It's been another sunny autumn day in Launceston. I had to see the GP this morning for a checkup, and I thanked her for requesting breast biopsies two times in 2012 when I first found suspicious changes in my left breast. She said she based those referrals on clinical symptoms and my presentation, but they weren't done because the ultrasound and mammogram were normal at the time. It was only in January 2013 that the mammogram found a lump (after a year of my breast looking increasingly different because there was a 7cm tumour growing in it). I had a mastectomy on 31/1/13, followed by chemotherapy (CT) and radiotherapy (RT), marked by 5 episodes of febrile neutropenia with hospitalisations so I could have IV antibiotics. One of those admissions was the last time I had a sinus headache, like the one that's been bothering me the last few days. They turned down my request for sudafed and antibiotics to treat the sinus headache, which was the first I'd had in a couple of years., but they sent me for a CT scan of my sinuses, which was reported as normal. At the time, I remembered a patient of mine who had been diagnosed with a right frontal brain tumour after years of right-sided headaches, only to have them treated by a chiropractor, to no avail. His tumour was only detected when the chiropractor did a skull x-ray which showed the brain was looking abnormal, and he was sent to the hospital where the tumour was removed. I wondered when they scanned my sinuses if they should also scan my brain, but I didn't want to look neurotic, so I didn't ask. The first two tumours were found a few months later, just after the RT for my breast CA was completed, so I wonder if anything would have been visible if the brain had been scanned as well as the sinuses?
Such wondering is purely academic, and rather futile, of course. She asked if I'd had any other scans of my remaining breast, and I told her about the 2 MRIs last year that were normal. I said I didn't want another mammogram, because they hurt and they didn't pick up anything the first time around, and that I want a prophylactic mastectomy as soon as I can. I'd wondered if I could have it at the same time as the brain surgery in January, though not seriously, and her grimace suggested she agreed it wasn't a good idea.
I had my second Avastin infusion last Monday, it was done over 2 hours, so I was able to dose off in the recliner chair in the chemo suite. I was feeling very tired after a bad night's sleep the night before. I woke to the lovely revelation that dwelling on regrets, hurts, or annoyances from the past is not helpful, because the past cannot be changed. However, examining the past can help us learn from our mistakes so that we can hope not to make the same mistakes again.
My life has been flashing slowly before my eyes these last few months, accompanied by a sense of foreboding ill in December (which proved to be correct after the new hippocampal/amygdaloid tumour was found in January) and there have been many soothing blog posts composed in my sleepy mind that I haven't yet written because I've needed to rest. I'm going to start writing some of them soon, but my task for tonight is to copy and paste from my increasingly detailed Facebook status updates that have been serving as mini blogs for me and my friends and family on facebook. However, a few of you have emailed me expressing concern at my recent silence, so here's my update for today and some of the days before, to reassure you that all is well.
Facebook 23/4/15, (around 8pm) I've just spent a wonderful few hours with my cousin Fran, chatting about old times, finding out things about the family that I hadn't heard in ages. It felt like the old days when Mum and Dad used to take us to see the many uncles, aunts, and my 31 first cousins (not all at once, of course!). I felt like a true Bardenhagen again, if that makes sense. She also explained that "porking" is an old-fashioned (1960s) term for kissing, thus dissolving the image and concern the term caused for me when her sister Christine told me they caught my father "porking" my mother in someone's pantry shortly after they'd met. ROFL! What a relief!
PS I've found that talking to people is a fantastic and free way to feel happy and energised again- after being stuck in the house for over 2 years, it's been wonderful to get out and see people again this week. On Monday, I saw a few old workmates when I went to the hospital for my Avastin treatment, on Tuesday I spent 2 or 3 hours having lunch with a friend, and talked until my jaw was literally aching. I came home singing happy songs, and Ben was wondering what had come over me. I'll have to call my oncologist in Melbourne who zapped my remaining tumour last week, and tell him I'm feeling like my old self again. Fran commented that if I was taking anything to make me feel so good, she wanted some of it. Love to all of you
Fiona
Fiona
Facebook 21/4/15 (with tonight's additions in italics)
That's funny. A quiz said that the song "Happy" by Farrell Williams sums up my life and personality. It said I'm a very optimistic person.
(I prefer "don't worry, be happy" a song that came out of no-where when Linus and I returned to civilisation in Bali (and discovered the Berlin Wall had just come down) after our intense romance when we met in Melbourne 3 weeks before we left for Indonesia for a 3-week holiday. He had a bohemian nature and insisted to people we met that we weren't boyfriend and girlfriend, but that we were lovers.)
I've been feeling happier today than i have in 2 decades, thanks in part to a great sleep last night, to catching up with several old friends recently, and to realising that this new radiation treatment might mean that i dont have to have surgery again if the little buggers come back. :)) we can just blast them with gamma radiation, i hope. Thanks everyone, youre fantastic!
(I caught a glimpse of photo of myself with one of my neuropsychology students at her wedding a few years ago, and I remembered that the exuberance I'v been feeling lately has come from seeing old friends. It's not like I haven't been happy in the last 20 years, there were lots of happy times when I was working at St Vincent's and Victoria Univerity, but family commitments had affected our level of happiness: Dad's slow decline from NPH over at least 8 years) and watching Ben's father deteriorate after two strokes and some heart attacks, which saw him in high-level care in a nursing home, plus looking after Ben's mother for 8 years. Seeing my cousin Marita slowly decline from metastatic cervical cancer was a tragedy as well. So it feels fantastic to be feeling energised and back to myself again, and to realise that I only need to ensure regular social contact with people to reap the mood-enhancing benefits of socialisation.
