Weeks 81-93: Thursday 07 June - Wednesday 06 September 2018 (kind of lol)
Wow... well is has been 3 months since I last wrote a blog... and LOADS has happened.
I have returned full time to work. And then some.
I did a scary exercise recently which I was trying to work out how many excessive hours all my teams have worked since Christmas. I was worried about their welfare, over-work and I am trying to make it up to them - encouraging better working hours and work/life balance. Some of them have been working crazy amount of times in my absence.
And then just in the past few days, I calculated my own excessive time in the last 12 weeks. And I could kick myself. Despite all my best intentions, my working hours have ranged between 50 and 70hrs a week. Which is just ridiculous. There are times when I haven’t even seen bloody daylight.
And... Most of my exercise regime has gone down the pan ð.
I mean - good that I am feeling so healthy that I can do these hours, but bloody hell. That was never the intention when I was lying in bed nearly dying.
So... given this eureka moment, I need to change. Seriously. (But wait till the end of this blog to find out more lol!)
Healthwise over the past 12 weeks I have actually been really good. The Sicily holiday I was actually the healthiest one out of the four of us, and I came back to have my pre-med and then subsequently my follow up plastic surgery appointment.
My surgery was actually conducted at the Golden Jubilee Hospital - a hospital that helps deal with waiting time surgeries, but also because my consultant works out of there one day a week.
It was actually good though - mum and I stayed in the adjoining hotel the night before, and even went down to have a couple of gins and a gooey dessert and a laugh. It was a strange concept to be ‘celebrating’ before the surgery- but this moment really marked a pivotal point for me - this was the last main surgery that was in my treatment plan - tidying up fat deposits, removal of excessive scar tissues... and making nipples! ð☺️.
And it was weird - despite this being a minimal operation of 2hrs, as compared with my major 12hr double mastectomy and reconstruction - I was actually quite emotional about it. I don’t know if it finally started to come home to me about everything I had been through.
Prior to surgery I was put in a a glass cubicle along with another lady - not formal hospital beds, but leather recliners. I got to look out the window to hills outside... and I had started to cry. Not anything dramatic like looking like a clown with panda eyes and streaky make up - just a few tears rolling down my cheek.
However, I did the Linz thing and pulled myself together and got myself into the sexy backless gown and medical stockings. These days I don’t even need assistance, and I clearly don’t worry about my modesty much. This time at least I got paper pants to wear too lol.ððð
Then my surgeon came in and we were having a laugh and he started drawing on me with black permanent marker. Big scrolls on my hips and also on the sides of my beasts - they looked like childish snail shell drawings! (I took photos lol). These were the areas which he was going to be using liposuction to take away the excessive fat that had gathered in places where it shouldn’t after my original op. (This is standard practice - supposedly this procedure may be undertaken a few times depending on how things settle!)
He asked my if there was anything else he could do - so I gave the answer I am sure many people give - “A sylph-like body?”... but then I don’t think the NHS would pay for that... he explained how he would make my new nipples (‘protrusions’), and also how the original cancer site had some thickened scarring, so he would try and remove that too. And then I was off!
Got trollied to the ante-theatre area where I was cannulated and prepped for the drugs going into me. It was really funny, as it turns out that the nurses upstairs had forgotten to give me the ‘magic cream’ on my hand to numb the needle going in... the theatre nurse was not impressed by the ward nurse... and then I explained it didn’t matter as I had got through multiple needle sticks without it in the last 18 months...
The anaesthetist double checked everything with me again, and said she was not planning on using gas/air mix - she found in her experience that this aided quicker recovery and cut down vomiting... I said I was all for that given my experience in that department!!!
So... wheeled in, didn’t feel a thing, and woke up in recovery a bit groggy. They let me wait a wee while and gave me some water to drink and some pain relief. Turns out although I had been written up for diahydrocodiene, they gave me tramadol.
I then got taken back up to a ward and got told to eat something and drink again, and then when I felt ready, to start getting dressed.
This was a funny point. I got a phone call from a recruiter telling me that I hadn’t been successful in progressing to interview for a promoted post within my current organisation. I don’t think when he phoned he realised I had been in surgery that day, or maybe he did and he was hoping I would still be under general anaesthetic lol. Either way, and being honest with hindsight - I genuinely was ok - I am a great believer in what’s meant to be, will be. And I still had a job I loved, so there was no down side. With hindsight, I have no idea what I actually said to the recruiter in a tramadol induced haze, apart from saying thanks very much and I had just woken up from surgery. Talk about too much information lol.
However, I felt bad about mum. During the whole time I was in hospital there really wasn’t very much for her to do - she had seen me off at 8am in the morning, and she hadn’t been allowed to see me until 3pm. However, given that I had been awake from about 1.30pm, I got all my stuff together and chased to get my discharge letter in my hand so that literally as soon as mum came in, I could depart. (I really wanted to hit the M8 prior to 4pm as otherwise the traffic is really crap.)
