It was this week a year ago I discovered my lump. Friday before the long weekend. I rang the GP straight away but they said they couldn’t fit me in for 7 days so I lamented over it for an entire long weekend. Lucky Foster’s football in Mt Gambier kept me distracted.
Today as I sit here and have Hercepton I realise how much has happened since that day 12 months ago….. and I’m still here. I have to admit I always knew I would be. There was no doubt, but it’s nice to prove a point.
I’m not going to recap what I’ve been through because I hate living in the past. I am going to talk about what’s still to come though..
A blood test today because my flu recovery is very slow, a bone density test booked because the next treatment may cause osteoporosis and joint arthritic pain. 5 more IV Hercepton treatments then possibly a year of oral Hercepton. Port removed via surgery after October. 5 years of one oral hormone blocker then another 5 years of a different type of hormone blocker (which can add an additional risk of ovarian cancer- more info to be considered on that at a later date). Reconstruction to be considered next year (much later than originally anticipated). And a body to die for maybe this time next year. There’s a joke there about dying for a body but I won’t go there.
For the day: This morning I put eyebrow crayon on my lips!
Initial blood test just came back. Haemoglobin still only 108. When I started this a year ago it was 145. No wonder I’m tired all the time!
Happy days xx
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Published by Debra Mesecke
I was 21 and I was planning a wedding, buying a house and had a job interview for the job of my dreams on my 22nd birthday. You see I was being made redundant and had to find a new job by August. Especially with the new mortgage now. It was April. I worked for CML and my new job was a done deal. All I needed was a medical. And with that, just like that....my life was turned upside down and I was diagnosed with CML, ha ha, I know the irony. My hematologist had a laugh at that too. I had Chronic Myeloid Leukeamia, which was normally reserved for 70 year old men. Quite rare for a young adult to get, so how would they treat it? I underwent two separate trials until finally it was decided my best chance of survival (all be it only 50% chance), would be a MUD BMT (matched unrelated bone marrow transplant), now known as VUD Allograt (volunteer unrelated donor). I was told 21 years ago the chance of finding a match was 1 in 20,000 (and that is everyone was on the bone marrow donor registry). Scary odds. So being the risk taker I am I said "go for it". They found a match and that was my first miracle in this journey. The second miracle was, it worked - new blood type, two different DNA profiles and the miracle of medicine was reborn inside me. The third miracle is my son.
25 years on, I now face a new challenge. Breast Cancer. Certainly not the first person to have cancer, to have invasive ductile cancer, hormone receptive and HER2 +, or to even have a dual diagnosis. But this is not another Webiste about a cancer survivor, this is just my excuse to finally publicly write. Along the way I am hoping I can share some insights I have learnt over the years and at the same time, give you a good belly laugh.
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