Bravery and Chemo

Sunday Nov 26

While there is power in knowledge, I shouldn’t have Googled.

In my last blog I said ‘one step at a time’, and last night I got ahead of myself and quite frankly, it scared the bejesus out of me. I haven’t talked about my fear much, I’ve painted the bravery picture but fear is all a part of this process.

“I have breast cancer”, was really hard to say aloud.

“I have breast and probably liver cancer”, was impossible.

“I have stage 4, metastatic breast cancer”, is unthinkable, but true. That’s its name, but I call her Pauline.

The bad news is it can’t be cured.

The good news is it can be treated, very well.

It’s like saying you have type 1 diabetes. You can’t be cured but you can live a long happy, productive life. There’ll be challenges along the way, but as one friend told me his friend has been ‘monitored’ for the last 20 years for liver cancer.

Lesson- Do not, I repeat, do not get ahead of yourself Kristina! 


Tuesday Nov 28
Oncologist meeting. 

Dr Jackie Adams is in charge of oncology at Lyell McEwin Hospital. She was great. I've been extremely lucky with all my (public) doctors and specialists. 

We chatted for a while about what I knew, what is needed and the plan of attack. She said I could have chemo next Wednesday, the day after I have my port fitted but I wanted it sooner. So it goes like this... blood tests and baseline heart tests today, CHEMO STARTS TOMORROW!, port put in on Tuesday next week. The first four chemos will be three weeks apart, the next eight, weekly. I'll be bald within three weeks. (Doesn't concern me if I'm killing Pauline.) 

We hung around to get the tests done and it was a long day. I was less impressed with the team who did the baseline heart test. The guy who put in the cannula couldn't find a vein and when I got in there they didn't talk to me. Just a few words like, 'nearly done' or this may take about ____ minutes. So I had to lay there, 'giving myself a good talking to' for what seemed like eternity.  

It's all happening fast and I have to stay 'in the moment' to cope. 
Managing, mostly.  

So here's to tomorrow, Chemo 1 day! Deep breath. I've got this.