It wasn't my fault

Mornings are difficult places in my life - never been very good at them, have long considered that 6am is better treated as bedtime rather than wake-up time.  However, I stopped working nightshifts long ago and the unbridled nightly partying hasn't yet started (although wandering around London in evening dress at dawn is something that everyone should experience!) so I do have to pull myself from the arms of Morpheus before repeat of the Archers is over (that's a joke, you understand).
One of the big dilemmas in our house is what station the radio is tuned to... Was Radio4, because that's where the truth is (if it ain't on the Today programme then I don't believe in it).  Then I got traumatised by being woken up by John Prescott in the morning - and face it, there are few people who wouldn't be pretty frightened by the thought of that gentleman in the bedroom... So we switched over to Radio 2, and happy times with the Togmeister.  Then Sir Terry decided to retire to Wogan Towers for the forseeable, only emerging for the odd charity show, and was replaced by Chris Evans.  Now he's funny - in small doses - but not really what I want to be awakened by.  So we're back to Radio 4, and Jim Naughtie gently bringing me the truth as I drag myself into consciousness.

So there I was this morning, gently smelling the coffee and gathering the energy to face the day... when the words started to filter through the fog.  Cancer, causes, new study published... The big joy of the Today programme is that if you miss something, you can be sure it will be back again in a few minutes.  They give you lots of warnings about what's coming up, then lots of reminders of what's just gone.  So I heaved myself up, gulped down half a pint of caffeine juice and prepared to hear the exciting new wisdom.

40% of all cancers could be avoided or prevented by simple lifestyle choices, they said.  130,000 cases a year, they said. "Many people believe cancer is down to fate or 'in the genes' and that it is the luck of the draw whether they get it.  Looking at all the evidence, it's clear that around 40% of all cancers are caused by things we mostly have the power to change." they said. Rah-rah-rah, whoopee,  light dawns, how can we have been so foolish all these years, that was the implication.  Pack in the fags, eat more fresh fruit and lose a bit of weight, bingo!
Well, whoopee-doo.
What about the other 60%?  Which group am I in? What about those of us who enjoy a glass of wine occasionally and could probably do to shift a few pounds, but try to look after ourselves.  How come it happened to us, then?  Is it my fault that I got cancer?  Did I need a few more satsumas in my Christmas stocking every year, should I have worked harder in PE as a child? Would that have made a difference?  I am carrying half a stone I'd like to lose mostly because my jeans would look better, but did that give me a dose of boob rot?  I never smoked, what did I do wrong? 

NO!
Let's all shout this out loud.  BREAST CANCER IS NOT MY FAULT.

Is there a causal link like the one between lung cancer and cigarettes... a product that the government in this country took £8.7billion in revenue (that's just the tobacco duty!)  from in 2009-10?  That's a known killer, but it's ok because it raises a lot of tax money.  No, there isn't any such link.

Breast cancer doesn't earn the treasury anything.  Neither do brain tumours, the bone cancer that's eaten half my neighbour's face recently, or the lymphatic cancer that put a good friend through hell a couple of years ago.  There is no real evidence to say what caused any of them.  Sometimes there's a faulty gene you can point at, but even then the relationship isn't one-to-one - some people with the BRCA genes don't ever develop cancer at all - so what triggered it in the ones that do?  Was it all our fault?

NO!

I want to go and shout it down the street again.

MY CANCER IS NOT MY FAULT.

LISA's CANCER IS NOT HER FAULT.

ROSE's CANCER IS NOT HER FAULT.  

KATH's CANCER IS NOT HER FAULT.

OUR CANCER IS NOT OUR FAULT!

Don't get me wrong.  It's great that we're identifying things that are responsible for cancer.  We know that tobacco smoking makes people die, we write it on the packets and if they still choose to buy it then well, they're adults making a choice I guess.  We know that the Human Papilloma Virus is a big factor in Cervical cancer, and I am glad that we're vaccinating young women to protect them - my oldest granddaughter is just coming up to that age and I hope that she will never have to worry about that particular threat.  It's good that we can find the lifestyle factors that put us at risk and let people know, so that they can make informed choices.  But it's not good to proclaim all this news to the world in such general terms, with such fanfare, that the message that hits the waiting ears of the eager Radio 4 listener is that it's easy to avoid cancer by just following all this good advice.  It's not that easy.  I know.

Rant over now, thank you for listening.
Actually, no, just one more thing.

GETTING CANCER WASN'T MY FAULT.

Some words from a friend

Someone close to me wrote the following piece on his facebook page.  It's been a tough last couple of years for him, as I know he's been worried sick about me...  I've taken the names out of this piece, but otherwise the words are all his, and I think they are special.

You see, there’s this girl. R. Pretty girl. I used to go to Uni with her. We would say hello in the corridor, and we had a really good friend in common. That was it really. We graduated on the same day, added each other on Facebook, and went our separate ways. I heard soon afterwards that she married her sweetheart, a good looking guy called D. They had the world at their feet, and a lifetime of adventures ahead of them to look forward to.
Except they didn’t. Soon afterwards, D got ill. Really ill.
As is the modern way, R kept the world informed via Facebook. I never met D, and I haven’t seen R since that day we graduated. I doubt she even really remembers me. What the world saw (and I was privileged to be a part of that world, thanks to Mr Zuckerberg), was a young couple, in their twenties, deal with something that no one should have to face. For the last three or so years, the world and I have watched this young couple face those challenges with bravery and dignity. Bravery and dignity that we all like to think we would have in such a situation. I am not sure that we would.
So tonight, I am working late, and I pick up the not-so-smart phone and flick onto FB, hoping to find some amusing snippet or video to repost and pretend it is my own.
Instead, I get the news that D’s pain is over.
As I said, I never met D. No real reason why I would. They and I are of different generations. However, I feel saddened at his passing, and I grieve for his family, especially R (‘cos she’s the only one of them I know).
I guess I just wanted to thank them both for sharing their story, and for being such an inspiration. Rest in Peace D, and thank you R. May your god bless you both.

Onward and upward

Or at least onward...

I had my last meeting with the headologist a few days ago.  It was strange to be talking to her knowing that it was the last meeting - we talked through the last few weeks and it's fair to say that we've come a long way in that time, and that I have learnt a lot along the way.  One thing that I have learnt is that it's not good to keep things bottled up inside - and that writing a blog is a good way to make myself sit down and work things through.  It would be very easy to just rant, let off steam all the time, it can be quite cathartic, but it's not always productive long-term, and would no doubt leave me with nobody speaking to me very quickly.  It's important to think about the things that happen, and the other people who are involved, who might well be reading about themselves!  So rather than just blow away the frustrations that life brings, I try to think and write about them rationally, which hopefully is more useful.  Hopefully it also makes the inane ramblings of the madwoman interesting enough to keep you, dear reader, awake long enough to read it as well as not causing your blood pressure to rise!  I aim to amuse if I can.

