Part 3

Total so far £2390

Having been in a pretty positive frame of mind up until now, last week was tough. It started off bad and got worse. By the end I was so fed up of having needles stuck in me I cried quite a lot and generally felt very sorry for myself. Having said that, thank goodness this is me going through it and not my children. I would be a complete wreck if I had to watch helplessly as they suffered.

Anyway, Monday morning I went to the nurse to have my coil removed as it releases oestrogen and that is the very thing that this cancer is receptive to. The staff at the desk were not at all helpful in getting a doctor to sign my medical exemption form saying I'd have to come back and collect it another time, but bless the nurse for hanging around outside one of the doctors rooms until a patient had left so she could get a quick signature for me. She was brilliant and lovely. Most of the nurses I have come across have been absolutely great, which makes all the shittiness of it all much more bearable.

Later that day it was back to Worthing... I was fine up until the point where the man mumbled and pointed to the hospital gown. “The slit goes up the back”, as he walked off. Not sure I’ve worn one before, at least not in the last 25 years. I sat with my shopping basket of clothes (literally!), shivering as usual from the cold, and a few minutes later I was called in. I had to lie on a bed with a triangular cushion under my knees and they put a blanket over me to warm me up. The lady explained she was going to put a cannula in my arm and give me an injection which would make me feel like I was having a hot flush, there would be a metallic taste at the back of my mouth and my bladder would feel very warm like I needed to go to the toilet. These sensations would pass after 20 or 30 seconds. She used my bruised arm to insert the cannula into and it was really quite painful as it was still very sore from the blood test 11 days before. I had to carefully put my arms over my head and she wound the tube from the cannula round my thumb to hold it in place.

Another scanning machine arched over me. There was a clear band in the middle where I could see something spinning round and round very fast, it reminded me a bit of the inside of a spaceship. I was asked to hold my breath for short periods while they took pictures. I didn't really know what was going on and I started to feel quite strange and a bit spaced out from the fear. I had no idea if they'd given me the injection yet or not but I definitely didn't feel right. Panic can make you feel very strange.

Then I heard the dreaded words “start the injection” in a robotic tone, - just like something out of a scary sci-fi movie! - and a wave of unpleasant warmth flushed over me along with a warm pressure in my bladder and a nasty taste at the back of my throat. It felt like coming up on drugs, a bit rushy and uncomfortable. My brain felt like it couldn’t think clearly. All I could do was experience the overpowering sensations. I’m sure had I not been so panicked, or been prepared a few days in advance of what was going to happen, and if my arm hadn't have been so sore, then maybe it wouldn’t have been such a horrid experience. I was glad to get out of there and get dressed again. I felt like crying but I held back the tears. That night both my arms were so sore and my shoulders and thighs were bruised and aching from roller hockey. I felt I needed to cry to release the stress.

Tuesday wasn't much better. I went in for a PICC line, lay there for about half an hour with a heat pad on me warming up my veins, then another half an hour of watching the lady set up all the equipment, syringes, etc, cleaning my arm, laying a sterile blanket with a hole in to access my veins... Three attempts later I was crying in pain from so many needles being stuck in me. My veins are so small they couldn't get the line in so they had to send me home. Two and a half hours of being very scared, used as a pin cushion and no result at the end. I was so sore by that night I could hardly lift my arms up. Because my veins are so tiny all these needles are painful for me. I coped at the beginning as I was feeling braver then, but my arms got sorer and sorer and the fear has taken over so it has got worse as time has gone on. I have a day off needles tomorrow thank goodness.

Wednesday was wig shopping, by appointment. I walked in, looked at all the wigs and cried again. Getting into a bit of a habit this week! The lady was very lovely and helped me try on a couple of long ones and explained I could dye the human hair ones and get them cut how I like by a hairdresser. I can even put my extensions in them. The fibre ones will tangle and need replacing after a few months and I can't dye them, so the choice was obvious. You get a form for £120 off plus VAT off but it still costs a lot of money for human hair.

So after the failure of plan one, plan two was that I was meant to be going back in on Thursday for another go at the PICC line. Then all being well, start chemo on Friday. I had to chase up the hospital at 4pm as I hadn’t heard from them. They said they had sent an email on Tuesday to the ultrasound team but hadn't heard back from them. I suggested they chase it up and ring me back! Within half an hour I got a call saying to come in at 9am and they would do the PICC line by ultrasound further up my arm where the veins are bigger but deeper, followed by the chemo. So now I am shit scared! But it needs to be started. Plan three - I hope it goes smoothly this time!

