Three years after diagnosis

Thursday 6th August 2015.

 

Three years ago today, I sat in the waiting room at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, watching the Olympics on the TV screen (which was broken, all the colours green and yellow) Beth Tweddle had just won Bronze in the uneven bars. It was 1520hrs. Moments later I was told I had Invasive Lobular Breast Cancer. My body and my life changed.

 

It’s over six months since I last wrote an update. That doesn’t mean that nothing has been happening, to the contrary! Life continues having resumed “normality” as much as it ever does after a cancer diagnosis. Life on The Estuary was a joyful and restful time, with stunning views and stacks of wildlife on the doorstep. A true pleasure and escape from the busy lives we had before. Our daughters continued to do well at university with our eldest having recently graduated. It was a wonderful family celebration for the graduation weekend, topped off with an amazing seaplane trip from Loch Lomond with spectacular views over the highlands and islands, big tick on my bucket list, thanks to our girls for the fabulous Christmas gift!

 “Team Stedman” also completed the Edinburgh Marathon Relay at the end of May and raised a whopping £1700+ for Sarcoma UK to support our dear friends James and Ros as they deal with an incurable sarcoma diagnosis. We had put in hours and miles of training through the winter and spring pounding the streets in rain, sleet, snow and ice! A tremendous sense of achievement.

We’ve been packing and unpacking crates and boxes having moved both girls in recent weeks and then ourselves! Hectic times! As such the Breathless Breastless Project (http://www.breathlessbreastlessproject.org/) has gone on hold for the time being. The loft now houses several pieces of the exhibition, with the rest having gone back to the artists for safe keeping until such time as we find ourselves with another venue or request to exhibit. Social media pages are still fairly active with new “likes” over recent weeks, possibly as a result of the great publicity in Breast Cancer Cares team B-Aware magazine which is being handed out at various venues throughout Scotland and is going on tour on Betty the Pink Bus!

As the months roll by, it is with sadness that I hear news of someone whose cancer has returned and also of a friend newly diagnosed. I never take the news well as it throws you in to that momentary panic of “what ifs”. I have learnt three years post diagnosis that these fears only last a couple of days and then I shift back into the here and now, the present, and put the lid on the box. I continue to be inspired by the people I know who are living with cancer which fuels me to try to make the most of the friends and opportunities that I have and that I am able to create, filling more and more of life with quality time and activities of pleasure. Enjoying spending time “being” and “doing” instead of the stresses that life seemed to frequently throw at me from time to time in the past.

So here I am embarking on a new life in a new place closer to family and long standing friends and of course much warmer weather! For the first time in years the calendar exhibits a host of different events and invitations for the coming months. It is fair to say that I had never experienced loneliness until I moved to Aberdeen. Yes, we had beautiful homes and stunning views but there is only so much pleasure to be gained walking the dunes and absorbing the views (in the cold wind!) and that never quite filled the gap of regular company and sharing. There were of course good times and good people during my nine years in Aberdeen, but never any real sense of community or belonging.

 Health wise, I have for some months suffered at times, quite severe arm and neck pain. After six months and it gradually worsening I did pick up the courage to visit the doctor, not for that reason, but because I developed a nasty abscess on my bum which required two lots of antibiotics before it cleared up. Not ideal as this coincided with a holiday to Corfu, was touch and go whether I was sent to hospital to have it drained before I flew, but fortunately the first lot of antibiotics had made enough difference for that not to happen. Second lot of antibiotics (which are given to alcoholics to stop them drinking!), meant I could not touch a drop of alcohol while I was away, the drugs themselves left me feeling very nauseous several times. Bloods came back with an abnormal liver function but once the drugs had finished and the abscess cleared up this had reverted to normal. I took the opportunity to mention the arm and neck pain to the Doctor, who took it seriously and I was referred quite swiftly for x ray of the cervical spine which came back just a few weeks ago showing degeneration and arthritis of the 5/6 vertebrae. This had become especially troublesome at night times so I was prescribed Gapapentin which left me feeling drugged up and drowsy in the mornings. I stopped this after two days and reverted to paracetamol and Ibuprofen in order to function without the fuzziness, there is enough of that on the Tamoxifen!

Changing to a new medical practice and hospital in England filled me with hope that the system and care might be better than some of that which I experienced in Scotland. However, thus far, that does not seem to be the case!

Having been told at reception that I needed to see the GP in order to get Tamoxifen on repeat prescription he had no idea why I was sat in front of him or indeed that I was a new patient. He was unable to tell me if I qualified for free prescriptions (in Scotland no one pays) or if I did how to go about it. He referred me to the dispensary in the next village who referred me to NHS online who referred me back to my GP! It was a stressful afternoon! The end result was to go back to the GP practice to see the nurse who filled out the correct form which the Doctor had to sign! He was not at all interested in listening to my issues with the neck and arm pain and said I needed a separate appointed to discuss any “issues”. The new patient health check with the nurse proved to be a better, friendlier experience. Blood pressure normal, BMI normal, urine normal, cholesterol possibly an issue. She’s booked me in for more bloods and said I should see the doctor about the arm / neck pain. I am hopefully also now in the system to get my annual mammogram and check up in the coming weeks.

Meantime, I am celebrating being three years post diagnosis and escaping the unpacking of boxes by flying off to Skiathos with one of my beautiful daughters, her friend and one of my long standing friends. Mamma Mia!