My inescapable journey

It’s been 4 weeks & a few days since my last chemotherapy.  A lot of people worry about how long it takes for things to get back to normal. Like hair growth, periods, mood, tiredness, any other symptoms.  So now I’m going to log every 4 weeks ish, what’s going on in the realm of ‘normal’ life.  Periods Yeah, I’d like to say I miss it. But I don’t.. As  chemotherapy destroys cancer cells it can also affect any cells that grow and divide rapidly – this includes cells in the ovaries. This can affect the functioning of the ovaries, reducing the number & quality of eggs. Hence the Zoladex injections to help preserve my ovaries incase of wanting another child.  Some women do continue having periods throughout treatment but my oncologist did advise me that it is common for periods to stop which can be temporary or permanent. They may restart again at the end, or even months/years later.  Fatigue I honestly  can safely say that I feel not ...

So today I saw my surgeon for my consultation for mastectomy and also rebuild.  I knew that my end goal was to have a double mastectomy & reconstruction via method of ‘DIEP flap’ when I first found out I had the BRCA1 gene.  Let me first explain a few things.  Mastectomy is where they do  surgery to remove all breast tissue from a breast as a way to treat or prevent breast cancer. DIEP flap is surgery where they  basically take the skin and tissue (no muscle) from the abdomen in order to recreate the breasts.   Right.  So when I went in.   She laid her cards on the table which were: Double mastectomy and no rebuild. Continue on with treatment (radiotherapy) and then have reconstruction at a later date. We do a mastectomy on the bad boob and then a silicone implant rebuild but leave the other boob as it is. Have radiotherapy then come back and have reconstruction at a later date.  My concerns/anno...

So thought I’d go for lunch today with Erin and my friend.  Get my phone out my bag! Phone call from hospital! They left a voicemail saying can you call back the breast services team please ASAP.  Oh shit.  They’ve changed their mind haven’t they.  😭 Phoned them immediately back and they offered me an appointment next day for my surgical consultation.  SURGICAL CONSULTATION   I was discharged from chemotherapy like not even 48hours ago!!! So I have my appointment tomorrow at 3:20pm! Holy crap!

So as of today 03-02-2020. No. More. Chemotherapy. I am done!  This all stems down to a few things! My neuropathy is not improving! I still have pins and needles in every finger! I’ve done more cycles then planned! Skin rashes getting very bad and uncomfortable! Infection after infection after infection! Shrinkage is now under 1cm! I anxiously am thinking about myself and my wedding.. Times getting closer, please don’t prolong my treatment if there is no reason for it!  But mostly neuropathy and skin rashes are getting bad.  She did point out that my last bloods that were taken on 20-01-2020 showed that my neutrophils (type of white blood cell) were non existent! Which explains a lot regarding infections! So she said that they wouldn’t of done any more treatment until that had improved. I had more bloods done today, so hopefully there is an improvement!  So she has now ticked the button of ready for surgery!!!!!! EEEKKKKK! As I had to go a...