Thursday. D-Day! It was a long tiring full on day. 6 hours at Worthing hospital. My angel Kim was with me holding my hand again. I sat in a side room and they warmed my arm up with a heated pillow whilst two ladies hunted around for green tea for me, bringing it back in a polystyrene cup as the ultrasound lady with her Irish lilt made jokes to relax me. She gave me shots of anaesthetic first this time and once the pain of that was over, all I felt was some pushing. She made a small cut on the inside of my upper arm and threaded the line into a vein and up to my neck. At that point, a nurse had to press my ear to my shoulder to cut off the vein to my throat so that the line would follow on to my heart. The whole procedure only took about 30 minutes. It was over very quickly, but then the anaesthetic wore off very quickly too and I felt very light headed. I needed a wheelchair to be taken to x-ray as I couldn't stand very well and my arm was aching like hell. I was bumped up the queue and seen straight away and then back to the chemo ward to wait. The line was in 5cm too far so more waiting for a nurse to come down to the ward and pull it out a bit, retape it in position and back for another x-ray. I kind of wish I hadn't at that point without the dressing on, glanced at the tube going into my arm. It isn't pleasant to see a hole in your arm with a tube coming out if it!

Here it is looking a bit better with a dressing on, despite the dried blood from day 1.

The pain had eased off now and I was able to walk to x-ray for a re-shoot! Everything was in the right place now so it was back to the chemo ward again for bloods, a painless procedure now as they can take it straight from the PICC line, and another wait for results of kidney and liver function and usual obs. They came back fine so they gave me an anti-sickness injection, again into my line, another half hour wait for it to take effect... I even managed a banana and half a sandwich during these waits despite the fact that I was nervous about the ensuing chemo drugs and their effects.

So after all that pain, ache and worry, the chemo itself was just the nurse sitting there for no more than half an hour, injecting various drugs into my line. You can feel a cold flow of fluid along the inside of your arm a bit at first but it was really nothing. We chatted away, and that was it really. They gave me a big bag of drugs (after swapping the gelatine capsules for tasty strawberry melt on the tongue ones) and I walked out of there and went home.

For the next three mornings I have to take four anti-sickness tablets (steroids) and every day of my treatment I take the strawberry one for stomach acid, plus ten days of daily injections in alternate thighs from the district nurse. They sting like hell and I dread them. Every Tuesday they flush my line through with saline to stop it getting blocked and change the dressing on my arm, plus the last Tuesday before my next treatment they will take bloods from it. One telephone consultation booked at some point, but no more hospital for three weeks!

Chemo - Day 5 is the first day I haven't felt sick. The headaches have also lessened. I have felt a bit nauseous every morning until about 11.30 and then by about half nine in the evening I’m ready for bed. I wake several times during the night feeling nauseous but it helps to have my window open and drink lots of water. My energy levels are extremely low. I can manage about 20 minutes of activity, getting food, playing piano, a quick wander round a couple of shops if I get a lift into town (I couldn't manage the 20 minute walk in now), a half hour chat with a friend, and then I need to lie down for several hours. My appetite has gone a bit but I'm now eating lots of vegan potato pies etc I have been given by people or bought as they sustain my energy a bit better. Hoping I will find more energy over the next few weeks and be able to do a bit more. It's not been as bad as I thought so far. I can deal with the tiredness but the nausea wasn't nice even though it was mild. I try not to think how many more weeks and months ahead. 6 months seems unfathomable.

I have had more bad news as my smear test came back abnormal so more indepth tests to follow on that front. Really don't need this anywhere else in my body. At least they will be on top of it but psychologically and physically it just makes this all harder to deal with.

The next big thing I will have to deal with in about 10 days, is of course all my hair falling out...

