I had my pre-op assessment today. Just the usual tests, form filling in, questionnaires. The nurses were very pleasant and I feel like I'm in safe hands. I found out more about the operation and recovery. I will be in a high dependency unit for a few days which sounds a little scary, but it is really just so they can keep close tabs on my flap.
I will have to be very careful when I finally get home - not lifting things, no cooking and no housework, at least initially.
By this time next week will be a couple of days post-surgery.
Tuesday, 1 April 2014
Sunday, 30 March 2014
Visitors to my blog
My blog has been going over 7 months now, and thus far I've received just under 8,000 pageviews.
Whoohoo!
Actually 8,000 isn't that much. I'm sure if I was the Pope or the Queen or a film star I would have got that many views in the first half hour. But I'm not so I'm quite happy with 8,000 views.
What I have found interesting is how many different countries visit. I've now found a mapping gadget to add to my blog. (and I deleted the goldfish while I was at it as I was getting a tad bored with them). The only thing I don't like about it is that if you click on it to see a larger version, it does show a few annoying ads. I hate blogs with ads and I never intend to put any on my blog, but the map gadget does look nice on other blogs. Just avoid clicking on it and you won't see the ads. If they annoy me too much, I will ditch the gadget and replace it with something else.
Whoohoo!
Actually 8,000 isn't that much. I'm sure if I was the Pope or the Queen or a film star I would have got that many views in the first half hour. But I'm not so I'm quite happy with 8,000 views.
What I have found interesting is how many different countries visit. I've now found a mapping gadget to add to my blog. (and I deleted the goldfish while I was at it as I was getting a tad bored with them). The only thing I don't like about it is that if you click on it to see a larger version, it does show a few annoying ads. I hate blogs with ads and I never intend to put any on my blog, but the map gadget does look nice on other blogs. Just avoid clicking on it and you won't see the ads. If they annoy me too much, I will ditch the gadget and replace it with something else.
7 days to go or DIEP-Day -7
By this time next week my operation will be finished and I will starting the recovery process. I can't wait to get it over with.
Of course there is trepidation - is the recovery process as bad as everyone says? My recovery from knee replacement 3 years ago was nowhere near as bad as I expected from reading people's accounts on the internet. Perhaps I will be lucky again? Or perhaps everything will go pear-shaped this time?
What will be really brilliant about reconstruction (and the symmetry procedure on my other breast) is being able I am normal again rather than deformed. I want to leave this cancer well behind and get on with my life. Some people have their world defined by their breast cancer "journey"- I hate the word. I'm not on a journey, I'm just having treatment. OK?
I want to finish treatment and be able to wear a swimsuit and other clothes without looking weird. I want to be able to get changed in front of other women at the gym without freaking them out. At present I go to a curtained off cubicle to get changed.
Of course the fear never goes away. If I use one of those online calculators, it indicates that my chance of surviving the next 10 years is just under 80%. And of course, even if I survive 10 years, I am not out of the woods. Those 10 year survivors include people who already have metastatic cancer which will get them in the end.
I will never be out of the woods.
But the longer the cancer stays away, the more drugs there will be to treat it and this is an area where £Squillians is being spent on research. New drugs are being approved all the time: Perjeta, TMD1, GMDC0941, Neratinib, Everolimus, Tanespimycin, Bevacizumab.
Maybe we really are (or will be in a few years) at the cusp for a step change in treating cancer?
Just after the Second World War, it was like this with TB. Before antibiotics, TB was one of the big killers of young and middle-aged people. The only treatment was rest and surgery to collapse a lung. And once TB spread to other parts of the body, you were a goner. Even when it went into remission and you were allowed to leave the sanitorium, you knew it wasn't cured. It was just arrested.
And it could come back.
Then within a few years TB was completely curable with druge - antibiotic treatment swept away the sanitoria and the mutilating TB surgery.
Maybe it will be like that with cancer? Maybe within 5 or 10 years?
Of course there is trepidation - is the recovery process as bad as everyone says? My recovery from knee replacement 3 years ago was nowhere near as bad as I expected from reading people's accounts on the internet. Perhaps I will be lucky again? Or perhaps everything will go pear-shaped this time?
What will be really brilliant about reconstruction (and the symmetry procedure on my other breast) is being able I am normal again rather than deformed. I want to leave this cancer well behind and get on with my life. Some people have their world defined by their breast cancer "journey"- I hate the word. I'm not on a journey, I'm just having treatment. OK?
I want to finish treatment and be able to wear a swimsuit and other clothes without looking weird. I want to be able to get changed in front of other women at the gym without freaking them out. At present I go to a curtained off cubicle to get changed.
Of course the fear never goes away. If I use one of those online calculators, it indicates that my chance of surviving the next 10 years is just under 80%. And of course, even if I survive 10 years, I am not out of the woods. Those 10 year survivors include people who already have metastatic cancer which will get them in the end.
I will never be out of the woods.
But the longer the cancer stays away, the more drugs there will be to treat it and this is an area where £Squillians is being spent on research. New drugs are being approved all the time: Perjeta, TMD1, GMDC0941, Neratinib, Everolimus, Tanespimycin, Bevacizumab.
Maybe we really are (or will be in a few years) at the cusp for a step change in treating cancer?
Just after the Second World War, it was like this with TB. Before antibiotics, TB was one of the big killers of young and middle-aged people. The only treatment was rest and surgery to collapse a lung. And once TB spread to other parts of the body, you were a goner. Even when it went into remission and you were allowed to leave the sanitorium, you knew it wasn't cured. It was just arrested.
And it could come back.
Then within a few years TB was completely curable with druge - antibiotic treatment swept away the sanitoria and the mutilating TB surgery.
Maybe it will be like that with cancer? Maybe within 5 or 10 years?
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