latest results

Hey everyone.....

OMG its nearly Christmas!!!!!!!!

I am ever so slightly excited, I love this time of year its full of fun, laughter, special family moments and PRESENTS!!!!! oh and lots of food and alcohol.

As you all know I have been waiting for my latest scan results which is one of the most awful things in the world...waiting and waiting for someone to tell you whether or not your cancer is still there, has come back full throttle or is laying dormant or even better dead as a dodo! The emotional roller coaster you go through waiting for that news is horrendous. One minute you are so engrossed in life that for a couple of minutes you put cancer to the back of your mind and then bam! like a bolt of lightening, that appointment comes through the door and you crash back down to earth with such a force and you can't think of anything else but cancer.

I have had several panic attacks these last couple of weeks, my anxiety levels have been through the roof, decent sleep is a distant memory and I am constantly self-scanning my body just in case something may have slightly changed which will indicate if my results are going to be good or not. (Dr Google has been on call several times also, thank fuck we have unlimited internet!)

I have officially started back at work, after several long arguments, a threat of tribunal and a word from someone in very high places I have been allowed to work from home starting on a couple of hours a week and gradually increasing my hours. Why it needed to be such a hassle is beyond me in all honesty I probably should not even be back at work yet but I just want to get my life back even if I can only do a little bit its certainly better than nothing. I certainly am feeling it though, after only doing a few hours 3 days a week I am exhausted, getting migraines from staring at a screen and feeling a little run down.

With everything that has been going on I think my body had given up and consequently contracted the flu, I then kindly gave a dose to my house slave (he was not thankful at all miserable shit!) We both spent a few days in bed (no dirty stuff you filthy minded peasants!) the house slave was convinced we had both got swine flu, bird flu, some form of alien disease that was trying to kill us both. We were quite poorly. We are now over the worst and feeling much better, still coughing up some wonderful  luminous green coloured slime that would be sticky enough to use as wallpaper paste. I did offer some to the kids to play with but they were mortified.  Through all the coughing and a bad transfer onto my bed I somehow pulled several muscles down my left side meaning everytime I coughed I made faces and noises like I was giving birth. Obviously a pulled muscle for someone who has had cancer means the end of the world I was envisaging that my bowel was torn, I had a potential hernia, maybe my cancer had spread to my hip, or my lung, OMG what if its spread and I have torn the flesh inside where they did my operation which means my newly created fanny will fall apart, elvis will die argh!!!!!!  Its a pulled muscle!

Because we were both dying of flu it also meant that I had to get Didge to ring the hospital and explain I could not attend my appointment (the results one!) I cried and cried, I had been waiting for this appointment, I just wanted it over with, I needed to know my results so  I can either prepare my fake smile or relax and enjoy Christmas. The consultants secretary was lovely and said she would ask the doctor if he would ring me and give me the results over the phone. She rang back later and said he was happy to give me them over the phone, however he had not actually received them from radiology yet! WTF!!!!!! The scan was a month ago why are they not ready? He promised he would chase them for me.

