VOLUNTEERING

Okay so I’ve basically been sleeping, eating, and popping pills for a year. It’s time to get back to the real world, the working world, but how to get there? Volunteering ticked all the boxes. I could work as many hours as I wanted, it was local and you know, it was nice to focus on someone else for a while. For 2 hours a week I felt a little like my old self again.

THE 'GET BACK TO NORMAL' LEAFLET

When I finished my treatments and was told by my doctors to start “getting back to normal”, I thought, like many as I have realised, that things would simply just go back to ‘normal’. It has taken me a while to realise that that is not how it works. The truth is that you finish and then what? With every step into the unknown there was always a leaflet guiding you through it. Though it would not be able to tell you exactly how it would go, it had a suggestion or two and a handful of side effects that you could choose from. But there is no such leaflet to tell you how to ‘get back to normal’. Without realising it, I had changed! Who knows when that happened! Maybe it was the day I was told I had Cancer. I hadn’t understood the implications of those words until now.

HOLDING MY BREATH

So good news first, I had my scan the other week and the news came back very positive. The doctors are 90% sure that the lump in my chest is just a Thymic Gland that has reactivated itself due to the intense Radiotherapy! But the bad news is I am still going to need a biopsy! Basically a big needle going through my neck into my chest!

It has taken quite a lot out of me to get to this point. I know in my last post that I said that an invasive surgery was needed but it all changed last minute! I was waiting for the confirmation to arrive from the hospital but it never came so I called up asking what the hold up was. My recommendation for surgery never left the office an ‘administrative error’ it was called. So reviewing my case my consultant wanted me to have a scan instead. This was on the table before but was decided against so the idea was revisited and the arrangements were made. I made sure they were this time!! 

I waited 3-4 weeks to have my scan. If I had the scan straight away it would basically be the same as before and we needed a gap to see how the lump reacted. If it got bigger then there would be a very strong chance that it was Hodgkin’s. If the lump got smaller or stayed the same then it was just the Thymic gland.

I was just holding my breath trying to keep myself busy. The thought of everything crashing down again kept me up at night. My mind was a muddle. Everything seemed out of focus for a while so it’s nice to feel things getting back to normal again, well almost. 

R.E.M.I.S.S.I.O.N

Well I didn’t even make it past my 1st scan! Everything had been going so well, too well in fact that I simply did not have enough time to add to my blog! I had made my hat, taken my pictures and was ready to sit down and write my thing about how amazing it was to reach the biblical word REMISSION but as soon as I heard these energizing words I was off, I was away, doing those things I had suppressed for so long! I went on holiday to Valencia to see my cousin whose wedding I had missed earlier that year. I found myself a job as a freelance pattern cutter. It couldn’t have been more perfect I could work from home, do it in bite size pieces and have a job that challenged me. I met friends and you know I actually went on a night out! I can’t say that I have done that in a while! But then my 1st scan came around the corner and I just new that something was up. I can’t really put my finger on it though I just knew that something would be wrong. I worked and reworked my collage but it did not look right until I placed my fear in the scene.  I mean I felt fine I was out and about and starting to get on but my fears were realised when I was told that my scan had showed a new lump in my chest! I literally stopped breathing!

On the plus side my chances are 50/50. It may not even be Hodgkins’ but a gland that has been irritated by the intense radiotherapy that was based on that area! My next step is to have a biopsy! I will have an operation that will go through my chest and unfortunately break a rib. My fingers are crossed but I am just pissed off! Can everything that I have worked so hard to get back be taken away so easily? Has the bubble burst...

THE RADIO

It’s been a while since I have been on here. Too long really but Radiotherapy has been tough. Being perfectly honest with you my world has turned upside down yet again! I finished last month but it has taken until now for me to recover. Many people say that Radio is much easier than Chemo and of course Chemo was intense and painful at times, going through the amount of needles I went through, but Chemo was not  e-v-e-r-y  s-i-n-g-l-e  day. Just going to the hospital was tiring. I have never been so tired in all my life! I just felt like I was spiralling deeper and deeper into depression.

Other than being incredibly tired, I experienced many side effects. I tended to get a sore throat if I talked too much and singing was a definite no no. Car journeys were not the same!! The area which had been exposed to the Radiation turned black. The only way to describe it really was the worst sunburn you could possibly imagine! Thankfully I’ve returned to my normal colour! And if you thought that the needles had gone you would be sadly mistaken as I was, they were back in the form of weekly blood tests. I felt incredibly sorry for the first nurse who had me. I hadn’t had one in a while and so became incredibly emotional and just sat there crying. 

Radiotherapy put me in a cocoon. I felt incredibly isolated but now I have emerged (with new hair) I am now ready to get going! 

MINDY NETTLES ILLUSTRATION

Goodness it has been quite a while since I have been on here! I will be back with some more hats soon but just thought I would post this very new and exciting facebook page by Mindy Nettles. You may remember that Mindy did a drawing of me a little while ago so if you liked that you will LOVE this. This is only a small selection of her work so click HERE and wonder through an extraordinary mind!!!

WORLD BOOK NIGHT

An amazing night has passed and it was called World Book Night. It was a giving of 1million books. But it was no ordinary book. It had been printed for free and been distributed for free for one purpose; giving people the enjoyment of reading.  In order to do this 20,000 people were required to become ‘book givers’. There were 25 books to choose from and on that list was one of my favourites; Fingersmith by Sarah Walters. But before I was given any books I had to apply to become a ‘book giver’. To be considered, a short paragraph of why I chose the book and who was going to receive the book had to be written. My answer was that I had done a lot of academic reading through university. It made it hard to read something just for the enjoyment of reading. I thought that this would be a great opportunity to get my friends who were in similar situation reading something great. But I didn’t want to stop there I wanted to give the book to people who had helped me along the way, the nurses at the Chemo clinic, the nurses at the doctors surgery and a few people I know who haven’t read a book in a while.

Each book contains a unique number which when registered into the World Book Night website can be traced to show where that particular book has travelled. The idea is to pass the book on once you have read it and registered it. Then the person who you have passed the book onto will hopefully do the same. Hopefully passing it on again and again will give more people the chance of reading a great book. So maybe in a years time, ten years time, the book could have circled the globe! Who knows where it could end up!

Here are just a few people I gave my books to:

HANA

LINDA

LINDA

HELENE

JAI

LOUISE 

THE PERTH ROAD GANG - NATASHA, ADAM, KATE AND HAYLEY

HOLLY