Flashing my tits around the world

Yesterday was spent mostly at the hospital, which I've renamed The Torture Theme Park, which I know isn't really fair because all the people working there are universally kind, concerned, supportive and friendly, but what they have to do to their patients isn't always very pleasant. Meeting my new surgeon for the first time was good - he is definitely on my list of new favourite health professionals too. He was kind, listened, allowed me to negotiate treatment and took me seriously, whilst also being an obviously competent practitioner with a real human warmth. Just like everyone else at the TTP actually - where do they find them all?

It was a little bit frustrating because the clinic was running 2 hours late, but I try really hard not to mind because everyone they are seeing must be worried out of their mind about their own cancer, and at least it shows that everyone is given time and consideration during their appointment.

Mr Lovely had a good look at my breasts and told me I had yet another infection, so more antibiotics to take. (Later when I got them home I was a bit shocked at their size. Are they trying to make NHS cost savings by choking me to death on their tablets to prevent spending money on my expensive cancer treatment?  A horse would have trouble knocking them back in one go!)  Surgery is on Monday, and we talked everything through at length. He totally understands my reticence about losing the lymph nodes under my left arm, and he was happy to negotiate. We agreed he would take one to test, and if cancer cells were lurking there, he would take a few more to a maximum of 4. Even if they are all riddled with nastiness, he'll stop there, and we can talk some more to decide what happens next. However, he did explain that if the cancer has spread to lymph nodes, they have to be removed; chemo, radiotherapy and hormone drugs alone won't sort them out. 

Then the one breast or two question. He agrees that the left breast should come off too, but it's not as urgent as the right which is still stuffed full of cancer. The priority now is to get me onto chemo as quickly as possible to prevent a major spread, and he doesn't want to do anything surgery-wise that isn't strictly necessary because it would increase the risk of infections or other complications, as well as making my recovery more prolonged, when I need to be as fit and well as possible for the next stage. So the left breast will be removed next summer, when all the treatment currently planned is over.

I'm also going to have the portacath fitted on Monday, my nice new little mini-boob, albeit in completely the wrong place, to help them gain access to veins more easily. 

We then talked generally about my cancer, and he was able to tell me it was Stage 3, Grade 2, and is fuelled by three hormones; HER, Oestrogen and Progestorone. We had a chat about the hormone receptivity, and he confirmed my opinion that this is probably really encouraging because it means that, with Herceptin and Tamoxifen, there are even more pharmaceutical weapons to attack them with.  Stage 3 was a bit of a shock, though, because there are only 4 Stages, and with some of them sub-sectioned and the measuring starting with a Grade Zero, I'm fairly close to the top of the tree in terms of seriousness and prognosis. 

Once home, I looked it all up to help me absorb the facts. If you count all the stages including the Zero and subsections, there are 8 altogether. My cancer is at Stage 3C because it has spread to the lymph nodes, so I'm up to stage 7 of 8 altogether, which is fairly depressing news. Further research showed that only 50% of women at my stage survive 5 years, and only 40% are still around after 10 years, and these statistics are for women who only have one breast cancer; women with two like me are in a much more difficult situation. 

So my job is to make absolutely damned well sure that I do everything I possibly can to ensure that I am one of the few, and until I start chemo I am very vulnerable to the cancer spreading. So far my research into alternative and complementary therapies and nutritional protection has been very encouraging, and I have a new eating regime, but I must be honest, I haven't been sticking to it religiously every single day, and now I know I must. Stage 3C cancer is a huge wake-up call. White flour and sugar are off the agenda as much as possible, and in their place every day I must take 3 apricot kernels, 3 cups of green tea, over a teaspoonful of turmeric, two aspirin, nuts, seeds, fruit, vegetables, cinnamon, pepper, ginger, garlic, vitamin D and green papaya powder. I also need to spend at least 2 sessions a day sitting doing nothing and totally relaxing, as well as finding a way to visualise my cancer that works for me - visualisation is apparently a big gun when it comes to banishing these things. Then sleeping - at least 8 hours a day, preferably 10. If I do it all there's not a lot of time left in the day.

It looks so simple written down, but it is so not me. I don't have a "new-age" bone in my body, I've always eaten on the go, I love biscuits, chocolates, cakes and anything with sugar, and relaxing and sleeping? My gorgeous son with complex needs has spend years training me to sleep in fits and starts - 2 hours uninterrupted has always been a real treat, 5 hours sleep in any one night is a real indulgent luxury. Since the day he was born it's felt like I've been an emergency service on 24/7 call, either because he would stop breathing in the early days, or he would have a destructive and injurious meltdown at any second over the past few years. Relaxing is a really alien concept, but I've got to learn to do it. There isn't any option, to give myself the very best chance I have to embrace it all, from today, with no excuses. This is life or death, and I know which one I'm choosing. 

At the hospital, I also met with the Physiotherapist, who is delighted with the range of movement I now have in my arm. I have been really good about keeping the exercises going, so I'm very pleased. However, I don't breathe properly. Apparently you are supposed to stick your tummy out when you breath in. Maybe it's because my tummy sticks out so far anyway that to protrude it even further would entail detaching it from the rest of me, but my stomach doesn't even slightly shift. So I have a new toy, a "Spiro-Ball", to play with. It has a little yellow ball that I have to keep suspended in mid-air in the "smiley-face" section when I breath in, and another disk raises to measure my lung capacity. Great fun, and I somehow have to learn how to breathe properly before Monday, otherwise I could be oxygen-dependent post-operatively all over again. I'm doing well though, and I'm becoming a bit religious about getting it right and doing it loads. 

Last night youngest son wanted a McDonald's. WM offered to go, but I decided it was time to flex my driving muscles and get behind the wheel again. Great fun, even though I did stall it three times before I'd even reversed out of the drive, much to the neighbour's amusement. It's been 6 weeks since I last drove, and after next Monday it could be several weeks all over again, so I thought I should do it before I forget how to drive altogether. 

Best news of all though, on Sunday I'm off the see the Olympics - the tennis at Wimbledon, with second row Centre Court tickets. I've been really unsure about whether I have the stamina to last the day out, with stacks of walking and horrific security queues to gain access, but I've decided I have to. It could be a very long time before I'm well enough for a family day out, and as the kids get older, family days out that please everyone get harder and harder to achieve. Olympic Wimbledon Tennis floats everyone's boat, and it will be brilliant. My last outing with two boobs, with international, worldwide television coverage. What a fabulous curtain-call for my cleavage, eh? If the infection is over and it's not bright red anymore, I'll wear the lowest cut top I can find, maybe even augmenting it with chicken fillets. I bet there aren't many women who get the chance to literally flash their tits to the whole wide world just a few hours before a mastectomy - please let me know if you see me on telly!