I'm hoping everyone had a really good Christmas. We had a relatively quiet one with the family.
Christmas eve was spent with my family with a divine dinner fit for a king and as per tradiation visiting the Christmas lights in Bothasig. Christmas day was spent with the better halfs mom for Christmas lunch. What a feast...

I got some news last week that my radiation is actually scheduled for longer. I thought that this would be my last week when in fact my doctor wants me to have a 'booster' round for my scar tissue areas where the mastectomy was performed. I was so disapointed by the news - I was hoping the New Year was going to start off with a clean slate and a 'new me' but sadly I will only be completed round the 13th of January. I trust my doctor with these choices - it's just been a long haul. My skin is starting to hurt. It itches, peels, burns and resembles something like a surfer has when they chafe their skin with their wetsuit. I still won't be able to use creams and fragrences for a while after and I need to stay clear of the sun. Believe it or not I can't even use sunscreen because of the ingredients in it. It causes reactions and makes your skin react in quite a bad way.

The news recently is still all very surreal. It's really hard to take in mentally and realise that 'I'm alright now'. It's a strange comparrison but it's as if I'm this puzzle thats been built since I have been diagnosed and there is a piece or 2 missing to make me complete. It's unbelievably hard
to process and leaves my emotions all over the place. You would never have thought so...

Over the Moon!

Today I am the happiest girl in he world - I am so amazingly overwhelmed right now that

I should probably let everything settle in before I update my blog but I thought while

everything is so fresh I should probably get a start on it all...

My day started off a bit emotional - I seem to get these waves of emotion at times for the silliest things. I was sitting in the woolies parking lot after getting a snack to eat for breakfast and I saw a pigeon get knocked over. I didn't realise it at first because the culprit car did not realise at all until I saw the pigeons mate viciously circling it's mate in a worrisome way wondering why their fellow flyer was not getting up. I was all of a sudden a weeping mess. I feel so much for anything that looses their mate in life. I could not think of anything worse. Life is seriously just too precious - even for a pigeon!

Anyways - So after radiation I set off for my doctors appointment which was a follow up up for my radiation sessions. I was really quite nervous about this. I didn't mention it before because I didn't want anyone worrying more than what I was but my last CT scan results showed some spots on the lumbar colum. I was really worried it started spreading to my bones. So - I sat down with my doctor and she started going through the report with me. I had the report previosuly when I was in ICU but you never understand doctor jargon talk. She said that my liver area was clear and the spots on my lumbar column was not cancer (as I had feared) it was instead my dense bones causing little holes from all the treatment and the chemo closing the holes up. These are the holes that were seen. I sat there in question with all the info going through my head - is what she saying for real here? I have no cancer then? are you sure? I was clear of all traces of cancer!

I will finish my radiation around about 28 dec and in the New Year my doctor wants me to go have a PET scan to see if anything creeps back or to see if we missed anything along the lines. Should it stay negative (which I really hope for!) then we can just go with monitoring or alternatively have a course of 'maintaining' medication thats similar to Herceptin. Should something come up then I can go on the trial that has just opened up and that my dear friend Helen is on. We don't want that so positive thoughts all the way here people!

(a few days later...)

Recent news still hasn't really sunken in - it's all so surreal. I have been living this life of having treatment to treatment and now it's almost like - 'now what?' kind of thing? There are so many mixed emotions that I'm not sure how to feel. Happy - yes, very! but it's almost like
playing a game of russian roulette. You see - with my original diagnosis it was quite bad and I was always told that this would be a very hard thing to fight off and reoccurence is quite
a common situation in these cases. Remain positive sure - call me miss positivity but I fear this feeling of a 'bullet going off' at some point. After speaking with a few people who have been through the same kind of story they told me that no matter what stage you are at - you will always have that feeling. It does get better though. Just gotta keep fighting the fight and believe in the big man above.

Last Thursday on telling my boss the news I asked her if I could hand out an award to a very special person who plays a big role in community service within RE/MAX PA. Gary ran for me with several others at the Darling Marathon this year. I felt like I wanted to break the news at the year end function that evening and ofcourse to take that oppertunity and thank Gary as well as all the other collegues and friends who support me so much. It all seemed very suiting.

