1st timer….

Wow… My first blog where do I begin. So let me take you back to the 30th January a normal Saturday morning chilling and playing with the 2 rascals.

A head butt to the boob stopped play as a rubbed it the lump was revealed. Triple checking with hubby and my mum they suggested getting checked out but was adament it was nothing. Longest weekend in history 9am Monday morning came and a que to speak to the doctors I was amazed I could be seen 2 hours from then. The nurse practitioner I saw referred me straight to the breast clinic ‘to be sure’.

A week later the appt came in the post for 2 days time. Releaved and bricking it!! My appt came I was seen by the breast specialist who wanted biopsies ‘just to be sure’ so a morning in the hospital I arrived home to my babies sore and a little closer to getting back to normal. Both the specialist and the radiographer insisted it was a fibro adenoma (nothing to worry about). A telephone consultation had been made for 2 weeks time to clarify that.

Fast forward two weeks and the day before my appt I got a call from the hospital requesting I came into the hospital instead. My heart sank and I cried. Thoughts running through my mind ‘they only change appt methods if it’s bad news’ or maybe they were right and my results hadn’t come back yet!???

2nd March 2021 (my dad’s birthday) I will never forget the words ‘you have breast cancer’. Me and Jamie were taken into another room where the nurse went through everything with us gave us a tree of information and told us what to expect next. Disbelief, shock I didn’t know what to do. I knew it was bad news but someone to actually tell me now it was real and something I had to fight.

So the medical jargon I have grade 3 triple negative breast cancer not hormonal and treatment would consist of 4 months of chemotherapy, surgery and radiotherapy. The breast consultant insisted it was fully treatable and I had youth on my side.

Chemotherapy was booked to start on the 25th March but before this could happen I needed a full screening. In the weeks leading up to my start date I had a full Mri to check the staging, CT scan, 2 mammograms, lymph node biopsies, a small metal pin attached to my lump because chemo was going to shrink it and they needed a footprint for surgery after. Lots of bloods tests and 2 consultations with my chemo doctor. Then just before starting chemo they decided my veins were rubbish and I needed a picc line for blood tests and for treatment.

25th March… My first chemo… I arrived on the unit a nervous wreck. This was actually happening no going back positive thoughts. This could make me really poorly?? Well it was a very traumatic first chemo I ended up having an anaphylatic reaction to the first bag of chemo 4 minutes in coughing, feeling sick, my airway closing about 3 minutes I woke up surrounded by the entire medical team on the unit….. So now they had to decide what to do?? We discussed and tried the bag again but a longer duration and it seemed to do the trick round 1 completed.

So after all that drama surely I would walk the rest… How wrong was I!!?? 5 days later I was admitted into hospital with high temp, low blood pressure and high pulse. Sepsis bundle started… Blood culture’s, iv fluids and iv antibiotics for 48 hours. They never did find out the source of infection and since then I’ve spoken to my chemo doctor who said it was a prolonged reaction to the chemo! GREAT! Because I was on antibiotics I couldn’t have round 2 of chemo so had to skip a round.

Round 3… Chemo was a breeze no problems and then I started taking my injections 2 days after chemo and had a rough 3 days of headaches and body ache feeling sick and stupidly tired. So we are up to date I am due round 4 of chemo tomorrow 2 bags the same as round one praying I don’t have a reaction and don’t end up back in hospital.