My Bad Boob

It's time to fire this baby up again. I quit writing during my first diagnosis because I grew weary of getting bad news, of sharing bad news, weary of fighting, weary of feeling frightened and sad, weary of being Carrie-the-brave-cancer-warrior. Two years of constant assault on my body and spirit got the better of me, I guess, and I lost the will to write about it. And life sort of went on, too. Lots of other stuff happened. Non-cancer stuff. Which was nice, even when it wasn't nice. But I want to write again, and though I'm doing other writing elsewhere, it felt like a good time to revisit this little corner of myself. If you've stopped in to join me...well, hello there. Welcome. And thanks for coming.  Eight years ago today I went to sleep to a fentanyl lullaby and woke up a breast amputee. After looping the loop on the cancer coaster a few times in our quest to eradicate disease, I finally submitted to a completion mastectomy with immediate DIEP flap reconstruction (...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVkUvmDQ3HY

A couple of weeks ago, I watched the film ‘Dallas Buyers Club’. I went expecting to see a gritty portrayal of a rodeo star’s experience with HIV. I wasn’t expecting to spend most of the film scrunched down in my seat, crying fat, silent tears into my scarf. I cried when the doctor surprised the main character with the news he was a dead man walking, because I remember clearly the shock and denial I felt the moment my doctor issued my death sentence. I cried because I remember thinking - in the midst of the most horrific conversation of my life - “This is why they tell people to sit down for bad news.” If I hadn’t been sitting when he told me, I’d have surely found myself on the floor in a broken heap.  But the scene that hit me like a sucker-punch to the back of the head was when the protagonist’s young friend, a transvestite, told his father he was HIV positive. When the young man broke the news to his father, he apologised.  I cried, because when I told my parents...

broken-hearted broken-winged flightless and breathless dizzied and panicked the heart beats faster in the bloodless chest the future waits waits in a cell sacrificed on a hard table to a blind blade to shapeless cottons to bacterial junctions to a vase of roses and carnations wilting in the summer heat teeth shudder in the worried mouth where words betray their silenced tongue resurrected follicles punctuate scarred arms conversely perversely the skin round the eyes grows smoother each day paper thin skin twitches in remembrance granite feet support leaden legs lactic acid lingers each muscular stretch a delicious pain a reminder of the one-toothed bite the nails in this walking coffin yellowed striated well-hammered like the man on the cross who died for my sins

When I first met with the oncologist, he said I was a good candidate for neo-adjuvant chemo. I asked why, thinking it was something to do with my age or fitness or tumour-type. "Because you haven't once said you want the tumour out right now." He was right. It hadn't even really occured to me that it would need to come out. I didn't see it as an invasion or as the enemy. It was just part of me. My cells. But the day had come to evict the small bundle of cells which threatened to overrun my body, multiplying exponentially until they had colonised my liver, my lungs, my brain and my bones. I was nervous - frightened, even - of surgery. Of the physical act of being induced into unconsciousness and sliced open. But by the time I had had my last dose of chemotherapy, I was more frightened of not being sliced open. I am sure I felt my tumour recede each cycle around days 7-15. Sometimes I could feel a reduction in its size overnight! But equally, towards the end...

Just over a month ago I had my third and final dose of the taxing Tax. Docetaxel was pretty hardcore stuff; the first dose landed me in hospital with uncontrollable pain. Doses two and three were reduced to 80%. I was again unhappy with the dose reductions, in case they reduced the drug's efficacy, but kind of relieved in a way, as hopefully my risk for further complications brought on by this intense poison will also be reduced. Even with the dose reductions, I suffered some unpleasant side effects - feet that felt burnt, then peeled in sheets for weeks; twitching eyelids; yellowed and blackened fingernails; hypersensitivity to noise and light; impaired cognitive function and short-term memory problems and muscles that still ache as though I've done a heavy workout in the gym. But overall, four weeks on, I'm surprised and amazed by how good I feel. The human body's capacity for healing itself is absolutely incredible. Yesterday, I was admitted to hospital for my surg...