Another trip North

After getting up super-early to get to Coventry for a hospital appointment with the Plastics Nurse at 0800, a cursory glance at the hospital letter showed me that it was in fact until 0900. My darling OH was so sweet about it, despite my rousing him an hour too soon, but it didn't stop me arguing with him as we waited for the appointment to start.

Our conversation had turned to my discomfort about the oncology appointment next week, and as I expected, he is thinking that it's a good idea to go and find out what they say. His stance is that he saw his neighbour opt to die early rather than endure another horrific cycle of chemotherapy. Therefore he believes that we should consider the option carefully and perhaps reject it if it doesn't seem to give a good return on investment.  He feels that my original and extreme reaction to being told I had breast cancer was too extreme (I wanted to have both breasts immediately removed) and that I need to think carefully about chemotherapy and not have an instant and emotional reaction if I am told that I need it.

I snapped back because whatever, I want it to be my decision and noone else's, no matter what the return in investment. I will not know how I feel until the moment I am told whether or not I need chemotherapy, and no matter what my reaction, I want to have it accepted that it is my decision. I railed at him for criticising the "emotional" and extreme way in which I faced my diagnosis in the first place and told him that whatever I said or did, it was my way of dealing with it.

He looked hurt. He has had malignant skin cancer in the last so he does know what it is like to be told that you have invasive cancer at a point before you know just how bad it is. He has been here.  But everyone is different. I just want to feel that some of the control, some of the decision-making, is mine.

We got past it and I had my appointment. It seems that the seroma is too insignificant to risk the draining procedure, but on the whole the breast is looking good. The plastics surgeon came in and said that the feeling I have of the implant moving around, is fairly normal and that it will shrink and settle in due course. I was also told now to actively wash the scabbed area gently, and this would remove it.

On the way home we found that we needed to make a delivery to Edinburgh. T-shirts that we had been told by our customer were allegedly needed for an event tonight, even though the event printed on them is actually not beginning for another few days.  But although the t-shirts were ready and printed, our overnight courier had failed to collect them the night before. We dropped into the factory and collected the six cartons and set off on the 300-mile trip up North. As we passed Preston, K spoke to the customer to assure him that, true to request, we were delivering the order personally because the courier had let us down. And everything in the customer's guilty voice told us that the deadline had been a false one, although this wasn't said in words.

But what the heck? It was a far better day than when we went 'merely' to the Lake District for the meeting....even some blue sky visible in jagged nuggets between the rolling white clouds. We crossed the border into Scotland a couple of hours later, and after the mandatory staccato run into Edinburgh, we followed the Satnav's instructions straight to our destination on Victoria Street in the Old Town and delivered the cartons....rather, I sat helplessly in the car while K ferried them all in.

I know he wanted to park up and get out, and find somewhere to buy stovies, but I couldn't face  walking around pre-festival Edinburgh even though I had been seated for over three hours. At this time of year, Edinburgh has plenty of restaurants and shops but they are either heaving with visitors, or closed. The prospect, at 4pm, of finding somewhere to sell us a decent scotch pie or a tub of stovies, was limited. So, to K's disappointment, we simply turned tail and drive back down south again, stopping only to devour a Krispy Kreme doughnut at a service station near the border.

Not such a good day

Yesterday was Wednesday and I felt so low that I didn't make any entries in this blog.

From the moment I awoke, I felt rough and weak, despite having had a good night's sleep. I was expecting my parents to come and see me for the day, so I was excited about that, but something felt very out of kilter emotionally and physically. It took some time to get going.

It was wonderful to see my parents, especially my father after all he has been through. I hadn't seen him since the day before my mastectomy, when he was in hospital recovering hours after his heart attack. Like me, he looked fragile, but I knew at just the act of coming to see me, despite my mother being the driver, was still a new step for him on his path to recovery, added to the fact that he is not sleeping very well at the moment. But it was lovely, despite having seen him on FaceTime! to be able to give him a big hug. They had brought me beautiful roses and my mother sweetly arranged them for me in a vase and we ate lunch.

The postman brought me a sheaf of letters, two of which were from the hospital. One was a total surprise: it was an appointment with the oncologist for next Wednesday. I was unnerved, rattled: I had been told with almost certainty that I would not get an appointment until mid September and I had been more than comfortable to wait before progressing to the next step.  By seeing the Oncologist next week, it means that my discovery of whether or not I will undergo chemotherapy will take place next week. I will also start my menopause sooner, because my systemic treatment (the hormone drug tamoxifen) will start sooner. I'd thought I had a window in which I could do nothing and was ready to absolve my responsibilities to my wellness for over a month.

