The Countdown Begins

The countdown begins........today I am going to have my blood taken to check my health before the toxic chemicals are administered on Tuesday next week to fend off any impending doom. I am slightly concerned as my throat is feeling a little sore despite the copious amounts of vitamin C and other immune boosting malarkey I am feeding myself. My daughters father has the flu and it seems that everywhere I go somebody is coughing or sniffing. I have become a paranoid wreck, concerned that my treatment will be postponed due to some annoying bug. It has taken months to get to this point, from August 2015 until now....pleeeease let it be alright!

On the positive side of things my daughter copied a friends thoughtful boyfriend and left a note on the toilet for me saying 'enjoy your poo I love you'....this made me smile immensely and reminded me she is so strong and thoughtful and just such a character.

Positive number 2 - (no pun intended)......My Buddhist Yant script for my new tattoo has been sent!! Woo hoo. So I am aiming to get this done after this chemo course and have provisionally booked it for my birthday in April. I am keeping everything crossed that I can get this crucial bit of mind sorting artistic self mutilation done asap.

Positive number 3 - I have booked my ceremonial head shave for Saturday 5th, no chemo is taking my barnet!!!, I decided to not even let one measly little hair fall out of my tiny follicles, due to chemo it will be gone before it gets chance HA. My friend is coming with me and  has promised cake as a consolation for lack of hair. I have a great new wig too and am going to 'own it giiiirlfriend'  (*does fast american finger snapping thing). There is much internal debate for me as to which is the best 'cancer' look to rock. I met an amazing lady a couple of days ago who has kept her BC secret and you would never know she had it, she wears the wig all the time when she is out. Up until meeting her I have had friends who have rocked the bald and have looked great and have owned the whole experience for the whole world to see. As with everything it's an individual 'journey' (sorry for those of you who don't like that word). So I am going to go with the flow and see how I feel, I know that if I go out I will want to dress up and look and do the whole hair and make up thing and other times I will want to proudly wear my bald.

Positive number 4- Monday my friend is going to do my nails for me to try and stop them from falling off during chemo then I am going to have reflexology and counselling at the Pickering Cancer centre so by the time Tuesday comes my nails and my chakras will all be poised and ready for serene battle. Another friend has kindly said she will be my chemo buddy on Tuesday as my mum will have to pick P up from school. So already I feel supported and like I know where I am heading.

4 more days........of no chemo, no treatment........before it all kicks off, the onslaught, but by jove, I am totally going to be ready for it...with a little help from my friends.

Follow The Yellow Brick Road

Little twinges in the head, aches in the hip, little flickers of something in my leg..........niggle niggle niggle.....wonder wonder wonder...has it spread? even more? in the countdown to chemo? has it gone to my brain, my back aaaaarrrrgh. My favouritist childhood film ever popped into my head in the early hours of the morning, and my little twinges reminded me of the 'tin man'. a little squeak here a little squeak there. I have come off the HRT that I have been on since 2007, as my cancer is oestrogen positive. So a complete stop to that has been implemented!! Pure primrose oil, to prevent the squeaking from now on...so I am thinking with a practical none panic stricken head on, that my body is screaming 'What the hell woman!! what you doing to me creaky old bones' and this could explain the creaks and pains. My cupboard looks like an outlet of Holland and Barrett.

 I even had my chakra's cleansed the other day through reflexology. My goodness that is amazing stuff!! I have never had it before and I was astounded at the results. I went after a very healthy breakfast of porridge and bannana and some highly immune boosting purple fruit powder stuff. So i got to my reflexology appointment very full and ready for some chakra action. The reflexologist started on my most cancerous side (lovely) and did some rubby stufff which felt devine....and then my stomach wouldn't stop gurgling....how embarrassing!! she smiled and said 'that's great, thats your lymphatic system, can you hear it gurgling away, I am clearing the toxins from it, you are responding really well!' .

Well I was amazed!! I had about an hour of this, she cleared my solar plexus and my sacrum dontcha know, and I could feel it!! I booked myself in for next week for a final immune boost before the chemo. I am going to be floating on a cloud of clarity by the end of next week! I am hoping my daughters cold is not going to go downhill into the temperature zone. She was very ill a few weeks back, I got it too. I can't be risking this before the chemo, they wont give it to me if I am ill. Poor lamb I am shoveling vitamins into her too.....I also look so poncy, I have this antibacterial room spray that I spritz around like an obsessive compulsive neurotic mad woman! You will be decontaminated if you step on the threshold of my house lol!! there will be no chakra bothering round here.

