But Honestly, It Was Worth It...

I've been a little concerned that my last blog could have the possibly of scaring ladies thinking of having the same procedure...

Before I had the op I did the thing that EVERY oncologist, surgeon, specialist and breast care nurse tells you what not to do...I googled! I've done this all the way through my journey through cancer, I can't help myself! When you're going through treatment it's the worse thing to do but I've never been very good at following rules or doing as I'm told! I'm sure I'm not alone!

Anyway, so I googled the reconstruction surgery! But to be quite honest...I didn't find very much? I didn't want the medical professions description on the surgery (although I'd previously read plenty). I wanted a normal persons view from someone who had Actually had it done! I could only really find one honest account from a lady in America on a breast cancer forum. Which quite frankly, didn't fill me with confidence. So Now there will be two horror stories on the Internet!! Hers and mine!

This was never my intention but at the same time I want my blog to be as honest as possible. I hope I can help others by sharing my experience but at the same time I write it for me too. When all is said and done, I want my blog to have a happy ending. I have read and enjoyed so many blogs of ladies that have been going through/been through breast cancer. Each time desperately searching for a full recovery, only to get to the end and find a final blog from one of their loved ones or friends sadly announcing that they had pasted away.

I don't want this blog to end like that, in fact I'm determined it won't! I want to be the girl that lived! I want my blog to be the hope to someone else that I so desperately wanted to find during my darkest times.

Soooo with that in mind...let's have some positives now of my new boob!!!

I'm 9 weeks post surgery now and it's all mostly healed. There are a couple of bits still with dressings on but remember I did burst the wound open in my looney state somehow! I actually had a plastic surgery nurse appointment today and she said why it's taken longer is because, I'm unusual in the fact my body spits out the stitches rather than completely dissolve them!! I'm not in any pain though and I'm really enjoying wearing clothes I haven't been able to wear for a long time. When you have one boob everything has to have a high neckline which really wasn't a big deal before the surgery. However, It's been so nice to just stick on a vest top! The fact I now have a flat stomach is amazing too because I've NEVER had a flat stomach! I can wear nice dresses that I would never of been able to wear before so it's been such a bonus!

With a bra on you would never know my new boob used to be my stomach! Without my bra...well it's boob shaped but obviously the scars are still very visible, however I don't care! In time they will fade but even if they didn't I would still be happy with the result! I don't regret the choice I made to have the surgery one bit. The horror part in this story has been meningitis and not the surgery!

Obviously, at the moment I don't have a nipple as that comes later. Having said that though, I don't think I'm going to bother one. They way I feel right now is that the only person who is going to see it is my husband and I know it doesn't bother him! Had I decided not to have reconstructive surgery he wouldn't of looked at me any different.  So instead of a nipple I'm thinking of having something pretty tattooed over the scars! What exactly, I don't know yet! I've never had a tattoo in my life as I've always worried it will hurt, but as there is little feeling in that area that's not going to be an issue ( every cloud)!

Something else I haven't mentioned and that I am proud of, is the fact that Mason and I along with some others did the race for life! It was only two weeks after coming out of hospital after the meningitis episode and for obvious reasons we walked it, well I walked it and pushed Mason in the push chair. When we got close to the finish line though I took him out of the pushchair and he walked the last bit and crossed the finish line holding my hand. I got a bit emotional crossing the finish line as we've been on such a journey together in his short life so far. This was something I had in my mind I wanted to do since last year, so it was a wonderful feeling to reach this point!  Even better though was the fact that our little group raised over £700 for Cancer Research UK!

 

As I think you can see from the photos above, I was still quite poorly and it took two days to recover after but I am so glad we did it. I would of been heart broken if I hadn't!

And Now? Well, I'm feeling so much better that I'm planning to go back to work next week! I wasn't expected back until September but I feel it will do me some good to be back in the real world! I've finally ditched the wig now and although my hair is not quite as long as I'd like I can live with it. I even braved a selfie with my boy the other day!

I've hated how I've looked since chemo so we have very few photos of me & him. Now I think of it, it's our first photo I'm not wearing a wig in (apart from race for life obviously).

Our lovely Kiera- Jayne is in Spain with her Mum, Step Dad and her other little brother. She came to stay when she broke up from school before she went and she will be back down to stay when she gets back before she has to go back to school. We can't wait to see her! I'm determined for us all to have some fun from now on, something that has been seriously lacking through all this!

The New boob AND Meningitis...

I"Should I be feeling this rubbish?" I asked my surgeon on my first Follow up appointment. Rolling his eyes, he reminded me I had just had major surgery and it takes time to recover. I knew that of course, but I just couldn't understand why this headache I'd had for days wasn't not only shifting ..it was getting worse! I couldn't sleep, I couldn't eat and I just couldn't concentrate on anything! Surely this wasn't right? 

