A year ago today....

A year ago today...It was the 14th January, 2010 that i was told i had four months to live! Wow!! I still remember that day, the drive home from the hospital with Mum. Not saying a word and not being able to even register what we'd been told. The next few days going into automatic overdrive trying to displace all the emotion so that i could deal with dying and family travelling from New Zealand to say goodbye...any ones worst nightmare.  It has been a year that has flown by but when i look into the year so much happened. I look back at the rough times, especially the physical pain of those adrenal glands bleeding to say the least and i look back on the emotional pain and what a roller coaster ride it's been. Mostly though i look back at every extra day I've had. Every extra laugh, extra hug and extra conversation I've had with all my friends and family but mostly Mum and Joe. It's those moments that are priceless.



my beautiful tree until
the cats had their way

When Christmas was coming i didn't want to jinx it with the ten more sleeps, nine more sleeps etc like i would usually do but Joe and i did do everything else.  As usual his Santa list was put on the fridge at the end of October, with a No Change Policy by mid November. When he was little, like most kids, he would scour through the Argos catalogue and write me a list with the full description, catalogue number and price but depending what adverts he'd see on the t.v that day the list would be constantly changing. That was when we came up with the No Change Policy, otherwise Santa was in the bad books for not getting it right. Now that he's older it's not the Argos catalogue that gets scoured it's the Internet. I get a lovely printed Santa list now with images, web addresses, store names and prices. It's great but the money doesn't seem to go as far as it did when he was 7 or 8 years old. However, with the unavoidable "is this my last Christmas" voice in my head, i did go over board with the spending but hey, you can't take it with you!





That cheeky smile melts my
heart every time

Another old Christmas tradition we had when he was younger was catching the train to London Christmas Eve for the most painful experience of my life...2 hours in Hamleys Toy Store!! Up and down those escalators, in and out of different departments, toys in the basket, toys out of the basket, people pushing and shoving and ankle biters screaming everywhere...arhhhh!! Now however it's a movie and a restaurant of his choice. So this year it was The Little Fockers followed by the most lush meal at Wagamama with a belly aching laugh watching Joe try to use chopsticks. We'd never been there before and it was a-ma-zing. I had the Teriyaki Beef and couldn't stop saying mmmmmmm, until Joe told me to be quiet cause it was embarrassing. I didn't even realise i was saying it. It was a fantastic day, as usual, bonding with my boy.

Of course i was an expert



Anyway, back to not wanting to jinx Christmas...we made it! We didn't make any extra fuss or treat it like my last Christmas, we just ate too much and laughed lots and that's how it should be.

That brings us to January 14th, 2011. One year on and I'm still here and i will still be here for many years to come. I don't want to blow my own trumpet but it doesn't matter what situation you're faced with, you must face it head on. Don't bury your head under the rug, don't sit in the chair 'waiting for God', just face it and carry on as usual. The strength will come, trust me. Even if you're fortunate enough to have no health issues, remember to take in the people around you. The old cliche of count your blessings. It really is corny i know but when you're on the other side of the fence everything matters and everyone is worth it. A friend of mine has just had a tattoo on her foot that to me sums it all up and I'm going to copy her and have the same...

Love, Laugh, Live

 





Aurora Greenway vs Oxford...

Have you ever seen the movie Terms of Endearment? Shirley McLaine (Aurora) plays a frustrated mother watching her daughter die of cancer (Emma, played by Debra Winger). Although it's a very moving story it has so many laughs in it you forget it's supposed to be sad. Well a couple of weeks ago Mum and I were watching Terms of Endearment and the sequel called The Evening Star. There was a scene where Emma is in her hospital bed and in a lot of pain, waiting for a nurse to bring her pain medication. Aurora goes into the hall and starts asking nicely and then becomes frantic, screaming at the nurses to bring pain relief...

"it's ten after four, you said she had to wait till four now it's ten after four and she still doesn't have her pain medication!!!"

Watching this gave me the giggles because it was at that point i realised my mother was Aurora Greenway!!