Facebook status update, 19/4/15
Had a great day yesterday- 4 friends came for coffee at Doncaster, including one from the MSO chorus. They're doing Beethoven's 9th symphony this week, I'm so jealous! I'll aim to rejoin the chiorus if we ever move back to Melbourne. Then we had a scintillating dinner with my old housemate Debbie, and my old school friend, Farah. Deb and Farah hadn't seen each other since our regular evening meals leading into late night mah jong sessions in 1990-91, and they talked almost nonstop, almost like old times, only this time there was the shared experience of motherhood to discuss. Deb's partner, Matt, listened on in amazement. I thought Deb and I talked a lot when we all went on holiday together after xmas, but Farah and Deb had 25 years to catch up on! A very happy night, which started with Farah and I getting lost in the dark on an unknown route, and laughing our heads off. Time with old friends is fuel and joy for the soul. Hoping I get to spend some time like that with many of you soon. Need to sleep now, early start in the morning, jetstar flight home at 1030. Strangers keep telling me lately that I think too much, but they don't know me, I've hardly said anything to them, and they don't know of my daily efforts to still my mind and bask in the tranquility of inner peace through various practices. A woman at a mind, body & spirit festival recently told me i needed to go back to being myself. Well, here I am! The girl who often talked until late in the night. I'll stop now, before I start to babble...but in my defense, I do have a lot to think about, especially lately, and I'm glad I'm still here to do it. i might just call it "the joy of thought"
In response to this status update, Sarah, my boarding house roommate, responded: "Now I know you're 'back' - if you ever stopped talking about everything all at once, then I'd know we were in trouble!
I remember a typical night in Grade 9 and you were excited about boys and wouldn't shush up so I got you to count the stars - the first one to count 1 million won! We both won, you counted the most stars and I got some sleep! Haha! Happy memories xx"
I'd forgotten that incident, but it seemed familiar, and I remembered that it must have happened after a line dancing or square dancing session with the co-ed school with which we were to amalgamate the following year. Lots and lots of boys for girls who had been sequestered into a single-sex school, and lots of fun from the dancing, even though my outfit cause some ridicule with my home-made red and white gingham blouse and white circular skirt over navy blue stockings and white shoes. Dolly magazine said gingham was in fashion that year, not that the clothes were sold anywhere in Launceston, and I couldn't afford them anyway. Mum and Dad had 3 girls to raise, and we were given an allowance of 15 to 20 dollars for clothes each term. So we learnt to make our own clothes, just like mum and Aunty Betty did in the depression.
Update 17/4/15, 4pm:
Treatment done, feeling good, waiting for sashimi bento box for lunch, then relaxing trip back to montmorency by train. They said i'll probably be tired tonight. I had trouble sleeping last night, so I'm ready to have a nap now. Love and light to all.
16/4/15
(on the way to the NGV) Thankful that my family found things to enjoy at the gallery. Feeling overwhelmed by the beauty of paintings and etchings and aretfacts made by people hundreds of years ago. They would never have guessed that their work would have been on display in a gallery in an unknown continent centuries into the future. I feel like iI'd passed through a wonderous time machine that gives glimpses into the past. We are so blessed to be alive, and to live in this era
Thankful that my family found things to enjoy at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV). Feeling overwhelmed by the beauty of paintings and etchings and aretfacts made by people hundreds of years ago. They would never have guessed that their work would have been on display in a gallery in an unknown continent centuries into the future. I feel like iI'd passed through a wonderous time machine that gives glimpses into the past. We are so blessed to be alive, and to live in this era.
The beauty of the works and the sense of being connected to people and events from the time made me feel overwhelmed and I started crying. People had been giving me funny looks all day because I had a black eye after fainting and landing on my face in the bathroom after a lovely hot bath. I hadn't thought to wear sunglasses, but you can imagine the looks that we got when I was crying at a table, the boys were comforting me, and Ben was standing there with his hands on his hips, not understanding that my tears were related to the art, and that all he had to do was sit beside me and comfort me himself. It was a stressful time for him. I know he loves me and cares about me, but the neurosurgeon's comment that the surgeon in January had only taken a biopsy had made him quite perturbed. I've realised that the surgeon must have taken more tissue than just a biopsy, because there wasn't any oedema after the first surgery , the scan was reported as showing no significant residual tumour, and I wasn't told to take dexamethasone to reduce the oedema, as happened after the right ATL on March 1st.
16/4/15 We dined on the best Thai food I've had out of Thailand at a humble place called Lime' n'Chilli in Watsonia.Farah drove me there, and we got lost several times, resulting in much laughter, which probably wouldn't have happened if we'd been with either of our husbands. I miss the old days of finding one's way around with a map. The iPad maps app is annoying and hard to read with my poor eyesight, though I found my reading glasses today (23/4) The food at Lime'n' Chilli had Mindblowing flavours and textures, and the boys loved their first ever coconut juice so much, they both had seconds.Far healthier for them than soft drinks. We just watched a profoundly sad indian movie called The Lunchbox. It was set in Bombay. Ben, Fowzia, and David said you had to have lived there to "get" the movie. I don't lnow how that would help understand anything anout a movie about profoundly lonely and unhappy people who don't seem to have close relationships with others, even though they'd presumably like to. I could see that nostalgia for Bombay made it special for them, but it was still very sad.
Thanks to all of you, my facebook friends and family, even the ones I've never met, for giving me a sense that I'm never truly alone, and that i am loved and cared for by others. I hope you understand how much l