The response of everyone was phenomenal - clapping and some even with tears in their eyes. I was a babling mess as usual when I talk and half my planned speech was forgotten but none the less Thanks to all for their support was mentioned. So many hugs and kind words were said to me after it was truley amazing. For people to call me an inspiration and someone to admire is extremely humbling. I'd never in a million years think of myself as that. I always tell people that if they were in the same situation they would do the same but they don't seem to believe me... I posted a saying on Facebook the other day saying 'You never know How strong you are until being strong is the only choice you Have'. Never have I heard something so true in my life. The day I was told how bad my diagnosis was - a million things went through my head - The no.1 thing was 'I can't do this' and 'I can't put my loved ones through this'. I really didn't think we would be able to get through it all but we did. My family who was always there especially my mom who took me to all my appointments and was
there for me whenever I needed someone. Always changing her shifts to accommodate me
and be there no matter what. My better half who has been through so much with me. Sat through the tears and always helped me out with difficult situations and mild stones and cheered me up when he was already bearing so much on his shoulders already. Without you - I would not have been able to do this. I love you all so much.

This may sound like the cheesiest paragraph ever but never can such a sickness open your eyes more. Even without such predicaments in my life - lately in the last month life has seemed ever so precious. Even without such diseases and illness in life - Life is just so short. I have heard so many stories around friends and aquaintances lately that involve loved ones dying and the surprising thing is - nothing was wrong with them whatsoever. They were all young and fit as can be with nothing wrong! Anyones life can be taken away in a heart beat whether you have cancer or not. Seriously - stop fretting the small things in life and just enjoy the beauty in every day that you have been blessed with with your loved ones.

Ok - enough already with the cheesey supreme paragraph above.

If I don't blog before xmas - have a blessed one and thanks for keeping up with the posts.

It's been a hectic few weeks lately - Certainly hoping 2012 to be the start of a new chapter and just good things to happen for myself and loved ones.

I know some people wouldn't want to hear this part - especially the men but hey it's part of the treatment. When you have chemo the treatment can often bring you to menopause. Some people have it temporarily and some people have it for life. Now - when I started treatment they did warn me about it and they kept expecting this to happen. Hot flushes? Nope. Sore Body? Yes - Period - Yup. Still there! This is what I went through every doc appointment. On my last treatment can you believe it I stopped my monthly.I thought I was going to get away with it a. At first I thought it may have been stress for the op but then I still didn't get it for another 2 months. Crap. Can you imagine how happy I was to find that I got it again. What was once upon a time a complete inconvenient curse - was now such a happy thing for me. I was literally bouncing about at home. It's a long shot but I really would like to have kids one day and I don't want things to complicate it all. Gotta have some Hope to hold onto.

In the last 2 weeks I have found myself to be extremely fatigued. No matter how much you sleep you just can't get rid of the feeling. I just want to gain my fitness levels back. We wanting to start some mountain biking on some wine farms etc. Nigel loves hiking and I'm just not cut out for it so we have a bit of a compromise :p What better way that to see the pretty sites CT has to offer than on a bike. The fatigue will be around for a while I suppose - think I am going to try out gradually getting into everything. 

