Wednesday 29 October 2014

My first chemo

Originally I intended to write one post about having chemo, I've had to re-think this, I started writing and I just couldn't stop! I found it hard to condense my ramblings about 18 weeks of weirdness that are quite impossible to describe. Having chemo is like a strange fog descending on you that affects your mind as much as your body, it takes some serious determination to go back for it 6 times, that 6th one was so much more of a mental challenge of endurance than anything physical.

A lot of women with breast cancer have surgery as the first part of their treatment, not me, I was different. My cancer was an aggressive grade 3 tumour and it was discovered that it had already spread to at least one of the lymph nodes in my armpit.  Because the cancer cells were on the move around my body already the best way to improve my chances of being cancer free was to blast my whole body with chemo to kill any cancer cells, anywhere.  Also, my surgeon wanted to shrink my lump before I had surgery, there could have been a chance I might not need a mastectomy.

My first chemo was scheduled for Thursday 5th December, just 3 weeks after I had been diagnosed. Whenever I tried to imagine what chemo might be like, all I could envisage were scenes off the TV or things I had seen in films where people got really, really sick! I was so scared that this would happen to me. I thought I would be spending the next 18 weeks too tired to get out of bed, throwing up all the time.  My surgeon had been very reassuring about the effects of chemo when I was first diagnosed, she said some people don't suffer too badly from side effects and they actually carry on going to work during their treatment, as this was from someone in the medical profession I tended to believe her.  My Gran had chemo when she had non-hodgkins lymphoma about 10 years ago and she was never sick.

I always find myself wanting to write 'I don't know how I did it?' and looking back now I think I just went into autopilot, I had no choice but to have chemo, no going back, no running away, what was the alternative? The phrase I used at the time was that I just had to 'suck it up' and that's how I approached the inevitable, with grim determination.  Its strange to admit that I had a weird curiosity about how it was going to affect me, when would my hair fall out? What would I look like bald? I spent the 3 weeks before chemo in a hospital whirlwind, having scans and tests, but still working full time, only having time off for appointments, I even went into work the morning before my chemo, I was bonkers.  I just wanted that final bit of my normal independent life for as long as possible until I had to put it all on pause to go through treatment.

The actual process of receiving chemo is surreal, having something so poisonous put into your body shouldn't be so relaxed and normal.  It's as if you expect a more dramatic fanfare for the hideousness that's about to happen, an explosion, an alarm, an electric shock... The reality is such a non-event.  You are handed a cocktail of anti sickness pills to swallow whilst you sit in a comfortable chair with a lovely nurse chatting to you. All the time she is slowly and gently injecting syringe after syringe of toxic chemicals into the canula on your hand. You look round the room and everyone else is the same (albeit a lot older than me!) sitting there patiently waiting for the drugs to go in, no drama, just chatting with a friend or reading a book.

After about an hour, the nurse takes the canula out and you're allowed to go home with just a plaster on your hand and a bag of anti sickness drugs to show for it.  You feel pretty much the same as when you walked in. I had a made a chemo plan with my parents, I was going to stay at their house whilst recovering from each chemo so that I could completely relax and concentrate on getting better. So after my first chemo we had to drive back to Solihull, a 45 minute journey, I sat in the back of the car with Mum clutching a bottle of water and a plastic bag in case I was sick.  Before I had left the hospital my chemo nurse scared me by saying that if I was going to suffer from sickness it could come on quickly, so I was prepared to put the bag into action at any second.

It never happened, my worst nightmare never actually materialised.  Minutes passed, and then hours
passed and I still felt fine.  I know I am extremely lucky to have tolerated the chemo this well for the
first few days.  I took my anti sickness meds religiously and after 6 days I thought I had got away lightly with the dreaded side effects. Sadly, I was wrong, almost one week after chemo I woke up in the middle of the night , sweating and shivering, with a temperature over 38 degrees.  This is what the Oncologist warns you about, this is what the Chemo Information session warns you about, this is why you are given a 24 hour emergency helpline number and a red card to flash in every A&E department to ensure you get treatment immediately.  A high temperature is a sign of infection, chemo destroys your natural immune system so you need to go to hospital to be given intra-vinous antibiotics.  Damn! I thought I had got away with it, this had just got a lot more serious, up until now I hadn't felt like a cancer patient, I hadn't even lost my hair yet, but now my sister was driving me to A&E in the middle of the night.  It was the beginning of the longest six days of my life, I had an allergic reaction to the antibiotics they gave me, then another temperature spike, then my white blood cells went too low for them to allow me home. I was given a private room at the hospital as I had to be protected from infection but there was no phone signal, no wifi, I was so bored, and lonely and miserable.