But now, I face this next week.

Like I said, I was rattled, and I was already feeling down. After my dear parents left I sank into a deep sleep so I wouldn't have to think any more.. I know what everyone is saying to me, that it's better to start his earlier, to find out earlier; and to be fair as soon as I was diagnosed I faced the reality if needing chemotherapy. But now it's on the verge of happening, suddenly I don't feel so brave.

Farther Afield

God, the weather was diabolical today.

This morning I decided to accompany my SO on a business trip up North, to get me out of the house. My studio is being built in the garden and the builder likes to wander in and out of the house when he isn't drilling, so it's not the most relaxing scenario.

We travelled up the motorway with the weather worsening around us, as it seemed, every moment. Monstrously black clouds reared up out of blue skies and flung sheets of rain at us, and the tarmac was hidden in the boiling, bouncing spume of the spray. The temperature dropped steadily through the low teens and I even deployed my seat warmer. Still, the countryside North of Lancashire is dramatic enough to appreciate in any weather with its craggy outcrops and plunging, rolling farmland giving way to tantalising glimpses of the glittering Morecambe Bay to the Wesr.

The meeting was soon over and it was time to make the return journey. By this time I was starting to ache a little; feel less present. But I'm still progressing: only two paracetamol lasting the whole day (though I was pleased to get home and have some more), and this would have seemed impossible this time last week. The seroma is building up again, but I'm not afraid of having that removed now I know it doesn't hurt. In fact, like having an ear syringed, it's quite pleasant. The feeling of having the implant bouncing against an internal nipple gets stronger throughout the day!

I'm tired now. But at least I got out a little today, on very few painkillers. Very happy about that.

Normality creeps back in....

Today it was my darling K's birthday. 

 He is not at all like I am. If it was my birthday everyone would know about it. I tell people for weeks and weeks before my birthday so they are in absolutely no doubt at all by the actual day, that it is my birthday. I exact a high proportion of good wishes and congratulations and make sure that I celebrate. In contrast, my SO is very modest and quiet, and hates to be the centre of any sort of attention.

Because I have been unable to get around and about by myself over the past few weeks, I had to ask him to take me shopping to the local supermarket so that I could get him a card. "It's okay, my darling," he replied so sweetly, "You don't need to get me a card." "But I really WANT to get you a card!" I cried. And if I'm honest with myself I was a little bit pouty and huffy until he gave in and drove me to the supermarket, where there were some really lovely cards, but In the 'HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE ONE I LOVE' section, I've already bought him most of the range. So there was a choice between a small card with two tatty teddies hugging on a tatty hammock, OR an ornate, gilded, rococo-designed large one with fairly sterile and bland sentiments. I chose the latter. Anything is better than those bloody teddies.

This evening we actually went out for something to eat, to a well-known faux Mexican chain restaurant with stripy awnings. It's renowned for being a monstrously busy one, so when we arrived very early in the evening, and the vast car park outside was deserted, we thought we would be fortunate enough to get a table quickly, particularly on a Monday evening. Not so! Inside, the tables were heaving and we had an half-hour wait just to be seated. But it was a fun evening and I had a very indulgent cocktail (more alcohol!) and the food was tolerable.  Once again, it was all about feeling normal again, having fun and not thinking about treatment or cancer.

Fewer painkillers again today.

A baby panda keyring arrived in the post from my friend T, and I have named him Gervais.

Slowly but surely....

Things might be progressing in a good way. 

This morning is the first time that I have woken up without needing to reach for the painkillers ....although last night I took a small pebbled-beach of pills in an attempt to dull the stinging, drilling, aching and tingling sensations in my upper left quadrant.  This morning, I was even able to lie for a few moments on my left side. Before my diagnosis I would routinely sleep on my left because K lies to my right. Now, we employ a midnight do-si-do: we begin with Keith facing away from me, but when he needs to turn over, I sling my pillows down to the bottom of the bed and turn around.

My left shoulder feels ok today, and I will try to reach up a few times without straining. It shocked me that yesterday during the needle excision, I was unable to lift my left arm above my head while lying on my right.

Today I want to try and cook something. I managed to make myself a little whole grain pasta last night, with olives, tomato, courgette and feta cheese. K tidied up after me, bless him.

My hair is appalling: the very image of corn growing through tar. Although my natural hair colour is a light sandy shade, the roots are an inch and a half long and look piano-brown against the bleachen, golden strands below. After my diagnosis on June 7th, something inside me decided not to bother doing anything else to my hair on the basis that I was going to lose it anyway.  By the time I realised that this was not necessarily so for my kind of cancer - that it might be held at bay by Tamoxifen alone - I had had surgery to inspect my sentinel lymph nodes, which in turn was swiftly followed by the mastectomy and then the haematoma.