My radiation took a bit of a back seat to get started up. My doctor kept declining the treatment plan so she had me come in - have them draw all over me so she could see what radiation beams would be going where and she made a few changes that suited my case and situation. On coming out I saw my doctor catching up with my mother so we got chatting. I got onto the fact that I was a bit concerned about the blood clots. My medical aid scans had been depleted for the year so we were not able to have one done to see if the clots were still on my lungs. She said that she would have me go into hospital for the night so they would have to do it. I thought she was joking so I kinda said - maybe next week? She asked me to come up to her office so she could speak to a Physician friend for advice. Once I got to her office I sat down and I was completely out of breath - she looked at me questionably and said - that's not right...you shouldn't be that tired...She took my pulse and said straight to me - if your pulse is over 90 you're eating hospital food tonight my dear *wait wait wait* 91 - ha! off you go! She was concerned that the blood clots were still there and I needed blood thinning medication asap! I thought it all seemed very much like a joke - I felt too normal to be 'sick'. I went home - got my bag packed and schlepped off to the hospital. When I got there the doctor himself came to escort me (in a wheelchair might I add) to the - wait for it.... ICU! I kinda looked at him and said - I'm fine - this is not necessary where he told me blood clots was a critical condition and he couldn't have me walk anywhere because if I collapsed it's pretty much overs. Fair enough...I sat down on the bed and chatted to him about my history and I was injected with Clexane blood thinners and had various monitors linked up to me. I felt so unnecessary being there - everyone around me had heart operations, car accidents etc I needed to go to the loo and they wanted to bring me a freaking bed pan - are you for real? really? I can walk - it's just 5 steps that way. Ok - but you have to be wheeled there. Hmpf. I was literally treated like a porcelain doll. After my mom and Nigel left I caught up on some TV - aaaaah. All the Twilight movies were showing. Perfect :) The nursing sisters kept coming up to me offering me sleeping tablets because I was still up at 10pm unlike their other sick patients. I'm not sick - I am trying to watch my movie finished please. A very busy night - you wake up literally every hour so the nurses can check your blood pressure and all your other vital signs. I woke up to my newly scheduled nurse for the day (every bed is assigned a nurse to take care of them). They brought somebody in specially to take care of me because they were understaffed. My new care giver was a young lady by the name of  Neveshe - a small petite Indian girl. We got chatting and got to know each other throughout the day in bed and wheeling me off for my scans. She was 28 years old as well and she had been diagnosed when she was 23 years of age with breast cancer as well. She was a survivor too. Best nurse I had ever had - had so much information for us and chatted to my sister about getting tested genetically. What a breath of fresh air. We swopped numbers and chat occasionally on bbm chat. It's funny how your paths cross sometimes. Sometimes God just brings people together. We got my CT results and everything seemed to be fine - no clots seen whatsoever. I was discharged and my doctor set an appointment for me for a Cardiologist just to make sure that my heart was fine. (Turns out that was fine too by the way!)

I started Radiation on Monday (finally!!) What was said would be 20 minutes ended up being a hour and 30 mins because of setting me up etc. The norm for a radiation patient is having 4 beams used - My oncologist has me on 8 (lucky me!!) I have put a picture of the Machine below. I find it all very confusing with how the machine works (hopefully I'll become a real boffin on the topic soon enough). 1 moment the room will be dark and there is lazers projected all over the room, the next moment you have a measuring image reflected on your skin, body is getting being repositioned that way, high pitched dentist drill sounds coming from the machines, foreign names and words being used for this and that, drawn lines here - more lines there...much more confusing I find. I just lay there and have the radiation therapists work around me. You lie on a table with your head and arms in a brace of sorts to keep you in position and they move you around on a sheet to ensure that you are literally a mm to the left or right. The therapist come in and out to position the table this way and that way for the beam to hit you here there and everywhere. The table is the most uncomfortable table in the world - everything pokes you and staying in the same position for so long is torturous. I'm so stiff by the time I'm done. Feel sooo old! Today I am on my 5th session and I must say it's getting a bit better flow wise. It's now down to about 30 mins which is nice. Just 2 more weeks left - woop woop!

Myself & the panel of fighters/ survivors (and doctor - far left) 

Last Saterday I was asked to be part of the Women 2 Women panel which was in aid of the Pink Drive organization. I felt very honored to have been asked but man oh man I was nervous as hell. I always dodged my Orals in School - maybe that's why hehehe. When I was asked questions my voice was so shaky. I'd like to be able to talk to groups slowly about my experiences. I would like to get the word out about awareness. It's very important to share. At the event I chatted to some of the other panel members - I met Miss Hope who was actually crowned Miss Western Cape Last year. She had been diagnosed with breast cancer a 2nd time around and this time she took to the Hollistic approach. She drank chineese herbal teas, vitamins and Apricot Pips. She completely cured her cancer which I find is fascinating. I am looking into it slowly and I have started to take the Apricot pips ground up in some of my mornings Yoghurt. They extremely bitter let me warn you - we talking vile stuff here...