The Tree of Life

I am clinging on to my hippy within, there has always been a hessian wearing bare footed mama in my soul. She spread her wings when I travelled the world in the 90's, and gained momentum in India. It brings serenity and hope to my life, rooting myself in nature. My little girl was a miracle baby and was born after pouring red wine on an oak tree at midnight, my poor man at the time had to come too ( don't ask, and don't scream at the waste of wine) through tying a piece of cotton in a fertility temple in India, through carrying mistletoe in my pocket and lighting various candles and bathing in a bath of oak leaves.....mostly I think the science behind IVF nailed it but, the hippy stuff kept me busy, hoping and wishing, wishing very hard while holding onto a tree. Now I am wishing for my life to continue so that I can be here for my beautiful girl. So the earth mama comes again to the fore.......

I have every colour candle of the rainbow quite literally....every essential oil (frankinsense is good for cancer apparently), ribbon aplenty ...I am getting a tattoo for protection and healing over my hysterectomy scar a personalised one via a buddhist monk (oh yea baby)....I have a friend of a friend who can do it for me, just need to find some gold ink (hhhmmmm need to make sure this is ok with CT scans...) and I have my new tree of life necklace...(and various crystals).....

All of this sounds crazy, but it gives me hope in nature by connecting with the magic of it. I am making every second count in the run up to March 1st, the most of my hair, the most of feeling good breathing deeply, walking through fields, watching the river flow....I feel so good due to all the concious drinking of Pom juice (again good for cancer apparently) and of course the eating of propar stuff, infact I almost feel elated with the beauty of everything and how precious it is, particularly my daughter.  I just ask the universe to grant me the biggest wish of my life, I promise to look after the planet and do what I can...please universe...please..... let me see my girl grow into a woman  ...om shanti people...hug anyone?

Make it stop!!

Well it is a cliche but it is an upsy downsy ride post diagnosis, which I guess is why I have not posted for a while. A very hopeless beginning to my blog ...

Anyway the story so far....I have had crying fits, dancing in the kitchen fits, random desires to go up to strangers and tell them 'what a great job they are doing at being human, and to make the most of it' fits,a poor guy for example, strumming a guitar in town while I was on my way to The local Cancer Centre, nearly became my random pray, but my sensible, in touch with the world and not wanting to look too mad self, surpressed those urges. Was this the right thing to do? should I turn my blog into one of those adventure books, we used to read as children where you choose an outcome and go to a page number to see what the result of that choice is.....How awesome would that be, perhaps he and I would have become friends, we would have shared some truths,.. I stupidly chose a sensible  walk to the cancer centre and then over the threshold...... an adventure in itself it seems as when I got there I broke down (again)...another realisation of making this diagnosis fact and not just some hideous nightmare. i was hugged and told I would be looked after... The ladies there know my daughter from a class visit they made, my 8 year old girl has met these very fine good samaritans, who have offered to take care of us both for no price, massages, reflexology, counselling, all at our disposal. I was so humble and will do all that i can to give something back. Pickering Cancer Centre...Fund raise if you can too.

So.....I had opened another supportive door on this journey. a journey that on some days feels distant and on others feels suffocatingly close. Today was a distant day, the wine probably helped, my supportive male friend who rescues me took me away for a meal on valentines day, we wandered around our favourite town of Rye, it was a lovely day. yesterday however, he found me in tears, mourning my shortened existence after reading my copy of my oncologists letter to my doctors surgery while filling in a form for the cancer centre. It had the words, Treatment: Palliative Chemotherapy......Palliative....I will be having palliative treatment, I am at the end of my life but I don't know when it is going to be...really? Palliative? now? I was mourning the lost time with my daughter, of not being able to see her grow up having spent most of my life dreaming of having her. That is some shit and possibly the hardest part of secondary breast cancer and which dictates the need for support from others in the same boat. I am now, at this moment, on the holiday, the calm before the storm. My treatment (Paclitaxol) begins on the 1st of march, I can't have some chemo or radiotherapy because I had it as a child (my life dose), so I am just keeping fingers crossed that the ones I can have can help me, I have also turned to frankinsense oil, cannibinoid oil, weird green algae powder, weird purple powder, pommegranite juice, anything frankly that offers some natural hope amidst the drug cocktails I am about to imbibe. Maaaaan this is not how I planned 2016, I knew it was coming but not quite so soon, but I can't stop it, I can just prepare, look after my future self, mouth ulcers and all. To make the most of my daughter and decent humans, to do what I can for the planet while I am here. To all the amazing folks dealt this unfortunate hand, laugh in it's face and dance around the kitchen, live as hard as you can xx

From 1-4

So this blog.............the blog I wasn't expecting to write for another 20 years, well here it is. My other previous blogs were created with the joy of a long awaited dream coming true, after childhood cancer in the form of Acute Myloid Leaukaemia and a bone marrow transplant.

