With Spring Comes New Life

I don't seem to be getting to blog much of late which means that I am extremely busy.

I have now changed jobs, Yes AGAIN. I didn't really feel that retail was my thing and felt that I could make a difference in a caring environment. I am now a caregiver. I go out to people's homes who are elderly, ill or have had an accident or operation and I help them with there personal cares, meals, cleaning, shopping, medication etc. I am thoroughly enjoying it. It is such a great feeling to be able to give something back to the community which helped me when I needed it. Having been through the BC journey I feel that I am looking at life from a very different angle. I have never been a money driven person but seemed to always end up working in that sort of environment. Now I finally feel like I am where I belong; to help people, to understand them and to be able to cheer their day. I am looking forward to doing some study to give me a qualification; something that at 48 years old, I have never had the opportunity to obtain.

I had my 2nd monthly checkup at the end of July and am pleased to report that I have a clean bill of health. I also had an ultrasound on my thyroid to keep an eye on things and once again, I have passed with flying colours.

The beanies are starting to get really busy again and I have had people ringing me from different organisations wanting to know how they can purchase them. It is so nice to be able to offer something pretty and practical for ladies going through treatment.

All Done and Dusted

Firstly, a very belated happy new year to you all. Gosh, I knew I was a bit behind with my posting but didn't realise just how much.

Life has been so very busy, what with Xmas and New Year and all the birthdays following that.

Well I have been into hospital and had my thyroid operation. This took place on the 10th January and all went well. I was actually more worried about having this operation than I was any of the others. I think because the operation was going to take place very close to my face and there was a risk that my voice would be changed to a husky, quiet voice if things didn't go that well.
I was releived when I came out of the anaesthetic that my voice was still all intact. It has changed slightly in the fact that I can no longer speak in high tones or sing high notes (well, I couldn't to start with, so nothing lost there). With regards to getting out the cancer, the surgeon advised me at my check up two weeks afterwards that if we had left the surgey any longer, we would have been in real trouble because it would've most likely have gone into my windpipe and then my voice would have been dramatically changed, so hallelujah to that. There was no need to take the whole thyroid, just the side the growth was in, so I am very releived about that as if I had had a total thyroidectomy I would have to be on medication for the rest of my life which I wasn't keen on. The scar is healing up nicely and was cut in the crease of my neck so in a year it won't be visible at all.

On the 29th January I had my first check up with the breast surgeon, Dr Burton King. I was very nervous about this as I knew he would be doing an ultrasound on the reconstructed breast and the other one. Well I needn't have worried as everything is fine, there was nothing detected. I also had a routine mammogram on Monday of this week so a close eye is being kept on me. Not that there needs to be but it is comforting to know that I am being looked after and if there does happen to be a recurrence, then they will be onto it pretty darn quickly.

Well, I have started on my two year course of Tamoxifen (Estrogen blocker)and I must say the hot flushes are not pleasant at all, especially when I am trying to apply make-up and it is running off as fast as I am putting it on. But that is a small price to pay if it is going to help keep me in good health.

I have a new saying (which I read somewhere) It says "Don't wait until death looks you in the face, to start living your life" so I have taken notice and am living life to the full.

I have a lot of my energy back now and have started exercising again and eating healthy. My hair is a couple of inches long and you would never know of the ravages it has been through. My eyelashes had grown back nice and thick but I noticed in the last couple of days that they are thinning out again so I Dr Googled it and apparently that is quite normal after chemo. The eyelashes take time to regain their renewal cycle.

My beanies are going extemely well, although that's a really sad thing as it means more people are requiring chemo. Some people have bought them and then come back to me for more so I must be doing something right. I have met lots of lovely people through the beanies, some of which have really sad stories to tell but I accept that if I want to continue to make the beanies, then I will hear stories both good and not so good. It just feels good to be able to provide something nice for people and also to give them a little support where I can even if it is just a listening ear.

Next time I will post about my birthday and put up some more pics.
Ciao

Everybody Has A Story To Tell

Last Saturday I went to the hairdressers to have a colour put through my hair to cover the 'ahem' grey ones.

My usual hairdresser put the colour through and when it was ready to be rinsed off, a pretty young hairdresser, probably in her early twenties, took me over to the basin and rinsed out the colour. She asked me if I was having it cut and I said no, as there isn't much to cut off as I am waiting for it to grow back after losing it all.

I sat down in front of the mirror and she asked me when I had finished treatment. I told her that I had finished about 8 weeks ago. She then went on to say that she knew exactly what I was going through as she had been through it with her mother. I asked her if her mothers cancer was breast and she said yes it was. She then added that she had died in March of this year after battling it was 12 years. I felt kind of guilty for sitting there having beaten this horrible thing. She went on chatting about her mum and what a strong woman she had been and that she was so well and then she just lapsed into a coma one day and was gone. When she had finished we went up to the counter to pay and I said that it was probably going to be very hard this first Christmas without her mum and she said yes, especially for her dad. I had tears in my eyes for this poor family who had been through so much. When she saw that I was upset for them she then came around to my side of the counter and she gave me a big hug. I went out to my car and just sat and cried. I cried for the young girl who would need her mum throughout her life but wouldn't have her here to share Christmases,her engagement and wedding, the birth of her children and because I have daughters roughly around the same age, this could so easily have been the outcome for them.

So, yes, everyone has their own story that we are not even aware of; a workmate, a friend of a friend, it may be the lady who runs the local shop, someone you end up sitting next to on a bus - the connection and unspoken understanding is instant.

