As I write this, there's snow on the ground. Not a lot of snow, but enough to disrupt the transport system, it would seem. I don't remember my school closing because of snow when I was growing up (in a place much colder and with harsher winters than the South-East of England) - am I viewing the past through the rosy lenses of nostalgia? Were the summers endlessly long, always sunny and full of laughter? Maybe not, but perhaps my old school friends might remember if our school stayed open whatever the weather - I seem to recall the only days the school was closed was when the teachers went on strike!!
The snow started falling on Friday, as I was driving to the Marsden for my three-monthly check-up. Anxious enough about the check-up, as always, the anticipation of poor weather and difficult driving conditions heightened my nerves. The hospital car park was pretty empty and I did wonder if my check-up would go ahead or whether the doctors would have struggled to get in and I might be told to return another day - not a prospect I relished, as I still have to psyche myself up before the appointment and I would have to go through that process all over again. Luckily for me, however, the Head and Neck clinic doctors had managed to get in, although a lot of patients were phoning in to say they couldn't travel to hospital and the waiting room was much emptier than usual!
Of course, the important thing is how the check-up went, not whether the waiting room was empty. After the usual physical examination of my head and neck and a look inside my mouth, the registrar pronounced that everything is fine - phew! All it means is that I remain in remission and there is no sign of the cancer returning in that area, but to be honest, that's as good as I can expect and hope for at this stage. It doesn't mean the medics are prepared to give me an all clear and state categorically that I am free of cancer, but it means that I am now a year in remission - pretty bloody good when I think of how I felt for most of 2011 and the thought of being alive in 2013 seemed like an impossible dream. I can't stop cancer by willpower - if we could, how wonderful would that be? - but I can give myself the best possible chance of remaining healthy by taking responsibility for my health and eating sensibly, exercising, resting and avoiding risk factors. That doesn't mean I don't enjoy life - quite the reverse. It just means I am giving myself the best chance of being able to deal with any health problems that come my way.
The other side of my cancer coin is the facial palsy. On January 3rd, I went to the Queen Victoria Hospital in East Grinstead to have my gold weight (aka "eyelid bling") repositioned and my eyelid lift. I had to be there for half seven in the moring, which meant waking my lovely children in time to drive me there (neither of them was working that day, so they volunteered to take me - good children!). The surgeon came to talk to me before the operation and - to my pleasure - he said he thought I didn't need the gold weight any more and was going to remove it. Yay! He also thought I was a bit allergic to the gold (oh, I am so precious!) so it made sense to remove it. The important thing was whether I would be able to close my eye fully after the weight was removed and if I couldn't, then the next stage would be a platimun chain inserted into the eyelid - rising up the precious metal scale!
Now, nearly three weeks after the surgery, my eye looks much more like it used to BC. While it's not exactly as it was, and not exactly like my unaffected eye, it is far less noticeably different. This is progress. This helps me feel that I look more like everyone else and a bit more like I used to look. It also reminds me that it doesn't have to be all about oncology. A part of me also thinks that the NHS wouldn't be investing all this time and money in addressing my facial palsy if they thought that I was going to be ill again - perhaps this is naive, but it makes me feel better anyway :-) In a flurry of January medical appointment, I also had some Botox around my mouth, so I am all procedured-up.
Part of me feels a bit sad that my year has started with so many medical appointments, all of them necessary because of having had cancer. What a nasty, far-reaching disease it is! But another part of me rejoices that I am still here and enjoying life, that I have so many wonderful, supportive friends around me, that my family continues to be a constant joy to me and that the world contunues to turn. There's much to be thankful for. I am thankful.
Showing posts with label support. Show all posts
Showing posts with label support. Show all posts
Monday, 21 January 2013
Monday, 19 March 2012
One year since it all started.....
Ha, so much for my seven consecutive days of blogging - I ended up with a stinking cold and wilted, like a flower without any water.......just had no energy, spent most of the day coughing and pretty much most of the night doing the same, to the point where my ribs ached and I tried desperately to hold the cough in just to avoid feeling that horrible stabby pain, eventually having to just give in and cough away, one hand clutching my ribs and the other in front of my mouth!
You'd think, after all my body has coped with over the past year, that a cold would be something I could take in my stride, wouldn't you? But no, it knocked me for six. I suppose that might mean that my immune system is not yet back up to full speed. Of course, this meant no exercise for several days, so I am feeling a bit antsy and fed-up about that. Back to the gym tonight to an aerobics class, which I hope to manage without having to stop for a coughing fit - if I can do that, I know I am on the road to full recovery.