Saturday brought yet another meal out (hee hee) with some friends who have recently returned from sailing in the Med.  They muttered one day a few years ago that they were jealous of our plan to pack up and sail off into the sunset, so DH blithely said "Hang on, your house and boat are paid for and you've got nobody to look after here - why don't you give it a go?" - and blow me down, they did!  Within a few months they'd rented out the house, dumped the jobs and headed off!  They tend to come back here for a bit in the winter, to top up the bank account a bit - she's in the fortunate position of having an job that's always in demand, so she can generally get short-term work when she wants to (although he seems to have decided that he's retired!).  They have good tenants, so they took a winter let on a holiday flat the first time - it worked so well that they go back to the same landlord every year now.  All in all it's extremely depressing to watch them having great fun doing pretty much what we want to do.  Hey ho... it's really nice to see them having a great time though.
The embarrassing bit was when they mentioned some event or another - and we didn't know about it - except they'd blogged about it and we clearly hadn't seen it.  Caught out good and proper we were, and even saying "have you read my blog then?" didn't make much of a defence!  So I am now hurriedly catching up with what they got up to this year, which will be no great hassle as their travels around are generally well worth the effort of reading!

At Sunday lunch, (yet another meal out!) a friend leaned across the table, told me to be still, and skilfully pinched away the mosquito that he saw sat on my forehead.  Sadly, he wasn't quite quick enough to get the little so-and-so before it bit me... so now I have a rather angry lump on my left eyebrow, which is showing no signs of subsiding.  Sad, as I have to go to see a customer tomorrow... hopefully some antihistamine cream will calm it down and I will look a bit less like I've been in a fight!  I am tempted to dig out the NHS wig, which still looks fine and has a much longer fringe that my real one... wonder if it will cover the red lump?

Just for a change, I have actually cooked a meal this evening, if himself ever arrives home to eat it.  I've just looked at the clock and it's an hour later than I thought, which means that the chicken pieces are probably a bit dried up by now, and the parkin is most likely completely carbonised.  Hey ho...  Hopefully I will have interesting (to me at least) news on the home improvement front soon... there may be - gasp - a conservatory!!!  Watch this space...

Counting blessings

Another tough old month... I haven't really had the energy or the inclination to post on here.  I might have felt that the depression and feeling low was heavily assisted by the drugs, but there's been plenty of stuff going on that would make Pollyana retire into the corner with a packet of fags and a case of vodka.  I don't do fags but I have to admit to a few more G&Ts than is usual, I try not to on "school nights" - but it's all been a bit manky recently.

First thing to get over is the starkest, sharpest reminder I could have had that my lot has not been a particularly unhappy one.  A few weeks ago I had the sad news that the lovely Lisa had been told that her cancer was back, and not going to be fixable this time.  A few days ago, Lisa revealed that the situation was actually much worse than had been thought, and she's in a pretty desperate place.  The cruelest irony is that she left one hospital, where she'd just met her brand new baby nephew, to go to another one to be told that her time with him will be frighteningly short. Life can be a real bitch sometimes.  A couple of days later she seems to have bounced back a bit - if anyone can bounce back at such a time - rather she seems to be facing the days with her trademark "up yours, cancer" attitude.  I've often said that getting through cancer isn't often about a brave battle, it's more of a soul-destroying slog, but Lisa is probably the bravest person I have ever encountered.  I won't harp on any more about her... she's telling her own story on her own blog in her own words, and more eloquently than I could hope to.  I guess I should leave it to her.

Actually, I think I will just shut up for now as once again I can't think of anything sensible to say.

Zap - the real thing

First Radiotherapy treatment today.
My Mother-in-law came with me to the hospital - we didn't know what effect it was all going to have, would I be tired or whatever? DH has been at work all day and it seemed silly for him to take a day out just to accompany me when MiL lives about ten minutes drive from the clinic and I have to go almost past her house to get there... So I picked her up on the way past, on the basis that if I did feel rubbish she could drive me home. Seeing as how I paid the extortionate £1 premium to add her to my new insurance policy she might as well drive the car occasionally!

It was all a bit of an anticlimax, really. They gave me a gown, which I was told was mine for the duration of the treatment. A real fashion accessory - so big that I could have got me and the radiographer into it, with a zip up the front. As an interesting twist there were no seams at all - where you'd expect seams at the shoulder and down the side, there was velcro...

I clambered onto the couch - and then I found out what the velcro is for. They basically removed the front of the gown so that they could get at my boob - and the teeny tiny tattoos. Arms went up into the rests above my head, green laser lights shone and the couch moved up, left, right, backwards, forwards - it was a bit like being on the "Golden Shot" - I quite expected someone to say "Bernie, the bolt"...
The machine has a number of parts which rotate around the couch - one is the thing that does the zapping, with a glass front and a shutter behind which opens when it's zapping like a sort of malevolent eye... there are also a number of flat grey plates, which are the image receptors - the beast also acts as a scanner to take images of the tissue that's being treated so that they can check that nothing is moving - I guess that if the tissue swells up because it's sunburnt then the alignment will be wrong...
So eventually the radiographers ran away and I was left on the couch, suspended about five feet above the ground, with the zapping machine rotating around me. It moved, then stopped and waited - this was when the images were taken, although nothing appeared to be going on. Then the glass bit swung around so that it was pointing obliquely at my boob - at an angle that would mean that the beam was going across my ribcage, so only my boob got zapped and not the rest of my chest. It buzzed for roughly 11 seconds, stopped, then buzzed for another second. (When you're lying there like a sacrificial lamb counting slowly is as good a distraction as any!) The whole thing then rotated so that the thing was pointing across the boob from the other side and the thing sapped me for a further 11 seconds and then another.
Then the ladies bounded back into the room, swung the couch back down towards the floor and patted the gown back into its velcro'd wholeness once more.

And that was it. The whole thing took about twenty minutes including getting changed, and I was out with no ill-effects to see. I dropped MiL back at her place and headed home, wondering what the fuss was about!

Calming down...

Well, that was really weird. Why did I react so strongly to getting a letter telling me what I already knew? The mind is a very strange thing. It has been nice to get all the brilliant messages of support from friends and family - haven't told DH yet as he still isn't home from work. Might decide it deserves a bottle of fizzy stuff to celebrate (any excuse!) (no, actually, I don't really need an excuse)
Anyway, a pot of coffee and a small rush of domestic Goddess feelings and I am a bit more together now. We have fresh bread and something in the slow cooker which is smelling quite good, so I can feel smug for a little while.

My parcel from Pink Ribbon Lingerie arrived this afternoon... all wrapped in pink and white tissue, it was like getting an early pressie... a bra with no seams at all, much more comfortable than the sports bras I was wearing before... brilliant service and a great product.
Commercial over now!

The doctor renewed my sick certificate this morning, which was a relief, as the thought of going back onto Jobseekers was starting to worry me... I am starting to get myself back on my feet now, and trying to get a bit fitter before the radiotherapy starts in the new year, and while I am actively looking for a job (and going for interviews with drawn on eyebrows and the slightly scary wig) I am not sure I can face the stress of the supervised job-hunting which is the lot of the Jobseeker these days.

