Mood swings, hot flushes and being mumma…

Accepting that you will have days when you do not feel positive is part of coping with cancer.

After missing round 7 and having a weeks break I felt a bit more like ‘normal me’ doing the school run, running errands, precious time with Jaycie even with the slight prickly neuropathy pains in my hands and feet. Being mumma is what I’m best at and the fact this awful disease is taking so much time away from that is one of the hardest side effects.

Talking about side effect wow my mood swings have been going crazy the past couple of weeks I can just be standing in the kitchen doing something and I start crying or Jamie just comes in and says something and I snap for no reason. The kids fighting gets me everytime or if I ask kyrie to do something and it takes me 3 times for her to listen I loose the plot I feel so bad and apologise after but my poor family this isn’t easy on them either. Communicating has been the sticking glue for us at the minute and I’m so lucky that Jamie understands and has the mentality to either just ignore me or tell me straight to take five minutes and sort myself out lol.

Friday soon came around and what I thought was round 8. My consultant started my cycle again meaning I have only missed one dose of chemo but meaning it was 2 bags carboplatin and paclitaxil mixed emotions as I wasn’t expecting both bags it was good because I didn’t have time to get my self worked up about feeling totally shit all week but bad because I knew I would feel worse this week. My picc line is also starting to struggle the flushing and taking blood is getting more difficult (my veins are starting to deteriorate) but I have no pain or swelling so persevering I’ve also needed a sensitive dressing as my skin around the picc line is blistering and ripping off with the dressing each week.

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However even with all this going on any good news really helps your mental health. My oncology nurse informed me during my chemo that the genetics testing I had at the start of my journey had come back NEGATIVE ♥️♥️ I was so happy I cried on the spot, in the unit on the phone to my family. so a little bit of medical jargon for you guys because I had no idea until all this started.

So cancer is not usually inherited but some types mainly breast can be strongly influenced by genes and can run in families. Inheriting faulty versions or “variants” of these genes significantly raises your risk of developing cancer, because the altered genes cannot repair the damaged cells, which can build up and form a tumour. Also if you do have a high risk cancer gene it can be passed on to any children you have. So my results being negative means I am not high risk of getting cancer again, I do not need preventative surgery and my beautiful baby girls do not have a higher risk from me.

I think I literally floated out of the unit that day. That weekend was pretty rough with the usual side effects tiredness, sickness, horrible taste in my mouth. But a special lady gave us a rainbow and Kyrie enjoyed a teepee sleepover which was so exciting for her she never left the tent all day lol.

Brought back to earth quite literally with another stay in hospital inflammatory markers high and bleeding so 24 hour monitoring, iv antibiotics and Iv fluids. Being discharged today ready for chemo number 8 tomorrow. Its hard to imagine what the future brings at the minute I feel very alone even though I’m not my family and friends have been like my shadow the past 3 months I can’t tell you how lucky I am but how I’m actually feeling how these side effects keep getting worse and last for longer due to my body now being immuno suppressed it’s so hard to explain. I should be enjoying days out now lock down is easing, planning trips, meeting all my friends, having a cider in the sunshine (when it arrives) everything is on hold and I know I should be being positive and focusing on getting through all this so I can kick it’s arse and say good bloody riddence but sometimes it’s hard to see that light.

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