My wounds were at this point still doing well and they took the dressings off that day! I was given some foam padding and advised to put them in my bra to protect the new boob instead. Other than that all was looking positive. 

But a couple of days later, the head ache was still going strong and I still felt dreadful! Steve decided enough was enough and Insisted I went to see my GP. Which I did, and he concluded that perhaps I had a slight infection but didn't feel it was anything to be concerned about. To be on the safe side he prescribed some antibiotics. I don't think I even got a chance to start taking them as by the next day not only was the headache now unbearable I was vomiting and exhausted from the lack of sleep. It was clear something was really wrong so Steve and I headed to A&E. 

"But you have just had major surgery Janine" the doctor in A&E informed me. Why did everyone keep saying that to me? All the same she took some blood and fast tracked it to be tested, checked my temperature, blood pressure, etc. even offered me paracetamol (seriously). But after 5 hours she said she couldn't find anything wrong and sent us home advising me to take the antibiotics the GP had described to be on the safe side. 

The next day, while Steve was working my Auntie came over to look after me and Mason. Since my operation my family had been taking turns in coming over to do this when Steve could work and that day it was my Auntie's turn. She had brought with her some migraine strips to try and help my headache. which was the first thing so far that had actually helped and as a result I was able for the first time in over a week to sleep. In Fact I wasn't very sociable that day and I'm pretty sure I fell asleep while lying on the sofa talking to her...

And that's were my memory ends. The next thing I remember is waking up 5 days later in hospital. The following is a complete blank and I'm just going on what I have been told...

According to Steve, I apparently got up that morning and jumped in the shower. When I came out Steve noticed I had managed to burst my stitches in the new boob. Naturally, he was slightly alarmed but what alarmed him more was the fact I wasn't screaming like a banshee (which in my right mind would of been my reaction)! He started to try and get me in the car to take me to the hospital but I was refusing to get dressed! He says he pleaded and begged but the only way he could get me in the car was still in my dressing gown and insisting on wrapping myself with our bedroom quilt! I was behaving so strangely, and going from vacant to bordering on aggressive that he didn't think he could handle me in his own! Half way to the hospital he decided to call my Auntie who agreed to meet us there.  

Now ,this is the bit I'm glad I can't remember! When we got to the hospital, I refused to go inside because I was only wearing a dressing gown (after ME insisting before we left I wasn't wearing anything else)! I then sat in the middle of a parking space just as a car was trying to park in it! Steve at this point, quite understandably started to lose patience with me! Luckily,  my Auntie by then was there.  She manage to get me inside and into the toilets, where she got me to but the tracksuit bottoms Steve had managed to grab before we left on me. 

Once in the hospital, I understand I was a bit of a nightmare. I screamed, shouted and swore at just about everybody who who tried to treat me. I'm not sure at which point but Steve has told me security had to stop me running out the building! I hit someone called Martin?! Who Martin was I have no idea!! I even called my lovely Steve all the names under the sun (apparently I felt it was all his fault)?! 

In Between all this, Steve explained the headaches and other symptoms of the last week. Naturally, they felt the fact that I have been having treatment for breast cancer, the es headaches/neck pain, my strange current aggressive behaviour and the fact my Mum passed away from a brain tumour was concerning. They tried to give me a CT scan, but .... I kept jumping off the bed on the scanner every time they tried! In the end they had to sedate me (who can blame them)! They advised Steve to go home and get some sleep as by this stage it was late and they wouldn't do anything until the next day anyway. Which he did, but Steve getting any rest was short lived as a few hours later they called him and asked him to come back. While I was asleep they decided to do the CT and they wanted to discuss the results with him.

I'm so proud of Steve because at this point he was dealing with this all on his own, my parents were on holiday, his parents live in Luton. My Auntie had Mason and in the middle of the night/ early hours he was driving to the hospital alone knowing nothing except that I was clearly very ill (not to mention, the fact that the last time I'd spoke to him in my looney state I had probably called him an expletive).

The good news was it wasn't a brain tumour, in fact they confirmed there was no sign of cancer anywhere. The bad news was that they were pretty sure it was meningitis. 

"But she is going to be ok isn't she?" My scared and exhausted husband asked. The truth was at that stage they just didn't know. While I was unconscious for the next few days Steve was with me as much as he could. Between My mother in law (who came down straight away), My sister & brother in law and My parents Mason was well looked after. Since I've been better Steve has told me that he has never been so scared seeing me lying there with tubes, wires and machines everywhere. When I did wake up, as the doctors had already confirmed with my family I didn't have any memory of my looney behaviour! To me it still feels like I feel asleep on my sofa talking to my auntie and the next minute I woke up in a hospital bed! 

