Support
Without the love and support of my husband, who was with me every step of the way....telling me every day I was beautiful (even without hair), cooking me amazing power packed meals at all times of the day and night and doing all the daily jobs around the house, plus how our friends and family rallied round to help us both......I'm not sure how we would of coped.
But now 3 years on and life has changed so much.....thankfully for the better. Yes I have been left with lymphoedema in my right arm, which my husband manually drains twice a day to help manage the condition.....I also have to take the dreaded Tamoxifen, with all its side effects, to keep the C away.......but I now have a new career which is stress free, which is just perfect.
Plus if I hadn't of been ill I would never have met such inspiring women on Macmillan's chat forums many of whom I am pleased to say I am friends with to this day. Thank you ladies you were there in my darkest hours offering support, guidance and a listening ear.
I feel so lucky to be here especially as many of my friends, I have met along the way, have lost their battles to this awful disease. But every day is precious and I cherish every one of them.
When I heard the words "you have breast cancer" back in February 2012 you could have knocked me over with a feather. You see I don't do illness, not the serious kind anyway, so this was a total shock.
I had had a knot in my shoulder which first appeared in Oct 2011. I tried everything to get rid of it but by Jan 2012 the pain was so bad I gave in and made a GP appointment. Sadly they said they couldn't fit me in for 3 weeks, which I was not happy about. Then later that evening, at the end of January, my husband went to cuddle me and just brushed my right breast. Ouch I thought. I went to check it out in the bathroom mirror and when I called my husband, to take a look too, we both agreed we could see a lump
The following morning I phoned my GP and they got me in to see someone within the hour. The doctor, after examining me, said "prepare yourself for the worst". I thought "bloody cheek" but sadly she was right.
The next few weeks and months were a blur......right breast removed and an axillary node clearance was needed too which was then followed by 6 rounds of chemo and 25 zaps of radiotherapy.
i'm not going to lie and say it was easy or a breeze, it was far from easy, but it is do-able. I was completely de-constructed as a woman, bits fell off, some were very painful and once I did
pass a comment to my husband to say that
I thought I would be better off dead after
I had a rare reaction to one of my chemos.