BREAST CANCER : FIGHTING EVERY WOMAN ’ S NIGHTMARE chest wall and they usually refer to this as metastasized breast cancer . Interestingly enough , people can still survive Stage 4 breast cancer , but if you are going to have breast cancer , you want to catch it as early as possible , while its still in Stage 0 up to Stage 1 or 2 , your chances of survival will be much higher . When the doctors talk about survival , its not just a case of surviving the treatment and going into remission , it covers a period of 5 years from the time your were diagnosed .
I was then given a treatment plan which basically maps out what my treatment is going to look like , what to expect and when . For me this was 8 sessions of chemotherapy , the first 4 sessions would happen every 2 weeks and the second 4 sessions would be every 3 weeks . After finishing the chemo , I would then have surgery . The idea was to shrink the tumour as much as possible so that by the time we got to surgery it would be much easier to take out the tumour . I noticed that their approach was to conserve the breast as much as possible . Then after surgery , I would then have to do 30 sessions of radiotherapy . I also needed to have an injection called Herceptin every 3 weeks for 12 months . So that ’ s 17 injections in a year , one every 3 weeks directly into my thigh . This injection is specifically for Her2 positive patients and has been shown to help make sure the breast cancer doesn ’ t come back .
Imagine , after all that , you get treated , you beat it and there is still a chance your breast cancer could still come back !!!
I remember thinking “ Ok great so there is a plan and it looks doable , its only 8 sessions of chemo , I can do this !!” Ha !! There are no words that will ever prepare anyone for chemo and its many many side effects .
My first chemo session , my sister came with me . I remember they had told me to make sure I had had a decent breakfast and a good nights sleep . Me ? Sleep zero ! Breakfast failed . I was just far too nervous . I kept having to take deep breaths and the words that were going round and round in my head were all jumbled up and didn ’ t make much sense . When I got to the oncologist , they sat me in a very comfy chair , in a large room full of comfy chairs . Most of the chairs had people of all ages ; I think the youngest person I saw was about 15 years old and the oldest must have been about 80 .
Chemo for me was basically an IV in my hand . It wasn ’ t painful at all , it just took forever , 3 hours and was very very cold . I am so glad they told me to bring a blanket , something to read and some snacks . If you are lucky , you wont get nauseas and can munch on stuff .
During that first session , someone got up from their chair and went to the nurse ’ s station and started ringing a bell . Then the whole room erupted and people were cheering . I was so baffled and couldn ’ t understand what was going on and why did the guy ringing the bell have such a huge smile on his face . Someone then explained that when you get to the end of your chemo you get to ring the bell . I remember thinking that I couldn ’ t wait to ring the bell . I didn ’ t at the time realize how much meaning this would have .
Chemo is not easy , with each session of chemo it gets harder and harder to get up keep going . After each session I would be laid up in bed for 5 days . In those 5 days , I could barely eat , food did not taste like food , the texture was no longer the same and water was so hard to swallow . I would be in pain throughout my entire body , and the pain was different depending on which part of the body . The worst for me was bone pain , its exactly as the name says , pain in the bone . I still don ’ t have words to describe this pain ; it would come unexpectedly and leave unexpectedly . I never knew when it would hit and how long it would last . I just knew that when it came there was no position I could get into , nothing I could take to make it feel better . I would just have to ride out the pain . I remember having moments when it was even difficult to breathe , those were the moments I would ask myself if I would be alive the next day . I remember having mouth ulcers , which is also another side effect , these were so bad , it became difficult to put anything in my mouth and talking became very difficult . I did get pain medication to help with these side effects but always found it only worked for a couple of hours and then I would have to ride it out until I was able to get the next dose .
My hair fell out 10 days after the first session of chemo . I noticed it in the shower ; my hand just came away with a clump of hair . I was expecting it but it still broke me . I remember my son and I sitting outside in the sun , both of us pulling out clumps of my hair . He was 4yrs old at the time and thankfully this was just a fascinating thing happening to his mom . He asked lost of questions including “ when will my hair start to fall out ?”
The way chemo works , it attacks the cancer cells in your body but it also attacks the healthy cells . So your immunity becomes very very low , to the extent that a common cold can be something that could land you in hospital fighting for your life . By the time we got to the end of session 8 of chemo , I rang that bell and it was the best moment of 2019 for me . I felt like I just come out of a war and survived . In fact on that day , I remember feeling weak but when it came to ringing the bell I got a surge of energy I didn ’ t even know I had .
After that , I got to have a break , as it was December . I got to have Christmas at home and my birthday in the first week of January . I wasn ’ t really keen to celebrate . I kept thinking about the surgery I had to go through the next week , as that is when we would find out how well the chemo worked .
Thankfully the chemo worked so well that surgeon said that the tumour had completely gone and all he had to do was clean out the flesh that had been affected by the tumour . They call this are the margins . They also removed 10 lymph nodes from my armpit ; little did I know that this part of the surgery is what would take the longest to recover from .
After the surgery , I had to move around with a drain hanging out of my side . This was basically a tube coming out of my skin with a bag at the end . With this kind of surgery , for a while after , the area around the surgery will produce liquid that needs to be drained out . I would have to empty the drain myself , twice a day and measure the amount of liquid that came out . Only at a certain point would they then remove the drain . It was gross !! I remember going to shops one day because I was fed up of being indoors only to have my drain banging into things which was super painful .
I also had to do physiotherapy after surgery . I managed to do 2 months worth and then had to stop when I started radiotherapy . The physio is very important as it helps stop that fluid build up which continues even after the drain is removed and because the surgery had included removing lymph nodes from my armpit , I needed to learn to use my arm again . At the beginning I wasn ’ t even able to raise
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