Back in 1998 i had Viral Pneumonia. The Virus had attacked my Brain, Lungs, and Heart. I was in hospital for about five weeks but due to complications i couldn't walk properly, talk, swallow or move my hands. The left side of my body was like I'd had a stroke and was so heavy i couldn't lift my left arm or leg and the right side of my body had an uncontrollable tremor but the most frustrating of all was not being able to talk properly.  I could see the sentence in my head but couldn't get it out my mouth.  I was living in England again and Joe was only about two and a half. Fortunately, i have heaps of family in England so Joe stayed with an Aunt of mine. Mum caught the first plane over, with my baby sister, from New Zealand to rescue me. There's loads of funny stories about this time in my life but that's a whole other blog!

Anyway as i was saying, i spent five weeks in hospital with physio and various therapists to help me walk, talk and use my hands again and then i was sent home. After a couple of days i was sitting at the dinner table when all of a sudden i got a massive headache and my voice went really deep and even slower than it was before that. A bit like one of those old tape decks when the battery goes low and it's about to chew your cassette up. Mum rang for an ambulance and i was back in hospital. I don't really remember much else until the next day when i still had the terrible headache. I had my head under the pillow to block out the light and hold my pounding head when mum and my Auntie Pat turned up. Apparently i had gone hours without pain medication because the nurse thought i was asleep and didn't want to disturb me (bearing in mind i couldn't talk at that stage and couldn't move my hands to grab the bell). So all i remember is Aurora!

'what do you mean you didn't want to disturb her, can't you see she's in agony etc...get me the doctor'

That was their next mistake. His name was Joseph Joseph and he was a general medical registrar. I really thought i had vision problems when i saw his name tag. Cue...Aurora!!

'what do you mean you don't know what's wrong with her! You're the doctor, find out, do tests..'

To which the very suicidal doctor replied,

'it would be easier if she was dead because then we could do a postmortum'.

Unfortunatly that isn't even an exaggeration because apparently even the ward sister stood with her mouth open when he said that. I think it was at that stage Mum had him by the neck and told him she was sick of dealing with the monkey, she wanted to see the organ grinder? I don't remember much of that conversation but i do remember seeing my Aunty's face as mum was screaming at the doctor. She was going lower and lower down the side of my bed as if she wanted a big hole in the ground to eat her up. Ten minutes later i was given pain relief and put in an ambulance to 'blue light'  me off for a MRI scan which showed Encephalitis and lesions on the frontal lobe of my brain. Thank god for Aurora! As i said though, this is a whole other blog and needless to say my determination got me through this too.

Bringing us back to the present day, Aurora is still tucked away in the deep dark depths of my trusty side kick, waiting to bare her ugly head. So last week returning to the Churchill to discuss drug trials i was on full alert. I had pre-warned her before we left the house, like a naughty child, to behave herself while we were there. Neither one of us have a lot of confidence in the hospital but I'm more able to see it from their side of view, whereas Mum is strictly black and white. Our trust and confidence was knocked last year when i was undergoing another trial.

I'd signed up to take part in a double-blind trial of AZD6244. This means it is completely randomised and even the doctor doesn't know if you are getting the drug or a placebo. It had some minor side effects but the most common was a rash on the face. I never did get the rash so i doubt i was even on the drug and was being given a placebo instead. The AZD was taken daily in tablet form, three times a day and had to be taken no earlier than an hour before food or an hour after food. This was very confusing to start with but i soon got used to it. Along with the AZD i was given Dacarbazine, a chemotherapy that is most effective with Melanoma, every three weeks. For the Dacarbazine (DTIC) i was admitted as a day patient at the Churchill to have it administered intravenously. We would have to be at The Churchill Hospital for 10am but would never get the chemo before lunchtime because it was always organised chaos. Each person is assigned a nurse and mine was lovely but didn't instill a lot of confidence in us. The first time we went up there, nervous of course about having chemo, blood tests had to be taken and ECG (heart readings) had to be taken at specific times. The second, third and fourth times it was a lot more lapse. Instead of three ECG readings three minutes apart they would just take them one after another to avoid having to stand around for three minutes. Also it turned out there was only a couple of nurses that could actually put the I.V cannula in for the chemo and my nurse wasn't one of them. She could take blood but not put a cannula in. So to receive the chemo 2-3 different nurses would poke and prod unsuccessfully to put the cannula in. At first i thought it was because my veins were particularly difficult but then Charlie, the magic nurse, would come in and get it first time. So after I'd had all my veins punctured and still no line in, i would then have to wait for Charlie to become available to come and do mine.

