Did I tell you..

that I turned 35 last week? Yeay! The more time passes the more grateful I am for the things that I have. Like great friends…

A wonderful boyfriend

Lovely pets

And a head full of hair!

And to think that 5 years ago I was celebrating my 30th birthday with a lump on my left breast, not knowing, yet knowing that it was “possibly-most likely” cancer. 

Happy birthday to me! 35 and counting! 🙂

 

 

Hair growth after chemo

How do you go from here…

to here?

With a lot of patience and just as much humour!

ps. this post is 3 months overdue 😉

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And then then it wasn’t cancer

Just like a year and a half ago I wrote a post titled “And then it was cancer” I am happy to be calling this one “And then it wasn’t cancer”. Yes, you read it right, the fucker turned out to be nothing!!!

Despite the toughness of this little cancer trip I have learned something positive from it:  not all lumps turn out to be cancer. This was the only experience I had so far, the first and only lump I have ever found on my breast was cancerous. This doesn’t mean that if I find I lump I’ll be less worried or upset, but that when people tell me “it may be nothing” I will believe that yes, it is true, it can be nothing. Just like this second time round.

No man’s land

Today is the day that I go back to hospital, not for treatment and not for a regular check-up, but to have a lump, the fucker as I have named it, felt by my doctor. As you can imagine, I am dreading it. It´s not so much that I do not look forward to it, as in a strange way I do. I want to be closer to knowing what the hell this thing on my chest is. However, I am so conscious that knowing could change my life drastically, once again.

The first time it all happened I was planning to move back home, after breaking up with my long-term boyfriend and getting to the end of my PhD funding. We had given notice for our flat, I was going to spend half my summer in London and half in Barcelona, where I would  carry on writing up my thesis and settle. And then cancer happened and all my wonderful plans came to a halt.

This time round I have found the fucker also at a time when I am planning changes in my life. But now, unlike he first time it happened, when I was planning without knowing about a lump,  I am very conscious that it all may change . So every time I am talking about the move to my new flat in the centre of town, or talking about finding a job, there is always that thing at the back of my mind, a little voice that tells me “all these plans may have to be re-drawn”.  And I cannot help but engage in some internal dialogue in which “what ifs” are discussed.

“what if it’s cancer?”

This is one of the first questions I ask myself. And you know what? if it is cancer I will deal with it once again, just like a did. And if I have to do chemo I will do it once again, just like I did. I am no longer fearing a breast cancer recurrence. My biggest fear is secondary breast cancer, just like when it first happened. That is, when the cancer has spread elsewhere in your body and there is no cure. I do not wanna be given an estimated time to my death.

So at the moment I feel like I am in a thin line, one that separates “cancer free life ” from “cancerous life” and I am just waiting to see which way I am tipped over. I live in no man’s land.

And there was another lump

“I found a room in a flatshare!

“Oooooh”

“And I also found a lump on my breast”

This is how I broke the news to the first friends I saw on my first visit to London after moving back home to Barcelona.  Yes, because after all my cancer treatment was done and dusted I was finally able to get on with the move that the cancer prevented me from doing.

And for the past 3 months I have been enjoying the Mediterranean weather, eating lovely food, spending time with friends and family and generally being happy. I have now found a room in a beautiful flat in the centre of town, and I am so excited about it. BUT, the cancer threat has come back to put an overcast on all my plans. I am back to that horrible time when you find a lump and you have to get it tested to find out what it is. I can’t believe that just 18 months later I am back here.

It was the day I was coming to London that I found the “fucker”, as I want to refer to it from now on.  I was packing away,  when, I don’t know how, I noticed a little hard lump on my chest wall, near the breast where I had no cancer. Of course I went white, I didn’t know what to do. Should I call someone? I composed myself, finished packing and got on with the trip. Of course, tears came flooding as I was sitting in the train station cafe (after missing my train). And then again on my train trip.  And then again on different occasions during the last few days.

It is so strange, to be back in the city where it all happened with another lump on my breast. Of course,  I am bracing myself for the worse. After all, once upon a time I had a lump and everyone around me said “it will probably be nothing” and then it was something. It was cancer. Why should it be different this time?

Lots more hair growth!

Hey…the weekly updates are still going over at hairgrowthafterchemo!check it out!

Hair conversations

Wanna read some more hair conversations? wanna see week 18 self-portraits? what are you waiting for then! click here now!

Radiotherapy!!!!!

