Shit head

Feeling cheated

This past week, since finishing radiotherapy, I've been thinking...a lot...and sometimes that's a baaaad thing! I've also been feeling pretty angry.

The phrase that keeps coming to my mind is 'false hope'.

Only those who have experienced primary and now facing secondary, incurable cancer will understand this, so I'll try and explain to those of you fortunate enough not to be in this crappy situation.

Going through cancer is totally crap...the first thing you think is 'am I going to die?'....thankfully treatment has moved on massively meaning that many people will live for many years post diagnosis.

Once I finished my primary breast cancer treatment (surgery, chemo, radio), I felt a bit lost to begin with as you live in a cycle of hospital appointments, treatments, check ups and you're in a 'cancer' bubble for quite a few months, but suddenly that just ends! You may be on hormone tablets every day for a number of years and will receive an annual check up but apart from that you are left to get on with it and try and get back to 'normal'.  That bit is then really hard.

What is normal? Can I ever feel the same again? Will there be a day when cancer isn't the first thing I think about?  All I can say is that you find your new normal, and some things will never be the same (I always saw my life in two phases: BC (before cancer) and AC (after cancer)). But what WILL happen is that eventually it won't consume your every thought, every day and it won't be the first thing you think when you wake up.

As time moved on and I finished my tamoxifen tablets after five years I started feeling hope about a longer term future with Timmy, although I was still anxious about booking things too far in advance (holidays, concerts etc), but I was starting to think that we could make it to retirement and have loads of fun and maybe live a long and happy life.  This was what I now call my 'false hope' as all that has been taken away from me.

I'm still not sure what to call this phase of my life... RC (return of cancer), FHIB (fucking hell, it's back), YGTBKM (you've got to be kidding me) ??  If you've got any suggestions, feel free to comment below.

Empathy?? I've got to get this off my chest

This also happened a lot when I was first diagnosed, and it doesn't surprise me since the Breast Unit charity's tagline is 'everybody knows somebody', because most people do know someone who's had breast/other cancers. But why do people think I want to hear about it?

Unless you've experienced cancer yourself, you obviously can't be sympathetic to someone else who is going through cancer, but if you haven't then you can TRY and show some empathy.  Walk a mile in my shoes.  This, however, does NOT mean retelling stories of people you know who've had cancer, and it CERTAINLY doesn't mean you telling me you know people who have died of cancer.

I mean, really?? I've been told I've got terminal cancer and I'm busy trying to deal with my own problems.

I think some people tell me so they think we have some common ground to talk about, or it might make them think they understand, or they might compare how I'm dealing with it, to how the person they know is dealing with it, but, right now, all I really need to care about is what I'm dealing with, and what my family and friends are having to deal with.

PLEASE note, this certainly does NOT apply to anyone who has had or is going through cancer treatment themselves (unless you are telling me about people you know who have died!....I just don't wanna hear it).

Do I want to be in denial about the fact I'm going to face an early death, of course I bloody do.  I'm only 40 years old FFS!

And....BREATHE!

The F word

I've been getting pretty angry this past week too and just feeling a bit pissed off.  My pain is much more manageable now, which is great, but my chest still hurts and my side is tender and I can't walk too far. Hurumph.

I've also been thinking a lot about my funeral! EEK.... When I wake up at night I often think about it, but not in a really sad, depressing way, more in a 'what I'd like to happen at it' type way.  The one thing that does make me sad though is knowing how sad others will be.  Obvs for me, I won't see any of that, but thinking about that makes me sad.

My uni girls visited this weekend (more on that later), but as I was sat with my friend Nicola on the sofa while Ang and Tim were chatting in the kitchen I got upset and said how angry and pissed off I'd felt this week and can't believe I'll be the first one of our group to 'go'. It's a totally shit situation.

Sozza, that's a bit sad and depressing, but it's how I'm feeling.  It also made my mascara run so I looked like a right nightmare!

Counselling

I've spoken to my breast care nurse a couple of times over the past ten days or so as Tim had said to me that he would like to speak to a counsellor about our situation.  That really made me sad when he said that because it makes it so 'real'.