Part 2

£1615 in 4 days! How amazingly wonderful is that, plus a little 10 year old girl called Grace is shaving her head too! A big thank you to everyone who has donated so far and to Grace and Emily who started all this off, you are truly awesome. xx 

My left arm was still very bruised from the previous week so they had to inject the radioactivity into a vein on my right arm instead. I then had three hours to wander round Chichester whilst drinking plenty of water before returning to the hospital for a bone scan. I had to lie still for 45 minutes without moving or talking, on a bed which moved along underneath the scanner. It starts with a big square plate lowering down to about an inch from your nose and then it feels like the scanner is moving very slowly down your body to your feet where it spins round and goes along underneath you back to your head. Actually it is the bed that moves and it took me half an hour to work this out! It was just extremely boring. That's all I can say about it!

Two days later I'm back in hospital to meet with the nurses. I didn't think it would be a big deal as it was just another chat but there were more shocks in store. They keep throwing things at me so I keep going back into my shock bubble so I can absorb the information and deal with it. They discussed side effects of the different drugs I will be taking - feeling hot, dizzy, metallic taste in mouth, pain near injection site, red urine, burning/stinging sensation when passing urine, anaemia, bruising easily, nosebleeds, vomiting, nausea, diarrhoea, mouth ulcers, extreme tiredness, inability to concentrate or think clearly, sore eyes, runny nose, sore or red skin, rashes, especially on palms and soles of feet, darkening or ridges on nails, sensitive skin to the sun, hair loss, infertility, numbness and tingling hands and feet, fluid retention, weight gain, painful muscles and joints, and rarely, changes in your heart and blood pressure or an allergic reaction within minutes. I will also be given steroids which I'm really not happy about.

I will have virtually no immune system as the chemo attacks the bone-marrow so I have to avoid anyone who is ill, even with a cold. If my temperature goes above 37.5 degrees I have to drop everything (even if it's the middle of the night) and go straight to hospital within the hour for antibiotics and maybe stay in for a day. Again – single mum, 3 kids, no car, how the ….!

Then we moved onto how they administer the drugs. Finding a vein each time you have chemo can leave your arms black and blue and destroys the veins so you would need six good veins usually in the same arm furthest from the cancer. The alternative is having a PICC line, (peripherally inserted central catheter) a tube going into a vein in your arm which goes up and round to the artery near your heart. Where the tube comes out of your skin, there is a special cap that can be attached to a drip or syringe. Sometimes there is a clamp to keep the tube closed when it isn't in use. This is all done under local anaesthetic with an ultrasound followed by an x-ray. It is taped up to your arm and left in place for the 18 weeks of chemotherapy. I will have to have a nurse round once a week to flush it through and I have to keep it dry every time I have a shower or bath by wrapping it in clingfilm and taping the top and bottom. I also need to be very careful when I sleep.

I went round to the chemo ward and it was full of elderly people in their 60's sitting in big red cushioned chairs that recline. No privacy. Nothing interesting to look at. Very clinical. Not a nice atmosphere. I felt very very young. Too young for this to be happening to me. I can't believe in four days I will be sitting there having a line put in and two days later having toxic chemicals pumped into me.

Every shock makes me feel very drained. Again I really didn't feel like taking the kids to their clubs but I managed to find some energy from somewhere. After we got home I read a special book to the boys about a mummy with cancer and tried to hold back the tears as I explained to them I would be going through the same thing and in a few weeks I would have no hair. Tayvah said I could get a long blue wig. I gave him a cuddle and told him I loved him and how well he is doing at school and Soo Bahk Do (karate). He is a clever boy. He is only six and can count to 10 in Korean. Fyhren seemed quite happy studying the book for a long time. He was four a few weeks ago. I'm not sure how much he understood.

Part 1

From the beginning...

So my mad friend Emily says she’s going to shave her head. I can't for the life of me work out why anyone would want to do that, but it's all for a good cause. I think she’s very brave. I wouldn’t do it. Except I will have to at some point. Just as my hair starts to fall out.

 £695 raised so far

Donate here --->  http://www.justgiving.com/Emily-Buckle003

I couldn't work out how I hadn't found it before. A large lump in my left breast, just above the nipple. A wave of fear washed over me. I knew I had to make an appointment with the GP as soon as possible. I phoned up at the end of the week and got one first thing Monday. There were some positive things like the fact that I had breast fed my three children for a total of five years, and that the lump was sore, but the doctor also said it was “quite big” which was slightly alarming. She made a referral to the hospital and said I would have an appointment within two weeks. It seemed a long time to wait.