We got a phone call late Friday afternoon from my lovely consultant advising he now had my results. My heart was pounding, I started to sweat and it felt like my blood was on fire.
 ' Hi Amy, I am so sorry it has taken this long and I hope you are feeling much better. Ok so your results...(a bit of a pause!) Ok so we can not see any tumor on your scan (yes yes yes yes) which is good and positive. However (omg omg what) the area that was hazy on your last scan due to the radiotherapy is showing that the bone is breaking up. This is the pubic bone, the bones that you sit on. This is obviously a cause for a little concern as the only area we could not get a clear margin when we removed the tumor was the pubic bone which is why we gave you radiotherapy. Now your scan shows you have several small fractures in the bone.' At this point my mind started going fifty miles an hour. So is this cancer spreading or not? 'At the moment we can not be sure if these bones are breaking due to cancer or if it is the radiotherapy that is causing them to become soft and brittle resulting in them breaking apart.' Ok so is this dangerous are they going to break more or cause a problem? 'The bones are not weight bearing bones so we would not try to repair them but just leave them to hopefully repair by themselves. But given that we can not see any evidence of a tumor we are more inclined to suspect its the radiotherapy that is causing this issue. The tumor you had was extremely large but was mainly connected to one side of the pubic bone, this is where the cancer cells were left behind. The breakages are actually on the other side of the pubic bone which again points us to think it is more likely to be the radio rather than cancer spread.' I think he heard the quiver in my voice at this point. 'This is positive news Amy. I would love to say to you that we have got it, your cured, your cancer is gone but like I said from the beginning this is impossible to say for you because of the nature of the cancer you had. We will never be able to test it but if we can not see a tumor that is a good sign. What you have to bear in mind which I know is hard when you have young children and all you want is that all clear! The tumor was very large and very aggressive. We removed all the tumor and only cells were left behind. We gave you targeted radiotherapy at the highest dose we could for 6 weeks to kill off the remaining cells. Normally for this type of cancer we would not do any of this. Your cancer is rare and usually hits people of a much older age than you so the amount of surgery that is required is not in their best interests as it is so extreme. We would normally only offer palliative treatment to help control the cancer. But because you are so young, you have young children and apart from a disability are otherwise fit and healthy we felt that you were an exception and therefore it was worth the risk. It was worth putting your body through that amount of surgery although we would not normally do so, it was worth giving you the highest dose of radio for 6 weeks even though we would normally only give the medium dose for 2 weeks maximum, it is worth offering you further reconstruction later on because you have a lot of life left and we want to give you as much as we can because the consequences of all this treatment such as bones breaking, scarring, potential further treatment later on and the emotional upheaval does not outweigh you being able to bring your children up and be alive. We believe that what we have done was right, you have exceeded our expectations how you have recovered and the fact you have no tumor confirms this, yes it may grow back and yes the bones are breaking but we see things positive for you right now. We will scan you again in a few months to see if a tumor begins to grow and if it does we will cross that path when it arrives. But take the positive for now and spend a wonderful Christmas with your family. We will see you again in the new year and I hope you have a lovely new year'. I said thank you over and over again. He said I did not need to thank him he was pleased so far but he will keep an eye on me but we need to focus on the positive that there is no tumor at the moment lets not think to far ahead for now.

So that was how the conversation went, a mixed emotional bag of positive and negative. But there is no tumor! I must admit after that conversation I felt pretty fucking special! I mean I always knew that I was awesome and special (who wouldn't want to be me!) but its nice when someone who is obviously highly intelligent also confirms your thoughts!

So now I am just trying to take it a bit slower, I am a little nervous about these broken bones especially when I do silly things like fall out of my chair onto my ass quite often. But what is the worst that can happen? they break completely, ah well they can join the long list of other shit that is broken in my body. They could always up my scrap metal value and add a bit more titanium in there my son would be pleased that his inheritance value will increase (he is weighing me in apparently).

So on the back of these results I can relax a little and enjoy Christmas as last year really did suck ass. I don't really remember much about last year other than getting my devastating news I had cancer and Christmas went by in a blur. Not this year folks, this year we are going to deck the fucking halls, swing from the lights, eat till we are sick on sweets and chocolate, watch the shittiest of shit Xmas movies, drink copious amounts of mulled wine, spend every spare penny I have on spoiling my children, shout as loud as fucking possible at Xmas panto, wear the ugliest of Christmas jumpers, bake mince pies that will probably be hard enough to break windows, sing Xmas carols whilst dancing round the kitchen embarrassing the hell out of my kids, putting my dogs in silly Xmas outfits to which they run and hide in their beds to escape the shame, go and have breakfast with Santa and offer him a sausage, wrap lots of presents in annoying glitter paper with extreme amounts of sellotape to make sure the little twats struggle to open them (its hilarious stick all the sides and corners down!), then go to bed on Xmas eve feeling so giddy and sick that I can't sleep cos Santa is coming then go and wake the kids up at about 5:30 to tell them he has been to be met with ''mum....its to early go back to bed he has not been yet!'' I then sing as loud as I can and bounce their beds until they get up.


hahahahaha fuck you cancer I am winning, I am gong to have the hap hap happiest Christmas ever!

Who else is getting excited? I know some absolutely detest this time of year but I say to them...stop being fucking miserable, ungrateful, pathetic bah humbugs. Be grateful you are alive to see one of the most special times of the year. Embrace the love and joy that is felt at this magical time of year, take comfort in knowing you will be here to bring in the new year and look forward to all the positive things 2020 may bring. It could all be so different.

Lots of love guys



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