Talking of all my body has dealt with over the past year brings me to another reason why I haven't posted. On Saturday, the 17th of March, it was exactly one year since I first felt the lumps in my jaw and thought that something wasn't quite right. Little did I realise then just how big an impact those two little lumps would have. This time last year I was blithely thinking that I had some kind of infection and my glands had swollen up to fight it - yes, unusually only on one side, but I didn't think that was anything untoward. I do tend to think of events as "BC" or "AD" - Before Cancer and After Diagnosis, as if finding out I had cancer caused a seismic shift in my world. Did it? An interesting question - I look at my life and so much of it is the same: same husband and children, same friends (for the most part - one or two whom I thought would be more actively interested went very quiet very early and have stayed that way and conversely, some people have stepped up to the plate and proved themselves to be trusty companions), same house, same lifestyle, same interests....when I look at it like that, not much has changed.
And yet......I feel changed. I feel - I know! - that my approach to life has altered. I feel that, having been given what to me I can only describe as a second chance at life, I have been given the most precious gift: time on this earth. That fills me with such a deep appreciation and thankfulness for all the wonderful work of our NHS and the love and support of my family and friends that I hope I never take any of them for granted again. I feel that I have a renewed appreciation of the simpler things in life, too - I have found such gentle pleasure in listening to birdsong, watching our cats move from one sunny spot to another as the sun moves around the garden, seeing plants and flowers change over the seasons. Nothing sophisticated involved, just nature doing what she does. I don't feel that material things are as important as once I did - yes, I am lucky that we have a nice house in a beautiful area, but I am not fussed about having a newer car or the latest trendy kitchen/garden/technology "must-have" (although I have to confess to having upgraded to the iPhone 4s - I never said I was perfect!!). I have realised that all that really matters is health, family, friends and love.
I make no apologies for sounding like a mawkishly sentimental Pollyanna today. This is how I feel. I've had a lot of time to reflect on life over the last year and although this time last year I had no idea of what a bumpy ride I was going to have, it became clear within a few weeks, so I had to get used to this new set of realities fairly quickly. I think that, on the whole, I've coped.....okay. There have been bad days and there have been good days. In recent months I have had more good days than bad and I know that I have effective coping strategies for the bad days. When I look back at what's happened to me and my family over the past couple of years, we've coped with my brother dying at the age of 47, our daughter travelling to some of the most dangerous parts of the world, my diagnosis and treatment, my mum being sectioned and then moved into a care home after being diagnosed with dementia - that's quite a list of things. The important thing is that we have coped and we will continue to cope with what happens next. The only thing we know for sure is that I will have more surgery to my face. As for the oncology side - my latest check-up, on Friday of last week, was fine and that's all I can be sure of. I am as healthy as my last check-up. At the moment, the gap between appointments is one month, but I am hopeful that this will gradually be extended as I (fingers crossed) start to have consistently clear results from the physical examinations.
While this blog post contains a lot of looking back, there's a lot of looking forward too. I think that's how I am living my life at the moment - reflection, processing, anticipation and hoping. Is this so different from everyone else's life? I suspect not.
You'd think, after all my body has coped with over the past year, that a cold would be something I could take in my stride, wouldn't you? But no, it knocked me for six. I suppose that might mean that my immune system is not yet back up to full speed. Of course, this meant no exercise for several days, so I am feeling a bit antsy and fed-up about that. Back to the gym tonight to an aerobics class, which I hope to manage without having to stop for a coughing fit - if I can do that, I know I am on the road to full recovery.
Talking of all my body has dealt with over the past year brings me to another reason why I haven't posted. On Saturday, the 17th of March, it was exactly one year since I first felt the lumps in my jaw and thought that something wasn't quite right. Little did I realise then just how big an impact those two little lumps would have. This time last year I was blithely thinking that I had some kind of infection and my glands had swollen up to fight it - yes, unusually only on one side, but I didn't think that was anything untoward. I do tend to think of events as "BC" or "AD" - Before Cancer and After Diagnosis, as if finding out I had cancer caused a seismic shift in my world. Did it? An interesting question - I look at my life and so much of it is the same: same husband and children, same friends (for the most part - one or two whom I thought would be more actively interested went very quiet very early and have stayed that way and conversely, some people have stepped up to the plate and proved themselves to be trusty companions), same house, same lifestyle, same interests....when I look at it like that, not much has changed.
And yet......I feel changed. I feel - I know! - that my approach to life has altered. I feel that, having been given what to me I can only describe as a second chance at life, I have been given the most precious gift: time on this earth. That fills me with such a deep appreciation and thankfulness for all the wonderful work of our NHS and the love and support of my family and friends that I hope I never take any of them for granted again. I feel that I have a renewed appreciation of the simpler things in life, too - I have found such gentle pleasure in listening to birdsong, watching our cats move from one sunny spot to another as the sun moves around the garden, seeing plants and flowers change over the seasons. Nothing sophisticated involved, just nature doing what she does. I don't feel that material things are as important as once I did - yes, I am lucky that we have a nice house in a beautiful area, but I am not fussed about having a newer car or the latest trendy kitchen/garden/technology "must-have" (although I have to confess to having upgraded to the iPhone 4s - I never said I was perfect!!). I have realised that all that really matters is health, family, friends and love.