A letter finally came asking me to phone them and arrange one. The next available one was over two weeks away. Thankfully they rang the following week and asked me to come in the next day. This short notice became a bit of a pattern. A logistical nightmare when you are a single mum of three kids and no car. But each time I felt it was better to push things along as quickly as possible.

I waited an hour for a mammogram. It was a bit uncomfortable but nothing major. You stand in front of a big machine and they squash your breast between two plates and take an x-ray of it. They do that from the side and the top on both sides. Then it was another hour wait to see the doctor and discuss the results.

I went into the room quite calmly thinking they would just say it was a cyst and then I'd be out of there. But the doctors first words were, “We're quite concerned with your mammogram”. Oh. I couldn't really speak. Just nodded. She started explaining about calcification of which there was a lot of and then asked me to undress for an examination. She took an ultrasound of the lump and that's when she discovered the lump under my arm too. At that point, lots of doctors and nurses started coming in. There was about six of them in all buzzing about the room, each one staring at the screen and offering opinions. I was shivering from the cold and was numb with shock. All I could do was stare straight ahead, not seeing, and nod my head in reply when they asked if I understood them.

They gave me a local anaesthetic and started prodding me with a needle but I could still feel it a little so they gave me a bit more. Then they took 2 biopsies from the lump on my breast. It didn't hurt. I just heard a click. They also took some cells from the one under my arm. They couldn't give me any pain relief for that one. I tried to breathe deeply but I did let out a gasp of pain a couple of times. I was padded up with dressing, told I couldn’t go kickboxing that evening or roller-skating the following day and sent off with the repeated sentence – it does look serious. The nurse made me an appointment for 15 days time to come back in for the results. That's a long time to wait to find out if you have cancer, but I knew almost certainly that I had.

The shock lasted about five days and in that time my so called best friend buggered off because he couldn't handle it. I immediately started on a raw food diet, reading everything I could about which foods to eat and which to avoid. Sugar is the worst apparently. Cancer loves sugar. Also no fats except flaxseed oil, no vinegar except apple cider vinegar, no salt except sea salt, no white processed bread, pasta or rice, no dairy, no meat (no big deal as I'm pretty much vegan being a lactose intolerant vegetarian!) but lots of wheatgrass, garlic, onions, carrots, lemons, green tea and as much raw fruit and veg as possible. Luckily I'm quite strong willed and am not finding it too hard. You are allowed one cooked meal a day or to incorporate a small amount of cooked food with raw. I'm eating a lot of salads and drinking fresh juices and smoothies.

I felt very drained and tired from the stress. I had no energy at times to do anything. I spent whole days in bed, and then watched animé cartoons at 1am to get to sleep. I was so sore I couldn't move my arm so I couldn't skate or dance or go to muay thai.

Then life returned to normal and I got on with things and started to tell people one by one. That was hard and emotional, sometimes I would cry, sometimes they would. I told my parents on the phone, got them to put me on speaker phone. My mum was rather blunt and told me to get a bobble hat. That was upsetting. I couldn’t hear my dad but he's the emotional one so I think he probably cried. Relationships between my parents are rather strained sometimes and although they will do anything to help, having the kids and giving me lifts, they do try to take over and tell me exactly what to do. I have to be very strong and stand my ground not to get caught up in their well-meaning torrent of “helpfulness”.

I felt like I wanted to live my life suddenly. Do things I hadn't done yet. I went on my first motorbike ride on the back of a 650cc Suzuki, gorgeous sunny day round the countryside and then 120 mph back along the A27. I had a big grin on my face for the next few days from the adrenaline. It felt like I came to terms with things, dealing with death and life. Life is an awfully big adventure and I really really want to live it!

I started not being able to sleep again a couple of days before my results appointment. Michele came with me and she was definitely the best person ever to have by my side. You could tell by the scared look on their faces as we walked into the room that they were not looking forward to what they had to tell me, but I had been prepared and I calmly nodded when they told me the results of the biopsy were positive. I think they were a bit taken aback at how calm I was. I had done my research on the internet and talked to someone who had gone through it two years ago which helped to give me a more positive outlook on the future.

