Happy Cancer-versary to me, one year on

 

So here I am writing this one year ago, the day after the operation that took away the cancer, the day before my Birthday.

How are things one year on?  Well, everything has changed but nothing has changed!  How do I feel?  Well, I feel like I'm getting on with things.  I dare to think of cancer as in the past sometimes.  There are still physical effects, of course.  The scars are still there - thick grey, bumpy lines with pinched skin on the left and are still painful from time to time, especially if I've been wearing the prothesis all day.  And as far as I'm concerned, I don't have breasts any longer and they are just small lumps of fat, non sexual and pretty ugly when all said and done.  I am still working on accepting this.

I told my friend that I wouldn't want large breasts back again because I would have felt that they would be unreal.  What I want is my own beloved  breasts back but I know this is not possible, so maybe something can be done to make my existing chest more pleasant to look at and that would mean I don't have to wear a prothesis.  I have to wait until January to know about that so things stay as they are until then.

There are side effects to the Tamoxifen and the radiation has permanently, it seems made the skin around my 'breasts' and under my arm dark brown.  I am also more tired more quickly, and I forget and overdo it sometimes.  And sometimes, there are bad thoughts in my head.

I still see a psychologist who is helping me get on and make sense of this new world.  I have a few sessions left with the kine which I must get around to doing.

Life is worrying right now as I have headaches and a wooshing sound in my head so I have an MRI on Tuesday (put back, should have been yesterday, long irritating medical story...).  So of course I think 'cancer' but it probably isn't.  That is one thing.  I have to tell all sorts of people about the cancer and of course it informs any medical treatment for anything that I have now.  There will always be the worry that it might come back but I feel the longer I go on, the less intense is that worry, but it's there like a grain of sand rubbing away in an oyster.

I worked today and didn't have too much time to think about what I was doing this time last year (well, what the surgeon was doing to me for 5 and a half hours that is).  Then home to do homework with the kids and running around to get more Tamoxifen and Vitamin D from the chemists.  It was then that I stopped to think and cried because of a tiny kind gesture from the chemist - she saw on my medical card that it was my Birthday tomorrow and gave me a pot of face cream as a gift.  I was so touched I could barely get outside to my bike before I started crying.

I guess that sums things up really.  I have terrible terrible memories of that day, that operation and I revisit them seldom.  This photo takes me back but the memories are all there locked up in my head.  I got home tonight and let myself sob and let the memories come back.  My elder son was there and hugged me hard.  Thank god for my boys and my dh, they have made me want to get through this, they are my reason for living.

The good thing, though, that stays with me like a rosy glow is the kindness shown to me during before and after.  This has not faltered, the kindness still goes on and the special friends and my sister who looked after me, well, they are still supporting and loving, looking out for me and helping me along.  I hope I have something to give back now, but it has certainly changed my perception of friendship and love and what to appreciate in life.

I remember St L who made my horrible Birthday as good as it could be - blowdried my hair in hospital, made me this cake, brought some Orangina, the Union Jack cups, the balloons on the hospital room door.  What a star.  That was one of many many kindnesses that will stay with me.

I asked the Listening Brunette what to do about this bitter sweet anniversary.  She said 'faire la fete'!  So that's what I'll be doing tomorrow night.

And the main thing is that I have survived one year.  I'm still here.  If I hadn't found the cancer when I did, this post would be very different indeed.

I am alive!

Goodbye Eric

Eric taught my children to swim in bebe nageur classes.  He was a handsome, charming, cheerful guy, good fun to be with, you can see it in his twinkling eyes can't you?  I can still picture him in his wetsuit standing on the diving board directing, teaching, laughing, encouraging, loving the kids and their mad ways - all of them.  All the Mums swooned over him, queuing up to give 'bisous' to him.

I say 'was' because he died in the night of 3rd and 4th of September.

A few years ago he found out he had a brain tumor and suddenly his life took a terrible turnaround and his coaching and sporting activity came to an abrupt halt.  He had been in a wheelchair for a long time, having difficulties speaking.  His loving wife wheeled him to all the swimming galas (home and away), some of the training sessions and all the social events in the swimming club.  He got lots of kisses from the children, who all adored him and when I spoke to him he always remembered which class mine were in and who was their trainer.  His life was the pool.  It must have been devastating not to be able to continue his very active, sporting life.

He was 42 years old and leaves a wife and young children.

Fucking cancer.  This guy was a really great person, the sort of person that makes the world a good place to be.  It's wrong that he's gone.  Fucking cancer.

So here come the side effects...

I've been taking Tamoxifen for 8 months now.  So far, so, well, okay really.  Weight gain (well, can't lose weight despite eating a lot less and much better and exercising) - check!  No periods - check.  Nasty taste in mouth all the time - check.  Mood swings - check.  Tiredness - check.  Thinning hair - check, flaking nails - check, leg cramps - check.  I always considered that it could be worse - I might have cancer again, or other more serious side effects or other nastier treatments.

Well, maybe that day has come.  I've been having terrible headaches recently, almost like people describe migranes - seeing stars, having to lie in a dark room etc.  I also have a sort of wooshing sound in time to my pulse in my head all the time.  This has been for about 4 weeks new.  And I've been really really tired.

It does say on the instructions for Tamoxifen that headaches are a side effect, but a less typical one.


So, finally I went to the doctor to get checked out.  It was his young, cute locum, who was very thorough (except for the moment when he put his stethoscope on the side of my chest looking for a beat and I didn't have the heart to tell him he was listening to my prothesis).

It seems there is no neurological problem, however, to be sure I have to have an MRI and a blood test beforehand to check that the cancer has not metastied in my head or that I don't have a blockage somewhere.  Either of those scenarios sound horrendous so I'm pretty scared for 24th, hoping I don't have bad news, that would be such a killer exactly one year after my operation.

At least they are checking up on me and taking me seriously.

Cross your fingers for me on 24th.  I hate MRI's by the way, I find them very upsetting, sigh.