DH decided not to buy the shiny red Ducati (sob) - well we agreed that he'd (we'd!) have it if we could do a deal to get rid of some of the bikes we already own... sadly we couldn't strike a deal that suited us and the dealer, and before we had time to sell anything someone else turned up at the dealer with a fistful of dosh... It clearly wasn't meant to be. However, the bike that has hit ebay looks as though it might sell, so that's a plus, and maybe we will look for a Ducati in the spring. Or maybe we will spend the money buying the bits that are missing from the latest 2CV restoration project!

Hmm... perhaps I will go and put a bottle of fizz in the fridge...

One of those letters

Remember the best letters ever... the ones that you treasure, holding it close to the heart, kissing the signature, knowing the thoughts that went into the composition and blindly worshipping the hand that wrote it. Or the fingers that typed it... Or the voice that dictated it...
Whatever.
However it was created I am going to treasure this one - frame it and hang it on the wall so I can see it every day...
I know that there's nothing in there that I didn't already know... but it's so good to see it written down. "The cancer has been completely removed and the glands are clear" - the words I longed to hear...

I am just off to sit in a corner and blub for a few minutes, whilst hugging the letter...

Lazy Sunday afternoon

or maybe not...
Forgive me, readers, for I have neglected you - it's been eight days since my last posting.
I haven't felt much like it, as well as having not much to tell. Still out of work, no car so trapped in the house, and no hospital appointments, which I couldn't have got to anyway as we had an apparently unprecedented level of snow! I went out for a few walks to try and keep the muscles working, and I have to say that snow on the beach is a bit freaky. I did venture out (chauffeused by dear Mother-in-law) for an interview in a beautiful place which was covered in snow and thus even more beautiful than usual - fingers crossed for me please, I would quite like that particular gig!
My domestic goddess activity failed a bit (ok, a very big bit) this week... partly because it's difficult to be a domestic goddess with an audience - the snow trapped DH in the house for much of the week as his site foreman was snowed in and there would have been nobody to open the site even if he'd gone - and a 70 mile journey in the weather we had would have been a bit traumatic even in the 2CV. But mostly it was because I didn't feel terribly goddess-like anyway, so domestic activity was restricted to feeding the breadmaker every other day and sitting in bed with a book and saying "bleurgh" and "meh" when disturbed.
The reason for my inability to face the world and function in any normal manner is - get this - an itchy boob. I know, I know, trivial, if that is that the worst of my problems then I am blessed, yadda yadda blah blah... I hope you never have to try it. Remember that I have a scar that starts right in the middle of my armpit and ends with a neat circuit of my nipple. Every half inch or so on that scar there is a stitch. These are supposed (according to my Lovely Breast Care Nurse) to be soluble and the ends should drop off of their own accord... well so far they ain't showing much effort in that direction. The stitches are tied off in a knot (I believe there is a special magic surgeon knot for this purpose!) and then the ends trimmed. To about a quarter of an inch. The stuff is like a heavy duty fishing line... so every half inch along this scar under my arm and round my nipple, there are bits of stiff plastic wire sticking out. The end effect is like having barbed wire in my bra, and it's not nice. The ends stick into the fabric of whatever I am wearing, and so if I move in relation to the clothing the stitches get pulled. Only for a split second, but boy do I know about it. If I wear a loose shirt, then the bits sticking out of my side which don't have any fabric to catch on tend to stick into the underside of my arm. Now much of that flesh is still pretty numb, but it does recognise having barbed-wire's baby sibling dragged along it. In truth the whole thing is pretty miserable. I called the Breast Unit and Lovely BCN said that the best they can do is trim the ends down a bit, or I could ask the local surgery nurse to do this for me - the stitches have to be left until they fall out. I really didn't see the point of bothering a nurse, so handed the tiniest, sharpest scissors I own to DH and let him go to work. Having the long ends trimmed has certainly helped the problem, but not fixed it, as the knot and the body of the stitch is still there, so now I am back to wearing a dressing over the scar and slathering the whole lot in aloe vera to try and soothe it a bit.
Small issue, big effect on my temper, hence the big rant. Thank you for listening.

When I called Lovely BCN, I also had a few other questions which I had forgotten to ask on the Friday when I saw the Great Man... I shouldn't be allowed to go to these appointments on my own as I never remember what I want to ask...
Firstly - what is the timescale for the referral to the oncologist for the radiotherapy? Answer - who knows? If I haven't already got an appointment for next week then it won't be before the end of the year, as he's disappearing at the end of next week for the rest of the month. Also, the radiotherapy unit at the Sussex Cancer Centre is so busy that their waiting list is at least four to six weeks, so it could be getting on for three months before I get the radiotherapy. Not Good. I need a couple more weeks to get more movement in my battered arm, and for the scar to heal properly, but three months is a long time. However, hope appeared in the form of a private radiotherapy facility just outside Portsmouth, and it seems the NHS is referring patients there (and picking up the tab) as they can't cope with the demand. Now I still pay the health insurance, and I am sure that they will pay for the radiotherapy if I can get referred by the oncologist. However, short of waiting outside the hospital to ambush him I still have to wait for an appointment to get that referral. It's all a bit frustrating. Since I have had the chemo, and the surgery seemed to have removed all the cancer, there is no clinical problem with the delay - but it's the last phase and I Just Want To Get On With It...
Secondly, what about the pain clinic referral? I am taking these pregabalin tablets, but I don't know how long I am supposed to take them for, and how I will know that they're doing any good? There was a glib remark about "if you have no pain", which wasn't too helpful, as they aren't doing anything for the "ordinary" pain at all, I thought they were supposed to do something about the numbness and the weird stabbing pain in my arm which I believe is a result of the cut brachial nerve... Anyhow, Lovely BCN went off to ask the Great Man, who apparently slapped himself upon the head, which we infer means that he forgot and will do something about it... Fingers crossed, I will ring and nag if I don't hear by mid week.
(I wish I could type BCN without having a strange image of Lovely Breast Care Nurse on the Birmingham Canal Navigations...)

Meanwhile, back in the saner and less obsessed world...
DH went back to the bike shop. He sat in the chair. He got up again (this doesn't happen often) without signing anything! He's still trying to find a way to make a deal which will make everyone happy, but hasn't got there yet. It's a free listing weekend on Ebay, so there might be a really shiny Royal Enfield for sale there by this afternoon... it's really really pretty! and if it doesn't go, he can't have the shiny red Ducati, and neither can I. And actually, I have always wanted a shiny Ducati, ever since I fell in love with a yellow 600 Monster the day after I passed my bike test - but that's another story...
Not entirely sure why we always seem to buy bikes when it's snowing... when we bought the Enfield he rode it home through snow, and I found the original receipt for my bike yesterday, dated 5th Jan (not telling you what year!)...

After the failure of my retail therapy last week, my attention was drawn by the lovely Lisa to Pink Ribbon Lingerie, a new supplier of undergarments for ladies who have had breast surgery ("Mastectomy Wear" sounds so clinical) - and lo and behold! They have a soft bra with no seams down the side, designed specifically for post-op wear. Not cheap, but I don't care! I also discovered that if I could declare that I have had a mastectomy or lumpectomy (which I have, as I am sure you remember!) I get to buy it free of VAT... hurrah, there is a benefit to the surgery after all. What? oh yeah, the not dying thing... yeah, ok, I guess that counts as a benefit as well.

