I have reached the "Five Year Mark". This is GOOD news. This is most excellent and I am so pleased. I am alive and have been living, a trip to the Far East, a big family celebration, a promotion, a zero birthday! So many things that could have been missed but I am alive and here to enjoy these things.
So why the "not kicking" comment? Because those events listed above are the one offs fitted in between resting and aching and managing life. At the five year appointment I asked the onc "when do I get to feel better?" And the answer was a bit non-committal. Here's the thing, I sailed through chemo, rads and herceptin, only needed minimal time off work so the last thing I expected was to struggle in the aftermath and in the wake of a tiny wee tablet!
I couldn't kick anything if you paid me right now because my feet, knees, legs and hip hurt so much and I couldn't throw a ball at anything because my hands, wrists, elbows and shoulders hurt too. I have never felt so tired, and with other odd and variable symptoms I feel like a permanent feature at the GP surgery! Bless the GP but they don't seem to understand and always have me filling out depression inventories. One of the questions is do you sleep well? Well yes I do if you discount the waking every hour and fifteen minutes with a hot flush!
The onc was helpful in explaining things, and that helps me cope. He said a regular menopause is a process that takes a period of years with a process of change of hormone levels but what the tamoxifen and more recently anastrozole have done for me is to take me from nowhere near menopause to post menopausal in a very short time and it will take a while for my poor body to catch up and even out.
So at some point I will get to the place of being alive and kicking but for now I will live with alive and staying that way. The nasty aggressive fast growing thing that thought it was my nemesis will be starved of any food in the form of oestrogen and I will live and live until it has been thoroughly kicked into submission - hey I am alive and kicking even by taking the tablets - excellent!!!
