One year since surgery

Wednesday, 19 July 2023

Unless you’ve been living under a rock – or you don’t know me – it is highly likely you heard about my breast cancer diagnosis last year. Yeah, that was shit. Many folks are asking, are you in remission?

Today is one year since surgery. On Monday I underwent scans – a mammogram and an ultrasound. I meet with the surgeon next Tuesday for the low-down.

Before I bring you up to date, here’s a wrap from last year:

2022 started excellently. I brought in the new year with my besties in Melbourne. On 2 January Simon and I flew to the UK. More amazingness. Body in good form, strong, could perhaps lose a few kilos. Being 50, there are the usual bumps, wrinkles, flappy bits – oh, and a painless lump under my boob. A few months into the year, I get scans, diagnosis. World comes crashing down. Somehow I get through surgery, chemo, radiation. I lose my hair. My body is wrecked. Radiation treatment takes me right up to Christmas, I am unable to travel o/s with Simon as planned. Simon leaves me behind – oh, and leaves me for another woman – who is ten years younger and doesn’t have cancer. Giles is no longer willing to look after Lucy, the old family dog, because “she barks too much and does not consider Kellie part of the pack”. I need to find a new place to live – somewhere I can have a dog (a 2nd floor apartment is not ideal digs for a Kelpie – even if she is now a couch-kelpie). So I need to find a place, pack, move – while undergoing chemo, radiation – my body weak, crippled and so so tired. Could the universe please give me a break? A friend said recently: sometimes you’re the pigeon, sometimes you’re the statue. Well, I’m sick of being the statue.

I exist in a fog. I’ve accepted that good things don’t happen to me. Or, if and when they do, they’re short-lived and something will quickly swoop in and crap on them. Ha! Do I feel ripped off? Bloody oath. Why me? Why wasn’t it the person to my left – or my right? Why wasn’t it some arsehole that doesn’t give a shit about people? Why couldn’t it be the woman who drives a black jeep cherokee and tailgates while doing 80km/hr on Canberra Ave? Why couldn’t it have been the skanky moll who talked her way into my grandparents’ house to ‘use the phone’ then stole my grandmother’s wedding rings? Why couldn’t it be that middle-aged white woman, who used to be a man, who is rude to service staff at the café in Braddon? Darling: becoming a woman didn’t improve your manners. You may have lost the cock but you haven’t lost the ‘tude. Oh, on second thoughts, it is unlikely ‘she’ will get breast cancer as she used to be a he and while men do get breast cancer, it is rare. Cue the woke brigade. I’m not fussed, just making a statistical observation. Yes, I feel ripped off.

Tuesday, 25 July 2023

Calvary Hospital is no longer Calvary Hospital, the crucifix and the name have gone along with the rusty lawnmower art in the garden. The front door is no longer guarded by COVID police, masks are offered, encouraged but not mandatory. Dear Sunday is still working the front desk at the Specialist Outpatient Clinic. I am already crying when I arrive at 9:30am. Hate being back in this place.

The surgeon inspects his handiwork. He seems pleased – or disappointed – it’s hard to tell. He tells me the breast will remain hardened and warm for some time, a result of the surgery and radiation.

The surgeon is no-nonsense, straight up: I am officially NED (“no evidence of disease”) ie. no visible cancer to detect. Yes, I can use the word remission. The prognosis is “very good”. Based on the type, stage, margins, age, lymph nodes, treatment, including radio therapy, I have a “well over 80% of being alive, well and cancer-free 15 years from now”. Awesome. See you in July 2024.

How do I feel? Exhausted. Relived. It’s hard to be happy. 2022 was awful, just awful. It was raw, painful, terrifying. I feel shell-shocked, spent.

BAU

There will be ongoing 3-month check-ins with the oncology and radiotherapy teams for the remainder of this year, then yearly thereafter. I am 6-months into taking Tamoxifen, a hormone blocker. I will be on medication for at least 5 years. I have essentially been chemically-plunged into menopause so I experience hot flushes, sleeplessness, occasional pelvic pain though I’m not missing the (painful) periods. I struggle with my appearance daily. My hair is yet to grow to a manageable length – it looks like Beaker from the Muppets in the AM, Crazy Cat Lady in the PM. I absolutely detest it. I feel ugly, unloved, ripped off and left behind.

I will continue to wake up each day, put one foot in front of the other, try and get to the end of 2023. I think that will do for now.

Love yous all.

The FBR