Right. Must get on. A week of domestic goddess duties to catch up on...

Retail therapy

Decided that I needed to update the underwear stock today. Not to add anything lacy and pretty, you understand... but the existing basic sports bras that I have been using are nowhere near new, and have a number of seams that chafe in places that I would really rather not. At the moment I am surviving with a dressing tucked in between the scar and the bra, which is less than ideal as it tends to escape. The wound left after the surgery starts right up in my armpit, goes down until it's level with the nipple, where it goes horizontally across the side of the boob and does a quick loop all the way around the nipple. So there's plenty of scar to chafe. However, everything in that whole area is a bit battered and bruised, and does need to be supported all the time, and the Lovely Breast Care Nurses are adamant that a firm bra is to be worn night and day.
So, in a moment of genius (or so I thought) I remembered the concept of the "sleep bra". Now, up until this last bout of being cut up I haven't been the kind of girl who wears a bra in bed... well, not for more than a few minutes anyway. But many years ago when I was a young new mum I discovered that you could buy a really soft bra designed to give support to heavy boobs during the night. So, to the consternation of DH I marched into Mothercare this afternoon.
It took me ages to find what I wanted, but eventually I ended up in the changing room with one of the sleep bras, a nursing bra and a "firm support pregnancy bra".
The sleep bra didn't come with any seams - nor did it come with any fastenings, it's more of a supportive boob tube than a bra - it was a struggle to get it on with my arm in its current state, and once in place it performed very little useful function. It would have been better in a smaller size but I would never have got it on - it might all have worked better if my arm had been a bit more flexible than it is but I am working against a challenge in that department which the average new mum doesn't have to face.
The nursing bra has an elastic strap which links the end of the shoulder strap to the bit that goes under the boob - designed to hold it all in place while removing most of the cup for access purposes. This strap just happened to land on a stitch in my case, but was going to chafe anyway.
The pregnancy bra was just like any other bra... with a lovely stiff seam between the edge of the cup and the side. This seam just happens to be on top of the wound under my arm. Not close to it, right on top of it - even trying it on for a few seconds was uncomfortable.
I decided that the maternity section was a lost cause, so extracted myself from the shop with some speed. I don't particularly want any more kids at this stage in my life, but being surrounded by maternity dresses and baby clothes was rubbing my nose in the forcible ending of my fertility just a bit too much.

Next stop was the department store next door, where there was a large array of sports bras. Trouble was they all seemed to be for ladies who are much more blessed in this area than I have ever been... I couldn't find anything smaller than an E cup! So I decided to ask the nice ladies (who were scarily young) for advice. I outlined the problem and they came up with a couple of possibilities, plus their variant on the "nursing bra" theme.
I toddled off to the changing room with instructions to "give me a call when you're ready and I will check the fit". Item one was a soft moulded cup t-shirt bra - no seams at all in the cup, lovely - but that all-important seam under the arm was there - and this one seemed to have some kind of boning to hold it firm. I suspect it might have been the most comfortable bra I ever wore, if it hadn't have been for that seam which was - you guessed it - right on top of the scar. Bugger. The next one was very similar, slightly softer cup with the seam in exactly the same place. Last option was the nursing bra. This looked like a good bet, as instead of the elastic strap there was an inner cup made of soft cotton, with a large hole over the nipple. Good attempt but the inner cup tended to move about rather, and the edge of the nipple hole (which was overlocked) managed to catch some part of the scar whatever I did.

So, I had tried on six different bras, and every single one had a big fat seam right on top of the scar. I am sure that I can't be the only person who has a scar like this, so surely there must be a solution. The only avenue left now is to go to a specialist mastectomy bra shop, which looks like Monday's entertainment.
I wonder if it's possible for the surgeons to move the incision a bit further back so that it's not directly under the main seam on every bra on the planet? I don't suppose that too many breast surgeons have ever experienced this challenge!
After dutifully following me around the shops for an ultimately unsuccessful session of retail therapy, I thought that DH needed a bit of a treat, so we took a swift visit to the power tool section of a local emporium to look at drills. He claims to need such a thing for work... a likely story. Said emporium happens to be next door to a bike shop where a good friend of ours happens to be the sales manager, so we popped in to say hello - would have been rude not to. And there in the showroom is this Ducati SS600, red and shiny and at a very interesting price. I didn't let DH sit in "the chair" next to the sales desk - but I suspect that I might be in trouble...

What now?

It's all a bit confusing. They said it would be - but I didn't quite expect the confusion to set in quite this early...
I went to see the Great Man today. It wasn't much of a meeting, to be honest... The clinic was running late, very late, I was last in and was getting slightly fractions by the time I was called. Due to having a) instructions not to drive for two weeks after surgery and b) no car as we lent it to the in-laws while theirs is broken, I had to beg said in-laws to drive me to the hospital. Seeing as how they both turned up I thought it would be rude to take a book, assuming that we could catch up with the family gossip while we waited. Trouble is, they had both brought their books and, not wanting to crowd me, they said that they would wait in the car while I went in. So I ended up sat in the waiting room for an hour and a half with no book and faced only with the last month's copies of What Ho? magazine (or whatever it's called).
Anyway, by the time I went in I was a bit fraught, and had forgotten everything that I wanted to say. He greeted me with a big sunny smile, and said "Well, you know all the good news already!" which stopped the conversation a bit. So he asked politely if he could have a look at the scars - as though he thought I might decline! He was very pleased at the lack of swelling, which I had been panicking about, and said that he'd fully expected to see a seroma (swelling due to fluid build up) bigger than a tennis ball. Glad he didn't mention that before I left the hospital! He'd said he'd expected to see something but no sporting equipment was mentioned... He puts the good result down to regular doses of Arnica, and is determined to run a proper trial.
So I was up and dressed in a trice and he said "We've referred you to the Other Great Man for the radiotherapy, but you've done all the hard work now. Fantastic result. I will see you in six months. Have a lovely Christmas" The Breast Care Nurse handed me a sheaf of paper and said "Here's your five-year plan" as I walked out of the door. I was in, seen, out and next appointment made in about five minutes flat.
As I walked out of the waiting room, all I could think of was "Is that it?". I don't know what else I was expecting... there's nothing much else to say at this point, but I still feel a little... lost. Abandoned. I know I haven't been abandoned, and there is no logic to this feeling. I suspect that this feeling will fade as soon as I get the appointment to see the Other Great Man (the Oncologist) and get onto the radiotherapy treadmill. I know that I can call and make an appointment to see the Breast Care Nurses any time I want, and I will have to do so because I didn't ask a couple of questions that I had meant to. They say it's very common to feel like this when the treatment is over... but I am just having a short break in mine, there is more to come.
My daughter made a comment about this the other day, and I think she may have something... she said that if you're living with a long-term health issue, it's easy to find that you define yourself by that condition. It's part of what makes you special, and you're also made to feel secure by having people like The Great Man and my Lovely Breast Care Nurses to look after you. Have I become addicted to being a cancer patient? I think I need to put a stop to that right now.

