Quasimodo

Pain relief relief

About three weeks ago I stopped taking my morphine and I'm pleased to say that I am now able to manage my pain just with the Naproxen.  I still have a pain in my ribs on the left side, where I was previously spasming and it hurts when I roll over at night quite a lot.  They had thought that might be a trapped nerve but I'm going to check again with Dr P at my next appointment.

The good thing though is that I can now laugh hysterically, cough and sneeze again with much lower pain levels.  I have been preventing all of these happening too much since Christmas because the pain was horrendous, so I'm hoping this means that the radiotherapy has started working on my bones. Fingers crossed!

That's it, period

So my periods now seem to have stopped (well, either that, or ironically I'm pregnant after two failed IVFs and being told it would be a miracle if I conceived naturally due to my blocked tubes!!)...Anyway, I'm not sure how I feel about it.  On one hand, it's great (any woman will understand that), but in others ways it signifies so much more, menopause, getting older, illness, blah blah.... Hmmm.

Google

Earlier this week I went to the Drs.  I'd decided that I wanted to come off my antidepressants as I really haven't felt any different on them.  Also, as regular blog readers will know, the reason I went on them in the first place is not there any more as they thought my chest pain could be stress related, but as we know, it was something else entirely. Anyway, I didn't feel much impact when I first went on them, and I'm still getting my normal panic attacks (albeit less frequently over the last 12 months or so) and I'm taking that to mean that Citalopram doesn't work for me.

I explained this to the Dr.  She seemed concerned about me wanting to reduce dosage after not being on them for that long, but then, she really shocked me and checked Google!  Er, I totally could have done that myself.  My anti-depressant is a really common one so I was surprised that she didn't know how to 'deal with it', also, she couldn't find a prescriptive answer on how to reduce my dosage, so we agreed (because I said I wanted to) to halve each tablet, even though that is 50% less each day.  to be honest,  I might as well have just done it and not bothered going to the Dr.  Anyway, I've been doing it for three days and can't tell any difference yet (let's hope it's not famous last words!!!)

I also asked about flying with my tablets.  Yes, the flights and accommodation are now booked and we're heading back to Alicante where we went for the first time last year and loved it.  As we're only taking hand luggage, and I would carry all my tablets in the cabin with me even if I had hold luggage, I wondered if I needed a 'special note' as it might look a bit dodgy going through security with a shed load of tablets. The Dr printed me a list of my medication and also suggested I check with the airline, so that's something I need to do.

Another thing I'll need to sort out is travel insurance.  That might be a bit tricky.  Previously I have always declared my breast cancer condition as we usually bought an annual policy and it cost about £80 more than a standard policy.  However, I don't think we'll be doing that in future.

The main reason travel companies ask about cancer is the risk of cancellation and therefore paying out if you can't travel before you're due to go, but now we are unlikely to book any trips without checking with my health team first and will book them fairly last minute, so the likelihood of cancellation is low, which is why I'm just going to look for a standard policy without declaring the cancer as the cost will be extortionate.  The only reason Tim and I want insurance is if our luggage gets lost, we get ill and need to use a hospital when we're away, or we are injured in some way, it's not to cover for cancellation or to cover for cancer related stuff either.

Bum

While I'm thinking about it, and for those that are wondering, bowel movements are better, thank you!  Hopefully coming off the Citalopram should help with that too.

Fatty

A couple of weeks ago when I got out of the shower I noticed a lump on my back, to the left of my spine, near the cancer site.  I showed Tim and he agreed there was a lump.  Now, this was an interesting one as I didn't know who to contact.  I thought, there was no point going to the Drs as they are not cancer specialists and it would end up delaying things.  Then I thought it's not really an oncologist discussion either as he is there to come up with the cancer treatment plan.  There is currently no secondary breast cancer nurse at Worcester as the previous one had left and hasn't yet been replaced.  I wasn't sure what to do, so I contacted Mr T's office.  I explained the situation. I was sent an appointment.

I popped along to see him on my own as I felt ok.  I got there and waited for the appointment then was called through to a treatment room to put on a gorgeous purple gown,  These gowns are different to the normal hospital ones which are cotton and have lots of random straps which don't seem to tie up properly, these do-up at the front and feel a bit polyester-ish.  The only trouble is, when you suffer with hot sweats, you really go for it in a polyester number.  Sweaty underboob anyone?

Still crap at taking selfies!

I started to get really nervous as I sat there waiting to see Mr T.  Then I hear a knock at the door and in he pops with Tracy, the breast care nurse.  I explain the situation and he asks to see it.  'Oh, now that's interesting', well, that's not quite what I'd say.  So, he went to the get the ultrasound machine from the other room and asked me to stand up facing away from him.  He puts on some cold gel and then puts the ultrasound on my back.  It went very quiet for what seemed like a long time and he moved the ultrasound over it.  I started to get a pit of the stomach feeling again.  Then, he said again, 'now that is interesting, it looks like fatty tissue to me'.  Well that's charming, I know I've not been doing much exercise recently but I'd hardly say I was #jabba  hahahaha

You're the one for me fatty

The reason he said it was interesting is because he only normally gets to see breasts and doesn't normally see patients once they are in secondary cancer territory so he found it fascinating.  Anyway, he said he would do some research and chat to some people about it. So I'm left looking like Quasimodo at the moment with what we think is a fatty mass, until I hear any more...

The bells, the bells....

Girl of a Kind

I want to finish this blog off on a lovely note.  About a month ago, Susie very kindly nominated me for Boux Avenue's 'girl of a kind' competition and wrote about my situation, our relationship and fundraising.  Well, out of 400 entries I was narrowed down to the top 25 finalists and, although not the outright winner, won £50 worth of vouchers.  What a lovely thing to do.  I'm looking forward to buying some new pants!!

Love to all. xx