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....
No comments:
Post a Comment