Philosophical questions

First off - well done to Facebook, who have decided that they will put back Anna Antell's pictures - story here. Although - forgive my cynicism - it all seems terribly familiar. There was this little story from last year where - guess what - a breast cancer survivor posted pictures of her surgery, and FB decided they were "offensive" and removed them. There's a report here... Do you think there is a pattern developing? Where they just steamroller along doing this and only when there's a huge outcry do they say "Oops, sorry, haha!" and undo whatever they did?
Get it together FB, please, sort out your filtering and get it right first time. Thank you.

So anyway, to a more philosophical musing... what constitutes bravery then?
To me, bravery requires a couple of components. There needs to be fear and a choice. If you don't have a choice, then can doing the scary thing be considered brave? I don't really think so. So I think that someone who does something that really scares them when they don't have to is brave. But what constitutes a choice? Does the mother who sees her child in the way of an oncoming lorry have any choice about whether she risks herself to drag him back? You tell me.

People have said I have been brave in the way that I have dealt with cancer. They see that bravery in the way I have usually appeared to be cheerful and positive (they didn't see the black times!), in the way that I have talked to people about cancer - getting my girlfriends to feel the lump so that they would know what to look for, the way I have talked on this blog about the way that the treatment has affected me.

Some of those things don't hit my definition of bravery because they weren't scary. Talking to people about cancer in general hasn't been scary - in many ways it's been cathartic, but often it's been essential - lots of my girlfriends have said that they feel their boobs but they have no idea what they are looking for. So showing them the lump and letting them feel it was easy for me to do and may help them save their own lives one day. Nothing scary about that. I don't have any particular problems with people seeing my body anyway, and within a fortnight of a breast cancer diagnosis my breasts had been seen and groped by half the NHS in Sussex!

Dealing with the treatment hasn't been brave. If I had had any kind of choice, then it would have been. If I go to the dentist to have a filling or a tooth out, I have a choice - I don't have to go. So that's pretty brave (for me at least). But going for chemo every third week? Not much choice there. Go, knowing it's going to make my hair fall out and mess up my tastebuds - or don't go - and die. It's that simple. Does that constitute a choice? Not to me it doesn't, I am not ready to die just yet, I have a boat to sail, grandchildren to spoil and a lot of living to do.

What I didn't have to do was post a picture of my battered boob yesterday. I thought long and hard before I did so. I was influenced by the amazingly brave women who chose to bare all for an exhibition and were deemed "offensive" by Facebook, and the woman last year who posted pictures of her surgery which suffered the same fate. I was influenced by the thought that many of the breast surgery pictures on the Internet show huge damage, which is frightening to people facing such an ordeal. I might be pretty cool about baring my body at the beach or at sea, but actually, (joking apart, IB1) there's something a bit odd about putting pictures of my naked boob where my baby brother and my daughter can see them... It would also be really embarrassing to be told that my picture is pornographic or offensive...
But then I thought - "sod it!" - and posted it anyway. So far, Blogger hasn't told me that my boob is offensive, which is nice. I have been told that it's a neat job, I will pass that onto the surgeon, who will I am sure be pleased... Hopefully people will look and think that it's not so bad, and that maybe they won't be so scared when they have to have a lump removed...
So, posting that was something I didn't have to do, and it was pretty scary. So I think that was pretty brave of me!

More coffee please...

Guess what - I am still here...

The Great Man arrived this morning just after nine (I was up, washed and sat smiley in the chair by ten to eight this morning after he arrived at the same time as breakfast yesterday!), without any sidekick or followers at all! However, he said that he really wants to get the drain out, but I appear to be still leaking. There comes a point where the risk of infection caused by having the drain in starts to outweigh the problems caused by taking it out... and it appears that he thinks that point will be tomorrow. If I am still leaking and the drain is removed, the fluid will build up into a Seroma which will have to be aspirated (drained) with a syringe. That would be dull, but we will see how the fluid builds up in my funky handbag today. It would be nice not to have this thing to carry around any more, I have to say. At least he said that the fluid is a nice colour... sort of orangey with bits of blood in it, not to my taste but there you go.

Here's a nice picture of my new best friend!

Anyway, hopefully I will be out of here tomorrow some time.

A recruitment agency rang me this morning asking if I was seriously interested in a job I sent a CV for yesterday... I filled in the application as much to see who the employer was, as the location is close to where I worked a while ago. The salary offered was a bit lower than I would have wanted. OK, actually his opening gambit was actually about fifteen grand lower than I would have wanted... although he managed to revise his initial estimate up a fair bit while we were talking. However, having chatted to the agency this morning, the job actually sounds rather fun, and the money isn't that far off the mark if the work is interesting - so I have asked him to put me forward for it, stressing that I would intend to stay in the role and not leg it for something with more dosh at the first opportunity.

I am a bit concerned about all the drugs I am taking. I have paracetamol, which I am happy to take for a while, and some codeine, which I would rather not be taking as apart from anything else it tends to bung up the botty rather... There is another little orange one which is a different painkiller (can't remember what it is, see, I will take anything they give me!) (update - it's diclofenac, which is another painkiller) and of course there is the new stuff, pregabalin (which sounds like an expectant dwarf to me)... This is supposed to do wonders for the numbness in my arm and back, but has a long list of warnings - including "do not take with alcohol". Now I am not a complete lush (honest!) but I would like to have a glass of wine on Friday evening, and since I am not permitted to drive for a bit I thought I would take the (somewhat rare) opportunity to do so... but now I don't know if I can! It might be that alcohol will increase the possibility of drowsiness, so if I am not driving and am going home to bed then it will be fine, but it might be that it will actually make me ill, as is the case with antibiotics like metronidazole! Hopefully, Anaesthetic man will arrive and tell me all about it - I guess that will be tomorrow rather than today though. It also is reputed to bring a risk of weight gain... but then so does everything.
I was sort of hoping that the Great Man might be back with some histology results today, after their big meeting, but no sign. They did say it might take a bit longer than that... but you wouldn't expect me to be patient, would you?

Back to the library books I guess. I wonder how I will survive at home when there isn't a steady stream of coffee delivered... I can't help thinking that it probably isn't so good for me. At home I have one cup of proper coffee first thing and then drink water - here I am putting about two pints of the stuff away over the course of the day (and eating a small mountain of biscuits) and it is probably why I can't get to sleep at night and am sat reading at midnight. Good think I am not on a ward disturbing other folk!

Library fever

Well, this morning I was mostly reading the John Le Carré novel that I had hidden in the bottom drawer for emergencies...
I woke up this morning in real pain - I felt as though I had been stabbed in the shoulder, which I suppose isn't that far from the truth! Some poor innocent came in to ask if they could take my blood pressure and was very nearly bitten for her pains... I could barely think, and the idea of being messed with was most unwelcome. However, once I had remembered that I needed to breathe as well as whimper and swear I managed to roll onto my back and submit to the various prods and squeezes required to determine that I am still alive... Fortunately the process of "doing the obs" was swiftly followed by the much more helpful process of "dishing out the drugs". This had two beneficial effects - to swallow the pills I did have to sit up, which actually proved to be more comfortable than lying down, and the cocktail of assorted painkillers which was supplied did promise to kick the pants of whatever was making me feel so rotten.

