reallyratherannoying

[reallyratherannoying]

The Really Rather Annoying Day it wasn’t the Menopause

The Really Rather Annoying Day I Realised it wasn’t the Menopause

 I had my mastectomy in March 2017 and, apart my clumsy stepping on the drain tube, everything was going o.k. Until complete and utter disaster and devastation. The next couple of weeks are the stuff of nightmares and ‘what have I done to deserve this’ days.

In the summer of 2016, I had visited the doctor complaining of leg pains and trouble sleeping, I was advised on two or three occasions because of my age it was likely to be the menopause. One doctor actually told me to go home and google alternative remedies. Skip forward eight months and I would discover how annoyingly wrong they were.

It’s not even a week since my surgery and I am very, very ill, I’ve been vomiting all evening and am running a temperature. My husband bundles me into the car, with a steel bowl, previously used to make coleslaw in, as an enormous sick bowl and we set off for the hospital. Every bump in the road is agony and I sit in the waiting area of A&E for an ordinate amount of time feeling as if I am about to slip into unconsciousness. It really is rather frightening. I am finally seen by the triage nurse and moved upstairs into a cubicle. Various doctors pop their round the curtain and ask me the same questions over and again.

It’s late in the evening but there is no chance to doze because one of the other patients is kicking up all manner of a fuss. We’ll call her Dominique, because that’s her actual name, I know this because in between her yelling for drugs and threatening to call the police the nurses attending her are yelling ‘be quiet Dominque’ and threatening to call the police. Security are eventually called but I miss the outcome of the drama as after X-ray results prove inconclusive, I am taken down for a scan.

I’ve convinced myself the issue is scar tissue from previous operations attached to my bowel, I’ve suffered from this before. So, I am only joking when I say to the doctor ‘As long as it’s not more cancer’ and when he replies ‘you’ve asking the right questions’ I think nothing of it.

Big mistake, huge.

I’m admitted to a ward and when I wake up the next morning and Volky (let’s use his proper name, it’s easier and he deserves a shout out) is already at my bedside telling me the doctor has asked him to come in early, I realise things are probably not going well. The surgeon arrives, sadly not her with the stylish cigarette pant wardrobe, and without preamble tells us the cancer has spread to my bones, fallopian tubes, ovaries and peritoneum (outer lining of my stomach). I also have a blockage in my bowel which is in danger of perforation and I need emergency surgery to fit a stoma before the whole thing bursts.

I have metastatic, or secondary, breast cancer, I wasn’t even aware it was a thing, but clearly it is and a very terrible thing at that. ‘Will I die?’ I ask the surgeon. She tells me I will ‘at some point’ so, not knowing the facts of metastatic cancer, I am reassured I will make my earlier promised recovery and carry on with life. Volky is a bit more alert, he is admittedly more of a morning person than me, and realises I’ve gone overnight from having a cancer that I will get better from to having a cancer were only 22% of patients live beyond five years.

To say life has taken a grim turn is the understatement of the century. Let’s remember not six days ago I was believed to have primary breast cancer; I had no detectable lump in my breast and I’d had my first clear mammogram at 48 years old. In two years, cancer had set up home in my body and raced around it at an alarming rate. I don’t have the time to dwell on this awful situation as I am wheeled down for my emergency bowel operation. In the waiting area I discuss the ridiculous orangeness of President elect of the USA Donald Trump with the nurses and try not to worry about what the future holds and indeed how long that future will be.

Things are about to get really rather painful.

There are approximately 35,000 mostly woman living with metastatic breast cancer in the UK, 1000 of them dying every single month and yet on average only 5-9% of the funding for breast cancer is allocated to it. Those of us with metastatic breast cancer are literally dying for a cure.

If you would like to support people living with metastatic breast cancer visit WWW.Secondary1st.org, where you can also donate to help find a cure.

#cancercommunity

#breastcancer

#mastectomy

#breastcancercare

#breastcancerblog

#breastcancercommunity

#cancercare

#fuckcancer

#livingwithcancer

#livingwellwithcancer

#livingmybestlife

#cancer

#truecancerbodies

#busylivingwithcancer

#cancerblog

#stageivbrestcancer

#stage4breastcancer

#secondarysisters

#metastaticbreastcancer

#scarlettjohansson

#flakeyhusband

#flatfriends

#secondarysisters

#secondaryfirst

#incurable

#cancer support

#advice

#support

#livingwithmets

#busyliving

#reallyratherannoying

#brave

[reallyratherannoying]

The Really Rather Annoying Day  I had a Mastectomy

Some people have cancer-versaries, the day they were diagnosed, the day they finished treatment…and they celebrate being alive – fabulous - or spend the day in maudlin thoughts – not so fabulous. I do neither firstly because I steer away from maudlin thoughts but mostly because I can’t remember the dates and my treatment will never end. I suppose I could rifle through every piece of medical paper saved in my bargain Orla Kiely ring binder and find the actual dates but, despite this lack of clarity, what I do know is that March and April 2017 were the grimmest months of my life.

