Right – here we are, one more sleep and it all begins.
I feel a bit as if I am about to take my healthy body and put it through hell so that it gets to the same place as my head has been for the past 6 weeks. Just so that I can then bring them both out of the other end in a much better state!
As you may remember from my post ‘How the FEC did we get here?‘, it was a tummy ache that triggered an ultrasound that found the lesions in my liver that turned out to be stage 4 breast cancer. I have had 3 of those episodes, all lasting about 4 days. That’s it. I do get a heavy feeling in my upper abdomen, just under my rib cage but no pain.
Mentally, I have struggled with coming to terms with the diagnosis – the manifestation of which is a total lack of concentration and focus. Phil recently described it as having the attention span of a gnat!
However, physically I feel fine. Phil, who is my chief researcher (he does an excellent job of filtering out the scary bits) as well as my fabulous husband told me it’s important to keep exercising, to keep fit (obviously not as fit as an athlete!) so I have been walking with Dude every day and going to Zumba twice a week. I feel good.
Despite that, tomorrow I am going to have poison injected into my bloodstream to kill the cancer. The trouble is, the poison will also kill healthy cells in my body, primarily the fast growing ones that behave in a similar way to cancer. The main ones are hair follicles, intestines and the mouth. These cause the hair loss, nausea and ‘dry mouth’, the common side effects of chemotherapy.
A colleague of mine who has been through chemo said to me; “the good thing is cancer is much less likely to kill you these days, the bad thing is, you have to go through a really horrible time before you get better!”.
The thing is, some people do go through chemotherapy without having too horrible a time and I have therefore decided that I will be one of these people 🙂 I had a conversation with an old friend earlier and we decided that we should assume that I will be absolutely fine.
So we have a plan, I will sail through the treatment and if I do start to feel poorly, then we’ll deal with it and do what we have to do to get through it… but the money is on sailing through 🙂
I favour my odds!
Talk to you again soon
Lots of love Mand xxx
OK Mand , so you know I never “post”. I have the fewest number of friends on Facebook – ever! But then I thought – if you are taking the time to keep us all in the loop then the least I can do is respond to your blog – officially – and not just through phone calls and text. I know you will turn up tomorrow looking fabulous, as only a F-C girl can do – and then spend the morning being the life and soul of the treatment room with everyone there being buoyed up by your presence!! See you on Wednesday. Love you. xxxxx
Good luck we are thinking of you chris and rose
With this attitude you will be the one that sails through this!! I can’t wait to hang out, go for a walk, paint our nails or do a little yoga when I arrive….whatever you feel up to!!!
Love you,
Big Sis Booie XXX
Good luck today mand with your positive attitude you will be fine
lots of love to you and phill xx
Amanda
Great blog, keep the updates coming … and when this over we look forward to reading updates about routine / random s**t that has nothing to do with illness, treatment or, erm … pink wigs 🙂
Everything still crossed … see you on the other side of all this!
My money’s on a sail through too
Love you.