When I start to receive an increasing number of
messages asking how I am and how my treatment is going, I realise it’s time to
write another blog post, but this is one I’ve been avoiding writing.
I woke up this morning with a Queen song going around
in my head,
“Inside my heart is
breaking,
my make-up may be
flaking,
but my smile still
stays on”
In my last post I said “The last few weeks have
probably been the most challenging ones since starting chemotherapy”, well
sadly the day after writing that I found out what could be more challenging
than Docetaxel when my mum passed away suddenly. I don’t really want to go into
too much about this as, firstly, it’s still very painful, and secondly, it’s
not just my personal bereavement but that of my whole family that I need to
consider. As this blog is about my personal ‘Cancer journey’ (sorry, cheesy I
know but the best way I can describe it), I’m just going to talk about the
impact of losing mum in regards to my treatment. I hope people can
understand/respect that.
The weekend that mum passed away I had been
feeling a bit sorry for myself having just had my chemotherapy stopped early.
It was probably the most I have felt sorry for myself since the initial
diagnosis. Once I got the news I was transported into a whole different
universe, and for the first time in months the focus was no longer on me and my
cancer, but on my mum, my Dad and my family as a whole. I didn’t care about
myself and I was now relieved that I hadn’t received my full dose of Docetaxel
as it would have made the weeks that followed even more unbearable. The train
journey back home the following day was the longest journey of my life, I
hadn’t slept the night before and although I hadn’t received a full dose of
chemo, I was still weak and suffering some side effects. It’s the first time
I’ve allowed myself to sit in a priority seat on a busy train because I just
couldn’t have managed anything else. Luckily for me some good Samaritans helped
to retrieve my suitcase for me when it got buried under a mountain of other
cases, a small act of kindness and they’ll probably never know quite how much
it meant to me on a truly awful day.
In those first few weeks whilst we were in the
initial moments of grief and trying to plan a funeral I was always shocked and
confused and almost angry when people asked me about my health. “Yes, I am
undergoing treatment for breast cancer, that’s old news. I’m fine. Mum’s not!”
Was basically what was going around in my head. Please don’t be offended if you
were one of the people that asked, I understand why, I just couldn’t deal with
anything else at the time. Of course, I had to think of myself, I had
appointments to rearrange and Dad was quite adamant that my treatment should
not be delayed. “It’s the last thing mum would want” he kept telling me, and I
knew he was right. I could almost hear her nagging me. So, a few days before
the funeral I flew back to Inverness for a couple of days for my radiotherapy
CT positioning scan, something they need to do at least two weeks before you
can start radiotherapy, where I basically laid on a CT scanner whilst people
measured and drew all over me and gave me my first ever tattoos, three tiny
dots, markers for the radiotherapy.
I had never really thought about the prospect of
one day helping to plan my mother’s funeral, and even if I had, I would never
have imagined that one of the things I needed to consider was what to wear on
my head. Wig? Headscarf? Au naturel? A small thing, but, as I mentioned earlier,
I really wasn’t wanting any attention drawn to me and ‘my cancer’. The decision
was quite easy in the end, my new novelty pink wig. Mum had loved it when I
sent her a picture, and okay it did still draw attention to me, but it a way
that honoured mum and her bright and bubbly personality. I also had my nails
done sparkly and ‘bling’, just as mum was.
 |
| Bright and bling! |
Once I was back in Inverness I was confronted with the fact that the focus was once again on me and cancer. Back to my Herceptin injections and starting radiotherapy. It was a weird feeling, and quite a struggle when still in mourning.
Everyone tells you radiotherapy is easy. You’ve
made it through chemo and that’s the hardest part. In most ways they are right,
of course. Generally speaking chemotherapy is a systemic treatment, meaning it
treats the whole body, which in my case is used to mop up any rogue cells that
may have spread. Radiotherapy, on the other hand, is targeted at the specific
area where your cancer was found. So, it’s harsh on one area, not your whole
body. For me the difficulties with radiotherapy are not so much the effects of
the treatment itself, but everything that goes with it. You’ve made it to the
end of the chemo rollercoaster, you get off and your head is still spinning and
your legs are like jelly, you’re exhausted and you just want to sit down for a
while, but no, you’re being ushered straight onto another ride, that ride might
be smaller, but you haven’t recovered from the first one yet! The main side
effects of radiotherapy are skin irritation (to the area being treated) and
tiredness. But, well, I’m still tired from chemo!
The radiotherapy appointments are much shorter
than chemo, usually only around 15 minutes (a little bit longer at the
beginning), it doesn’t hurt, but it’s not the most dignified of experiences.
You enter a large room with usually 2 or 3 people in (and are vaguely aware
that there are more people behind a window at the back of the room), state your
address and date of birth, undress (top half only, but that’s quite enough
thank you very much!) and lay down on the weird looking machine in the middle
of the room with your arms in hoisters above your head. You lie there whilst
the people shout out numbers and start moving you about, just one centimetre
down, a millimetre to the left etc etc. More dots are scribbled on you and (in
the first session) a fourth and final tattoo is dotted on. Eventually when
they’re happy the machine starts to move around you, they mutter a few more
things, then the lights come back on (you hadn’t realised they’d been dimmed
and now you’re almost blind!) and all the people scarper out the door. You lie
alone in this big room listening to awful music on the radio whilst the machine
moves around you. By this point I’m usually in a world of my own, quite unaware
what the machines are doing and barely even notice when the people come back in
the room and tell you that’s it, you can relax your arms. I always want to jump
up at this point and then realise they still need to lower the bed (I don’t
want to fall off and break a hip now do I?!). Clothes back on and that’s it for
another day, unless you have a patient review that day, in which case you’re
given a card and sent through to another room to speak to someone about your
progress. Easy peasy. Every weekday, 4pm, for four weeks. At the moment I’m 6
down, 14 to go. The first couple of sessions were a bit intimidating, but I’m
getting used to it now and it’s really not so bad.
 |
| The Radiotherapy room |
I have been attempting to return to work in the
last two weeks but I am really struggling with the tiredness and concentration.
I am just doing a few hours here and there at the moment, mainly catching up on
reading documentation. I’ve been so lucky in the way everyone has been so
patient and understanding with me.
I do feel like my body is a bit of a wreck, full
of aches and pains, I’m still suffering from chemo brain and the veins in my
arms are a bit messed up. I imagine it will be a while before I’m fully back to
normal (was I even normal to begin with?!). I’ve also just started taking the
hormone tablets (Tamoxifen), which I’ll be taking every day for the next 10
years. It’s too early yet to know how they will affect me, I know some people
really struggle with them, fingers crossed I’ll be one of the lucky ones. I’m
not really thrilled by the idea of hot flushes and hormonal outbursts.
 |
| 4 pm -Groundhog day/Tamoxifen/Review/Veins! |
My hair
has really started to grow back now, it’s amazing how quickly it comes in and at
the moment it looks pretty dark. One noticeable change to my taste buds is my
new found love of Gin and tonic, although I’m laying off those for a while, I’m
tired enough at the moment as it is!
It’s really been a rough few months. I’m trying
my best to stay positive, but it has definitely been much harder of late to do
so, but as Freddie said:
“I’ll face it with a
grin,
I’m never giving in.
On with the show!”
 |
| 💕 First and last 💕 |
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