25th August 2013

So last night I went out on the town with my friends, had loads of champagne and shots and got home at 5 this morning...hanging!!

Wait a minute, no I didn't, thats just how I am feeling!!

Sometimes I think I'm invincible. That my body can survive anything. Then something happens and it brings me back down to earth.

I went to London yesterday day. Trains and tubes then walking around in the rain was not a great idea! 

It has been 11 days since my 3rd chemo and I still don't feel right, but I want to believe I am. London was lovely but I got home and I thought I'd caught a fever! I had the hottest bath, wrapped myself up in a fur blanket and watched television. I went to bed worried that I had made myself ill and I would end up in hospital.

I knew I had pushed myself a little too far but I tend to ignore the angel and listen to the devil. (yes they are still on my shoulder and will be for the duration of my treatment.)

I eventually fell asleep after I'd prayed to him upstairs and asked to be ok. Tears fell, I couldn't stop them.  

He answered my prayer. I woke up feeling better. Not 100% but better. The moral to my story? Stop thinking I can do everything. 

I've never been a great ill person. I pretend I'm not, pop a lemsip into a cup and I'm on my way. To be this vulnerable is not good for me. It makes me feel weak. Weakness is not in my vocabulary.  It is hard to take a step back and actually say to myself... stop. I'm not saying stop everything but I have to remember that I need to take time out for me and not feel that I will let people down if I can't make something. I have the rest of my life to be social!! Being tired also makes me emotional.  Strength is only good when I am feeling good.  When my guard is down I tend to collapse and the tears just fall.  I thought they had dried up to be honest but they haven't.  It is actually a relief to know I still have an emotion.  Sometimes I worry that I have suppressed my feelings so much that they will never come back.  The tears let me know I am still human and I do need a shoulder occasionally.  That shoulder is my mother.  The strongest most wonderful woman I know.

I am also worried about the next 3 chemotherapy sessions as they will be a lot tougher so I have been told.  Like I said in my last post I am also preparing to lose my eyebrows and lashes. I look healthy at the moment. Soon I shall look like a boiled egg.  I am trying to picture it in my mind. 

The one thing this whole experience is teaching me? Learn to take a small amount of time for yourself. Life is so very precious and I intend on being around for a while.

So today I got up, went to the gym, nothing strenuous just light exercise and then I returned to bed.  I have moved from the bed to the couch.  It has been a day of rest.  I will have a bath and return to the couch.

My appetite is a little off today.  Perhaps because everything tastes like nothing.  I can't tell you if something is nice because I literally have no taste buds.  It is the weirdest thing.  

Hopefully by next week I'll be back to 'normal' and can enjoy that feeling until my next hit. 

On a positive note my hair is growing.  The cold cap is working very well and although the thought of wearing it again is already making me feel nauseous I will persevere.  I could not cope if it all fell out again. 

On another positive 'Clive' I do believe is smaller.  Good riddance. His presence is extremely disturbing!!

Xx 

18th August 2013 Half way through :-)

So on wednesday I finished my course of fec treatment.  Now I have finished it I will say there proper names.

Florouracil
Epirubacin
Cyclophosphamid

As a friend said to me...FEC off Clive.  I laughed.

Those terms are lost with me!  All I know is that they are put in my veins and they know exactly what to do and where to go! (well hopefully anyway).

So now I have finished that course I will start my next treatment.  A new drug or two I should say.  One is a wonder drug specially for my type of cancer.
Her2 is quite an aggressive form and it basically means that it tests positive for a protein called human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 which promotes the growth of cancer cells.

Lost?  Yeah me too.  I really wish I understood it more but I am not a doctor and so I am leaving the decision making to them.  They are my gods.  I can pray to him, the big guy upstairs but the ones down here are the real geniuses.


It is more agressive and less receptive to hormone treatment, well apart from this wonder drug.  Herceptin.  My doctor said to me that having this type of cancer is a good thing because this drug is so good.  I will agree to disagree I think!

That will take a total of six hours to be placed into my body.  It actually only takes around an hour and a half but they need to make sure I do not get any weird side effects from it.  I am having an ECG too to make sure my heart is healthy.  Please god let that be ok.

Then the following day I will be put on taxol.  This is a stronger drug that will have different side effects to what I have experienced so far.  A lot less sickness and more of a constant feeling of being hit by a large truck.  Oh good, what is worse I hear you say?  I have no idea yet.  Lets just wait and see.  So far I have just about managed, only god knows how because I have no idea where my energy is coming from!  It will also apparently strip me of my eyebrows and lashes.  My brows I can handle, as they are tattooed but my lashes.  My beautiful long lashes that I have taken for granted are going to drop out and leave me with bald eyes!  I may not look so glam after this treatment.

Annoyingly I am still shaving my legs!  I mean come on, give me some sort of break!!

So today is Sunday and usually by now I am feeling much better.  I knew last time I wrote I was jumping the gun a bit!  My bad.  I have felt better lets put it that way.  My sleeping pattern is all over the place.  I literally want to sit in the bath and go to bed.  Although once in bed I need to get up.  Again I am up and down, not knowing how I am really feeling.  One minute my sickness has gone and the next I am gaging trying to trick my body into being sick.  Sometimes this works, other times I just look like an insane person!!  Its not a great look.