 In the 20 years that followed after 1988 I managed to give birth to a beautiful baby girl who is now 8 whole years old, an achievement I didn't expect to have in my life. It has been a roller coaster the last few years leading up to my 40th year on planet earth. Starting with the end of my relationship with P's father and striking out as a single mother *sings while waving arms in the air* 'sisters are doing it for themselves' .....found freedom and loved it, enjoyed my life, the ex and I were maintaining a civil ex partnership for the sake of P, and while he remained entirely made out of gold in her eyes, I could be grown up and accept that.....(sometimes.....when it suited me). 

So anyway, the beef with this blog..... I woke up one morning in August 2015.....I looked in the mirror, I was pale and I had, had a tingling in my chest. An old school friend had posted on facebook about breast cancer and the fact it doesn't have to be a lump and to get anything checked out that didn't 'feel' right. 

'I have had a good life' the thought entered my head without even trying to think. I went to the phone and put a mammogram appointment on my credit card and that was the beginning of the journey, a long winding journey of twists and turns, of inefficiency within my local doctors practice for not forwarding reports that should have been forwarded, but lets leave that gripe for now....endless tests, CT Scans, Lymph Node biopsy and ultra sound with MRI please, (off the menu of scan the sweet buggery out of me) which leads to ...ladies and gentleman...Diagnosis number 1. Stage 1 Grade 3 invasive ductal carcinoma of the left breast. Deep Breath, can I really go through this again? The memory of cancer stayed with me for many years, what I witnessed in Great Ormond Street, surviving where others didn't, how ill I felt. It hit me hard, but I consoled myself with the fact a double mastectomy would give me the new boob implants that I would never be able to afford my self! the doctor promised to promote them from a B to a C, some decent puppies...So light was shone on my dark day. Then there was a blip. The abdominal MRI had showed a lesion on my liver which looked suspicious, the eventual decision was made to conduct a liver biopsy..(can you guess what is coming?).......thats right....Ladies and Gentleman....Diagnosis number 2, stage 4.....yep we are now at stage 4 baby.....in the matter of a month, secondary breast cancer of the liver, I have gone from hopeful boob reconstruction to an apparently 'incurable cancer' where the doctor promised to 'keep me going for as long as she could'. She said that she can keep people going for quite a while these days.....................I think I am going to be sick, I looked at my mother then broke down in tears. All my life since those dark days at Great Ormond Street, I knew I wouldn't make old bones, I had intense treatment and full body irradiation it's a lot for one puny body. I have had my life dose of radiation and my life dose of two of the main chemotherapy drugs. The doctor assured me there were options and the first option we were going to try was Paclitaxol chemo drug, half way up the strength of chemo spectrum........ 'I just wanted another 20 years' I squeaked inbetween tears, my mum also welled up and assured me that 'it is not now Hannah, you are not going now' the doctor joined 'Of course' she said, 'we have options to try and new drugs are coming out all of the time' 

So this is where my blog begins, beginning at the end perhaps? This is a journey I had hoped not to tread for a while but here it is, in all of its cancerous glory, yes it is happening to me, I am living it, that moment you wonder about, that everyone speculates on, I am in it, in it right up to my neck!! I am trying to be positive, everyone says it helps, but it takes a couple of days of mourning for myself and my daughter of nearly vomiting out of fear every few hours and on the occassions when my mind wanders on my daughter being without me. I wander whether it was fair of me to give birth to her, was it selfish, knowing my history and perhaps my life being shortened by treatment, but I had not bargained on the actual shortening being shortened by so much....so here it is my blog...I am off to a drop in cancer centre in tunbridge wells tomorrow to speak to a counsellor and chat, I have heard so many good things about this place. I am also going to phone the macmillan cancer nurse to talk about my concerns 'when will my treatment start?' 'will. it spread..the cancer? while I am waiting?' .........I am sure this blog will cast shadows and light in equal measure and here it begins....