Sore Skin, Egyptian Mummy

Finished the rads last wednesday YAY, skin feeling sore and tight not so yay :0(  also had another 2 day migrane/nausea going to see my onc on Monday the 6th Feb so will discuss this with him as well as the severe hot flushes/night sweats causing me to wake-up, the neuropathy (nerve damage) in both feet and hands, the incessant dry coughing, and the back/shoulder pains. Busy making a list to take in with me as I do forget things, now that the chemo has fogged my brain. Totally wiped out! Feel constantly tired and fatigued. So just waiting now for the next CT scan to see if all this treatment has worked, praying that everything is still 'tiny and stable' just like before xmas or better yet NED (no evidence of disease).

I feel like I'm living on the edge of my nerves most of the time emotionally fraught, its not the cancer its the thought and the knowledge that it will eventually kill me, the best analogie is its like watching a 10 ton truck hurtling towards you and not being physically able to get out of the way, people say things like "you could get run over by a bus" "none of us know when our time is up" at least if I was going to be hit by a bus I would be killed instantly and not have the agonizing knowledge of my impeding death, these statements even though they are well meaning actually are a huge cop out of facing whats actually wrong with me, lets face it they would not be saying any of those things if I did not have cancer, I suppose people try to go around the issue of cancer by using those excuses, it's like when someone say's one of those one liners to me its a way of shuting me up, and not facing whats wrong with me probably because I don't look ill they just cannot correlate that I am terminally ill.

Then theirs the people that just avoid me cause they either cannot cope with it or just don't know what else to say again these people mean well to a certain extent but why does it make me feel like I've done this on purpose just to make everyone feel uncomfortable or upset of course I know I have not done this intentionally no one knows why anyone gets cancer or as my oncologist put it "if we knew what caused cancer we would have a cure" its the scourge of society and has been for a very very long time. I read recently that an egyptian mummy was put through a CT scanner and they found tumors on the prostate/pelvis and spine of the unfortunate individual indicating that they had died of cancer interesting read heres the link http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2093675/2-200-year-old-Egyptian-mummy-prostate-cancer.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
end of today's annoyance and back to the beautiful wintery sunny day outside.
Love to all
XXX

End of the rads tunnel is in sight!

Did my rads first thing this morning, not going too bad getting used to putting my arm in the position, only 5 more sessions to go then I'm done YAY. Had my Herceptin IV, they are now arranging for me to have this at home, which would save me going to the hospital and the less time I spend in there the better.

Attended a skin clinic after rads session yesterday was told my skin looked fine and too be honest only a small amount of physical discomfort to report, still using my Aloe Vera Gel 99.9% bottle this seems to be keeping my skin in good condition and not too sore.  Tiredness is another issue, I am feeling very very tired in the afternoon's and if I am at home I have a snooze for half an hour, I find this really helps and keeps me going until bedtime.

The weather is really bad today so I didn't go anywhere after rads just did my food shopping and came home. Had a rather lovely chat with a couple of ladies in a charity shop, the manager knows me but has not asked me what is wrong with me ever since I've been dx she commented that I did not have my hat on and that my hair looked good, another lady in the shop commented that she thought my hair looked really good and was considering having her hair cropped like mine, little comments from well meaning strangers can go a long way to making you feel better :o)

Stroll on next wednesday when finally all the treatments will be done.

The day from hell!!!

Yesterday I woke up with a banging migraine headache accompanied by the usual nausea/sickness I say usual cause before I was thrown into early menopause by the chemo I used too suffer this migraine/sickness every month with my period, so yesterday woke up feeling terrible and this time was actually sick so phoned the hospital to tell them I was sick cause I am on day 3 of rads, the radiographer told me to still come in as the drs would want to see me, eventually made it into hospital (takes 45 minutes to get there) and was sick on the way twice, saw my onc (which surprised me as I never get to see him its always his registrar) told him about my history with migraines and periods but he decided we needed to scan my head, What!!! just to make sure I didn't have cancer on the brain!!!! What!! This thought never crossed my mind and totally freaked me out understandably, so no waiting 2 weeks for an appointment in to the CT scanner straight away I didn't have to drink the nasty tasting drink they give you straight on the ct scan bed for a brain scan within an hour they told me it looked fine and that I probably did just have a migraine, then I saw the registrar who was concerned that I may have meningitis ummmm where did that come from meningitis!! During all of this I was being sick almost on the hour every hour running into toilets in the hospital and throwing my guts up, it was the 2nd worst day of my life I say 2nd cause DX day get's to be the 1st and worst. I tried to take some pain killers for the migraine but they didn't work and I threw them up anyway, eventually my onc came back to me and said I could either have my rads treatment or go home I choose to go home and crawl into bed where eventually I managed to get rid of the headache and with that gone the sickness went. What a day tho, I mean it was an utter nightmare from beginning to end. I think maybe it was my usual migraine/sickness/period thing but I haven't had a period for 9 months and I am still on herceptin and tamoxifen, I'm wondering what triggered it, maybe the rads will enquire further and keep posting.