20th March 2016 - I'm Better When Connected to Nature.

My soul is fed by going back to my roots. It's impossible to explain the peace in my heart when I drive through areas that are few in vehicles and plentiful in trees, crops and stock. After one of my lowest weeks, we decided to grab the opportunity and flee to the mountains. The Bunya mountains holds a special place in Rick's family and his dads birthday would have been yesterday. So we packed Judy in the car and set off. The minute we turn off at Tiaro towards Woolooga my heart immediately feels lighter. It was a mad rush to get over there as I had my initial consultant with my Medical Oncologist, then more blood tests and then sort out for an ECG asap. I'd forgotten I needed that test. Because chemo/radiation has a small risk of messing with your heart, they test it first to (a) make sure its in good nick and (b) have a base line to check back on. Rick reckons I don't have one so I'm all good there lol. Going into the consultation with the oncologist I was so very anxious. I wanted this treatment to start yesterday. The fact that the cancer is now in the glands in my neck was freaking me out. The words rare and aggressive kept cycling round my head and I was back to the old way of thinking, am I going to survive this. Its funny how the bad stuff creeps in and the good stuff gets forgotten. I know its not in the bone or any of the main organs. I'd only just gotten those results. I guess I was a bit stunned to find out the second biopsy results of the neck. I'd completely convinced myself that the swelling / lump in the neck was a combined result of the initial surgery, the cold I had developed and the antibiotics I'd taken for a slight infection in the breast. So when I received appointments (out of sequence) that looked like I wouldn't be starting chemo for about 3 weeks, well lets just say I lost the plot. However, it has all been sorted, I spoke with Dr Mitra my medical oncologist and he has already organised for my first chemo treatment to start on Wednesday 30th March. Rick spoke with him while I was out of the room with one of the chemo nurses, and asked the question if we were to head to Brisbane to try and commence treatment sooner, would it be more beneficial and he explained that it would make no difference. Like my surgeon Dr Van Rooyen, this doctor spoke with considerable confidence, went over everything in detail to ensure we understood, answered all our questions and we left feeling once again, we were in good hands. So here's the outcome. My entire chemo treatment plan will last 6 months. It will be done in two stages ie, one cocktail of drugs will last 4 sessions then they will change drugs. This first session will be 1 treatment every 3 weeks. The first session will last 2 1/2 hours and will be delivered via a cannula. Because they only have the use of my left arm (remember because of node removal in my right breast, they have avoid damage to the veins on that side to avoid causing lymphedema in the arm) I will be having a port inserted into my chest for the duration of the chemo treatments. Basically it's a small disc that sits just under the skin in the chest. One end of the port has a small tube that will take my chemo cocktail and the other end connects to a large vein. This protects my veins from constant cannulation. I'm rather pleased about this. I dislike cannulas. Those buggers bite going in. So Monday will be our Cancer orientation/education appointment with our cancer nurses. They'll go through again the procedure, the side effects (the main being hair loss 3 weeks after the first treatment, and fatigue - the others are possible side effects) we tour the unit and they show us whats what. That will be a bit daunting but naturally I have a morbid curiosity about it. And they will run through my at home care afterwards. April 4th is my date to have the port put in at the Maryborough Hospital. It's all getting a bit real now. I'm constantly being told "You look so well" and probably I am apart from a few faulty bits. But I will admit, I'm starting to get tired more easily these days. I napped most of the way home from the Bunyas. Hopefully its more stress etc combined with a bit of my lymphatic being out of wack. Being given a reprieve from surgery, I'm off for another horsey outing today while my gorgeous girl competes in her first hack day in a lot of years. Better go get breakky and charge the camera to capture Fabio at his finest. Hope she managed to get the ferals dreadlocks out. Love and light to you all xxx

EDITED TO ADD - for those of you who are interested my first regime will be these two chemo drugs - Doxorubicin (A) and Cyclophosphamide (C)