Hello my lovely readers. How are you all? I hope you are
enjoying the bank holiday weekend. I bet you are all wondering what I have been
up to? Well let me fill you in…
My wounds have been healing nicely which is really great. I
still have a couple of dressings on but it won’t be long until I am dressing
free (*I hope) and finally able to have a bath. I also have a lot more energy
that I have been putting to good use by going for some nice walks in the
sunshine. I had a dose of Herceptin at the hospital that went fine and I have
done the odd bit of writing. As you can see I haven’t really had a very
eventful week, well I hadn’t until yesterday. Yesterday I had an appointment
with my oncologists. This appointment lasted nearly and hour and a half. In
this appointment I was told I would need radiotherapy. EURGH. This was not part
of the plan. I thought I was going to avoid being zapped. It turns out the
universe had other ideas.
As if this latest blow wasn’t enough to ruin my week I then
got told that my course of radio would last for five weeks. Most people are
treated for three weeks but I, being the special person I am, get to have an
extra two weeks because guess what I AM SO YOUNG (*if one more doctor tells me
this I think I might spontaneously combust). Seriously I do realise that I was
pretty unlucky to get cancer at my age I don’t need doctors to remind me of
this too. My bleedin' age has a lot to answer for you know, it often means I get
the bum end of the deal. I was given the strongest chemo and the most radical
surgery so I probably should have guessed radiotherapy would be no different.
Silly me thinking I had gotten away without having any.
SO on hearing the action plan I made a deal with my Docs, I
told them that they had to wait until after I had been to the Cosmo Blog Awards
before they could start frying me. I reckon that is only fair don’t you? It means my
wounds have a bit longer to fully heal and I get to have a good few more weeks
of feeling normal and having some fun before my energy gets temporarily zapped
away from me again. If I am honest the thing that is bumming me out the most
about this news is the fact that I won’t be able to have a hot bath during and
for a little while after the treatment. I still haven’t had a bath since the
day before my surgery and I MISS THEM. It seems cruel that not long after I am finally able to have a bath they will
once again be taken away from me. Having radio also means I get to have my
first tattoo (*sorry Snoop Doggy Rob, but it is strictly for medical reasons only)!
It will be a couple of tiny dots on my chest and under my arm but hey it’s a
tattoo all the same!
You probably want to know why the hospital have changed
their minds about giving me radiotherapy. There was a slight mix up in the
beginning and I should never have been told that I wasn’t going to need it.
Unfortunately my oncologist was away when I was deciding about surgery and so
my surgeon consulted with other doctors and wires got crossed. I had been told
radio could wreck my reconstruction results so when I was told that I wouldn’t
need it I decided to have the big op, get it all done at once and reduce my
scarring. After surgery I had an appointment with my actual oncologist and he
started to talk to me about radio. I told him that I was told I wouldn’t need
it and he wasn’t impressed. He said he would talk to some other specialists and
then make a decision.
My oncology team have now decided that because my original
tumour (Kenneth) was so ‘naughty’ (AKA aggressive) and chemo didn’t completely kill him, there
may be a few naughty cells left. Therefore they want to be safe and give me
strong treatment. They also never found out for sure that it hadn’t spread to
my nodes so they want to zap them too! I am all for being safe and so although
this is in no way the decision I wanted I understand the need for it. Like most
cancer treatments there are some negatives to radio, these include the fact
that it may very well ruin the great cosmetic result my surgeon worked so hard
to achieve and it will probably make me very tired both during treatment and
for a while afterwards. BUT HEY I’ve
been through worse so although this is a bit of a pain I’m hoping I’ll be able
to handle it. I think that really my doctors just like me so much they want to see me more ;-).
So there you go, that’s what has
been happening in my life recently. I didn’t want to have radio, I thought I
was finished with the nasty bits of my treatment and I was looking forward to
finally being able to escape from the hospital for a while. Now I have to spend a whole lot
more time there but I would rather spend time there now than have to spend time
there again later on in life! The two hours of driving everyday will be a pain
and any holiday plans I had have to be put on hold for now BUT I still get to go to the
Blog Awards AND I can hopefully have a lot of fun now whilst there is still
(*fingers crossed) the odd bit of sunshine left in the UK.
I completely agree with Dolly Parton who once said "the way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain".
Love you long time. X
