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The End of a Chapter
On the 24th of March 2021 a specialist anaesthetic doctor was placing a spinal block and an epidural in my back. Slowly the nerves in my legs that had been causing so much pain were switching off, the pain in my hip was dulling. The doctors helped me lay down and then they placed an oxygen mask over my nose and mouth. My eyes closed and with them so did a whole chapter and of my life. When I came around, I woke up with a new scar that will tell the story of the Avascular Necrosis in my left hip, of the year in bed I was forced to…
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A long overdue update
Oh goodness, it’s been such a long time since I did a proper update. Things have been hard in so many ways. Now I’m just trying to think of where to begin to really update you. I guess a while back in July seems a good place to start, when I first heard the term “long term prospects” and was told that palliative care would be starting to had over to the pain clinic. This was amazing news but with the end of my radiotherapy came the beginning of my neuropathy. Neuropathic pain is notoriously hard to manage. There are drugs available to help but they often aren’t the loan…
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A New Path
I remember being a little girl playing mummies and daddies knowing that my ultimate goal in life was to have my own family. I wanted the perfect bloke (and I did pretty well on that front, even if I do say so myself), the house, 2.4 kids, you know, the whole 9 yards. I wanted that more than anything else. I think it’s why I struggled so much when people asked me what I wanted to “do”. I loved what I studied but I always wanted to answer that question with “be a wife and a mother”. That’s why when I was diagnosed with cancer it felt like a particularly…
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My Hysterectomy Broke Me
This isn’t the kind of post I’m used to writing. Despite trying to be honest about my experience I’ve always tried to find the positive in it too. Even in terms of having cancer itself I’ve been thankful it has given my girls a chance to really know their grandparents, that I have become more fearless in my pursuits and such. But, if I have come to learn anything in life, it is that the right path is oftentimes the harder one to walk and this completely rings true of that. This path, having cancer, is the hardest path I have ever walked and its beginning was particularly traumatic for…
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The Final Cycle Update
Here it is, the final update for primary chemotherapy that really began in early July 2018 and finished on the 4th of January 2019. Before it began I knew it would be hard but it turns out nothing prepares you for chemo. We barely began and had to stop for me to have a colostomy. From then on we rolled with the punches. Stent changes and virus’ cost me good weeks and the pain from flares was like nothing I had ever known.
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Chemo Round One Update
So, after my initial dose of Chemo in July we were sadly forced to take a break while I had surgery for a fistula that had formed between the top of my vagina and my bowel. Yup. Bowel and vagina. I was pooping through two holes for a bit (hey, I may as well tell it like it was). Stool in the vaginal area is a huge infection risk, meaning unless I agreed to a colostomy surgery I could no longer receive chemo. In the words of my consultant oncologist “it would be like giving you sepsis” – fair enough, I thought. “I’ll take the surgery then” I said. She…