Freckles marks the spot

Almost onto the next stage of my journey - Radiation!

I went to get scanned and 'planned' yesterday afternoon. You go for a scan in order to have 

the radiation plan to be mapped out. My oncologist has to then instruct what points in my body

need different strengths of radiation treatment. After being scanned I was told I needed to be tattood so they could line the machine up exact each time. What I expected would not be too bad having known what a tattoo feels like - I was instead jabbed with a needle in 3 different places with ink at the end of it. I didn't feel the 1 side due to it all being numb so when she did my right side I almost jumped off that table. Bladey hell! I now have black freckles along my sides and on the diaphragm area.

I will be doing my treatment at Ronderbosch GVI centre and will try manage it as best as possible into my daily plan. Radiation will last for 20 mins a day for 3 weeks....after that RFA treatment for my liver. Shoo - aaaaaaalmost there...

On a sadder note - yes. Another one. We lost Nigels beloved father to cancer late Sunday night. He had been fighting a very long battle with cancer of the bladder. He passed away peacefully in his home - due to frustrating medical aid not authorising a care giver/ hospice on time (surprise surprise...). Glad at least he was around a familiar and loving surrounding. You will be missed and loved by all Mr. Smith - Rest In Peace and may your legacy always carry on and may you smiling at us from above.

With news of all these happenings lately it really makes me sick and tired of cancer overall. How is such a thing causing such an epidemic of note?! This 6 letter curse can seriously take a hike and F off already. I'm over it!! Not over it in a way I throw in the towel but over it in a sense meaning I am sick of all my loved ones being affected by such an ordeal. In a span of 2 years it's been me, my father had a cancerous tumour cut out 

of his inner ear leaving him deaf in the one ear, my mom with endometrial cancer, our family dog, Nigel's dad. Seriously - enough already - goooooo away!

Rest in Peace my Pupples

What was supposed to be a busy and exciting weekend ended up being the hardest thing

I have ever done. Friday Night I went to dinner with my better half and in the middle of it

I got a phone call from my mom saying she had received news of Roxy having ruptured tumours in here spleen, liver and lungs. She had to be put down. I left the restaurant immediately, packed my bags to go to my mom and went to my little angel who had been

In our family for 10 years. She wasn’t a pet. She was one of us and there was nothing more I wanted than to go be with her. She had been there in all our moments of sadness that I just had to be with her in hers/ours.

They gave us a room to be with her in and I sat on the floor where she scooted her behind into my lap (a habit she had formed from my long legged brother). It seemed so surreal. She was so excited from seeing us that the adrenalin had made her seem normal. 20 minutes later however she was panting and sliding all over the place because she couldn’t keep herself up. We hadn’t thought of this coming so soon – why does something like this have to bite you in the ass so suddenly? Roxy was a little legend. Always will be – she looked after us and protected us but most importantly she was the families best companion and friend. She comforted us when we were sad, she checked up on everyone throughout the night, when us kids fought she made sure to create distractions so we would quit our bickering and when we celebrated she would event celebrate with us. When my brother was down last month we tried and attempted to take many family pictures. With every picture she insisted on being in the shots together with us – even when my father would lead her away out the picture she would casually plonk herself back down in front of everyone - it was simply the funniest thing.

On saterday morning we all woke up with extreme sadness in our hearts. We all dreaded what was about to come. We made our way to the vet and spent some time with our little angel. They first put her onto the vets table which simply made her really nervous so we lifted her to the ground where she could sit with us. She made herself comfy in my lap again and had no idea what was about to happen. She was filled with adrenalin again so she seemed to be normal once again. It made it just that much harder. We brought the vet in to discuss if there were any alternative options. There were but only ones that would simply make her suffer more and delay the inevitable by about 3 weeks. In all honesty with everything I have gone through – nothing has ever been so hard in my life as this very moment. They injected her and quickly she went off to where I sincelerely believe is at my loved ones sides up in heaven. The very thought of losing something so special is so incredibly hard and nothing could ever replace her. I well up at the very thought of her final moments but at the same time I am very glad I was there for her and she was at least In my lap feeling very loved with my mom and me at her side.