A few days after I was discharged, my hair started falling out.  When I returned to the hospital for my second chemo I felt like I had earned my place in that waiting room, there were no strange stares from other people trying to work out who the patient was, it was bloody obvious now.  The photo below is me having my second chemo, on Boxing Day 2013, Merry Flippin' Christmas!!!








Monday 20 October 2014

The day I was diagnosed

My sister Clare set up this blog for me last year, just days after I was diagnosed with breast cancer.  It has taken me a while, but I now feel that I'm ready to share my story. The past year hasn't been at all how I expected, I have now finished all my treatment and I'm feeling brilliant.  I'm not fighting back the tears as I write this, having had cancer doesn't make me particularly sad, at the moment it makes me incredibly grateful to be alive.  But I'll start back at the beginning, in the cold and dark month that was November 2013...

On Monday 11th November 2013 I was told I had breast cancer. I didn't feel like I had cancer, I felt really well, I'd been at the gym the day before, working up a sweat on the cross trainer. I was in total shock, it had been almost a week since I went to the hospital for my tests, but I just never believed it would be cancer.  Thinking about it now, the tests were pretty hardcore so they must have suspected something, but I was completely oblivious.  I had an ultrasound and they couldn't work out what my lump was, so they did a core biopsy, this involved a local anaesthetic and a scary contraption for gouging out a piece of tissue from inside my boob.  I took it all in my stride, totally convinced that my lump was a just a cyst and went back to get my results, on my own.

When you're told you have breast cancer the hospital are kind enough to make sure that there is someone in the room to help you digest the terrible news, they call them Breast Care Nurses, mine was called Nina... I hadn't told a single person that I had found a lump, or gone for tests, so this was the next painful hurdle, telling people.  Nina wouldn't let me think about going home that night without me arranging for someone to be there when I got back (I'm single and I live on my own) so I had to call my parents. Thinking about it now, I don't know how I did it, I don't know how I summoned the strength to press the buttons on my phone and physically get the words out.  I can't even remember what I said when my Dad picked up the phone. Whatever I managed to say obviously did the trick as they packed some things and drove straight to my house.

As I put the phone down, the enormity of what I had just been told finally sank in, and I started the real crying.  The real crying you expect to be doing when you've been given such awful news. Up until now it had just been a low level weeping,  but I couldn't hold back any more.  All the other reactions you think you might have just never appeared, I didn't fall on the floor, faint, or throw up, apart from a having good old cry I just sat there and calmly digested the facts.  I've only experienced this level of sadness about my illness a couple of times, you would think it might be more, I was surprised, it is cancer after all....In those early days I focussed on the long months of treatment I had ahead of me, I felt like I should be saving the hysterical sobbing and dramatics for times when it might be required, I had 4 months of chemo ahead, my hair was going to fall out, I would have a boob chopped off, if I sunk to the depths of despair at the very start, where else was there for me to go?

At this point Nina came in to her own, she gave me a hug and got me some tissues! People have asked why I didn't tell anyone that I was going for tests because then I might have had someone with me for the results, but in hindsight I don't see how that would have helped, who wants to witness that? Someone you love receiving that kind of news? I'm so glad nobody else was there, nobody else has to lie awake at night playing the moment back in their mind like a sad movie.

I stayed at the hospital for about an hour, they wanted me to have a mammogram and do a test on my lymph nodes as they suspected the cancer had spread there too.  I felt so guilty walking between the rooms at the hospital with tears streaming down my face, there were worried looking non-cancer ladies sat in the waiting room about to have their tests, I probably put the fear of god into them.  I asked Nina if I had mascara all down my face, she said I looked fine, I asked her if I was going to get into trouble as my pay and display ticket had run out, she told me not to worry.
I had a chat with the surgeon who told me I would definitely need chemotherapy, this would be starting first, before the surgery and probably radiotherapy afterwards. They wanted to try and shrink my lump (it measured about 5cm on scans) before operating.  I would probably have 6 sessions of chemo, at 3 weekly intervals. I was worried how I was going to cope with chemotherapy, I have a proper phobia of being sick. They sent me home with a handful of leaflets, I had so much to learn about cancer and all the treatments I would be having.

I remember everything about it that night, exactly what I was wearing, what was on the radio when I drove home, but most of all I remember that it wasn't the gut wrenching, soul crushing, despair ridden time I expected it to be.  When I got home my parents were already there, I had some food, a glass of wine and watched 'you've been framed', I think I might have even laughed a few times.