Tim takes everything in his stride and doesn't get het up or stressed (it's why we get on so well cos we're complete opposites) and he very rarely gets angry or emotional, but obviously it must be incredibly hard from him.  If it was the other way round I would be in bits!  But he's doing the right thing in getting some help, especially from an objective observer.

I thought it would be fairly straight forward in terms of getting some counselling but it doesn't really seem like it...

Apparently Breast Cancer Care offer counselling to partners, but it is via telephone, but Tim doesn't really like being on the phone and would rather speak to someone face to face.  The Breast Cancer Haven at the Worcester Breast Unit doesn't offer counselling for partners yet, but the Haven at Hereford does, but it takes an hour to get to Hereford and, as I know, counselling is absolutely exhausting so he doesn't really fancy driving for an hour after that.

Macmillan used to offer free counselling via Relate (the couples' counsellor) but that now costs £50 per session.

There might be a possibility with our local hospice so we'll see if they can help.

We honestly thought there would be some free counselling locally where Tim could just go and talk through how he's feeling..... Answers on a postcard please.

Swallow?

After thinking I'd got away fairly scott free with the radiotherapy (apart from some tiredness), on Thursday evening I found it really hard to swallow (queue several dirty thoughts from a lot of my readers I'm sure! hahahaha)... But it's awful.  It feels like there's a lump in my throat which is stopping food going down it and tea and alcohol burns.

Tim did some investigating on Macmillan and it said that radio to the chest could cause difficulty swallowing and may mean I get a swollen airway 10 days to 2 weeks after the treatment.  Now when I was having the radio, they said I might experience that a couple of days after treatment, I didn't expect it to happen over a week later!

The advice from Macmillan was to not have things food and drink which irritates and includes:

• Hot drinks
• Alcohol
• Spicy food
• Dry food

I mean, really?  The first three are basically my diet.  So some honey and lemon and lots of water while eating has been taking place.

I had my amazing Uni friends to visit this weekend, which was awesome.  I was slightly nervous about it because spending a lot of time talking (which we do a lot of when we get together) really tires me out, and we had been planning a Worcester night out, but on Friday night (after my amazing friend from school came to visit for the day) I was shattered and I didn't think I was going to be able to cope with it.

Ang had picked up Nic from Manchester airport on Friday night (as Nic now lives in Italy) and then drove down to our house Sat morning and then Timmy took us into town to meet Mez and Rach (as they'd all arranged to take me out for lunch without me having to do anything...yay).   We went to G&Tea (I've not been there before) and we had an amazing prosecco afternoon tea.  Sadly I couldn't really drink much prosecco, or tea, cos of my swollen throat, but the sandwiches and cakes were amazing (although I had to chew them up quite small) and I had some water to swill it all down my gullet!  They'd also brought some lovely helium balloons and lots of pressies wrapped in paper covered in photos of us all which Meredith had made.  It was awesome.  The pressies included gin too which was even better!

Being a presumptuous and cheeky cow, I'd said earlier in the week, 'if you're thinking of bringing anything at the weekend, please don't bring chocolates as I've been inundated with them' - ha. Cheeky mare.

Meredith and Rach had to leave after the tea (and headed back to Reading and Wales respectively). I'd said to Ang and Nic I wasn't ready for an evening night out, so Timmy made dinner for us and then we proceeded to try and remember how to play Shit Head.  Shit Head is a card game we played a lot in our first year of Uni halls of residence (when we weren't out on the beer) cos none of us had a TV (OMG - how OLD are we??!!).

It was so funny and we had such a good laugh and it was totally the tonic I needed.  In my own house surrounded by people I love....

Thankfully it's Sunday and my anger has subsided, so on that note I'll leave you with some piccies of my most awesome friends and sign off...

Love to all. xx

Pressies in my own wrapping paper....yay

Tea for 5

Cheers

Snowdrops

Nuts

Girls in Worcester Cathedral

How do we play shit head?  It's been 23 years....

Loser

Shit head x 2

Shit head x 3

Not a shit head (well in this game anyway!!!)