Sometime towards the end of that March I was back at the hospital for a left sided mastectomy and lymph node removal. The right breast had been scanned and declared free of disease, if only they’d invested a teeny bit more time and money and scanned the rest of my torso.

I check in to the day ward at 7am, I know early, the surgeon is back in another pair of fabulous cigarette pants, a lovely electric blue, we must have been enjoying a pleasant spring. I’m first on the list, so I get gowned up and wait to be taken down to surgery. As I wait I discuss ear-piercing with one of the nurses, she has some nicely placed earrings and she recommends a studio in Stockport. Of course, I don’t have a notebook with me and as there’s the little matter of a general anaesthetic in between times by the end of the day I can’t remember her suggestion. No matter I later decide to have a tattoo instead.

They draw on my left breast so they don’t remove the wrong one – imagine – ask the usual questions about tooth crowns etc (two, I have soft teeth don’t judge me) and away we go down to surgery.

I wake up much later minus my left breast and four lymph nodes, with a pump attached to drain the lymph fluid. The fluid drains into a rather heavy plastic bottle which I am able to carry round in a flowery cotton shoulder bag made by a lovely volunteer. I’m also equipped with flight socks to help prevent blood clots and a ‘softie’, a triangular cloth full of stuffing which I will wear in my bra (non-wired) until my Scarlett Johansson reconstruction. Then, since they have cut something off me and not out of me, I am allowed home the same day and my husband bravely comes onto the ward, pops me in a wheelchair, wheels me to the car and takes me home.

Obviously, I look bit rough and I can’t hide it any longer I have to tell my children I have breast cancer and that’s the hardest thing I have ever done. We’ve been a team of three for nigh on fifteen years and I’ve delayed telling them not wanting to spoil Katie’s birthday trip to Prague with Jack. Now she’s back and I can’t put if off any longer. We are all devasted but I share the words of the McMillan nurse that the cancer is treatable, that I will get better and everything will be ok. I honestly don’t know how the children have coped with this diagnosis, they are the absolute best and I am so thankful I have been able to see them both graduate from university and start making their way in the world and I am so incredibly proud and full of love for both of them.

I am tasked with measuring and emptying the lymph fluid in the bottle in the flowery bag and am visited by the district nurses. The pump will be removed when the output drops to an acceptable level but as is my clumsy way I inadvertently stand on the drain when getting out of bed and the whole thing comes out, probably contributing to my later lymphedema diagnosis, or the sprained hand as diagnosed by my ill-informed GP.

I put on a brave face and get myself out of bed and get on with life, after all we have George our new puppy to look after, apart from the clumsy pump removal, all is good and we all believe I am on the road to recovery.

Until something really rather annoying happens……..

#cancercommunity

#breastcancer

#mastectomy

#breastcancercare

#breastcancerblog

#breastcancercommunity

#cancercare

#fuckcancer

#livingwithcancer

#livingwellwithcancer

#livingmybestlife

#cancer

#truecancerbodies

#busylivingwithcancer

#cancerblog

#stageivbrestcancer

#stage4breastcancer

#secondarysisters

#metastaticbreastcancer

#scarlettjohansson

#flakeyhusband

#flatfriends

#secondarysisters

#secondaryfirst

#cancercommunity breastcancer mastectomy breastcancercare breastcancerblog breastcancercommunity cancercare fuckcancer livingwithcancer livin

[reallyratherannoying]

The Really Rather Annoying Day I Imagined I’d look like Scarlett Johansson and My Husband* Stole the Show

*He wasn’t my husband at this point but he’s recently been promoted to this position and since I feel too old for a boyfriend and I the word partner makes me feel slightly queasy we’ll jump the gun and call him husband from the get go to avoid confusion and queasiness.

 So here I am with the cancer but it’s all grand because its primary cancer and I’m not going to die, I’ll have some treatment then it’ll all be fine; according to the McMillan nurse, that’s not quite how it all turns out, but I’ll save that story for another day.

Fast forward to the next appointment with the surgeon (female – yay) because the cancer is in fact quite big and I’ll have to have a mastectomy. The surgeon is beautiful and I’m dying to ask her where she got her cigarette pants from but I must pay attention to what she’s telling me and take notes.

