What Shall We Do With The Drunken Sailor

As in hooray and up she rises. As in my mood is no longer in the dark, dark place it has been.

After the meeting with the harbinger of doom last week I was in a very bad place. She made me feel like I was written off, like there was no hope. I spent hours, days trawling Dr Google (I know, I know!) looking for another me, desperately searching for answers. YBCN, MacMillan, BCC = good, random websites = very very bad.

In contrast to the dark times, the outpouring of love, messages and kindness has been really wonderful and I feel very blessed to have you all in my life.

What is very hard is people's lack of understanding however. Messages saying "we will beat this" are heartfelt and come from the right place, I just wish I didn't have to say that I will never be able to beat this. Stage 4 means it's treatable but not curable... However, I refuse to sit around like the ink is drying on my death certificate, I will fight this for as long as I possibly can.

Today I met with Dr Zap (déjà vu) and he was so much nicer and actually apologised for the HoD's bedside manner - or lack thereof! He gave me a plan. I'm such a planner and this lack of control for the past weeks has been the absolute worst.

So first things first, 4 weeks of daily (weekday) radiotherapy (aka rads). One big one off blast to my right hip/pelvis, not left as the HoD said, and 4 weeks worth (every weekday) to my sternum and ribs. They will tackle my shoulder at a later date. 4 weeks every weekday is a long old slog but let's look at it as each trip will be killing a bit more of the bastard c.

I'll be coming off tamoxifen and going on to something else, again tbc. This is because the cancer has the same makeup as last time, it's ER+/PR+/HER2- so it feeds on oestrogen which in turn means they need to shut down my ovaries. I'll probably have something like zoladex but again tbc as Dr Zap is my rads man I'll need a different oncologist to confirm this. 

Although it's a still absolutely terrifying, I'm no longer immediately planning my funeral. Dr Zap said on numerous occasions "our aim is to get this into remission".

Rads planning meeting will be tomorrow, good they're getting going quickly I guess!

CT & Bone Scan

Today I had my two scans at East Surrey hospital. I slept so badly last night, I'm so fecking terrified. My mind is going to some really bad places, running down rabbit warrens, on and on, it's impossible to stop it. I know I don't know yet but I'm pretty convinced it's going to be shitty news.

Anyway, I had to be nil by mouth from 06:40, 4 hours before the CT scan (not hard, I can't eat at the moment anyway, I projectile vomit, 6lbs lost since Thursday...). We drove to the hospital with me trying to drink water (you have to drink a litre in an hour before the scan) and not vom. We signed in at the reception and then I was led away, told to put a gown on and was then led through to the CT machine. I had a drip thing put in my hand and started crying. The team were really nice and explained everything that was going on but lying under the whirring machine brought everything crashing down and smacked me in the face. Basically they are checking my organs for cancer. If there is cancer in the organs I will die from it. Cancer in the organs or bones is treatable but not curable, and that's the rabbit warren I've been going down.

Then I went round to nuclear medicine and had a radioactive dye inserted into my veins and was told to go away for 3 hours to give the dye time to get around my body.

Rob and I left and went for some lunch but I am literally finding it impossible to eat, everything makes me want to hurl. In the end after a lot of debate I chose an open chicken sandwich, I managed about 8 mouthfuls before I had to run to the loo to be sick. I'm in such a state of overwhelm my body just rejects everything. It's so bad as I need to keep my strength up but I'm finding it so hard.

We head back to nuclear medicine and I have the bone scan, it takes 22 minutes exactly. I'm lying on a bed (my head saw it as a mortuary slab - told you I was in a dark place) and a camera starts at the top of my body taking photo after photo until it reaches my toes. And then it's done.

I should have the results from these scans and my biopsy all in one go next Tuesday. Basically if it is cancer, they want to be able to tell me everything all in one go. It's shit I have to wait but it does make sense that way.

Fucksticks

P.S. Scans are shit but sparkly shoes are always amazing.

Fucksticks

I've been so scared that the doctor had misdiagnosed me that I kept on going for appointments and pushing and being a general pain in the arse.

Thank fuck I did. On Tuesday I went to the breast specialist who felt my areas of concern and told me she was "not concerned" but that she would refer me for an ultrasound anyway.

Today I had that ultrasound and they have done a biopsy as they have spotted a bit they want to investigate further. But basically they think my cancer is back. I have to wait a max of 7 days for the results to come back and they are also booking me in for a bone scan and a CT scan. Holy fucking shit.