The Great Man and Sidekick came to visit at just after 8am - I don't know when these guys have any time for a personal life, or sleep, they seem to be here all the time, including all over the weekend... The drain was prodded, the boob was poked and much murmuring took place. It seems that the odd bit of skin on my boob which isn't covered in a dressing is a little pink and maybe a bit warm - so rather than wait for an infection to develop to a point where it's obvious, they decided that I should start some antibiotics just in case... seeing as how my immune system has been battered to heck by the chemo over the last few months, it doesn't seem like a bad idea.

I decided I was going to start asking questions this morning - I haven't really had the energy in my brain for the last few days, and there have been a few people coming in to talk at me when I haven't really grasped what they have said. It shows that I do need DH to be with me all the time, he listens and absorbs the stuff when my brain can't produce a more sensible response than "meh"...
I've been reading another blog, by the astonishing Lisa Lynch, who hasn't just had to deal with a simple dose of breast cancer, she's found that she has the ba&tard gene which gives her and family a hugely increased chance of both breast and ovarian cancer. She's gone on to have her remaining breast and her ovaries removed to try to prevent any further problems - all at the tender age of 30! Her blog is brilliant, I won't use the soppy words like "inspiring" - suffice to say that I have found many of her experiences to be painfully familiar and have laughed and shuddered in equal measure. If you go to look, be aware that she is a bit prone to the use of language that might offend... but even her Dad seems to have got over worrying about it now!
I have a daughter and a niece, and there are four little girls in the generation after that, so the possible presence of that ba&tard gene is a bit of a worry. So I asked the Great Man about BRCA-2 screening... The NHS won't screen anyone who doesn't meet certain criteria - and that generally means having two or more close relatives with breast or ovarian cancer, or having breast cancer which was diagnosed before age 30 or so. I don't meet those criteria. My sister died when she was in her twenties, so we can't say what might or might have happened to her, but my Mum lived to 80 and the cancer that got her was from smoking. Both my Grandmothers lived to a ripe old age, and I have never heard any reports of cancer from the various aunts and cousins on either Mum's or Dad's side. So on the whole I have to agree that it seems likely that my cancer was a "sporadic" case and that the next generation aren't likely to be at any increased risk. And while financial aspects are the least concern in situations like this, the test costs about two grand, so I can see why the test is only done where there is evidence of a family history.

I have done a bit more research about the new painkillers that the nice pain-specialist/anaesthetist gentleman prescribed. The Great Man was talking about them this morning, and when I commented that they hadn't made much difference he said that they take about four or five days to start working... Now it's not like me to take a pill before I have googled it, but as I said my resistance is pretty low at the moment and I would swallow rabbit droppings if someone carrying a stethoscope handed them to me in a small paper cup. However, I did the due diligence bit today and discovered that Pregabalin is indeed used to treat epilepsy, but has shown great results in the treatment of "neuropathic pain" - and since I have a great deal of numbness and tenderness in the area of my arm and back near to where the various incisions were made, it sounds like it could well be just what I need. Interestingly, it seems to have been used with some success in the treatment of Fibromyalgia, so there is someone in my family to whom I will be speaking upon the matter quite soon... Anyway, I will keep taking the tablets and see how things go over the next few days.

Can you tell I have worked out how to put hyperlinks in my blog now?

It's been a longish day. DH arrived mid-afternoon with a huge pile of library books, enough to keep even me occupied for a couple of days at least - including one which I had already got out last week but had forgotten about. He'd also spoken to our super neighbour, who turned up this evening with a bag of books for me - she also happens to be a nurse on a stroke unit and understands how normally placid people can go completely loopy when trapped in a hospital with no reading matter and only the telly showing Dead-Enders, the X-Factor and the barrage of reporting about Royal Weddings.
On that subject - I wouldn't volunteer to be Queen Catherine, the last three didn't do very well - Katherine of Aragon married the older brother, he died so she married the younger brother Prince Henry who became King Henry VIII, but was set aside for Anne Boleyn, Katherine Howard lost her head after getting caught playing around and Catherine Parr had a narrow escape when she was found to be reading subversive literature... Hmmm... we shall have to watch out in case history starts to repeat itself... I wish the girl the best of luck, she will need it!

A long day...

The registrar and SHO arrived about 9.30 this morning to tell me that the their leader would be around after lunch, but was busy operating at another hospital... The drain is still draining, and the dressings were all looking a bit manky. The amount of blood in the drain, as well as my consistently low blood pressure, meant that they want to examine my haemoglobin levels and such like... So after they left the nice nurse came and investigated the dressings, of which there seemed to be about five layers, all stuck together with a bit of blood and a lot of sticking plaster (or rather the modern replacement). She cleaned it all up and I got to see my newly relocated nipple for the first time - actually it looks exactly as it did, albeit with a scar all round now. It's all pretty numb, not just the nipple but the whole boob, most of my upper arm and quite a lot of my shoulder. I am assured that the sensation will come back as the bruising goes down and the swellings subside - I jolly well hope so!

One of our lovely Breast Care Nurses also came to visit this morning, which was nice, and she said that it was time for me to start doing the recommended post-operative exercises as outlined here... It all looks a bit trivial on their information leaflet. The first one is effectively "shrug your shoulders seven times"... OK, can manage that. Then "lock your fingers together in front of you and bring your arms up level with your shoulders - seven times". That was a bit more taxing... then "put your fingers on your shoulders with your elbows pointing forward, lift elbows level with shoulders - seven times"... Hmm, this was actually pretty hard work! I have to say that it was as much as I could do to get through the set... but hopefully repeating these regularly will improve the circulation and flexibility quickly. Lovely Breast Care Nurse came also said that exercise bikes would be a good idea to improve general fitness, and that walking (even on a treadmill) would be good all round, getting upper body movement going, but that the cross-trainer would probably be a Very Bad Idea... After a week of the cross-trainer I am inclined to agree with her!

The Great Man arrived just after lunch (mushroom soup - mmm) and pronounced that he was happy with the progress so far, but was less happy with the amount of fluid coming out of the side of me... There's no way the drain is coming out for at least a couple of days, he's thinking I might be out of here Thursday (THURSDAY!?!?!) all being well. Actually when pressed he thought Wednesday might be feasible, in fact he will push the lab for the histology report on the tissue he chopped out so that he can get those in time for their Multi-Disciplinary Team meeting on Wednesday morning so that he can come and see me in the afternoon, discuss the next phase and then let me go home. That sounds like a plan... So I then had to faff around finding numbers for the insurance company to ring them and let them know that I would be in here for a couple of days longer than planned. The nice lady there was most amused that I was worried enough to call them immediately - "We're not about to tell them to throw you out after the three days originally planned, you know! You just get better and I will talk to the hospital direct, don't worry about us!" So Customer Service brownie points to an insurance company beginning with A who are based in the county town of Norfolk.
Happy nurse has just brought me the afternoon drug instalment - confused me completely by replacing the little round orange tablet with a slightly bigger triangular white one... but they are exactly the same thing from different manufacturers. Proved I was checking though!