Another problem was that each individual trial had a different protocol so the day my nurse was off was disastrous. No one knew what to do with me. For a procedure i was told would only take a 'couple' of hours, we were lucky if we ever got out of there before 5-6pm and being stuck on the Oxford Ring Road at that time is not pleasant after receiving chemo. I remember feeling like i wanted to just get out of the car and walk because the thought of being stuck in traffic would make me feel panicky, but i didn't have the energy to move. So in my head i would ask the angels to clear the roads for us and i would just keep repeating to myself, "it'll be okay, we'll be home in a minute"

After each Dacarbazine treatment i was so ill i couldn't get out of bed for 6 or so days and to be honest, it's the only time i've ever thought "enough is enough. i can't take anymore". On the day of chemo I would be taking nearly 40 tablets a day, mostly steroids, which would decline each day until i was back down to my normal painkillers and AZD. For the first initial week I was permanently queasy, i had terrible jitters in my legs, i couldn't keep still, i would sweat profusely out of every pore of my body, which smelt like vinegar, was bright yellow and actually stained a white tank top! I had panic attacks if Joe or Mum were ever out of the house where i knew they were safe and i completely lost my appetite. The best way i could describe it was my worse hangover multiplied by ten and lasting a week, added with morning sickness from pregnancy. The second week i would be very weak but slowly getting my appetite back and by the third week i was feeling much better. By this time though, it was time to go back and have it done again. It was awful and i wouldn't wish it on my worse enemy. But in the back of my mind i was telling myself it was worth it because it was going to work.

The final straw as far as the Churchill was concerned came on New Years Eve. This was, what turned out to be, my final chemo. As usual we got there for 10am. All the nurses and staff were in party mode and couldn't wait to celebrate the New Year but i knew what was coming so i wasn't so keen. I'd been telling my nurse about my side effects for weeks but because she never wrote anything down and relied on memory i wasn't sure how much was going in. So finally i told the lovely Dr Emma. She thought it may be a side effect of one of the anti-sickness tablets, Metoclopramide, so she changed it to a different type, Cyclizine. The I.V went in and the chemo was started. As usual it stung like mad but i would try to sleep to take my mind off it while Mum would people watch. This particular day one lady had her chemo stopped rapidly because it had expired and another had to see a plastic surgeon because the chemo had gone into the tissue and not the vein (that's how toxic it was).

When my chemo had finished i woke up feeling fine. I'd never felt fine before. By this stage i would normally already be getting the anxious feeling and be seriously queasy, but there was nothing. We went home and i was still fine. That evening I'd noticed that in my bag of drugs they had forgotten to give me one of the steroids but it was too late to do anything about it so i would just play it by ear on how i was feeling. A couple of days went past and i still felt fine. I was even starting to wonder whether they had actually administered the chemo at all because they weren't very focused, but i think it all came down to the side effects of the anti-sickness and the fate of them forgetting one of the steroids.

So as you can see, my Aurora has every right to be sceptical whenever we go to Oxford. But i'm pleased to say she behaved. There was no neck grabbing, snide remarks or evil eye being given over the rim of her glasses. Partly this is because the Prof in charge of trials told me everything i wanted to hear and partly it's because i blocked her path of vision so she couldn't see or say anything. It was histerical. So the good news was, we didn't get thrown out or banned and if all goes well and i can stay alive and well, i'll be doing the trial i want sometime next year and without the Dacarbazine.

