not much longer now I am told and I can rest my arm, I just have to have my tattoo! I was expecting a tattoo but not three of them. I was told it would sting a little so I braced myself. The first two I couldn't feel as they were under my arm towards my back where I was still numb from the operation. The third one however did sting a bit and I remember saying ouch and thinking that if that one little dot hurt that much there was no way I would ever be getting a tattoo. I am such a sooky sooky lala. I was then allowed to leave the hospital sporting my nice new permanent blackhead right in the middle of my cleavage, well where there is going to be a cleavage again one day hopefully.

Two weeks later the day before I start radiotherapy I get a phone call at work from the radio oncologist. I really hate getting unexpected calls from my specialists, they always make me panic. He said nothing to worry about but apparently I have what is known as a butterfly heart. Sounds pretty doesn't it but what it means is that my heart sits up higher than normal. I never knew this and wonder now whether this is why I am often told I have a heart murmur, is my heart closer to the stethoscope and therefore easier to hear? Maybe. Anyway, because of this not only will the radiotherapy affect part of my lungs but it will touch on my heart, something that I was told would not happen. This is nothing to worry about but he had to tell me that because of this I am at a high risk of having heart disease in about ten years. Great, just add it to the list of everything else that I am now at a high risk of due to treatment. I figured that if having this radiotherapy helped me live another ten years to get heart disease then it was worth doing. I was told that I need to keep my BMI at a healthy level. ???? Hmmm.... I'd need to get it there first to keep it there! Oh well.

The next day saw me going back to the hospital for my first treatment. I didn't really know what to expect but wasn't overly concerned as so many people had told me that it didn't hurt and it was over very quickly. I walked through the front doors wondering how soon I would get sick of doing this. I had to go every week day for six weeks but luckily they gave me a schedule that meant I could go on my way in to work each day. It actually meant that I could have a bit of a sleep in which was greatly needed at this point. I walked past the reception desk and chemo ward mentally giving it the finger. Much as the staff in there were lovely I was so glad to never have to go back there. Onwards through the radiotherapy doors to their reception and on to the next phase of my treatment.

All I can say for the radiotherapy department is that it is run sooooooooo very smoothly. The staff were all amazing and I felt at home very quickly. I was given my own robe which I would use exclusively for all my treatment and my own locker to put it in. Each morning I was to go to reception, say my name and birthdate and then sit and wait. I never had to wait long. They would then call my name and I would go through the next set of doors, get my robe from my locker and go to the changing rooms. I had to grab a basket similar to a shopping basket and put my bag and clothes in there and once I had the robe on I sat at the next waiting room. Once again not a long wait and then I moved on through a big lead lined door and into a large room with a slab in the middle and a great big machine behind it. It was all very interesting. After sliding the robe off my left side (they were a lot more discreet in here) I lay down on the slab with my head resting on an uncomfortable hard 'pillow'. I put my left arm up over my head and hung on to the handle and rested my right hand on my tummy. Two 'nurses' then positioned me in exactly the same way as during my planning session. The lights were turned off and they used a red laser beam to line me up with the three tattoos. One nurse read out the co-ordinate and the other made the machine move to line me up. To help with that last little bit of lining up one nurse grabbed the sheet I was lying on and moved me, how embarrassing, but I wasn't allowed to help her, I had to lie still. After they got me in the position they wanted they placed a heavy blanket of rubber over my chest. This apparently 'fools' the machine into thinking that I had a layer of breast so that I get zapped in the right spot. Finally I was all set up. The machine was moved back to the wall behind me, I was told that they were leaving the room but would be able to see me on the monitor and to just lie very very still. I lay very still looking at the ceiling which was made out of thin wooden slats. I wondered if there was a reason for that or was it just a nice effect. Suddenly the machine started whirring and it automatically moved up and over me from the left. It clicked into place and whirred, moved, clicked, whirred, moved, clicked and then whirred a final time for exactly 15 seconds. It then moved back to its starting point and the nurses returned to tell me that I could leave. I got to know exactly how many clicks there would be and exactly when I would hear the nurse call out "we're back." Back to the changing room I went where I slathered myself with solugel cream as I had been told that if you do that you won't get a bad reaction. I waved goodbye and went on to work feeling good about it all, this was treatment I could easily handle. One down, 29 to go.