And actually, what she’s telling me doesn’t sound too bad if you put a positive spin on it, which I’m apt to do. I’ll have this mastectomy, the cigarette pant surgeon draws us a picture to illustrate, that’s me, the husband and the mother as they’ve both come this time. I’m not really a diagram type I prefer words but I let her go on because what’s she’s telling me is really rather interesting and a little bit exciting. Apparently, she can reconstruct my left breast and I’m a ‘prime candidate’ for her to reconstruct using fat from my stomach. Should I feel offended by this suggestion I have enough fat to build a new breast? I am not. In fact I have a vision of myself with a trim tummy and pert breasts in a Scarlett Johansson body suit from Ghost in the Shell. In the midst of my imaginations my husband excuses himself to go to the toilet, I don’t notice he’s gone pale as I’m too busy enquiring whether cigarette pant (cp) surgeon will remove and reconstruct my unaffected breast, so I have a Scarlett matching pair. I’m not especially vain but I would like to size down from my current 36G, which don’t always afford a good outline in an outfit.

However, cp surgeon wont sanction this and suggests we discuss at a later date because we suddenly have more pressing matters to deal with. As mum and I open the door to reconvene with the McMillan nurse we are greeted by the sight of the husband lying prone on the corridor floor with not one but two nurses concerned nurses hovering in attendance. He is freaked out by all the talk of mastectomies, graphic drawings and tummy fat removal and his proposed trip to the toilet is a ruse to get him out of the room so he can have a lie down before he passes clean out. To further steal my thunder, as we move into another room to discuss my impending mutilation, the husband is pushed into the consultation in an actual wheelchair and helped onto the hospital bed by not one but two helpful nurses as a precaution should he feel faint again. As the patient I am invited to sit in an NHS standard issue plastic chair.

 There’s something really rather annoying about this turn of events.

#cancercommunity

#breastcancer

#mastectomy

#breastcancercare

#breastcancerblog

#breastcancercommunity

#cancercare

#fuckcancer

#livingwithcancer

#livingwellwithcancer

#livingmybestlife

#cancer

#truecancerbodies

#busylivingwithcancer

#cancerblog

#stageivbrestcancer

#stage4breastcancer

#secondarysisters

#metastaticbreastcancer

#scarlettjohansson

#flakeyhusband

#flatfriends

#cancercommunity breastcancer mastectomy breastcancercare breastcancerblog breastcancercommunity cancercare fuckcancer livingwithcancer livin

[reallyratherannoying]

The Really Rather Annoying Day They Told Me I Had Cancer

You know what it’s like when you head off for your mammogram, or maybe you don’t, maybe you’ve never had one. If you’ve not please don’t put it off when you get the call up. I’ve had three, in a portable mammogram unit in a rather run-down part of town. It reminds me of the mobile library which visited my childhood village every other week, parking in the tennis club car park. I’d read every book in that library, it was one of my favourite places as a child, so nothing could possibly go wrong when they squashed my boobs between those Perspex plates in this place; could it?

The letter arrived a week late; ‘abnormal’, ‘routine’, ‘most people fine’, blah, blah, blah. I’ve still got it filed away in my rather cute Orla Kiely ring binder, an absolute steel at £8 for two from TK Maxx. Every bloody cancer related letter is in there, I actually have a thing about filing paper away, just in case. Just in case what? I have no idea. I have every single piece of paper my children brought home from nursey and primary school. Not just the cute indecipherable drawings and paintings, but also the ‘your daughter has been selected for the cross-country team’ and the ‘your son slept for twenty minutes and was unfortunately bitten by Stanley, Stanley’s parents have been informed’ letters. I take proud parenting to a whole new level.

So here’s my blah, blah, blah letter, here’s the world and his wife telling me their sister-in-law’s, best friend’s aunty got the letter and they were fine so of course I will be too and here I am at the Nightingale Breast Cancer Centre having another mammogram (I’d forgotten about that one, so that’s four not three as previously stated). And here is the doctor telling me he can’t feel a lump but there is something not right. I however feel strangely euphoric, obviously not because he’s saying there’s something wrong but because I’ve not missed a lump, imagine if I had I’d feel terrible. Then this doctor, who is hard to understand, maybe because I’m in shock, scans my left breast and this is how I find out I have breast cancer: he tells the nurse he needs a yellow from and abruptly the atmosphere changes. Now there’s a McMillan nurse holding my hand, I’m lying half naked on a hospital trolley, alone in a room full of strangers and the tricky to understand doctor is telling me he ‘wants t see how far the disease has spread’.

I’m looking at the ceiling lights, and I’m crying and I’m alone and I have breast cancer.

And it’s really bloody annoying.

#secondarybreastcancer #metasticbreastcancer #livingwithcancer #cancer