Please leave any questions or comments about my blog because i would really appreciate the feedback.

How long is a piece of string?...

Well it's about six weeks on from my 'little bleeder' ordeal and I'm feeling about 90% back to normal. The pain is completely under control but most importantly the panic, distress and loss of faith and determination i had has settled down and I've put things back into order in my head. It's also been explained that the chances of my adrenal gland doing that again, my time bomb panic, is highly unlikely, but hey, we are talking about me. So I've decided to do as they say, 'prepare for the worse but hope for the best'. Every night I still ask the angels and my Dad to take away all the cancer from my body so that i can at least see Joe grow into a happy settled young man. That is my biggest wish and i will fight this disease until that day and beyond.

While i was recuperating my wonderful mum, my trusty side-kick, stayed and helped out round the house which was a godsend because i got a terrible spasm in my back that was preventing me from breathing in. I couldn't move for about two weeks and was prescribed diazapan and lorazapan. This left me like a stunned mullet throughout the day, zombie for you non-kiwi slang readers. My biggest concern was that i couldn't breathe when my back had the spasm until it relaxed, which some times was about 30-50 seconds. My G.P, who i might add is also wonderful, said 'don't worry you'll pass out first and then start breathing again'. That boosted my confidence...not, but i did laugh with him about that. Fortunately that now has also all settled down and I'm no longer needing the 'azapans so my head is so much clearer.

Today was my follow up with the wonderful Dr Alice. I keep telling her I'm going to make her famous but i don't think she believes me. One thing i do know is that i love the look on her face when she first comes into the room and sees me. To me it's like happy amazement. I know she's got to be practical and give me the facts, and I'm grateful she is like that, but I think secretly i do surprise her how quickly i bounce back even though I'm sure she thinks I'm a fruit cake because of my faith in the Vibrational Therapy.

We discussed the boob on my back because it's starting to effect my shoulder at night when i sleep and as you know i couldn't have surgery last month because i was too weak. So the surgery option was put back on the table, along with sleeping on a hemorrhoid pillow to cushion the surrounding area. That made me laugh! I could have done with that when they were shoving jugs of laxatives down my throat! As expected the boob that was the size of an orange is now edging towards a grapefruit so really the surgery needs to be done now before the lump gets any bigger and can't be surgically removed. The problem is, its not an insignificant little surgery and as Dr Alice says, melanoma is so unpredictable we don't know whether I'm going to live another two weeks, two months or with my determination two years. It's as long as a piece of string. Apparently she has had patients come in for their follow up appointments looking fine and two weeks later, dead! That's melanoma for you. My dilemma is, every time i have any kind of treatment the cancer goes crazy, as if my body is fighting the treatment and not the cancer. Generally i mean chemotherapy and radiotherapy so i don't know if surgery would effect me the same way so I've decided to leave it to toss around in my head for a week or two. I'm very interested in a particular trial taking place called PLX4032 that is having fantastic results with tumour shrinkage, but I'll tell you more about that in a couple of weeks when I've been to see the Professor in charge of trials at the Churchill in Oxford.

Now, as i was saying, I'm preparing for the worse but hoping for the best. Fortunately all the doom and gloom stuff got sorted in January when I was told I had until May so it was the other little things that needed dealing with. Firstly my iPhone!

When i found out the tumours had grown i was so pissed off. Aside from all the obvious reasons my iPhone contract on the 3GS had run out and i was so looking forward to getting the white version of the 4 to come at Christmas but i thought sod it and went straight down to O2 and upgraded to the iPhone 4 and i love it. I can skype my sister in New Zealand whenever i want and that alone is worth it. Besides, i thought what's the worse they can do? Take the phone back when i die? Who cares! Joe has my 3GS and Mum doesn't have a clue how to use it anyway so they can have it back. I did feel very naughty, but it just gives me another reason i can't go any where for 18 months!

