Anyone who has ever emigrated understands that you live between cultures, British culture is sarcastic, blunt and we can be quite funny, not everyones gets it or sadly understands it, so if anything on here offends you sorry.....In times of stress, as much as I love living here and I really do, I default to my Britishness, I'll keep the bad language down and I already know my Brit friends will be "that sounds SO American" and my American friends might even think...what does that even mean. An example being when we first moved here, it took me months to adjust to saying to the kids in Billy's class "oh don't worry about the mistake, go grab the rubber", transferring from brilliant to awesome and Charlie and I still argue about the pronunciation of so many words but herbs, particularly Oregano remains an issue. Just so we're clear, I have an American computer with American spell check so don't bother correcting my lack of U's and use of Z's over s's...make sense? I'm also not promising this will be grammatically correct or even well written as if you only knew how much I don't want to be writing it.
Anyway, I'm VERY private and the thought of talking about ME isn't that comfortable, i'm not an "all about me person" but it's getting on my nerves all you lovely people caring so much and asking how I am but I keep forgetting who I told what and them I am forever saying "oh, I thought I told you".
These are the highlights so far...lots of cancer in the family, I have mammograms every year and the last two were "oh, theres something suspicious, let's do an ultrasound" which lead to "we're concerned lets do an MRI", last year they said we'll just do a Mammogram, ultrasound and MRI every year.....ok. Despite checking I missed it and there was Delilah, a stage two bugger on the right. I opted to all the medical staff's blatant relief for a double mastectomy. Didn't tell many people as it was supposed to be a swift, aggressive assault on Delilah and that was going to be that BUT she had other plans. A pesky lymph node meant CHEMO ugh...in fact AGGGHHHHHHHHH. It's lobular carcinoma, which is hard to detect on a mammogram, just in case you were wondering if the double mastectomy was my way of attention seeking....which means it could have come back somewhere else at anytime as is considered a silent cancer, been there and done that, so no thank you.
The surgery was yuk, followed by a complication which meant the expanders had to come out with a second surgery in two weeks, so I seized the opportunity and to the surgeons dismay, insisted they put the chemo port in and take out additional lymph nodes out (to hopefully stop any talk of radiation therapy) The doctor said "I'll never get anyone to operate tomorrow without meeting and consulting with you first', I replied "I'm British, we get what we're given over there and are grateful so if you trust them, I'll say hi before I go under" it worked as he got his mentor and a very nice surgeon (in the 5 minutes I spent with him) to take out more lymph nodes and put the port in...saved 2 additional surgeries thank you very much. Of course there was another positive lymph node - right!!
A few more complications (of course) but I am now drain free, stitch free, boob free, fed up and not looking forward to what's next.
Chemo every two weeks, I've heard from a friend who had exactly the same treatment last year, the first 3 months chemo is a bugger, hair gone, no energy and line up the netflix shows. that will be followed with 3 months of a different chemo, same friend said "walk in the park" not sure what that means, am guessing easier compared to the first three months as I can't imagine it being pleasant.
Yes I feel a little sorry for myself, yes, I worry about the kids who have ALL been AMAZING and the oncologist said "you've been waiting for this diagnosis haven't you", "yes I have but it's too soon".
That's where we are up until now folks, thank for for the gifts, messages, FLOWERS which I LOVE and we'll see where this goes.... xx
