Settling into life

I find it hard to wrap my mind around the paradoxes of this disease. I'm alive and focused on living while my chances of imminent death are higher than they've ever been. Median survival for my diagnosis doesn't let me reach 40, although I have strong reasons to believe I'll be on the good (alive!!) side of that. I'm working hard to keep myself well while the treatment kills far more than cancer. Even when treatment works, it could damage my brain or heart or kidneys or the nerves in my feet and hands. I am and will be irradiated on a regular basis, which may cause a different cancer or all sorts of other problems long into the future. It's hard to trust that everything is necessary, but the alternative is worse.

I am doing what I can. I find myself repeating that phrase all the time lately.

Since the last post, I finished one set of chemo drugs and received two rounds of the next, solo, version. It feels good to have one part of the treatment checked off, all done, hopefully never to be needed again. Doxetaxel turns my top half tomato red; antihistamines turn me peach again. I want to sleep for the week afterwards. Digestion confuses me and I'm not interested in food for probably the first time in years. My bones ache days 3-5 and my feet don't work properly. My toes aren't numb, which I was expecting, but the balls of my feet and outside of my calves are. My legs are liable to collapse out from under me if I hurry. I walk everywhere deliberately like an old woman and don't know whether to be grateful I may reach that state or sad I am already there.

My external PICC tube is gone, replaced with 'minor' surgery to put a portacath under my skin. (I pictured tweezers or possibly contraceptive implant removal. This was more involved.) The PICC was turning red, getting constantly bumped by my girls, took weekly care, and was working its way out each time I used my muscles. It's been bliss to both soak in the tub and swim in the summer heat. This new device is going to stay in a long time as insurance policy against not needing it again. I'll have a party when I'm clear two years and all this is behind me, and until then I've got a hard bump under my collar bone.

Good news... my hair is coming back. I've got tiny little eyebrow hairs coming in and some lovely soft peach fuzz on my head. I've never been so happy to see less than half a centimetre of hair in my life. It's a small thing, and I enjoyed playing with the eyebrow pencil, but it's hopeful to see new life appear. Long may it continue. 

Dead boob... flopping?

I'm back in Winnipeg, where I haven't lived since I was 19. They kept the snow just for us, about a month later than normal. The girls enjoy exploring all the strange spring structures - water flowing down the edge of the street, ice levitating above the melted parts, piles of grit and dead leaves left over from last fall, shear ice where the puddles freeze overnight. They girls are adjusting. It's taking time, but it will come.

Cancer wise, I've been given a blow. The swelling, redness and dimpled skin I noticed before my first treatment mean it was inflammatory. That explains why the tumour grew so fast, but also makes my prognosis worse. Much worse. I will be having a mastectomy, possibly loosing more of my lymph nodes, radiation is pretty much guaranteed and there might even be another set of chemo once all of that is done. Can anyone recommend good headwrap instruction videos? It's going to be a long time before I again have hair, and my scalp is getting cold. It's also extremely bizarre to walk around with body parts I will no longer have in the fall.

The good signs: It's not in the lymph nodes they removed. The chemo made the swelling and skin symptoms disappear straight away. I am surrounded by people who want me well and plan to support me.

I plan to live, although I would be lying if I said I wasn't scared.

Rush, rush, wait

I'm waiting in the chemo unit, while the drugs slowly work their way into my body.

It's been a flurry of activity until now - appointments almost every day, mammograms, ultrasounds, fine needle biopsies and the original cancer discovery thanks to two core biopsies with devices the size of caulking guns. You haven't lived until you've heard 2mm of metal go kathunk into your boob, twice. Last week it was surgery to remove and test some lymph nodes, apparently minor but still under general anaesthetic, CT scan, bone scan, MRI. Today I can add an ECG.

The good news is that the tests all came back fine. There is no cancer in my lymph nodes, bone, liver, heart, etc are all fine. I'm officially stage two (a?), which increases the chances this year will get rid of everything that's grown erratically. Amazing relief, that.

I do seem to have terrible veins. For a while I thought I was being nervous about needles, but it's been verified by everyone who's had a chance to wield the lance. The first woman trying to fit the cannula for surgery balked (I hadn't had water for six and half hours because I was the last person admitted) and the second rooted around in three different places before finding somewhere that would let her in. The bloods ladies haven't been great, especially since I now need to use my right arm and the chairs only have left side arm rests. Even fitting the PICC line, my veins kept disappearing whenever they injected local anaesthetic. I am grateful it is now there so the needles and various fluids will go through a silicone tube, not my skin.

Overall, I'm been impressed by the efficiency. I feel confident about the team in charge of me, and there has been a lot of kindness. I've met some characters, like the woman who went on creative retreat with Margaret Atwood in Wales, gets through her treatment with a small glass of Spanish wine each night, and whose cousin opened an Irish pub in Lithuania. I'm happy the appointments will back off for a while, and we're actually doing something to get rid of the cancer.

Out out damn Bob. (Yes, I've named it).

So, cancer. Off to fight the demon.

I've got a 4-5 cm fast growing 'mass' in my left breast. I noticed an egg sized lump mid-late January, got a doctor's appointment within a few weeks (after handing in my gigantic statement in support of moving to Canada and double checking the lump wouldn't just go away on it's own), and was diagnosed with invasive ductal carcinoma 28 Feb. Since then, I've had a whole battery of tests and I get the final results on Wednesday. I have a PICC line fitted Thurs so they no longer have to poke holes in me daily, and chemo will start Friday unless there's something (else) majorly wrong.

It's a lot to get my mind around. It's a flat up confrontation with death, even though I plan to get through it and people have been appearing from all sides to say they have made it through. It's my first complete embrace of medical science and trusting implicitly that the experts know best. I don't feel I have any other choice, and this does seem the type of problem the whole system was created to solve. There is no option of 'trusting my body' for this one, bits of my body already took a seriously wrong turn.

My job now is to turn up and endure whatever treatment throws my way. It's to take good care of myself so I'm as happy and healthy as I can be. It's to keep my girls on an even keel so they're not swallowed up by everything happening around them. It's to sort out an international move so I can take advantage of family support while I'm going through this whole process. It's making sure my mom knows her help is much, much appreciated. It's reaching out to friends and family and being seriously overwhelmed by their reaction (thank you all).

So, that's what I'm going to do.