Then there was Dexter. No, this isn't a family pet it's the American television drama that I'm hooked on. Season 4 just finished on T.V and I'm going to be so annoyed if I'm not here for season 5 so i cheated and have been watching it online. This by no means is me admitting defeat, it's me being too impatient to wait until next year because the last episode was so dramatic! Mind you, it's not just Dexter, there's Greys Anatomy, Private Practice, Lie to Me...but I'll be patient for them.

Pt 2: the funny side of my ordeal

Well you know me by now. With my trusty side-kick by my side, Mum, there is always a giggle to be had. Now i must warn you, for those who have squeamish tummy's or don't like the word shit stop reading now!

About two days into my hospital stay i started to develop an awful tummy ache on top of everything else and the morphine wasn't controlling it. This wasn't a pain as such, more a discomfort. Every time i ate or drank it would get stuck in my chest as if it couldn't go down. A bit like getting a lump of dry bread stuck in your throat. Also my stomach was starting to go hard and stick out so they sent me off for a x-ray. I was absolutely scared stiff that i had fluid in my abdomen from the cancer or worse still another tumor having a growth spurt and pressing on my stomach. A couple of hours later my lovely little ward doctor, Jess, came in to give me the results, my bowels were backed up! Like most women i do tend to suffer from constipation quite often but keep it under control with lots of fluids and fresh fruit. Unfortunately though with all the drugs i was on and practically being bed bound this had made it worse. The x-ray confirmed it and made it official...I was full of shit, literally!! Now, in the past I've been told I'm full of ideas, full of knowledge, full of lip and even full of mischief but never full of shit! I couldn't help but laugh until the laxatives started. Bearing in mind i was hooked up to a blood transfusion machine, a morphine pump and oxygen, this soon became something from a comedy show.

It began with one sachet mixed in with my glass of water after breakfast. That will shift it, i thought! Next was a sachet in my glass of water after my dinner. Ha! That will shift it, but i was so worried i would block the toilet. I was in a single room with my own bathroom, thank goodness, but it wasn't like i could blame anyone else. Fortunately it did start shifting but clearly not enough because for the next three to four days i was being given a sachet in my glass of water with every meal. I remember thinking, "for Gods sake, how much shit can one person be full of!?" and then it came...the jug! I'm not even joking when i say this but they put six sachets in a 500ml jug and i had to drink it within four hours!! The nurses called it a purge or surge.Whatever it was called I'm sure those bitches were laughing, mind you i was by that stage too because every time i went to the toilet i had to unplug the blood transfusion machine and the morphine pump (both of which would beep with an alarm like a tracking device so everyone knew where i was) and then the oxygen nasal cannula, so planning ahead was essential. At one stage the urge came on so fast i managed to unplug the machine but forgot the nasal cannula and nearly ripped my nostrils clear off my face. I couldn't giggle about how funny it was in case i shit myself. I was spending 60% of the day on the toilet and my poor little botty was getting sore but now with the surge i may as well take my pillow in there. All i could think was that must have been one massive shit the radiologist saw on the screen. Guinness book of records style. Fortunately though there was no more. Nothing. I was no longer full of shit!

The pain that brought no tears...

Have you ever been in hospital, in excruciating pain and the doctor asks you,

"On a scale of 1-10, 1 being the least and 10 being the most pain you've ever been in, what would you rate yourself?"

Well a couple of Fridays ago at 2.30am, i experienced 10x10x10x10!! As usual, when all is quiet on the home and health front, i woke up with a tummy ache. Within five minutes that ache turned into a pain and started riding round my back. On my 'old' pain scale i would have classed it a 4, bearable. So I got up to take some Paracetamol and snuggled back down into bed. Ten minutes later my 4 had become a 6, so i got up again took some Codeine and thought "that'll knock you on the head you little shit", and snuggled back down into bed. Another ten minutes of tossing and turning in my bed later, my pain was now a 9 and i knew something wasn't right so i got up and took oral Morphine. The pain in my back was excruciating and i didn't know what to do with myself. I couldn't lay down, i couldn't sit, i just found myself walking around the room or leaning against my wardrobe swaying my hips like i did when i was in labour. Then the vomiting started! The pain was getting worse by the minute and was a serious 10+ by this stage and because I'd been sick i didn't know if the pain killers would still be in my system or not so i called the on call doctor. He was going to ring back as soon as he could so at that stage I rang Mum, my 'safe face', to get her round.