So my mum drove my car for the very first time, when driving me away from hospital. She is a great driver, and all I can say is thank you. I know she was nervous about driving my car, and that she didn’t know the way home, and that I was giving her directions (I thought quite cogently given I had just woken up from a general anaesthetic) - and she was great. And we stopped for my obligatory post-surgery McDonalds ð.
Took another Tramadol that night and the following morning - felt light headed and drunk. I decided that they were not for me, and put the rest of the 100 packet stash away to give to pharmacy for disposal. I switched to paracetamol instead.
The following day I let myself watch crap tv and sleep, and the Friday I worked from home on the laptop and got a phone call handover from my boss - I was about to be covering him for the following 3 weeks - no rest for the wicked as they say.
So on the health front, that’s more or less it. I had a follow up check with the plastics clinic a week later - supposedly I heal amazingly well. They took the dressings off and I saw my new nipples for the first time, and they cut some excessive stitching away from my skin. (Not sore btw)ð❤️ð.
I still had some black marker markings on my skin - I had had to be careful when showering, but other than that - all is good.☺️☺️☺️☺️☺️
So... I have follow up appointment with plastic surgeon at end of September to check everything going to plan - and then I can get signed off medically to have my nipple tattoing done - basically where they get coloured in to make them look normal again... I can’t wait.
Of couse, I might have to deal with the stray hairs that are currently there - because people - that is NOT a myth. I do indeed have hair on my nipples caused by the fact that the skin there was taken from my tummy... although that begs the question if I have a hairy tummy... I didn’t think I did, but now I feel I may have to get a magnifying glass out and bend myself double just to check....
(Oh and for the curious... I don’t have really hairy nipples which are visible from outer space... I am talking a few bits of bum fluff hair - although maybe that’s not a good terminology pmsl ð.)
And the tattoos... how can I forget... I do have the NHS option of colouring them in to make them look normal... or I am still tempted with something like ‘Kiss me quick’ hat designs... too tacky? Only joking... I still think the 3D designs would be so much cooler.... its just that no-one will ever see them... unless I decide to do some kind of fashion shoot and flash them all across Twitter, Facebook and Instagram of course...ð. (It would only be for a good cause and raising awareness of cancer BTW!)
Anyway... as you can see, I have not lost my sense of humour through all of this.
Other medical stuff - my dental check ups all good, and I went for my blood tests and then the bone infusion thing recently - I cried when they cannulated my wrist. Despite warm veins, and eating and drinking beforehand, my poor veins on my right hand don’t always like cooperating. And it still bloody hurts when it goes in. But... in the long run, this is what I need to do to protect my bones - and I only have 3 sessions left over next 18 months - and I can drive there straight from work, and then go on home afterwards for a snooze.
Despite crazy working hours, I have had a few great weekends with my family - to have fun, take stock and remind myself that I shouldn’t be a workaholic... and actually I have decided a fairly momentous thing - I want to set up a charity to help other people like me.
And actually - I am motivated by the ‘exercise boot camp’ that I went on in early June, run by the amazing Jo Taylor at ABCD (After Breast Care Diagnosis). The weekend I went on there was just amazing... and I have realised I haven’t even written about it properly!
I did put up some updates on facebook as I went along, so here are some excerpts...
“Hi everyone, I am currently on an exercise retreat down in the beautiful Yorkshire Moors, with an amazing set of women who all have / had breast cancer (both primary and secondary cancers.)
I was initially nervous about doing ‘real exercise’ as up until now I have only spent a maximum of an hour in the gym each session, and walking on the treadmill is not the same as an actual jog where you have specific start and end points... lol.
However, here are some photos from yesterday... I actually have amazed myself, as I think it was a 2.5 mile jog / walk combo, immediately followed by ~4.5 mile cycle. (For me, some of those miles involved pushing the bike, but I am ok with that lol! ðĪŠ)
In the afternoon, we also had an hour’s worth of restorative Iyengar Yoga - and I have loved everything!!!
Don’t get me wrong, there are bits of me that hurt from the exercise - muscles that I didn’t know I had, and other bits which I hope toughen up a bit... (if I continue to cycle for example ðĪ)
We each finished the day with a lovely hand, foot or facial massage, before heading to a local Italian for a lively and lovely meal.
The retreat had been organised by the amazing Jo Taylor (ABCD - After Breast Care Diagnosis), and had attracted funding from various sources - which means that aside from the evening meals, it is completely free to us participants - I can only commend Jo and all the course leaders for organising and delivering this event... a huge task to undertake, and not forgetting Jo’s family who hosted us for lunches too!