When I did wake up, I had trouble speaking. I would get words jumbled up or I just couldn't say some words at all! It was strange because I knew what I wanted to say but I just couldn't get it out! No one at first told me I had meningitis and I didn't actually question at the time how I got there or why I was there. They did a lumbar puncture the day I woke up which confirmed it and when they felt I was able to take it in a doctor came round to tell me. At that time my parents were with me and my reaction? 

I burst in to tears , because I had meningitis? No, because I realised I was going to have to stay in hospital! The first thing I asked? 

"When can I go home?" 

The doctor was in total disbelief.

"Janine, you do understand meningitis is life threatening?"

of course I did but the thing is and I'm sure anyone else who has had/ has cancer would agree. You kind of get used to the life threatening bit, it's always there at the back of your mind. It's not about being negative or positive,You just can't help it. So when someone says life threatening its kind of like, what's new?! I've lived with the word life threatening and the fact I might die for 18 months, it doesn't have the same effect on me as it would a healthy person. 

Anyway, I had to continued with IV antibiotics and fluids for at least another two weeks they felt. At this stage I was still in intensive care and to be quite honest it was miserable. I was so weak so I couldn't even get out of bed without help. It wasn't easy for Mason to visit either, intensive care isn't an ideal place for a toddler as you can imagine! On day 4 of being conscious they decided I was well enough to be put onto a normal ward and at 4.30am I was moved to C5. 

The first morning on the word and after days in hospital I was feeling pretty lost. I remember sitting by the window feeling very sorry for myself and totally defeated, when a lovely lady comes and sits herself next to me and for the first time in days...I actually believe it's going to be ok! That lady was my lovely friend Stacey. 

Rather than remind me how ill I was and that going home should be the last thing on my mind. Stacey instead said 

" look it's Friday today, They said two weeks so I reckon mid week next week. Just get through this weekend and the rest will fly by! ...We could go out for lunch that day?"

That visit was the perk up I needed!  I don't know how she does it and don't think she even has to try, she's just one special lady with a special gift!

So that's exactly what I decided to do,

just get through the weekend. It was easier to see Mason on the ward, the other 3 ladies didn't seem to mind him being a noisy toddler. Someone brought him in everyday but I still missed him terribly! I made a friend on my ward too,which was a great help. Without her I can honestly say it would of been unbearable! Everyone knows that hospital food is not great so one night we decided to get a dominos pizza delivered to the hospital! Very nice it was too!! Down to reception we both went to get it, me wheeling my drip and her spaced out on the pain meds the nurse had decided to give her just as we were leaving to go collect it! We did have some laughs! 

Once the weekend was out the way, after a chat with the doctor on the Monday. I was so happy when they came to me on the Tuesday and said that I could finally go home! There were conditions, but I would agree to anything they asked if it meant I could be with my baby again! I had to pop in everyday to see them, if I felt I was getting unwell again I had to come back, and The meningitis recovery team had to agree! 

Since I had been awake, every day I was asked a series of questions to see how my brain was recovering. "What year is it?", "How old are you?", "who's the queen?" And things like that. That day though they asked me who the prime minister...I panicked when I realised I didn't actually know the answer!! It's wasn't because on the meningitis, I just didn't know! Luckily, they laughed (a lot) and accepted it to be the case! They had me running up and down stairs, walking in a straight line, memory flash cards and everything they had basically! They chatted to me about my mind feeling a bit jumbled for maybe a couple of weeks but this should pass. This sounds so ridiculed but I think only at that point did I realised just how lucky I had been. More often then not, they don't get people who do pass their tests. Not everyone gets to go home and they were as happy as I was that I could. 

Despite all my moaning and desperation to be out of hospital! I am so grateful to the fantastic people that looked after me. Especially the nurses! There were so many times I felt defeated in hospital and every time I saw someone with a pushchair my heart would ache for my little boy. When I felt like this I would become stubborn and  difficult (the people that know me the most will be going "yep, I know the one!" right about now). I really wasn't fun but most of them could see it was deeper than that and didn't lose there temper with me! Two in particular called Claudia and Martyr. 

Its not just hospital staff though my nearest and dearest have been amazing too! Danielle, Mark, Gemma, Tasha, Kirstie, John, Dad, Eve, Lorraine, Diane and last but not least my lovely Steve. Since I've been out of hospital I've also had some of my fabulous work friends visit which was lovely and meant so much (thank you gorgeous ladies)! 

This week was my 6th week after surgery. I'm still a bit sore and my memory is terrible but I'm getting there! I was able to start picking and holding Mason up properly this week, which has made me feel slightly more normal!  Just so I don't scare anyone, having a breast reconstruction doesn't give you meningitis. That was just me and my horrendously bad luck! 

One last thing! For the record my new boob is kind of fabulous!!! It's taking some getting used to that when I look down now I see a cleavage again though! 

On the mend, Hospital Selfie with my sister and my cousin!