By the time Mum got there, ten minutes later, i was on all fours on the bedroom floor vomiting and groaning in pain saying "oh my god, oh my god, oh my god", the pain being at least 15 out of 10 and that's when i told her to call the ambulance. They were literally there in five minutes and funnily enough that was when the on call doctor rang back! From then all i can remember is thinking breathe Lisa the pain can't get worse than this...but it did, i would think again, breathe Lisa the pain can't get worse than this...but it did! It got to the stage I thought how much pain can a human body take before it gives up? The paramedics gave me gas and air which didn't touch the pain, but concentrating on my breathing and biting and screaming down that tube was giving me something else to think about. Mum couldn't come in the ambulance so she followed behind with Joe in the car. I was so scared that that was when i realised i was in so much pain i couldn't cry. I really did think my battle with this terrible disease was over and my poor Mum and Joe had to see me and remember me in that much pain. From then on I don't remember much else.

I came to in A&E, hooked up to all sorts and being injected with god knows but i didn't care as long as they took the pain away. On the pain scale i was buzzing but it was still at least a 7. According to Mum, aka Connie Beachamp from Holby City, my blood pressure was very low and my heart rate was very high. I was put through a CT scanner only to find that i had internal bleeding coming from my Adrenal Gland. This is where my hope and faith got a shake up and that bloody hypothetical 4x2 plank of wood that smacks me round the head occasionally had now become a railway sleeper!

Over the weekend i remained in CDU where they tried to maintain my blood pressure and get on top of the pain until Monday when i was moved to the Oncology ward. That's when Dr Alice came in and i could tell by the look on her face it wasn't good. Apparently the cancer had spread further and the mass on the Adrenal Glands had grown quite substantially which is what caused the left one to bleed. Alice had never come across an Adrenal Gland bleeder before so an Endocrinologist had to be consulted with because the Adrenal Glands excrete Cortisone which raises blood pressure and because mine wasn't working that's why i was dangerously low, also the fact that i had had internal bleeding didn't help. I tried joking telling Alice "i told you I'd make you famous", but inside i was so scared. It was explained that the capsule of an Adrenal Gland is like the skin of a grape and it has no pain sensors so it stretched and stretched till it couldn't stretch any more and that's why i didn't feel it growing until it bled. As if that information wasn't enough, we then had to have the 'rescusatation' talk. Wow!! I was not expecting that! Thank God mum was there to take it all in as well because all i could think was "this isn't right...i haven't been in any pain for months... i felt well up to now...it wasn't in the tea leaves...I'm not ready to go!!!" 

Dr Alice was fantastic and as compassionate as she could be. She explained that because of the uncertainty and rarity of my 'little bleeder', there was a chance that the Adrenal Gland could hemorrhage again but more seriously next time which then could cause my heart to give out. As a rule I'm pro-life. Take any measure, do anything just save me but she explained that because i have a young healthy heart, if my heart were to give out it would be because something more serious had given out on the inside and that even if they could resuscitate me i could just end up on life support and not be myself anyway. Looking at it from that point of view put a different light on it so I opted for the 'do not rescusatate'.

I found myself in shock for a couple of days. I was crying for no reason, but i had every reason. I always thought if this damn disease did get me, i would just start getting more and more unwell and know my end of life was coming but now it had been explained as if i was a time bomb. In my mind i was weighing up the pros and cons to both scenarios....firstly my body shutting down over a couple of weeks while i was so high on morphine i couldn't function or secondly going out with a bang when the adrenal gland burst and my heart giving out. I did decided option two was better but then i had to explain this to Joe so that he was prepared if it happened again. This was heartbreaking.

radiotherapy update

It appears I'm still baking. This is the radiotherapy mark five weeks after my final radiotherapy session.

