Update (The one where WeeGee has a sense of humour by-pass)

Hello there, you lovely lot! It’s been a while since my last post hasn’t it? I swear to God I’ve been meaning to sit down and write an update but you know how it goes…. Somehow, the time and inclination just haven’t been willing to show up together and besides, I’ve been pretty busy watching Stranger Things 3….

The last time I wrote I was gearing up for my final chemotherapy session, a milestone that I am pleased to report has now been achieved. In the end, the last session was an unceremonious affair, partly because I didn’t want to make a fuss and partly because I was K.N.A.C.K.E.R.E.D. True to form, I cried as we left the chemo suite for the last time* but apart from that, I haven’t really looked back. I don’t miss it and, if I never have to see another IV chemo pump again that’ll be all right with me. Please and thank you to the powers that be.

Whilst it’s fair to say that I’m finished with chemo, I am under no illusions because chemo is not quite finished with me. Towards the end of the treatment I started to appreciate the toll it was taking on me and my body and now, more than six weeks later, the lasting effects of what I have been through are ever present. Unfortunately, the chemo has caused some nerve damage, which is painful in a way I can’t even begin to describe to you. That, together with some further, equally excruciating pain caused by the tumour dying, is making things pretty unbearable for me at times. Add to that the fatigue, the fun and games of the instant menopause, the raging insomnia, the chronic indigestion, the extra stone and a half I’m carrying around courtesy of the steroids (it shouldn’t matter, I know it shouldn’t, but somehow it just does) and the ever present worry about the forthcoming surgery, and it would be fair to say that I haven’t exactly been my usual chirpy, hilarious self of late…. It’s the post-chemo sense of humour by-pass, I guess.

My surgery is scheduled for next Thursday. I’m having a right side mastectomy and axillary node clearance with delayed reconstruction. The delayed reconstruction is in part to allow for radiotherapy and in part to avoid an overly long operation in light of the DVT I developed back in April. The surgery should take no longer than a couple of hours and I expect to be discharged the following day. Those are the facts and between you and I I’m feeling quite calm and pragmatic about the whole thing. Sure, I wish the circumstance were different but at the end of the day my right breast is trying to kill me, and accordingly, I will be glad to see the back of it. Perhaps I will feel differently after the surgery but for now, I’m quite matter of fact about it all. The operation is the next thing I have to do to get myself better. The plan, as far as it goes, is to turn up and put myself in the capable hands of the NHS once more.

I suppose it’s all sounding a bit low key and miserable here in WeeGee land but FEAR NOT. All is not lost and I PROMISE that I am absolutely fine in spite of being a bit quiet and a minor misery guts. Sometimes, when crappy things are going on you have to find a way to power through them but then other times you have to sit with them and let them pass. Right now I’m at the sitting waiting for things to pass stage and I don’t really have too much to say for myself. Plus, if you really want to know the truth, the doctor has prescribed some seriously strong painkillers so I’m quietly and contentedly OFF MY TITS** for a significant portion of the time anyway.

Perhaps now I’ve managed to write something the wordy-block curse that has striken me will lift and I’ll start spamming you with blog posts again – time will tell. In the meantime, keep me in your thoughts or prayers (or whatever you keep folks going through shit in) next Thursday.

I’ll leave you with a song, inspired by Stranger Things, and a promise to be back,

Love you all lots like jelly tots,

WeeGee

*What can I say? I always cry at endings

** There is a tasteless joke in there somewhere but it’s still a bit soon, no?