Before he left, the Great Man put my little discomforts into perspective. He will be round to see me after lunch tomorrow - in the morning he's doing a bilateral mastectomy. That means that some poor woman either has cancer in both boobs, or has discovered that she has the BRCA-2 gene, which means she has an 80% chance of developing breast cancer, so is having her breasts removed as a precaution. That must be a really awful decision to make - at least all my decisions were easy and obvious, not having the treatment was not an option!

Dear Husband arrived on way home from work, all tired and worn out, bless him... bearing fruit & nut chocolate and emery boards to tidy up my battered split thumbnail. He left with most of my book stash and a list of things to bring back in the morning... I sent him packing fairly quickly as he looked all in, poor lad. He's eaten all the flapjacks and most of the bread, will be reduced to buying such things if I am in here much longer - I am not really a domestic goddess but I have managed to provide bread for his lunch recently and I feel quite bad that my stay in here will be longer than the supply of bread I put in place!

My right arm is a bit swollen and puffy - I am hoping that this is just a result of the trauma from the operation and not a sign of long-term lymphoedema... my biggest fear at the moment is that, once it sets in it never goes and I have had two-thirds of the nodes removed on that side, so there is a risk... they say it's a 20% risk, so hopefully I will be lucky, but I have got off so lightly with other bits of the treatment so far that fate might just be saving this one up for me! Fingers crossed, eh?

Think it's time to see if I can get my head around the Duchess Eleanor again, since all the nice fluffy novels are finished and gone...

Tiny steps

Slept mostly well, which was good, until about 6am... winter is drawing in fast, it was still dark when I awoke. Feeling pretty mangled, but they are keeping the pain drugs coming. The Great Man arrived just after 9 to see me, seemed pretty pleased with his handiwork still, and not too bothered by the slight bleeding from one of the assorted wounds. The drain still has a lot of blood in it, so there won't be a rush back to the full dose of the anti-clotting stuff for a few days.
Just had a visit from another doctor who seems to be a pain specialist, who said that he's going change the pain medication, and add a new drug which is better at sorting out "nerve pain". I thought all pain was nerve pain, but he meant pain caused by some rat sticking a knife into flesh and cutting through nerves... a fine distinction! Anyway, we shall see how it performs, he said it can make one drowsy but we will see how it goes.
Lunch was very nice soup - it would be very easy to get very fat in hospital where one is routinely offered breakfast and then two three-course meals each day - this being Sunday I could have two roast dinners with sponge pudding for afters... however I was good and went for soup and an apple for lunch.
I will be in here for at least one more night, which in a way is a comfort, my blood pressure has been a bit low and I would like to feel that I had completely got over the anaesthetic before I go home. DH will be at work tomorrow and I feel better being here with people around me, which is a bit wimpish but I don't really care. My brain is still pretty mushy and so I will take all the support that is being offered.
Time for a little snooze, I think, all this thinking is wearing me out!

The condemned woman eats a hearty supper

Well, I won't be allowed breakfast! It's Friday, which is traditionally the night when someone else cooks my supper... the nice chef at the pub. We have a regular date with a mate at his local, the pubs round our way all have big signs promising 48 inches of Sky Sports, which isn't quite our cup of Earl Grey... The in-laws have invited themselves along tonight as they won't see me over the weekend as I will be locked away in the arms of the hospital... so hopefully we can hitch a ride in their car which means that I will get a glass of wine - this hardly ever happens on a Friday as I generally drive home.

I have a bag packed - new jim-jams! I haven't owned such things since I was about 15, I do own two rather fine Victorian-style white cotton nightdresses, but it seems that these will be unsuitable as they will rather restrict access to the boob area and the bit where the drains will be sticking out... so finest supermarket jim-jams with a little vest top with stringy straps - the fetching sports bra will spoil the effect but what the heck, I will have to keep my dressing gown on. Bearing in mind that I am a) bald with no eyebrows b) at least a stone heavier than I should be and c) having a socking great lump ripped out of my boob, I figure that fashion is low on the priority list today.

Dear Husband went off in the car this morning to pay a short visit to his old employers, where he's worked odd days over the last however-long since he left there - he never had a P45 as he never officially left, so his new employers can't get a tax code for him. The lady he spoke to on the phone seemed to think that if they gave him a P45 he couldn't then work part time for them... However, once he got to talk to the lady who knew, she gave him a P46 to fill in and give to the new boss and all is hunky dory again. However, in the meantime he got talking to someone, then went and lent a hand with a problem somewhere else, then bumped into someone he hadn't seen for a bit... in short, "I'll be home lunchtime-ish" turned into "Just leaving now and will pop and do a little job on the way home" at about 3.15... and it's about 45 minutes drive without any little jobs... This turned the normally mild-mannered bald half of this marriage into the screaming harridan bitch from Hell! I had not only got extra soup out of the freezer so that there was enough for two - none of which was going to be eaten as it was far too late in the day to start having lunch when we're going to have supper at 6.30 - but I as I was waiting for him to get home before I had mine I hadn't actually had anything to eat at all since a slice of bread at 8am, so I was pretty ratty to start with. Add to this that he'd gone off in my car leaving me with no way to get to the gym or the library, and probably wouldn't be back in time to get to the library which shuts at 5 on Fridays. Oh, and the tiny issue that I have to go into hospital for surgery under a general anaesthetic at 7am, and that I am actually quite nervous about this, I don't like being made unconscious, it frightens me something rotten, and I had rather hoped that he'd be around to spend the day with me (not to mention helping me rearrange the furniture in my office so I will have room to set the sewing machine up so I can amuse myself with that next week) and instead he'd spent the whole @*%@** day with his @*%@** mates!!!
When I called him back and asked him to try and get back before 5 so I could at least get some books to take to the hospital with me, he pointed out that the 2CV was sat on the drive and the keys were there (in his shoe) (no, I don't know why he keeps his car keys in his shoe either) if I wanted to use it. In truth I didn't as I haven't driven the 2CV for ages and it takes me ages to get the seat sorted out so I can see over the steering wheel (I am only little!), so he said that he would do his best to get back in time. Nevertheless, I was pretty hacked off and ran around the house ranting about the fact that I had no books (apart from the thousand or so on the bookshelf), that I hadn't been to the gym, that we never go anywhere on our own and our social life consists of going to the pub with his mate and having Sunday lunch with his family, and that (worst thing of all) HE WASN'T HERE!!!!!
I knew that I was being unreasonable and very silly, but things get that way when stress gets stacked up, and eventually it has to blow out somewhere. After I had finished slamming things around and banging cupboard doors all over the place (sorry neighbours!) my eyes (and fingers) landed on the bottle of Rescue Remedy, and calm and common sense returned in some small measure. I did the washing up, ran a bath and had a little weep with frustration. True to his word he was back on the stroke of 4, I have no idea how he managed to get back that quickly - he drove me to the library and back and apologised profusely for not being back for lunch. Poor thing, he takes all the flak when I get screwed up and he bears it all stoically (is that a real word?). I don't know quite what I would do without him, which is possibly why I get all bent out of shape when he doesn't appear when he says he's going to.

