Today was a great day. I slept deeply last night, and woke feeling refreshed, first time in ages!
One unexpected benefit of having to sleep on my back is that I no longer wake in the middle of the night because my arm has gone painfully to sleep. I feel so cosy lying between my two side pillows, it's a little like being in a hammock, but without the wonderful rocking feeling.
It was another perfect day in Launceston. Cool to start with, then warming up to a pleasant day in the mid-twenties with a gentle breeze to make things more interesting.
The boys got to school on time and happy, and I bumped into a friend who was able to join me for a coffee, such a wonderful way to start the day! I then collected an insurance form from my GP, which included the mammogram and ultrasound report from 12 months ago. There wasn't any abnormality or hint of abnormality in those scans, just dense, fibrous tissue and a number of cysts. So it's good that I kept asking questions and had the repeat mammogram and ultrasound this year. And I feel so blessed that my tumour hasn't spread to the lymph nodes or elsewhere.
After a lovely deep nap at home with Po-Po, another lovely friend came and took me for a drive before taking me out to lunch. More good food and company, She also brought a lovely natural hair wig on loan from a friend in Melbourne, who is generously sharing her wisdom and support after having gone through breast cancer last year. I am so blessed to have such wonderful, sensible, supportive, good-humored friends!
My GP gave me scripts for more endone and some tramadol, as there has been an increase in pain recently, either because of the seroma (which needs draining again tomorrow), or because of healing in the nerves that were damaged during the surgery. It's very strange to rock up to a chemist with scripts for opiate-based pain relief and to be fussed over! I wasn't expecting to be treated with suspicion, but I'm not used to having strangers fuss over me. It feels good.
So I'm feeling comfortable tonight after taking 2 endone at 5, and a tramadol at 830. I hope it sees me through the night. I'm looking forward to sleep on this cool and peaceful evening, and I will summon memories of my wonderful father to mark the anniversary of his final hours in this life.
A blog started in 2013 to inform family and friends about my treatment and progress for early breast cancer. Then I went and got two brain tumours,,both GBMs, completely unrelated to the breast cancer, so the blog continues.
Background and overview
I learnt more about the health system from being an inpatient than I had in 20 years of working as a neuropsychologist. I was unexpectedly diagnosed with two brain tumours on 4/9/13. They turned out to be grade IV Gliomas (glioblastoma multiforme (GBM)). After removal of the right parietal and left occipital tumours, I received the standard treatment under the Stupp protocol (combined Temozolamide (TMZ) and conformal radiotherapy 5 days/week for 6 weeks), but the TMZ had to be ceased after 5 weeks because I had started to develop pancytopenia, where more than one of my blood counts had begun to drop. By Christmas 2013, I had become anaemic and needed a couple of blood transfusions. I ended up in hospital for 3 weeks of the 2014 new year after experiencing my first seizure (suggestive of a right temporal lobe focus) on 31/12/13). They were so worried about my bone marrow, they did a biopsy. Luckily, it was all clear of any nasty disorders. It had just been suppressed by the TMZ My blood counts slowly returned to normal with daily injections of GCSF, which stimulate bone marrow function, for several months. For 17 months I was doing better each day, without any physical impairments or major cognitive problems A third brain tumour was found in the right temporal lobe on 2/1/15, and removed 6/1/15, only to reappear on 17/2/15 after I started to feel vague symptoms at the end of 2014. I had my 4th round of brain surgery on 1/3/15, followed by stereotaxic radio surgery of a residual, inoperable, tumour, on 17/4/15. I've been feeling like my old self again since that highly precise form of radiotherapy, and it feels fabulous.
My way of coping.
I choose to live in hope that everything will work out for the best. I've learnt that even though things are sometimes unpleasant, life and love go on forever. I put my faith in the life force that created and unites us all in love, across all time, space, and dimensions. I refuse to succumb to fear, which is an invention of our imaginations. There are an infinite number of things to fear, both in this world an in our imaginations, and most of them never eventuate. I choose not to dwell on them, and to focus instead on counting my many blessings, current and past, and to have faith and hope that if I look after the present moment, the future will look after itself.
If you're reading, and haven't been in touch, please don't be shy, send me a brief private message using the contact form on the right. It's nice to know who's out there. Blogging can leave me feeling a little isolated at times (I used to have recurrent dreams of being out on a limb over a canyon, or of starting to strip off in a crowded waiting room). Your emails are appreciated, although I can't necessarily answer all of them.