From now on, every 6th of May is going to be a special date for me. This is the exact date of my official and final diagnosis. It is the day I heard the words “I’m afraid the biopsy has CONFIRMED…”. From then on my life completely changed, in many different ways. For one, I became a hospital patient and entered the healthcare system.  Unfamiliar territory then, my second home now.

I have written much about chemotherapy. And a bit about my operation. But how about radiotherapy? I never got to tell you all about the experience of having your breast blasted with radiation on a daily basis for 4 weeks. Yes, you hear me well: daily. Oh the joys of having to go to hospital everyday!!!! So let me take this chance to give you a little summary of what is like.

Before you start your treatment you have to go for your preparation session. I, as usual, went along by myself. I was feeling ok, didn’t think much of it. Got there, sat in the waiting room, flick through the out-of-date gossip magazines that are always lying around in such places and was called in. Of course, it was when I found myself in a room with 5 nurses and medical machinery that it hit me again: cancer treatment. To stop cancer coming back. Coming back. Shit. Felt emotional but held my tears back.

Next is the usual undressing-of-oneself-to-show-affected-breast to whichever health professional needs to look at it. I laid down and then they started taking measures of my boob and saying random numbers.  Then my favourite bit came: I got my tattoos!!! well, or as they nurse said when I asked him if I was getting tattoos: “we now call them permanent marks”. Whatever. To make sure that they are radiating the same area every time they did two tiny dots, one between my breasts and one under my armpit. I’ll post some photos. Then it was an mri to take detailed pictures of my body contour and off I went, back home.

Radiotherapy didn’t start for a few weeks, I think it was about 3. So quite a long break. Tired still from the chemo, but hating the 4 kg that I had put on the last half of chemo, I decided to hit the gym again. I think most people think that cancer patients lose weight when doing chemo. But they couldn’t be more wrong. Yes, it is true that some do. But it is also true that many don’t! not all drugs make you feel sick or lose your appetite. Plus you are given steroids. Plus, if like me, you are doing chemo in the middle of the coldest winter in the uk for however many years, chances are you are not gonna leave your sofa. For weeks. Unless you have to go to hospital to do chemo or with a temperature. Honest. By the end of chemo and Xmas I felt like a blob of meat. So, back to the point. I went back to the gym, slowly regaining my level of fitness and losing some pounds along the way. To me this was about regaining some control back over my body and my life. Which in many ways I had lost to cancer and chemotherapy.

Radiotherapy started at the beginning of march and it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.  True, it did make me feel tired, but I continued going to the gym all along it, even though at times it was a struggle. To be fair, compared to chemotherapy, radiotherapy felt like a walk in the park. The one thing that got to me was having to go every day, which is a nearly 2 hour round trip from my house. All for a 40 second blast of radiation. 40 seconds of treatment!!! honest, I counted it. You’d go in. You’d lay in by a huge machine. Two radiologists would get the ruler and marking pens out. Measure you. Mark you. Turn the lights off. Say some random numbers (random to you, that is). Move the machine. Ok. Turn the lights on. Leave the room while a siren is going (supposedly to alert others that radiation is blasting out of the machine?). 20 seconds blast from the right. A radiologist comes in and moves the machine. 20 seconds blast to the left. A radiologist comes back in “you can relax your arm now”. They give you your time for the day after and off you go.  I did 19 sessions. 15 to the whole breast and 4 targeted to the area in which the tumour was located. The process for the last 4 sessions was pretty much the same. Only that they put like a piece of wodd with a circle cut out on the machine so that the radioation would beam just onto the area. And it was only 1 40 second blast. FIY.

I thought I’d show you photos of what the machines look like. These are not photos of where I was treated, I have just taken the off the internet.

I chose this one as the "bed" is exactly the same as the one I laid in for my treatment.

And so…”where are you now? have you finished treatment?”. I get asked this question a lot. And I find it hard to answer. Yes I have finished the treatments that most people have knowledge of when it comes to cancer: chemotherapy and radiotherapy. No, I have not finished other treatments that you would not necessarily know about unless someone close to your, or yourself, has had breast cancer. I am currently on herceptinuntil December 2010. And I am soon to start tamoxifen, for at least  2 years (I could stop if I wanted to try for children), but a recommended time of 5. Great. Look forward to having the menopause at 31. More on that some other time.

A burnt scalp

You can check out the wedding special here, and also week 17!

4 months

So here, have a look at week 16!