BENIGN!!....

What a beautiful word!!

Oh wow. I didn't realise just how anxious I was until I received that phone call!!

Thank you SO much everyone for being there with me through this scary scary time.

Now we just have to have DH back down and Boo get better and all will be right in my world. Right now, however, I am just so grateful for having dodged a bullet. I feel invincible!

Last week I had to tell the boys that they would have to see their lawyer again, which meant that I had to tell them that the agreement had not gone through. I tried to phrase it as "The lawyers have to talk again" rather than "Your asshole father went back on his word" but the affect was still the same.

We've had to postpone the lawyers' appointment because of Piggy Flu, and Toto is extremely worried about it, but I'm trying hard to minimise their concerns and reassure them that all will be okay.

Now that the breast-lump stress is over, I can focus on that again.

A Collective Exhale Please.....

I don't have a definitive answer yet. But I'm feeling more confident.

Yes, there are two lumps that could be cysts or tumours. I had core biopsies taken of both of them (OW OW OW OW OW OW... especially after having more mammograms done).... and will find the results out on Monday.

The lovely lovely Doctor who did the biopsies told me that they looked much more like cysts than tumours to him, and therefore I am feeling very very optimistic!

God it's an awful experience though. 10 women sitting in the waiting room like sparrows on a fence. Some are sent home after their mammograms. More are sent home after their ultrasounds. Eventually there were only two of us waiting to have biopsies. Not a wonderful feeling.

The other woman was feeling incredibly distressed, and said "I've been calculating the odds. It's either you or me.". I looked at her with a compassionate expression and said "It just might not be either of us" and believed it.

So, THANK YOU MY DARLING FRIENDS! I felt your support and love throughout the 4 hour appointment. Now we just have to cross a pinkie-finger until Monday. I'm sure it's all okay though. Really I am.

This is a distraction post...

Isn't it wonderful how we're all completely ageless in Blogland?

I only think about it when someone posts about their birthday, or mentions their age, and I'm usually quite surprised by how wisdom or cleverness does not always equate with age. Not that I've ever really equated those things with age in real life, but still... it's hard to ignore it when it's staring you in the face, so to speak.

Mrs G. over at Derfwad Manor is polling her readers' ages today. I think I'd rather not know.

The lovely Lara at Disco Knitter is taking Inigo to the hospital today to have some nasty tests done. Please send them happy vibes around 1pm.

Boo is home sick today. He has cold-like symptoms, but as a perfectly innocent cold/flu has been making the rounds at his school, I'm not flying into a panic. If he starts to have temperatures that don't respond to panadol, I'll take him to the local Emergency room for a Swine Flu swab. To be quite honest, it's wonderful having him home on this particular day. A great excuse to not think too much about things that may never happen.

The lovely Blue over at BlueJeuls finishes each of her posts with a list of things that she is grateful for. I will emulate that today.

Grateful for:

1) friends
2) health
3) a wonderful mum who folds my laundry
4) a slow cooker (dinner is on already so that my kids will be fed tonight whatever the day brings)

This may turn out to be only 24 hours of awful....

... but I'm going to share it anyway.

Two weeks ago I had a long overdue mammogram. I had been putting it off half subconsciously and half self-destructively in my haze of depression induced feelings of self-worthlessness.

You see, I have had a weird kind of lump on my nipple, which, even though my GP has told me looked pretty harmless, has had me worried. I've also had some mysterious pains in my armpit.

Don't yell at me for putting off getting myself checked out. I'm not strong enough to take it.

I went through this for the first time nearly 8 years ago. On September 11 2001, to be precise. And I received a diagnosis of breast cancer. I was one of the lucky ones. My cancer was removed by surgery and I had "clean margins" which meant that I was able to get away without having radiotherapy and chemotherapy. It was a risk (not having further treatment) that I was willing to take at that time as my boys were 3 and 4 years old and I was living on my own with them. I simply couldn't have managed.

An hour or so ago, I telephoned for the results of my mammogram and was immediately put through to a counsellor. She told me that they want me to return for further tests as soon as possible. Tomorrow, to be precise.

This does NOT mean that I definitely have a recurrence of my breast cancer. 9 out of 10 women who are recalled for further tests after a mammogram end up with a clean bill of health.

This DOES mean, however, that I am thrown back into the feelings of fear and anxiety and sadness.

This also means that I am thinking of all my dear dear friends who, after years of NED (No Evidence of Disease) had a recurrence from which they didn't recover.

I'm scared.

And although I know that there is a large chance that I have nothing to fear, I wish that I didn't have to go through this at all. And I pray that I'm strong enough to protect my children from picking up on my sadness and fear.

As I said in the heading, this may only be 24 hours of awful, but I'm putting it out there because I need your collective strength. There's just too much going on for me right now. I feel overwhelmed. I need to feel a part of something bigger than the turmoil that is my life.

A Dog Ate My Booby....

A million years ago (about 6 really), Toto, Boo and I were in the change room of a Sydney public swimming pool. I was struggling in that horrendous juggle of trying to change two small kids and myself into swimming cossies, and Boo escaped while my cossie was not quite pulled up. I chased after him to catch him before he fell in his attempt to climb onto a bench.

