Eight years and eight months ago I went to visit a mobile mammogram unit parked on the car park of my local clinic by invitation of the NHS. My 50th birthday was 6 months away, and it is a routine invitation when a woman reaches her half century. Little did I know what was to come, if I had realised I may have run the other way and buried my head in the sand. Thank God I didn't know, I didn't want to go for the appointment, I didn't think anything was wrong with me, but looking back I now realise I had classic symptoms, though I had not realised they were symptoms, I wish I had been more aware, perhaps I could have avoided the aggressive chemo, the radiotherapy with subsequent painful burning of the skin beneath my breast, the hair loss, the spread to three lymph nodes. I did not realise the dimpling, orange peel skin was a sign of breast cancer, or maybe I was too scared to question it. Even the word, cancer, has always made me feel afraid, the thought of being cut open to remove the offending cancerous tumour has always frightened me. We even booked a holiday straight after the mammogram, not knowing the trauma to come the following week. When the letter arrived on the Saturday morning, having had the test just three days before, I knew straight away, you don't get results that fast unless there is a problem. My heart was in my mouth when I saw that my appointment was for Tuesday 8th February, just three days hence. I cried. I rang my husband at work and cried. I was frightened, disbelieving, shaky, petrified. He tried to tell me not to worry but how can you not?
They were lovely at the clinic, they had been waiting for me to arrive it was obvious, as soon as I handed in my letter at reception we were seated in another area, the breast care nurse came out to me, took me into a room for biopsy, explained what would happen, I was talked through the procedure, the radiologist showed me the tumour on the screen, told me it was calcified, an indication of cancer, he confirmed it was most likely to be cancer but await the results. Shell shocked I walked shakily towards my husband, then I had to tell him I might have cancer, it was bad, really bad. He didn't seem to take it in, probably didn't want to, told me it might not be, wait for the results. The results would be ready the next day.
It was cancer, at first they told me grade one, after my operation and the tumour was tested in the lab, grade 3, stage 3, fast growing and aggressive. I had to fight.
I won't say chemo was okay, it wasn't. I was very sick that first time, for five days. The second time was more manageable, the oncologist doubled my anti sickness meds. My hair fell out three weeks after the first chemo session, they gave me a wig, I preferred a more comfy scarf. At least I didn't need to wash and style my hair, something I've never mastered, I just pulled it on to my head.
Chemo is given in various ways, the first few sessions an iv into the back of my hand, drugs slowly fed in by a nurse. The latter sessions of chemo were drip feed again by iv, over an hour maybe. The nurses were fantastic.
Radiotherapy is painless but it can burn the skin and being a larger lady friction under the breast burst blisters which proved painful.
I had herceptin too, having found when my treatments had finished that I was HER 2 positive, again by iv drip.
Now I take hormones and visit my surgeon and oncologist once a year. I'm still here against all odds, if the mammogram had not detected the tumour when it did it may have been a different story.
Eight years and eight months later I am ALIVE!