I received a beautiful card this morning from the friend of a friend, wishing me well. How lovely! People can be very surprising.

The strangest feeling

Sometimes it frightens me how much I am capable of sleeping. I barely do anything all day and yet at night ... I think it's going to take me forever to drop off, but then, it's done and before I know it the night has passed and I'm waking up in the morning. This morning we didn't wake up until 10.20. It was overcast and rainy outside...yet more disappointing weather for July, but this Summer was already washed away by circumstance, so I don't care. Not much pain in the breast - more like a discomfort and a sensitivity in the breast interior. When I move, I can feel the implant sloshing around, and sometimes it feels as if I have a sensitive internal nipple that it touches. I can't explain it, but it's a 'double' sensation, very bizarre.

To look at the reconstructed breast, which I try not to do very often because it's still not very nice to look at, gives me mixed feelings. It's a miraculous thing and I am more protective of this new breast than I thought I would be - probably because I almost lost the whole thing with the haematoma. The new nipple is the same colour as the surrounding skin on top, but is still very much a scab on the underside. Running from the nipple on the underside is a seam of scab tissue, running to the under-crease against my chest, which again, is scabbed from the armpit to the breastbone.  The breast itself feels almost numb, but underneath the surface it's a pillow of pain, sharp pain if put under pressure. One thing that has improved is that when I see acts of violence in films, the scar no longer aches and tingles. I have only had two doses of painkillers today, whereas I normally would have had three and be taking a fourth to go to bed.  The paracetamol definitely works best in tandem with codeine, but I no longer take the codeine in every dose. Another improvement is that the sharp pains I normally experience in the evening have been very far apart this evening.

I made a banana loaf today with some old bananas, honey, maple syrup and wholemeal bread. I couldn't find a British recipe giving me ingredient weights; it was all in American 'cups', so I had to guess the proportions with a little online help from Jesse, my American baking friend. It certainly looked right, but it came to eating it, we smothered it with Carnation Caramel and spoiled the whole point of me making something with no sugar! ....and this reminds me...I really must exercise soon....

Game Changer

12.50 pm Just waiting awhile before we go and see one of my specialists.  

This is the Iraqi gentleman who first told me I had breast cancer on June 7th. The second time I saw him was last week, when he gave me the results of my histology following my mastectomy the previous week. He was very positive and told me that they had managed to remove the cancer along with my left breast, and that the cancer itself was not aggressive and would respond to both progesterone and oestrogen therapy in the form of Tamoxifen.

But he also needed to find out about chemotherapy. Apparently, when you're "young" like me (I'm 48), they also recommend chemotherapy even when he cancer has been removed. They blast everything at it to try and make sure that no stray cancer cells migrated in the bloodstream to other organs. I know there are different types of chemo, but it still scares me. He'd mentioned on the visit where he'd told me I had cancer that chemotherapy would probably be required, and it would be the type that makes you lose your hair. K has seen someone go through it and it was so bad that the patient preferred to opt for an earlier death rather than face more chemo. So he feels that I should reject it. But we shall see what is said. Right now I don't want to rule anything out.

Today my scar is not as painful, thank God, but there is a worrying collection of liquid under the implant, which gives an odd sensation if I bend down; a feeling that my clothes are brushing over two nipples. This I think will have to be drained! - which again is not a thought to relish. In the meantime, the most unpleasant sensation is near the drain site and round the back and armpit, rather than in the breast itself, which feels a mix of numbness on the surface, and discomfort inside.

Update:

It was a very strange appointment with the Specialist, who basically just reiterated what he told us last week. This time however he mentioned that I won't see the Oncologist until September, because that's the earliest we can see anyone....but he felt that they may not give me chemotherapy because my cancer is small to medium and slow growing. He did warn me that I will start menopause when I start the tamoxifen, which is hardly to be relished, but still: better than cancer.

Then I asked them to look at the fluid underneath the implant which is swishing around and he agreed that it was indeed a seroma (I have had the music to 'My Sharona' echoing around my head, replacing the word 'Sharona' with 'seroma').  I was despatched to the Breast Clinic to have the liquid drawn off with a needle - it turned out to be 38ml of pinkish/straw-coloured liquid, which I was assured wasn't very much compared to what is drawn from many ladies after breast implant surgery.  It didn't hurt, but now, some hours later, the whole surgery site is feeling sore......