Today however I have caked my makeup on, placed my headscarf on and I am off out for my brother in laws birthday.  Something fun and easy, hopefully I will not need a quick kip.  You know me, sleep is always on the cards.  Maybe a couple of glasses of Prosecco will do the trick.  Anything is better than water right now.  Water is tasting like the devil.  No taste, it is just bland and boring.  I went to the gym today and I literally was so thirsty I had to hold my nose to drink it.  Sparkling water I can handle.  Maybe bubbles in general are a good way to clear side effects although the doctors would not ever say that.  I am saying it for them.  Alcohol is a winner.

I am feeling up beat in general though.  Knowing that I am half way through is a massive bonus and it means that the end goal is in my sights.  I am not so worried about the operation and the radiotherapy, it was mainly the chemo that was worrying me.  And if I can get through this I can literally get through anything.  I am already dreaming of the day the doctor tells me I am in the clear.  I woke up the other morning crying with happiness, and with a bottle of champers in one hand!  I may be a slight lush, but don't say anything.

Our charity has been a huge success and us girls are so proud of the awareness we have created in such a short space of time.  My goal is now focusing on our first charity event which will be the event of the year.  Yes I can say that because it will be.  My friends and I are working so hard on it that I know it will be amazing.

So as from today I have nothing more to report.  Still feel ill but I will get over this.  My hair is growing which is great and soon I will be able to remove my head scarf, well once my bald patch by my left ear starts to grow.  It seems to be taking its time and this is driving me slightly mad.  Once chemo is over I will embrace the look and rock Jessie J.  She pulls it off so well!!

Enjoy the day people and a quick thank you to those reading this.  All your energy and positivity is what keeps me going.  I can't possibly be doing this all on my own!  I will need a massive holiday and a massive sleep when this is all over.

Bye for now
xxx

4th August 2013

So I'm very nearly half way through treatment and feeling pretty good.  Like I had said in my previous blog that I had very tired days with sickness.
Well everyone came over that Sunday and it was like my sickness had just vanished.  I managed to stay up all night without having a quick siesta between courses and even had a glass of wine!
Go crazy Alex!!

It seems that my body has three days where it allows me to be weak and ill and tired and then it snaps me out of it and makes me get up and carry on. It is like a really bad hangover.  You know, those crazy nights where you drink far too many jagerbombs because it's a really good idea at the time, followed by heaps of sambucca and you get home at five in the morning hammered and laughing.  Then you wake up in your pit the next morning saying you'll never drink again. All of a sudden you wake up a couple of days later, (a word to you young girls watch out, hangovers last a lot longer in your 30's than in your 20's!) feeling fine and you are ready to do it all over again.  That is how this is and to be honest I've had enough hangovers to know how to handle them.

Obviously now, as I have shaved my head I am wearing head scarves in public, which I may add I am quite enjoying.  I can mix and match the colours and styles and almost have a new hair do every day.

Having no hair is much more versatile than I realised.  I can have a different style depending on how I am feeling.  Although anyone who thinks having no hair is cheap think again!  I have become even more high maintenance since shaving my head!
My wig man wants me to die my hair peroxide, which I will but not till my chemo is over just incase I dye it and it all falls out!  I do not need a peroxide head.

It is very strange being in my mind right now.  I still have my eyelashes, eyebrows, all my body hair(I thought there were some perks but I am still shaving my legs!)  In fact the only thing missing is a full head of hair and even that has not completely fallen out.  It has actually grown which means the cold cap so far has been very successful.  I mean I'm not talking lashings of locks but a couple of centimetres.  I wear my scarves because I want to, not for necessity.  I do feel sometimes that I should look a certain way?  I should look ill right?

But what does an ill person look like?

This was the problem I had at the very start of diagnosis.  This was what frightened me the most. That I would lose myself.  That I would look ill and pale and have no hair and walk around looking like a 'cancer' patient.   That I would forget who I was and be a constant reminder when I looked in the mirror that it wasn't my reflection anymore but that of a weak girl, losing her fight with life.
But it hasn't happened.  Nothing that I feared has happened.  Even when I stare at my reflection all I see is me staring back, with slightly less hair and higher cheekbones!

I'm still me, I still wear my full make up, my sister is still spray tanning me, I am still going out, working, seeing my friends.  The only thing that is different is that Clive is hanging around.  And I am feeling slightly guilty or slightly concerned that I shouldn't feel this good.  Are the doctors giving me enough drugs? 
My sister said she thinks I am made of steel.  It must be my mothers genes.  My grandmother had cancer and after an operation at the age of 80 years old,  she woke up,  ripped out her tubes and insisted she went home.  I must take after her. 

Yesterday I went to a friends engagement party.  I got dolled up, put on my wig, I call her Tallulah although I should just call her barbie as she is very blonde and off I went to celebrate.  I had a couple of drinks, messed around with my friends, took stupid pictures and then at 1.30 am I decided I had had enough and I drove everyone home.

My life has not changed at all.  In fact it may be better.  Maybe because it has opened my eyes to all the wonderful people in my life and it had made me realise even more, that I cherish my family and friends so much.

All we did last night was laugh.  Laugh and take pictures.  A great night in my book! I am hoping that this is my good karma.  That the universe has dealt me this bad hand and as a reward for coping it is allowing me not to suffer? 

(A few pictures, you get the idea of the evening with my crazy friends!)

Or maybe I am being daft and the next time I write I will look terrible, feel terrible and want to curl up in a ball and hide!

Who knows, but for now I am enjoying not being too ill and loving my life as a 'normal' person. Well as normal as one can be.  Normal is such a funny word, I have lost all meaning to it. 

My next chemotherapy is on the 14th August.  I do hope  I recover quickly as I have a busy weekend with two birthday parties to attend.  It's all go. 

Clive is trying to slow me down but I will not let him win.
xx