Anyway, I am calm (ish) now and I have got myself pretty much organised for tomorrow - just need to throw the laptop into its bag and I will be there. If his parents are joining us for supper then I can guilt-trip them into driving so I can get a glass of pinot grigio, which will be nice. I can eat and drink until midnight, and have water until 5am, so at least I don't have to sit around fasting all day. I knew there had to be some advantage to being first on the list and booked in for theatre at 8am!

Next update will hopefully be tomorrow afternoon some time, when I should be lump-free and thus a giant leap closer to the edge of the big dark scary forest... fingers crossed!

Fit? fit to drop

I decided that I need to get some muscle tone of some kind as soon as I can, so it's been back to the gym for me. I have a program that involves lots of cardio stuff, like treadmills and cross-trainers, with a couple of resistance machines to get some work in on the muscles around the area where the man with the knife will be working. That bit will only last until Friday, as anything that puts any strain on the area around where the tumour is currently lurking will obviously be off the agenda for quite a while. However I see no reason why I can't sit on an exercise bike every day and my heart really needs the tlc... I am so out of condition that it frightens me. It would be a bit of a tragedy to get through all this lot and then have a heart attack because I have got out of condition and a bit flabby!
I went and did the routine at the gym yesterday afternoon and survived ok... mostly. Then this morning I got up and slogged my way up to London for an interview, which put paid to my plan to go morning and afternoon... so I went when I got back. Now I am really worn out! I know it will get easier as the week goes along, so I MUST make myself go in the morning. I will have to get up to make Sir's sandwiches as the bread isn't finished yet and I want to go to bed now, so that should get me out of the pit early enough that I will have time to get down there and do the thing before I have to go to the hospital for my pre-op consultation. That's the plan, at least. (and yes, he could make his own sandwiches but I have been doing them as my paltry contribution - he's going out and working very hard labouring on a building site so making his butties is the least I can do!)(anyway, providing bread and flapjacks makes me feel a bit like a domestic goddess, which is quite nice once in a while!)
The trip to the hospital will most likely account for most of the day, since they were talking about EEGs, blood tests and all sorts of other things. Should get me home just in time to go to the gym again...

Gory details - don't look if you're sensitive!

I've been asked what the surgery will involve...
The tumour is in the right-hand side of my right breast. The surgeon is concerned that he doesn't leave any cancer cells lurking there when he takes the lump out - tumours aren't nice round balls, they are a bit spidery with bits sticking out into the surrounding tissue. When the lump is removed it will be examined to ensure that the tissue removed has a clear margin of healthy tissue - there must be no cancer cells on the surface.
When the lump was big it was quite close to the skin, so in order to ensure a clear margin there the surgeon wants to remove the skin as well. If he just cuts down and takes both lump and skin it will leave the breast rather misshapen - taking the skin will cause the nipple to be dragged off to the right, so it would end up pointing off to the side. This is obviously less than ideal, so what he plans to do is to make a cut all around the nipple and take a crescent-moon shape out of the skin on the left side, in order to re-centre the nipple on the breast. Sounds awful, but I have seen a breast that he's done this to, and it works quite well. We did ask what effect this would have on the nerve supply to the nipple - he assures us that only the skin is affected and the nipple itself will be undamaged and will behave as it always has.
As the lump is so much reduced from what it was, he's confident that removing it will not leave too much of a change in shape (as long as he sorts the nipple position out) and he doesn't think much reconstruction work (if any) will be required - however this will be assessed after the surgery has been done. If it has left the breast out of shape then he has a number of techniques he can use to improve matters, including packing the void left by the lump with fatty tissue taken from the midriff or abdomen - I have plenty to spare so no problem there!
He will also remove two-thirds of the lymph nodes on that side - because of the initial size and grade of the tumour, and the fact that there was evidence (on the original MRI) of a node being inflamed he is not prepared to take a single "sentinel" node for examination, he wants to get most of them out and checked to ensure that they are not affected. This does bring with it a risk of lymphoedema, which is a swelling of the arm which can be painful and never goes away (although it can be managed), but this occurs in about 1 in 8 patients who have all the lymph nodes removed, so there is a good chance it won't be a problem. Fingers crossed - and it's better than the risk that there is something nasty lurking in there!
It's nearly 12.30 as I write - in a week from now I will be back from theatre, and the cancer will be gone - I will then be able to say that I am "recovering from cancer treatment" rather than "suffering from cancer" - that has to be a better place to be!

The roller coaster rushes on

Well, the great day dawned and we went off to see the surgeon.
He's tall, handsome, Italian and seems very confident and competent. I have only met him once before, and that was the day that he told me that I had cancer, so I wasn't really terribly together at the time, but all the research I have done tells me that he's one of the good guys and that I am lucky to have him as my surgeon.
He reports that all has gone well with the chemo - the tumour is very much reduced, the MRI shows a huge reduction in size. He did an ultrasound scan and said that the thing is now 11x14mm, which is much better than the 4cm diameter mass that was there before! He also found (and showed me on the scan) a large cyst in my left breast, which I hadn't even noticed and can't find now! But it's just a cyst and doesn't need any intervention at all.
After he'd finished scanning and I had put my clothes on again, we talked about the surgery. Initially dates in mid-December were discussed, and looking over his shoulder his diary does seem very full! However, when we waved the magic wand that is health insurance, mid November suddenly came within reach. I don't want to go into the posh private hospital quite near to my house (although it's very nice and comfortable) - I would rather use the private suite at the big local hospital, for two reasons - a) the company that runs the posh hospital has plenty of money and doesn't need my contribution and b) if anything goes wrong, I would rather that there was an ITU and emergency care team on site!
So in the end we are scheduled for next Saturday morning. It's a couple of weeks sooner than the NHS would be able to do it - not a huge difference, clinically it makes little odds and it would only have been a month to wait. However, it gets it over with which makes me feel better (I want the wretched thing gone!), and more importantly it means that it will all be over and I will be fit in time for the much-longed-for tickets for a certain show in mid December!
PS - the much awaited bath last night was bliss!!!!

Milestone

Well, it's done - the PICC line has gone! It feels really strange without it. I didn't even feel it go, there was no sensation at all, I looked away and the nurse said "there!" and I looked back and she was dropping it onto a tray! All over in seconds. I am so looking forward to a proper bath, without having to stick my arm in a plastic tube and hold it in the air...not tonight, I will give it a day to settle down (there is still a hole in my arm and I wouldn't like it if soap got in there and it stung!) but tomorrow night is my night for hot water, bubbles, scented candles, face pack - all the things to make a relaxing soak into a spiritual experience!

I also have my appointment for Friday confirmed, so I will be seeing the surgeon and finding out what the plan is for the next few weeks. That's a great relief.

And just for a laugh I did a Windows 7 upgrade today - I will get his bl**dy game to run properly if it's the last thing I ever do!