The itchy has just started and I've had to stop wearing a bra because the rubbing on the skin is beginning to irritate the area. Hopefully this won't affect my surgery in October. I'll just keep slapping on the aloe vera gel and cross my fingers.

My tiny orifice...

Just when you think  it's all going quiet...whack...it all starts again! Remember my croaky voice? It started about two weeks before Radiotherapy and i put it down to Laryngitis. During Radiotherapy it got worse and i continued to put it down to Laryngitis taking longer to shift because of being run down from Radiotherapy. 6-8 weeks later my voice is still really croaky and gets quite sore when i talk too much, which in my case is often! I'd never heard of Melanoma spreading to the throat but hey, it's me we're talking about and if there's history to be made I'll be there. It also seems to be the pattern to how i find  new tumors. Ovarian cysts...tumor in groin, indigestion...tumor in chest...etc.

So two weeks ago I toddled of to my G.P, Dr Graham, with my concerns. It wouldn't be so bad if it was sexy croaky but instead i sound like an adolescent teenage boy! He gave me a prescription for antibiotics, to rule out the laryngitis and sent me for a chest x-ray. Apparently, it's very rare, but there's a nerve that loops down into the chest that has something to do with the vocal chords and maybe i have a tumor pressing on that. I didn't like that option but with my luck...that'll be it!

When they first found a tumor in my chest last year that was only because i thought i had indigestion. Very painful indigestion! Joe and I had been to the movies one Friday night and as usual i was pigging out on my popcorn and m&m's when the pain started. I couldn't finish the popcorn!!! That alone should have been a sign that something wasn't right. I'd never had indigestion before but i guessed that must be it. I felt like i needed a big burp because of the pressure in my chest so i bought a coke but I've never been a big burper so that just made it worse because the gas got trapped too. I tried indigestion remedies and they didn't work and by the Sunday i was in agony. It was like a pick-ax was going through the centre of my chest and out my back. In fact my back hurt more. Fortunately i live behind the local hospital so i just popped in there thinking they could give me some prescription antacid but before i new it the doctor was sending me off to Royal Berkshire Hospital because i was having a heart attack. Great!! Add that to the list! As usual i had my trusty sidekick with me because "it's our journey".  As mum and I sat in the cubicle at A&E, i was hooked up to all sorts. Mum had been watching too much Holby City and was telling me I was tachycardic! Crazy woman,  it hurt so much to laugh but as usual we were seeing the funny side of it until a lead fell off and i went flat line. Mum's face went white, it was hysterical and i cried in pain from laughter. If she could have cranked the resuscitation trolley up she would have. We were still laughing when the doctor came in and told me it was highly likely i had a tear in my Aorta! I worked in an operating theatre in New Zealand so I knew the outcome to that one. I WAS A GONNA!! Hmmm, couldn't see the funny side of that and all i could think of was 'that's going to make a mess'. I knew it could blow at any minute so when the doctor left i explained to mum where everything was regarding life insurances, bank accounts etc...As usual she told me to shut up but this time i needed her to listen. I was admitted and sent off for a scan that night.

That night i drifted in and out of sleep trying to keep as calm as possible so i wouldn't put any extra pressure on my Aorta. I heard the radiographer mention my name to the nurse and hand her a piece of paper, they both looked at me and walked off so i knew the results were in and it was a matter of time before they would have me in surgery repairing the tear. Well no one came. The next morning, no one came. By the afternoon i asked a nurse what was going on and she just said she couldn't say but someone would come talk to me. No one came. The next day the doctors avoided my bed when they did rounds, the nurses gave me the same fob-off answer and still no on came. Then finally a flustered nurse said the Oncology team were coming to see me! When i asked her what for, she looked like she'd put her foot in her mouth and scarpered off in a rush. All i could think of was if I've got a tear in my aorta, what the hell do the Oncology team want? That did not help with the stay calm breathing i was concentrating on so my aorta didn't blow. I couldn't think which was worse. The tear in the aorta or the cancer spreading to my chest.

