First Dose of Chemotherapy

Well, I've had my first dose of chemotherapy and am proud to say that I have survived although there were a couple of days there that my family may have thought otherwise.  In fact, I thought otherwise! I staggered from the bathroom to the bedroom, to the recliner chair and then to the lounge before going back to the bathroom to pee.  The peeing was endless.  No doubt that had plenty to do with the gallons of water I'd been told to drink. I was in the bathroom about every 90 minutes for the first few nights so sleep was very elusive.

It hasn't been quite a week and I am thinking one down and three to go.  I guess that is a positive and I haven't decided to quit after the first dose.

It doesn't matter what symptom I get at the moment, I blame it on the chemo (like blame it on the boogie).  The first few nights I was having weird nightmares where I woke up in a lather of sweat and screaming.  I haven't had nightmares like that since I watched  Silence of the Lambs.  I get weird aches and pains all over the place - in my joints and sometimes just a quick stabbing pain in my shin and then my shoulder.  I just hope this means it is doing its stuff like a little pac-man chomping its way through any stray escaped cancer cells it comes across.

The amount of support and information that is available for breast cancer patients is nothing short of amazing so, in many cases I think I may have been able to counteract some of the symptoms such as mouth ulcers and dry skin.  In fact my skin hasn't been this moist and supple in years because I'm encouraged to look after my skin and moisturise regularly because of both the surgery and the chemotherapy.  My hands and arms are now beautiful and soft and my nails are glowing from putting about 50 coats of nail strengthener on to combat possible breaking nails.

For years I've had this crease between my eyebrows (some people may call it a wrinkle but not me) which I thought was a permanent fixture but it appears that not working and looking after my skin with beautiful quality products (complements of Look Good Feel Better) has reduced this dramatically.  I can now see that there is a direct link between how well I sleep and the depth of the crease (or wrinkle if that's the road you're taking ).  Every morning I jump up out of bed, or at least drag my butt up slowly to check on the sleep-o-meter crease and it does me the world of good when I have trouble locating it.  I'm now a girl on a mission to get rid of it for good.  If it can disappear for hours at a time then it can piss off permanently.

The fact that I'm not working also gives me ample time to pamper my skin so I'm cleansing, toning, gelling, moisturising, eye-creaming, neck creaming daily and masking regularly.  Hopefully, if I have glowing pampered skin I won't feel so bad about things if and when my hair falls out.  On this matter though I have been trying on hats, scarves, turbans and wigs so I hope to be prepared and not have a melt-down.

Tomorrow I'm back to the hospital to get the dressing changed on my PICC line (for the uninitiated, this is best described as a direct link to drugs) and if I'm up to it, a visit to the wig shop just to see if there is anything there that takes my fancy.  Perhaps a blond bob like Julia Roberts wore in Pretty Woman .....

From Boogie-Boarding to Breast Cancer

I left Melbourne on Anzac day to move back to Bundaberg to be with my family after my husband died.  At the time, I didn’t think too much about the Anzac connection but now I can’t help feeling it was a sign.   It meant I had the fight of my life on my hands.

Mostly it was frightening packing up my life with Alan, selling the house and saying goodbye to family and friends but always in the back of my mind there was this element of excitement that kept me going.  I was getting the opportunity to start afresh.  I was moving to a warmer climate to find a new job and buy a new house and begin again close to my family.

I’d barely started on my new journey before I discovered a lump in my breast and from then on I have been living in a nightmare just waiting to wake up.  

One day I was boogie-boarding in the surf feeling fantastic and two days later I’m getting mammograms, ultrasounds, needle biopsies and a core biopsy.  I barely knew what these things were.  By far, the worst thing is waiting for results.  I thought I suffered from insomnia before but the nights spent wide awake imagining the worst were the worst nights I’ve ever experienced.  Scared and feeling very alone even though I was surrounded by family.  During this time I tried to tell myself that I had a lump in my breast that could be benign.  I tried not to even think of the word ‘cancer’ because it was way too hard to deal with.

I shall never forget sitting in the surgeon’s office and being told “you have breast cancer”.  It was like being in a tunnel with the words echoing around my head.  The next words I heard were “choice of mastectomy or lumpectomy”.  My head was spinning and I’m surprised I didn’t faint but it is amazing how you can deal with a crisis situation when you have to.

I had no idea what to do or where to go after hearing the diagnosis I’d been dreading.  How I got to meet with the McGrath Foundation Breast Care nurse I can’t even recall but it was the best thing I could have done.  My mum, who had been by my side throughout the ordeal, came with me to meet Margie Mears who put the world back into perspective for me.  For this I am very grateful.

Within days of my diagnosis I was admitted to hospital for a lumpectomy.  Having only been to hospital once before as a kid to have my appendix out I was really scared and had no idea what to expect.  Half of me was thinking I should just have left the lump alone and the other half was grateful that I was at least starting on the cure and not waiting for something.   I hate the waiting!

I don’t think it is unreasonable for me to say that I hate pain and I am assuming that I have a very low tolerance to pain.  Nobody knows this for sure though – I am just guessing.   Up until this point, getting a blood test was a major ordeal for me.  If I’d known the pain I was about to endure I think I would have backed out and gone back to boogie boarding.  I thought the mammogram was painful until I experienced the test for the sentinel node biopsy.  If you are feint-hearted or weak-stomached you may want to stop reading now.  This procedure involved injecting blue dye into my breast through the nipple area with the sharpest of needles with absolutely NO pain relief.  I want to add that it wasn’t just one needle but FOUR.  I’m not sure they’d heard such obscenities in the laboratory as they did that day. 

The surgery was somewhat uneventful because of the anaesthetic but again, I find myself back waiting for pathology results.  I hate the waiting!  I was feeling well and confident that everything would be fine and I’d be back boogie-boarding, job and house-hunting within a couple of weeks.  Who was I kidding?  Back to the surgeon’s office to be told he had good and bad news.  The good news being that he had successfully removed two tumours (first I’d heard there were two!) and the bad news being there were signs of cancer in one of the two lymph nodes he had removed. 

At this point I cried – I didn’t know what else to do.  I couldn’t stay strong any longer.  I wanted to yell and scream – it just wasn’t fair.  Why me? What had I done to deserve this? I read of other people who show amazing strength at times like this and I wish I could be like that but I can’t.  I still can’t help thinking of the unfairness of it all.  I’d lost my husband only five months ago from cancer and here I am - having to face the fear all over again but without my partner by my side.  At this stage, if there was a choice to “opt out”, I would have gladly taken it.  Life doesn’t work like that though.

Again, I am amazed by the strength of the human mind to get back up but I do and find myself back in hospital to have my lymph glands removed.  I am certainly getting value for money on my health insurance at the moment.  Mind you, I’d rather not be.

To be honest, up until this point I wasn’t really sure what a lymph node actually did – this was probably a bonus now that I know what I can’t do without them.  I’m sorry I didn’t pay them more attention and show them more respect when I had them.

As I sit in hospital waiting (I hate the waiting!) to have the drain removed and go home I can’t help thinking how long it has been since I have had some ‘me time’ which I am getting in abundance.  I am enjoying re-connecting with my family, reading, sleeping, writing, watching TV, talking to staff and eating well-balanced meals and thinking about my future and what I can achieve.

I am starting to come out of the tunnel and can see and can see a glimmer of light as I come to the end of the first leg of my journey to recovery.