I make no apologies for sounding like a mawkishly sentimental Pollyanna today. This is how I feel. I've had a lot of time to reflect on life over the last year and although this time last year I had no idea of what a bumpy ride I was going to have, it became clear within a few weeks, so I had to get used to this new set of realities fairly quickly. I think that, on the whole, I've coped.....okay. There have been bad days and there have been good days. In recent months I have had more good days than bad and I know that I have effective coping strategies for the bad days. When I look back at what's happened to me and my family over the past couple of years, we've coped with my brother dying at the age of 47, our daughter travelling to some of the most dangerous parts of the world, my diagnosis and treatment, my mum being sectioned and then moved into a care home after being diagnosed with dementia - that's quite a list of things. The important thing is that we have coped and we will continue to cope with what happens next. The only thing we know for sure is that I will have more surgery to my face. As for the oncology side - my latest check-up, on Friday of last week, was fine and that's all I can be sure of. I am as healthy as my last check-up. At the moment, the gap between appointments is one month, but I am hopeful that this will gradually be extended as I (fingers crossed) start to have consistently clear results from the physical examinations.
While this blog post contains a lot of looking back, there's a lot of looking forward too. I think that's how I am living my life at the moment - reflection, processing, anticipation and hoping. Is this so different from everyone else's life? I suspect not.
Tuesday, 14 February 2012
Boom, boom, boom, boom!
What do you do when you think you might get bad news, you prepare for how you might react if you get bad news and then, when it turns out the news is good, you haven't thought about how that might feel? That's just how I feel, even today, four days after getting my fabulously welcome news about there being no signs of cancer in me.
I worry that I might seem blase about the news - believe me, I am anything but! I am immensely thankful and deeply, deeply grateful to our wonderful NHS for the care they have taken of me at every stage of this frightening, turbulent process. It's just that I still feel a bit - well, "numb" is the best word I can think of to describe it. It's almost as if I have schooled myself over the past year not to expect the news to be good, so when it is, I have forgotten how to feel!
That makes a kind of sense to me and I suspect it's a kind of protection mechanism I have built up around me so that I didn't/don't get disappointed when the news turns out to be not so good. I am pretty certain that at some point, the reality will kick in and that's when I will react. It might take the form of manic giggling, or a bit of a sob, or even a snivelling snotfest of crying, but it will almost certainly happen at some point. In the meantime, I'm just getting on with things and starting to plan a bit further ahead than I have done in recent months. Without wanting to sound defeatist or morbid, for a large part of last year I couldn't see beyond Christmas 2011, simply because I wasn't entirely convinced that I would be around after that time. Don't judge me, don't call me pessimistic, don't think I had lost the will to live because I absolutely hadn't. I just couldn't get my mind to behave differently. It's great to be able to think "Yes, I can look further ahead and plan for 2012, 2013 and beyond."
Right, enough of the introspection! What has happened since hospital on Friday and my good news? We had a lovely guest for the weekend, a Norwegian friend of our daughter's, whom she met while backpacking around SE Asia. We didn't see that much of either of them over the weekend, as they were meeting up with other friends from their travels up in London and staying up there on Saturday night. Our house was the meeting point for some of these other friends too, so there were plenty of young people around over the weekend to infuse the house with energy and laughter! I think Maddy enjoyed sampling a cooked English breakfast and a roast dinner (I was under strict instructions to make Yorkshire puddings, bread sauce and roast parsnips! Being a good mum, I did as I was told, of course....). Maddy left today and we hope she'll come and see us again - her English is superb (and infinitely better than our Norwegian!)and she drinks almost as much tea as we do :-).
Neil and I went out for a lovely, celebratory meal on Friday night and then were out for dinner again on Saturday, at our good friends' home. Ample amounts of fizzy were sipped over the two days, as we marked the milestone of Friday.
Yesterday I went to visit a friend who has broken her ankle/leg really badly and has to spend all day with her foot up on a stool, hobbling around on crutches only when necessary. She was very good visiting me last year when I was convalescing at home, so I was pleased to be able to do something in return. I do think that when something happens to you that makes you feel unwell, upset, restricts your mobility or independence, then it is a huge upset in your world - sometimes people have said to me over the past year that what's happened to them is nothing compared to what's happened to me, but I don't agree. I think that we are all affected to different degrees by the events in our lives and what might seem trivial to one person can be devastating in its effect on someone else. I hope that I never start to think "Well, you think *you've* got problems? Wait till I tell you what *I've* been through!" because that would mean that I had lost a degree of compassion.