Two days later a General doctor came to see me after i kicked up about no one telling me what was going on. Mum was starting to pace, so it was either me saying something politely or her grabbing someone by the neck. It turned out not to be a tear in the Aorta, it was a mass in my chest pressing on the aorta and surrounding nerves causing all the pain apparently the size of a large grape. That then leads into the story of how i needed Chemotherapy but that's another blog. Lets get back to the laryngitis.

A week or so after the chest x-ray i had my follow up radiotherapy appointment with Dr Alice about the boob on my back, which had not shrunk one little bit! She asked me about my voice and said there was something little on the x-ray. At first i thought she meant on my lungs and i was gutted because i had been so proud of the fact that my organs were clear but fortunately she meant in my chest. I sighed with relief when i realised she meant where the other one was. It sounds ridiculous to be relieved about that but my organs are precious and to me by them staying clear of cancer is proof that i can either beat this terrible disease or at least hold it at bay.  I don't know if that's arrogance or naivety but it works for me. So the next plan of action was to stick a camera up my nose to see if my vocal chords were working properly because if they weren't we were back to the tumor in the chest pressing on the nerve theory. Great! I've had that procedure before and it hurt. I've had untold procedures but that is one pain i will never forget. I joked about telling Dr Alice about my little orifice and that even my son was born through cesarean section because i was too small, which made her smile but she still booked me in the next day for the procedure. At the same time i was going to see Dr Andy the plastic surgeon to look at the boob on my back.

So Thursday, there we were. Me and my trusty sidekick. We walked into the treatment room where Dr Alice, Dr Andy and another doctor, with a camera in his hands the size of a bazooka, were all sitting joking about my little orifice. They must look at me and think, here we go again, it's that bloody nutter. I sat in the chair and before i knew it the other doctor had the numbing spray shooting up my nose. That alone is unpleasant and is like spraying hair spray up your nostril (i assume). Then before i could say "it's not numb yet" he was shoving the camera up my nose. I was hoping that since I'd had the procedure before it wouldn't hurt so much because my nostrils were no longer virgins...who was i kidding. The pain. Have you ever breathed water up your nose when your swimming? It's like that, times ten!

"Breath through your nose, say 'e', say 'ar', swallow..."

As my head went giddy and i broke out in a sweat from head to foot gripping the chair for dear life, i thought "I'll give you bloody breath through your nose you idiot! Pull this yard hose out of my nostril and I'll wrap it round your neck"
What a relief when it was done. I thought i was going to pass out when he'd finished so i put my head between my knees while they talked about what they found. In that position Dr Andy started to feel the boob on my back. Thank goodness i didn't have anything wrong with my butt or they would've been examining that too. It was at that stage i had to lay down because the room was spinning. They were all fantastic though and i couldn't ask for a better team. Dr Alice was stroking my shoulder and i apologized for being such a big baby, but i reminded her of my little orifice and she laughed. I love Dr Alice because she gets me and my sense of humour and makes me feel safe. She then went on to say there was a growth on my vocal chords that needs surgery. Of course it needs surgery, it's me. Can't even have simple laryngitis! Anyway they didn't seem to think it was cancerous but it needed removing none the less and would be sent of to pathology. I'm kind of getting a BOGOF (by one get one free) deal because while I'm having the surgery on my throat Dr Andy is going to remove the boob on my back. Apparently its the size of an orange under the muscle and it's quite a big procedure so watch this space for photos. Dr Andy held his fingers about 20cm apart giving me a rough idea of the scar size but with my experience of him i can add at least another 5cm on that. I'm looking more and more like a patchwork quilt as the time goes on but i don't care...I'm alive.

Each time something changes i try to see the positive side or the funny side. With these two surgeries it's easy. Firstly, there will be no more sleeping on a fist because that is getting painful. Secondly, with the throat surgery, isn't surgery on the throat how Bonnie Tyler or Kim Carnes got their gruff singing voices? Watch out Mr Cowell, I'm coming to X Factor.