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I’m home again after 4 of the very worst days of my life. Up until now I’ve been able to hold things all together and stay firmly positive and upbeat, but over the past for days in hospital I completely fell apart emotionally. My friends and family are all cheering me from the rafters, convinced I’m brave and courageous. Well the past few days has proved I am a total fraud in the bravery stakes. I was a blubbing, frightened, vulnerable idiot, making everyone’s life, both nurses and patients...
My boob outing to the Olympics may be off the agenda now - my infection has got stacks worse despite being on mega-strength antibiotics for five days, and I've just spoken to the hospital. The doctor there has told me to get up there as quickly as possible, with an overnight bag packed, and I may be kept in overnight on intravenous antibiotics. More needles, less tennis, to be honest I've had better weekends. It looks like they may also cancel my operation - they can't do the mastectomy...
Today is the very last Monday I will ever have boobs - exactly a week today they will be chopped off. Tomorrow I'm seeing the surgeon, a new one, because they need to allocate the operating theatre times so that he as well as the Portacath surgeon can both do what they have to do to me at the same time. I've written out a list of questions, and the main two focus on whether or not my left boob stays or goes, and whether or not I let them fiddle about with the lymph nodes on the left side....
It's been over a week since I last wrote, and I blame that entirely on the fact that I'm now feeling so much better over the past few days that I've been well enough to do all sorts of other things instead. My arm is still annoyingly hopeless, simple things like buttering bread results in the whole kitchen being buttered too. Everything takes longer, but it's still a whole load better, and a whole lot less painful than even a few days ago, so we're moving in the right direction. However, I...
You get to see an awful lot of hospital departments once they decide you have cancer, and it seems that barely a day goes by without an appointment of some sort, or a phonecall, or a letter arrives. In my case, from the outset, every single time I've had any sort of dialogue whatsoever with the cancer specialists, there has been at least a little bit more of the bad news. The size and shape and colour and rate of growth and seriousness and treatment plan has just grown increasingly concerning...
Tomorrow is a very big day -
I'm back at the hospital to find out exactly how big a threat this cancer is.
When they operated, they took out three lymph nodes to test to see if it had
spread, and it had, so they then removed all the right armpit lymph nodes to
test the rest. Having read everything I can find to read about it, I now know
that there is a direct correlation between how many lymph nodes are affected,
and my likelihood of survival. It's all terribly exciting really.
I...
It's been a very difficult few days. It turns out that what the hospital doctor thought was fluid retention in the wound was actually a really nasty infection brewing. By yesterday, everywhere on my right hand side between my waist and my face was swollen back and front, and I was unable to put my hand down by my side. The pain has been indescribable. Last night I went to see my GP as an emergency, and he immediately put me on high doses of antibiotics, as well as prescribing yet more heavy...
Today has been a really rubbish day, both healthwise and emotionally, but with a few nice moments too.
Last night, things suddenly got very painful, and overnight the pain just got worse and worse to the point where I got virtually no sleep. By this morning I was worried, and in fairly severe pain, as well as exhausted beyond words. So, I know the drill; I'm supposed to ring the hospital and ask their advice. Could I do it? No. So I procrastinated and procrastinated, and worked myself up into...
It's very tiring, all this doing nothing, and I still feel like my brain is running two years behind everyone elses. Still not entirely sure that the words I emit bear any real relationship to the conversations flowing around me, but everyone is being very kind regardless.
I've actually had a very social day today. 10 years ago I moved away from our old house, which had the world's very best neighbours. Nearly every house seemed to have a baby or toddler, and their parents were the...