My moms house is just so empty and quiet without the sound of her walking up and down the passage or following us with toys in her mouth. She may have been 10 years of age but she certainly still acted like a puppy filled with energy and love.

Below I have put a picture of when I had my photoshoot done. She managed to get into the room and of course had to be pictured along together with me - licking me.

It's been a month exactly since my procedure and slowly I am getting used to this whole 'concept'. The pain is much better - just really feel it all when I stretch or try reach for something. That and every now and then my muscles seem a bit sore in the wrist area. I think it may be a bit of nerve damage. Still hurts a bit to pick up items and when I try to sleep it's quite uncomfortable to position my arm in a comfortable position.

I have some wonderful news - I have decided to do my very own book about this whole experience. I approached some publishes and told them mildly about my story and they want to meet with me to discuss the whole process/ what to expect/ where to go from here. They are very interested based on my positive outlook and age.It's going to be quite the process - a long process but worth it. I am basing it on my blog (so all you readers have some first hand experience of my book ;p ) but making it a bit more personal based on my experience throughout my whole journey. I have just been thinking so much about all of this over the last few weeks that I decided just to jump right in and do some research. I want

my book to inspire people and to help those who are going through something similar. I want to spread the positive attitude and show that they too can get through this. It's based on the timeline of me being diagnosed right up until I have my reconstruction next year. I want the whole entire experience so I guess I have some time to 'shapen' my story up and get some help editing it etc. It's all very exciting!!

On a up note my mom has just 1 more chemo to go. I am very proud of her. She has been quite ill after her chemo sessions but it's amazing how different our effects have been. She has had a lousey time but I'm just glad that she's almost at the end of her road and she's been so positive about it all. We've just had so much drama in our family it's been terrible. Our beloved family dog has been rushed to the vet again. Last week she feinted or had a fit/ seizure and today she could not stand straight. The vet seems to think she may have a tumour that could be bleeding out. Are you for f***ing real? Enough already!!

I should be starting with my radiation next week. I was supposed to have started with it last week already but of course medical aid was full of s*hit. I have reached my limit for scans/ x-rays and they giving us trouble because in order to do radiation you need to have a CT done so they can map out the points and strenths of the radiation. I will be doing it at the Ronderbosch GVI so I can incorporate it in my working day - work through my lunch and then go have my treatment on my way home.

It's been just over 2 weeks since my operation.

I am slowly getting back to my old routine and very much happy to be getting back to that.

My pain is subsiding and today was the first time attempting to drive. Hooray! It's quite sore but I'll get there and in the swing soon enough. Not having my own 'independence' has certainly been hard.

For the last 2 weeks I have been paying my doctor regular visits so he can check up on my drains as well as do some aspiration (sucking out build up fluid out with a syringe). The skin and area is very much numb still. Feels very much like this area isn't really part of my body. It just looks so foreign and without my 'softy' in looks very deformed. Just can't get used to it. It's so hard to get dressed now because everything hugs your body in a certain way and it's litrally impossible to make your boobs look the same. It's just so frustarting and lopsided. I cannot wait to have reconstruction done! *unknown time period still - sigh...

On a great note my surgeon is extremely happy with my progress. He thinks I have come so far and done so well in the meantime. When disecting my nodes they actually noticed that my nodes were clear of cancer. The chemo had killed it all off. I was thrilled to hear such news. The nodes were just fibrous from all the chemo toxins. Every time my doctor does some aspiration he sends the fluid away and everytime he is happy to report that the results come back clear showing that all the cancer is cut out and gone away. The thought makes me so happy. All we have to worry about now is getting through radiation as well as RFA treatment. Happy days - we can almost see a finish line!