The next day I had agreed to meet up at a cafe in Wellington with a lady who was doing a study through university. She wanted to talk to me about my experience especially the services and care that I had received during my illness. Her last question asked me if I wanted to add anything else about my experience. I started to tell her about the unity amongst patients, family and friends of breast cancer patients. I started to tell her about the lovely girl at the hairdressers and the next thing I knew I was sobbing my heart out again....I didn't realise it had affected me so deeply. I looked up after trying to wipe my tears away (in a very public place) and noticed my survey lady was also wiping her eyes.

As I am relaying all this to you, I can feel a lump in my throat and my tears start to well up again. This is a cruel, horrible illness that robs the life of mothers, grandmothers, daughters,sisters, aunties,neices and friends alike. Let's hope they find a cure soon.

Making Good Out Of Bad

Tuesday afternoon I arrived home with my brand new overlocker that had arrived that day. I put it on the table and then proceeded to tell Darren all about my day. He kept asking me when was I going to open my overlocker. I said I would have a look after dinner. After dinner came and I still hadn't opened it. I said to Darren that I was feeling a bit dispondent as I hadn't sold many beanies and thought that buying the overlocker was probably going to be a big fat waste of time and money.

With that, my cellphone beeped. It was a message from a lady wanting to buy two beanies as soon as possible. I rang her back and took her details. She said that she has looked all over the place for bright, cheerful beanies and found some of mine on Trademe and had had a look at my website and loved what she saw.

I got her order together and then I received another text from her to thank me for making what was otherwise a shitty day, into a happy one.

Another text followed. It said that her sister has a new baby and has leukemia. That day she had cut off her sisters long hair and how sad she felt watching her sister suffer through all this. She wanted me to know how excited they both were at finding my website and can't wait for her beanies to arrive. This humbled me and bought me to tears. I cried for the fact that this poor woman has to go through this illness; that she has a new baby to take care of and can't enjoy all the beauty that a new baby should bring because she is so ill herself. I cried because of the obvious love that this lady has for her sister and wanting to be there for her. I also cried because there are others who have such a long, hard road and have it far worse than I did. With that, I ripped open my overlocker. Together we will sew beautiful beanies for beautiful ladies and put a little happiness into day.

Moving On Up

As most of you know, my daughter Nicole and her partner Brad moved back home early this year to help out whilst I recovered. Yesterday they moved out into their lovely new flat at Paraparaumu Beach. For me this signifies one thing. I am through the storm. For the past nine months I feel like I have been living in a vortex that has resolved around nothing nothing but cancer, cancer, cancer. Tossing us all around to face the unknown. Things seeming to spin out of our control whilst other peoples lives just carried on the same. And now after such a ride I feel like I am coming in to land. I feel like I have been on some strange holiday but not really remembering it but at the same time feeling like my old self again. In a strange way it feels like I am emerging as somebody new. I still have three shots of chemo left and my thyroid operation but I know that the race is nearly won. A whole year has gone by.....but where??? There is really not a lot of good stuff that has happened in the past 12 months; not many photographs have been taken for me to scrapbook. In a strange kind of way I will miss the little network of medics that I have got to know well. I told the nurses at oncology that I will have to find somewhere else to go on a Thursday when my chemo is over. I have met some wonderful people there; the nurses, the volunteers and other patients.

I seem to have become a bit of a celebrity at the Blood and Cancer Centre, it appears. I was sitting in the waiting room last Thursday, minding my own business, when the Cancer Society volunteer rushed up to me and said that she had been looking for me everywhere. She said that she had ladies having chemo who were asking whether I was here today with my beanies. The volunteer asked me if I had them with me, to which I replied, yes. She then said for me to hand the bag over to her so that she could take them down to the ladies to look at. She hardly gave me time to remove my lunch out of the bag before she took off down to the chemo ward.

Thanks to this lovely volunteer I now am allowed to display a mannequin sporting one of my beanies in the actual chemotherapy rooms. This wonderful volunteer promotes them to almost everyone that comes in for chemo. She is an angel.

But getting back to Thursday.....every time I sat down in my laz-y-boy she would come around and ask me to go and meet this lady and that lady who all wanted to meet me and buy my beanies. It's getting a bit out of control. Now I have been asked if I would like to make miniature beanies for premature babies at the neo-natal ward. I didn't know where to start with the sizing but according to the internet, using an orange for measurements is pretty close. Look at these cuties.

Half Way There

I had my sixth lot of paclitaxel yesterday....goodness me, the time is flying with this. Everything is going really well with it and have no side effects. The chemo nurses call me a little star because of this. The only problem occuring is that by this stage in the treatment, the veins in my hand know what is coming every week and are starting to shrink away from the needle. On the fifth session, the veins were not behaving and I had to have one inserted closer up the hand by the wrist bone.....boy did that make my eyes water. This time they tried another one but with no success so they had to go in by the wrist again. If these naughty veins don't get their act together I will have to have a PIC line put in which is a long tube down the vein of my arm which is ultrasound guided. This will have to stay in place until my treatment is finished. Another method is to have a port-a-cath inserted in my chest which is put in under general anaesthetic, hhhhmmm not to keen on being put out again, so we will just have to see how it goes.

Other than that, life has been quite busy. I have been making beanies flat out and getting in touch with different agencies who may like to help me market them. For the link to my website, click on the JBeanies tab at the top of the page.

I had my new nipple created a few weeks ago. Once my dressings are off I will be posting about that and putting up photos for those that are interested.

So I am now half way through the paclitaxel and have half a new nipple. Good things certainly do take time.