Suddenly there was a small girl screaming. She ran to her mother and, pointing to me, loudly yelled “Mummy!! That lady’s booby was bitten by a dog!”.

Toto puffed out his chest and proudly said “It wasn’t bitten by a dog. It was bitten by a cancer!”

The mother glared at me, held her child close to her and said “You shouldn’t be scaring children like that!”

Like I chose to have half of my breast removed.

Sheesh.

Life can be so wonderful...

It's been a tough week (month, couple of months).

I heard about two deaths this week. One was an ex-boyfriend who found his life too much for him to bear, and therefore ended it. Another was a young Mum with incurable cancer.

One took it. One had it taken from her.

And I also found out about another old friend, the father of four children, who has an inoperable and terminal brain tumour.

And of course, I'm living with the day to day reality of someone who is longing for death as a release.

So I guess it's normal that I'm thinking about death.

I've been through more than one period of depression where the idea of taking my own life was more delicious and freeing and desirable than living.

I've also been through my own journey with cancer. A journey that was not always one that I would win. And during that time, the idea of living was more delicious and freeing and desirable than not living.

And through both journeys, I made friends with many other patients who did not survive their illnesses.

I do not judge anyone who chooses to leave this world. I mourn the loss of anyone who dies from ANY illness. Mental illness and physical illness. They are both as dangerous as each other.

The survival of cancer and of depression is not dependent upon the ability of the patient to "fight" or to "think positively" or to "not give in". In an ideal world, we all "think positively", and I believe that the only people who aren't able to do that are people who are overwhelmed by their circumstances.

Which is why I believe that "life is difficult". Life throws us challenges all the time. Some are big and obvious, some smaller and more subtle, but all are "difficult". And I think that if we can accept that that is what life is about, it is easier to deal with the challenges and we are therefore less likely to be overwhelmed by them.

This isn't a defeatist attitude. Far from it. I am able to appreciate all the wonderful things that I have in my life, whilst accepting the more difficult ones.

And, therefore, I can say that my life is wonderful. It is challenging, yes (and at times exhausting). But it is also very very wonderful.

Happy Birthday Joanne....

You were taken away from us way too early.

But you'll always be in my heart.

I hope that you are having red wine and birthday cake in heaven, my dear dear friend.

Happy DX Anniversary to Me...

I started this blog thinking that I could blog-therapy a lot of stuff about my journey with breast cancer, but it hasn't turned out that way. It's not that I am consciously choosing not to, but more that I find that I have less and less attachment to my identity as a "cancer survivor".

Except on this day.

I have been thinking a LOT about my cancer lately. Much more than usual. And I have been feeling incredibly scared and sad..... the kind that takes a few minutes to realise what I'm scared and sad about. And then Boo reminded me. Without meaning to.

Yesterday he said "Tomorrow is Gillian's birthday! Oh... that means that tomorrow is the anniversay of 9/11." And I suddenly realised that that meant that tomorrow was my 7th anniversary of my breast cancer diagnosis (dx). Which explains all the recent sub-conscious focus on my cancer.

Sheesh. And it really IS sub-conscious. And it bites me on the bum every bloody year.

I have an incredibly wonderful group of women who are my bc support group. We were all diagnosed at around the same time and met on an international internet support group. Over the last 7 years I have been incredibly lucky to have been visited by 2 of them (one of them twice) and have also visited 5 of them (they are all in America and Canada). Our little group has diminished over time..... due to the tragic reality of the statistics of developing metastasis of the original cancer.... and the downside of belonging to a cancer support group is that we support each other through dying just as much as through living.

I hate this day.

The day I was dx'd, Toto's godfather (Big H) was staying with us from the UK. Obviously, my entire world was shattered. My children were 3 and 4 and I was living in a little house in a completely different part of the city from my parents. At 10pm-ish, Big H woke me up to watch the WTC buildings collapse. And I knew that my own problem was diminished hugely because of the untenable terrorist acts that occured on that day.

I have lived in NYC. I had a close girlfriend who worked in the WTC and I couldn't get hold of her on the phone. She was okay, but I later found out that two of my "christmas card friends" (friends that you catchup with once every year via a christmas message) lost their lives.

I was thrown into even more turmoil. It's hard to describe it. One part of me felt that I needed the attention because I'd just been given those incredibly impossible words "It is malignant", and another part of me felt that it was insignificant compared to global affairs. Most of me was wildly flailing somewhere in the middle.

*sigh*

I survived. The most supportive person, other than my parents, was my friend who is currently ill and in a psychiatric hospital.

And I should be leaping for joy that it's 7 years ago, because really that means that my chance of recurrance is as the same as someone who has never had breast cancer. Yes, I should be happy. But emotionally, it's not a good day for me.

I will spend most of it with my ill friend. And I will celebrate the divine Gillian's 41st birthday (oh to be in Glasgow with her to celebrate properly) but I will also mourn.

I'll be mourning the "me" who didn't have to face that incredibly horrendous day. And the arduous journey that followed.