and by that I mean my second attempt to get 5 mins to write before I hear little voices(and big voices) looking for 'Mammy, I need,,,' and 'Mammy I want....' But in saying that they are my reason for being so determined to do this 'cancer thing' with a smile on my face as much as possible and with a positive outlook - there is so much life waiting for me long after I will have waved cancer goodbye.
So basically, I'm 40yrs old and have 5 children, with 4 who range from 4yrs up to 17yrs and my special little lady who I had to say a very sad goodbye to when she was 5yrs old, just over 7 years ago now. Its the age old question-do I say 4 or 5 when people ask me how many children I have but I feel more comfortable saying 5 and explaining ; my 5yr old was,and is, a very big part of my life and I would hate not to acknowledge her when people ask how many children I have. Its also important in how I feel about being diagnosed with breast cancer. I feel I have been through such a huge life changing experience already when I lost my daughter that when I was told I had breast cancer my first honest reaction was 'now tell me what I do next to get the best medical outcome'. I heard the words 'breast cancer' and knew it meant something big was going to change in my life......but I was so determined I will give it as long as it needs but this is my life and cancer is only going to be part of my life story.
My story began on a Friday night when I thought I felt something strange in my breast. However, it wasn't a lump or a bump or anything that even remotely resembled one....instead it was a flat, hard, dense area deep within my breast. My immediate reaction was to burst into tears and to keep feeling it as I had a gut feeling this wasn't meant to be part of my body. The next day the area started to swell and look different so long story short after a trip to a&e I had a refferel for a triple assessment in two weeks time. That came and went with the consultant taking biopsies from three different suspicious areas. The following week the results and the positive breast cancer diagnosis. In that meeting with my surgeon I went from not knowing I had breast cancer, to knowing, to talking about options and my first and final decision to have a double mastectomy - reason being I wasn't planning on coming back to do this a second time. My surgeon said to get ready for the ride as it was going to be fast and furious. He wasn't wrong. Less than 2 weeks later I was in for surgery having a double mastectomy, axillary node clearance and a breast reconstruction done all in one go. It was huge surgery and boy did I feel it afterwards. It was a slow healing process for me with second surgery 3wks after the first. Then they tell me I have an ideal 8 week window to start chemotherapy too. I felt my body was playing catch up to my mind. I couldn't believe how much they threw at me and how much they expected me to take in. It was crazy. I spent many days traveling in the car to and from hospital and those were the times it hit me hard that it was all real and here I was again, on the road to the hospital for tests, surgery, checkups etc. And just when I thought I was turning a corner and the healing was really going well they throw the chemo at me. I so wasn't ready for that either. Chemo really brought it home to me just how much I had undertaken in 8 weeks. To put it in context 12 weeks previous I didnt even have an inkling anything was wrong and here I was now with surgery over and chemo about to start. Thats a whirlwind.
