I am still me you know

I came back from my holiday, two weeks of sheer bliss on the narrow boats with my partner Kev in Oct 07, totally refreshed and ready to go back to work as deputy head door supervisor in a night club. I was ready for everything, the abuse, the occasional prat wanting to rip my head off ect. By the middle of Oct I started getting pain in the area of my right ovary, which slowly started getting worse, but I still went to work as normal. At the beginning of March this year after having two abnormal smear results I was waiting for a colposcopy. To cut a very long story a little shorter, the pain increased so badly that I couldn't even stand up straight and was sent for a vaginal scan not only once but twice. On the second scan this consultant told me that my left fallopian was swollen so the pain must be coming from there. WRONG. I told him I wasn't prepared to change the direction of my pain to suit him or anyone else. He then told me I had nothing to worry about.(THE PLONKER!) and off I went knowing something wasn't right. Four days later I am in the hospital having a laparoscopy. The following day I was put in a side room alone (bit of a give away me thought!) The surgon came in with the gynae support nurse to inform me that I had multiple peritoneal metastases most likely from an ovarian primary. This is where it seems I went wrong in responding the way I did, I didn't need to scream or shout or cry, I heard what was said and accepted it straight away. I did need to know what was to happen next. Different people respond in different ways, we are allowed that I would have thought. I was then left in the room with just the gynae nurse and she said to me that I didn't seem surprised at what I had just been told. I wasn't, I knew already, maybe having lost my dad, his sister, my eldest brother and sister with cancer gave me an idea that one day it would be my turn. Now my other three brothers and my sister are getting worried. What did hit home was having to tell my family, that was so hard and they knew when I phoned them to come to the hospital together. I watched my partner coming down the corridor with my daughter and my youngest son (fortunatly my kids are all adults now) and they seemed to be broken, just empty and the guilt I felt at that moment was unreal. I love my family and look what I had just done to them. I didn't matter they did and still now I carry that guilt and all I can do to give my family any comfort is say to them that I will fight this with everything I have, I can promise that if nothing else...............My consultant oncologist was the next person to enter the scene. He told me I needed treatment asap or I would die, I told him to get on with it then and he took me for a tough old bird, which I am and decided he would hit me hard and fast with chemo because of the fact I was extremely fit and strong both mentally and physically that I could take it! The plan of action was to have three lots of chemo at three week intervals followed by a CT scan, if the chemo was doing it's job then I would have a full hysterectomy followed by three more chemos (you will see later that it didn't go to plan because of mistakes made!!!!) I was asked if I had any question, too which I relpied yes I have two. 1st will I loose my hair. He said yes, to which I said I could do something useful with that.....I will explain. In Cornwall we are trying to raise money to build a Hospice for kids, at the present time children from here and their families have to travel to North Devon or Bristol, which to me is so wrong, so because I am so well known in this neck of the woods I decided to start to help raise money for this appeal. I was known for having my long brown waist lenght hair with pink streaks in it (hate pink, but someone told me I wouldn't do it, so I did!) so at the nightclub where I was working we arranged a charity night where I would have my hair all cut off and some of my doorman and other staff who are my mates would do the same and also there would be chest waxing, infact anyone who would get sponsor money could join in. My hair started to fall out before the charity night so I went to a hairdressers with my boss who filmed my hair being chopped off so that it could be played on the clubs screens I didn't want to do this for self praise, I needed to turn something negative into something positive, I am lucky, I had gone through childhood, had my heart broken a few times, fell in love, married had children, got divorced met my partner and have loads of grand children............These kids that need this Hopice, some will never experience a quarter of what I had, so to me this was very important. I have had 48 years on this earth....so I am lucky. I had my 2nd chemo on the wednesday, the 9th of April and the charity do was the next night and was a great sucess, also in my home town a couple of the pubs did the same thing and gave me the money for the fund. We all raised over £5000 and money is still coming in,this would have been more if I could have gone around more places but my pain wouldn't let me, but not bad for sorting it in just three weeks. With me loosing my hair as been no problem, these kids with cancer don't have a problem being bald, then why should I. The 2nd question was could I drink on my chemo, the answer was yes, now and again I like to have a drink with my mates and I was glad that I could have that. Copywrite is mine. Will continue my story soon, I am getting tired. Take care what ever situation you are in. All the best Kezzerbird aka Carol