If anyone has the opportunity to come on this course... then please do keep a lookout for spaces coming up in future courses... if you are worried about your exercise levels after a breast cancer diagnosis, trust me when I say my baseline levels are pretty poor.
To put in perspective, just about this time last year, my last chemo had been postponed due to near renal failure. And since then I have had double mastectomy with immediate reconstruction from tummy fat (July 2017), then another operation to remove ovaries (October 2017), putting me into immediate surgical menopause. I only started going to the gym to use treadmill and cross trainer for 20 minutes back in February of this year.
I was always the type of person who worked long hours, and then spent my time going out for dinners / drinks / coffees / cakes... exercise never really featured in my life at all - so you can understand my scepticism about an exercise retreat... but I have to say, I think I am a convert ððð.
Today’s adventure is a Nordic Walking session... am quite excited as I always wondered about people walking with what I used to refer to as ‘dork poles’!
Anyway... I am not on any form of commission, and hopefully not coming across as some kind of zealot... but this weekend has really opened up my eyes to what I COULD achieve with some professional support. I just wanted to pass that message onto others too ð. X “
“Me again - having got home and had a bath to ease my newly exercised muscles, I just want to post again about the ABCD retreat, and what we did today...
This morning was another glorious morning to set off up the moors with Alan and Gaynor leading, on a 2.5 mile Nordic Walk. We got taught how to use the poles, and learned how to walk... its amazing how you forget how to walk when you first get poles!
Anyhow... all of ladies achieved so many personal bests over this weekend - emotional, physical and also just a sense of self worth.
The entire weekend has so many health benefits - literally body, mind and soul... plus the friendships made over this weekend will really last a lifetime. And who knew walking with poles properly can increase your calorie usage by about 40% extra???
All of the team are so professional and kind, and the weekend was really made by them - they are fantastic people ❣
I know from my post yesterday, that a few people are interested in signing up for future ones - I know the ones in September and October this year are currently fully booked, but Jo is hoping to run more next year - and there may indeed be late minute spaces for this year if anyone drops out...
If people are interested, please contact Jo directly on the ABCD facebook page, or via Twitter.
Part of the experience is all about being around the beauty of Saddleworth - I even travelled from Edinburgh to try this amazing weekend - but who knows what will happen in the future... maybe Jo will take her exercise on the road, and we will see it all over the UK! “
So..... back to what I am thinking about doing... as a eureka moment from long working hours, the realisation I am not getting enough exercise, missing my old scout camp organisation and motivated by trying to find something that can help many people... I am slowly slowly trying to suss out if there is any demand for a wellness retreat in the Scottish Borders.
My sister lives there, there is spectacular scenery and amenities, and I feel a real compulsion to help others ‘like me’.
Joining an exercise class for the first time is daunting - and being offered information leaflets don’t really do it for me - especially when recovering from illness. There is something about the bonding over a weekend retreat, immersing yourself in an experience and benefiting from informal support which motivated me to continue with Nordic walking. Something I would not have ever considered off my own back - but now I have bought my own poles and go as part of a group once a week.
So... we will see. I am cautiously optimistic but with grand plans. ððð. I have set up an informal facebook page, started writing a business plan, and starting to make contact with local groups and organisations to see if they are interested. No doubt I will occasionally mention it on these pages!!
You know... I feel really blessed that I have got through everything I have done. I am grateful I have responded to treatment and that I have come through the other side. The only shitty thing is that my hair has still not come back fully and I am kind of bald at the very front. My hair is growing soooooo slowly and despite putting hair products in my hair, I still look like I have either slicked it back like a skull cap, or been near an electrical socket - there is no inbetween. It feels so vain, but I really hate my hair. ð
However, I then need to remind myself to be grateful. Some people don’t ever get to this stage, and there have been a number of deaths recently. It can be quite difficult to go on Facebook and Twitter for that reason - especially when it is ‘people like me’, same diagnosis, same age - different outcome. I am not being morbid - its just a harsh reality. And something which I need to be ever vigilant for in coming years. Hence my desire to make sure I have healthy mind and body going forwards.
Coming up, I am still planning on being a busy bee... in a fun way. I have another retreat with another Charity - I was lucky enough to get a space, and we are doing a sponsored walk on the Sunday to raise funds for future events. That too is down in Manchester. It’s great that there are so many people looking to support people with cancer - its also a shame that they have to exist at all...
I am also due to meet up with the lovely ladies from the ABCD retreat, and I am going to be a Breast Cancer Care Model.... and have my 40th birthday / ‘thank you for keeping me alive’ party... so its all systems go from here on!
So... watch this space - it will be tattoo stories and me trying to change the world from here on in lol ð.
Till next time peeps x
