Tuesday 5th May 2015

Today Nathan had his first proper GCSE exam! – English! He is so calm – I think I get more nervous for him – so proud of him even before he gets the results!

At the same time we had our meeting at the hospital today with Dr Chakrovorty (surgeon) and Morven (breast nurse). I am warming to him – still very professional and busy but he took the time to talk and show us pictures of his work – very impressed. He is very neat and an obvious perfectionist – this makes me very happy as I like neatness. It reminds me of Ulrike at sewing club telling me to unpick my quilt when it’s not neat enough! I will never have sewing as neat as Ulrike!

Anyway, I totally trust him to do a good job on my bodywork.

So decided on a mastectomy of right boob, reconstruction using bio-mesh (which is used instead of muscle now – it is like something from the future and melts to your skin! quite fascinating). Lymph dissection from arm pit.

Scary and will be a long op. They like to do everything in one op as it is meant to have better results. I have been warned I will look very uneven for a good 6 months to a year and will have to have further ops. Still big risk of infection but I’m trying not to worry about that yet. One day at a time. Just hope all goes well and I wake up from the anesthetic! Always a worry!

My other boob will be discussed at a later date and will depend on results from the Breast and Ovarian Cancer Susceptibility Gene Study – this will take 6 months but is a comprehensive test to look at other breast cancer genes as well as the BRCA1 or BRCA2. The fate of the left boob will also depend on whether I can cope being odd. Time will tell but we need to deal with what needs to be done now and sort the rest later.

So still hurt a lot from chemo side effects but on the plus side I don’t feel nauseas, not so tired and not dreading chemo! Also piles are better thanks to epsom salts and geranium essential oil baths.

Unfortunately my stomach and digestive system are still very painful. My ovaries are playing up, painful and no period! And still muscle pain and sore head – probably due to the fact that my hair seems to be growing back! Yay!

But on the whole I feel better! Let’s aim for the positive here! Trying to focus on the good the chemo has done by shrinking the cancer and not all the repair work by body now needs to do because of it!

After op when we have the pathology report there will be more discussions regarding clinical trial for ovary suppression, herceptin (which is the targeted drug for HER2+ cancers), radiotherapy, and other ops to even out etc – could still be a busy year but if all goes well there is a possibility I may get back to work for September! Hope so.

So op could be in the next 2 weeks already! I need to shop for open fronted sports bras quickly!

And good news to have a plan of action to fight this cancer and keep it away for good – will keep you all informed!  Meanwhile I am still eating lots of fish, salmon and beetroot juice along with lots of other healthy nutritional foods!