Treatment was discussed, and as expected they told me I would need a mastectomy, chemotherapy and radiotherapy. The shocks were, that there would be no immediate reconstruction due to the risk of infection delaying chemo, and also that they would take all the skin from my breast, effectively cutting the whole lot out and sewing up the sides, meaning I would loose my nipple. I was not prepared for that one. That's when I cried a little. Being single, how would I be able to meet someone else and form a loving relationship looking like that. I wanted another baby too. All that was dashed full force to the ground and trodden in by a big boot, spat upon for full measure. That's how I felt anyway. Later they showed me a picture. A completely flat chest on one side with a big scar right across. It looks unbalanced with the other side. And no nipple is a very strange thing to get your head around. People tell me “Oh but you are pretty, you will meet someone who will look past that”, but I am convinced that will not be the case. How could I brave showing anyone anyway in the first place when even I think it's ugly.

There was a lot of information to take in that day and I went away with a big carrier bag of leaflets. Michele drove me back to Shoreham and we went for a pub lunch and did a bit of shopping. I started to feel strange, like I was losing touch with reality, going into a little bubble as the shock set in again. I had to carry on with the routine of picking the kids up and taking them to karate and dance, even though that was the last thing I wanted. I felt I couldn’t cope with it but I had no choice but to. Then after they'd gone to bed I totally lost the plot and sobbed and sobbed. JJ came to the rescue, staying with me until 1am when I fell asleep. I woke the next day feeling extremely low still. My mate Nathan came round and cooked us both some food and we chilled out all day. He said he wanted to be there for me. It restored my faith in men a bit. I said “But I will look awful”. He said it wasn’t my problem how other people dealt with it. It's up to them to get over it. It seems that most of the men I know have trouble dealing with this. All the women have been really strong and positive and full of support.

I posted it on facebook as it seemed an easier way of dealing with it. I wouldn’t have to go round telling everyone individually and people would know not to ask me once I started wearing a wig or scarf. I could deal with the interactions while I was still well and still all me. I feel no different. A bit of soreness in my breast and a bit tired sometimes. Some days it feels like a bad dream from which I could wake up and it would all be gone. Sometimes all that goes round in my head is “I've got cancer, I've got cancer...” over and over and over and over again.

I am 36 years old and today i was officially diagnosed with breast cancer (although I have known for 16 days now). I am still processing all the things I will have to go through over the next year. The consequences for me are immense. I dont want sympathy just understanding and support from the people who care. No comments or pm's pls. Women do 1 thing - go check your breasts! regularly. If I can help save 1 life by posting this then that is good. Breast cancer now affects 1 in 8 women. You are never too young.

Needless to say, the comments, private messages and texts flooded in. I’m still amazed at the offers of support from everyone, even old friends I haven’t seen for years! It makes me realise the kindness of human nature and I am quite flabbergasted that they think so much of me to help out when I will hardly be able to repay the favours.

Telling Maia was easier than I thought. Kids seem to know when something's up. She came into my room one night all upset wanting a hug. She asked what was wrong with me so I told her all about what was going to happen to me. We had a few tears, but then we had a laugh at silly things too like what sort of wig I could get. The boys are too young to understand properly but I will have to explain what the special medicine will do to me soon.

They phoned me at 8.30am on my daughter's birthday to come into hospital. I was there for three hours after meeting with the oncologist to discuss a change of treatment plan and another examination, height and weight taken, 152cm, 6st 9lbs. I seem to have lost a few pounds funnily enough! Then it was upstairs to have an ECG, then back downstairs to have blood tests, then back to the breast clinic to make five further appointments in the next ten days - a bone scan (where they will inject me with radioactivity!), a CT scan of my brain, a heart ultrasound, a GP appointment, and another meeting with the nurses to discuss chemotherapy.

It will be aggressive chemo with three drugs simultaneously for the first nine weeks and then just a single one for the next nine weeks, then six weeks of radiotherapy and then several operations and then five years minimum of hormone therapy where they make my body go into the menopause but I can't take HRT to relieve any symptoms. Sounds a bundle of laughs!

So I won't have my long blue hair for much longer, but I guess the sooner it starts, the sooner it ends, the sooner it starts to grow back. Bring it on - I'm ready! Well I will be once I sort out lifts and childcare! I feel so incredibly lucky to have so many amazing friends to look after and support me and my children. Thank you all so very much.

OK now scroll back up and donate to my friend Emily's amazing effort at not only supporting me so I don't feel so bad with no hair but to raise money for such an important charity.