Today - and this is where the "Boom, boom, boom, boom" comes from - we held a drumming workshop at my church for local school-children. I went along to help and ended up taking part ("Oh, surely not?", you murmur....). I ended up banging on the big bass drum and also the tom-tom drums. Great fun!
Of course, it's Valentine's Day today, when we tell the one we love how much they mean to us. I cannot find words enough to tell Neil how much he means to me. He has been my emotional foundation and rock over not just this past year, but our entire marriage. I couldn't be without him and I feel like this every day, not just Valentine's Day.
Oh, and I joined Twitter - thought about it long and hard and decided that it might help me get some more exposure for this blog and hence raise some awareness of what it's like to deal with cancer and facial palsy. It's good to think yes, I am a cancer survivor. And my face? I had surgery to save my life and it left my face a bit wonky. It is the better alternative!!
I worry that I might seem blase about the news - believe me, I am anything but! I am immensely thankful and deeply, deeply grateful to our wonderful NHS for the care they have taken of me at every stage of this frightening, turbulent process. It's just that I still feel a bit - well, "numb" is the best word I can think of to describe it. It's almost as if I have schooled myself over the past year not to expect the news to be good, so when it is, I have forgotten how to feel!
That makes a kind of sense to me and I suspect it's a kind of protection mechanism I have built up around me so that I didn't/don't get disappointed when the news turns out to be not so good. I am pretty certain that at some point, the reality will kick in and that's when I will react. It might take the form of manic giggling, or a bit of a sob, or even a snivelling snotfest of crying, but it will almost certainly happen at some point. In the meantime, I'm just getting on with things and starting to plan a bit further ahead than I have done in recent months. Without wanting to sound defeatist or morbid, for a large part of last year I couldn't see beyond Christmas 2011, simply because I wasn't entirely convinced that I would be around after that time. Don't judge me, don't call me pessimistic, don't think I had lost the will to live because I absolutely hadn't. I just couldn't get my mind to behave differently. It's great to be able to think "Yes, I can look further ahead and plan for 2012, 2013 and beyond."
Right, enough of the introspection! What has happened since hospital on Friday and my good news? We had a lovely guest for the weekend, a Norwegian friend of our daughter's, whom she met while backpacking around SE Asia. We didn't see that much of either of them over the weekend, as they were meeting up with other friends from their travels up in London and staying up there on Saturday night. Our house was the meeting point for some of these other friends too, so there were plenty of young people around over the weekend to infuse the house with energy and laughter! I think Maddy enjoyed sampling a cooked English breakfast and a roast dinner (I was under strict instructions to make Yorkshire puddings, bread sauce and roast parsnips! Being a good mum, I did as I was told, of course....). Maddy left today and we hope she'll come and see us again - her English is superb (and infinitely better than our Norwegian!)and she drinks almost as much tea as we do :-).
Neil and I went out for a lovely, celebratory meal on Friday night and then were out for dinner again on Saturday, at our good friends' home. Ample amounts of fizzy were sipped over the two days, as we marked the milestone of Friday.
Yesterday I went to visit a friend who has broken her ankle/leg really badly and has to spend all day with her foot up on a stool, hobbling around on crutches only when necessary. She was very good visiting me last year when I was convalescing at home, so I was pleased to be able to do something in return. I do think that when something happens to you that makes you feel unwell, upset, restricts your mobility or independence, then it is a huge upset in your world - sometimes people have said to me over the past year that what's happened to them is nothing compared to what's happened to me, but I don't agree. I think that we are all affected to different degrees by the events in our lives and what might seem trivial to one person can be devastating in its effect on someone else. I hope that I never start to think "Well, you think *you've* got problems? Wait till I tell you what *I've* been through!" because that would mean that I had lost a degree of compassion.
Today - and this is where the "Boom, boom, boom, boom" comes from - we held a drumming workshop at my church for local school-children. I went along to help and ended up taking part ("Oh, surely not?", you murmur....). I ended up banging on the big bass drum and also the tom-tom drums. Great fun!
Of course, it's Valentine's Day today, when we tell the one we love how much they mean to us. I cannot find words enough to tell Neil how much he means to me. He has been my emotional foundation and rock over not just this past year, but our entire marriage. I couldn't be without him and I feel like this every day, not just Valentine's Day.
Oh, and I joined Twitter - thought about it long and hard and decided that it might help me get some more exposure for this blog and hence raise some awareness of what it's like to deal with cancer and facial palsy. It's good to think yes, I am a cancer survivor. And my face? I had surgery to save my life and it left my face a bit wonky. It is the better alternative!!
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