A Breast Cancer Update From Me

I’d like to share a little update on my breast cancer with you today.

As I’ve said before, I don’t want it to take over things here, but it’s been a couple of months since I last shared and I’ve had lots of you checking in so it feels like the right time to update you on where things are now.

Last I wrote I’d just had the results from my surgery and I was waiting on an appointment with my oncologist to agree the next stages of my treatment.

I was fortunate because that appointment took place right at the end of July so we had time to squeeze in a few nights break after the kids finished school and before I needed to be at the hospital.

We had a lovely time in Suffolk and then on returning home the next day saw me at the hospital.

I liked my oncologist, which is good as I’m expecting to see a lot of him over the coming years. We agreed I’d have a course of radiotherapy and that I could start my hormone therapy after that, so that I needn’t have to deal with the effects of both of them at the same time. 

I opted to have the FAST forward radiotherapy treatment that gives the traditional 15 sessions of doses across 5 sessions, meaning much less time spent travelling to the hospital daily. I then needed to have an additional 5 days boost to the tumour bed.  

I went along for my CT scan and planning session a week later and I was then all set for treatment, set to start towards the end of the month.

This was actually a week or so later than I’d been led to believe that it would take place, so we managed to book a week’s holiday to Scarborough before my sessions began. 

I completed my radiotherapy last week, and it’s good to have it over with. It was 10 consecutive days, apart from weekends, and as I was getting the train over there each day it was a 3 hour round trip. Nice to have that behind me and I was glad I opted for the intense course and didn’t have to do the 20 sessions. 

I’m now dealing with the short term after effects of my radiotherapy, and of course time will tell what will happen long term. I’m managing, it does get a bit worse with each passing day but I’m hoping it’ll reach the peak this week and then start to improve. 

As soon as I feel able, I will start taking my hormone therapy medication. This is daily medication for at least the next five years. 

I’m getting there now. 

At the beginning of all of this I had several stages ahead of me. The initial breast clinic referral and tests and biopsies, then results and diagnosis, then surgery, then results from that, then radiotherapy, and finally hormone therapy. I’m a long way down that road now, and I am okay.

Of course I have plenty of oncology appointments, scans, tests and annual mammograms ahead of me, the road is a long one, but it does feel good to be getting through each step.

The hormone therapy is actually the step that I have been least looking forward to throughout all of this, but I guess I just need to go for it and see how it goes. 

As I’ve said before, I am lucky to have some truly fabulous friends and family supporting me. My kids are coping with it all well, they’re wonderful little people. 

And thanks for the support from you, I’ve had some lovely messages, replies, comments and mail, here, on social media and in my mailbox. 

It changes you, breast cancer. 

There are all of the physical challenges to overcome, and for me this is about taking them one hurdle at a time, dealing with them when I have to and setting them aside when I don’t have to. 

And then it’s the mental and emotional challenges. These changes are far more than skin deep and harder than the physical aspects of the disease. 

I don’t take things for granted, I don’t take time and life for granted, I don’t sweat the small stuff, not that I ever did that much. 

Perspectives shift. Priorities move. Attitude to my body alters. 

I am the same person I have always been, but I do see life as BC and AC now, before and after cancer. 

The things that remain the same are my family, my husband and kids. The husband remains my foundation, holding me steady as everything else shifts. The kids remain my reason for keeping everything going, everything together, showing them how to handle the curveballs that life throws at you at times. And my reason to smile, every single day. 

Breast cancer wasn’t in my plans for 2023, but I know it’s in my life forever now, always in my head. I’m just happy that my 2023 has been about more than this, that we’ve had so much fun too this year and with months to come with more fun planned. 

 

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