Red spot trauma....

Feeling chronically fatigued again...... got my thyroid test tomorrow morning thank god, need some answers on this point. Tummy is swollen as well as fat I kid you not I look about 8 months pregnant, so walking or waddling is not great which only adds to the fatigue.

To top it all off I've got a spot.... on my mastectomy scar..... red lump spot thingy WTF is it? Now panicking about it but I've a mamo on Wednesday so will mention it to the nurse and might get a doc to take a quick peek at it, I'm praying its a insect bite but........ you never know with this shit.........
Its because its on my scar that it makes me think the worst, this is what its like every ache, pain, lump bump there is always a worry?

Feeling very lethargic don't want to do anything so going to lie down and rest.

UPDATE

Red spot gone was only a normal spot phew........... I did mention it to the nurse at the mamo and she just said to keep an eye on it......uh yeah!!! like I'm not gonna do that.... talk about state the bleedin obvious!

Also had the Thyroid blood test and not heard anything so I presume all is normal....back to the drawing board.

and finally still haven't heard my results about my CT scan I had back on the 12th of September nearly 8 weeks ago Wow a record breaking amount of time to wait to find out if my cancer has spread.

The things people say......urghhhhhhh

So first to update you all I'm going back to see GP and getting re-tested for the thyroid again, I've already been tested twice the first time there was a problem with my thyroid and the second time 3 months later I tested normal. I have been experiencing extreme fatigue as well as a horse sounding voice, constant weight gain again!!!!, blurred vision etc etc etc bottom line its my bloody thyroid I know it is I'm 100% positive it is the thyroid playing up maybe its out of balance but it needs looking into further as the debilitating fatigue (I kid you not I couldn't even get out of bed) has to be addressed. The earliest appointment I could get is next week so I will keep you posted of the outcome.

Getting back to the latest gripe and the title of this post.....the things people say! Yes again other people being totally out of order the latest being a mate who has said a lot of nice things to me for example on the subject of my 5 stone weight gain and looking different told me that "I don't care what you look like as long as your here" and "we love you regardless" in the next breath whilst discussing the world population explosion and associated problems decided to announce that if she had been diagnosed with cancer she wouldn't have chemo, surgery or radiotherapy all this does is keep those of us affected by cancer alive and kicking and we are costing the country millions keeping us alive!!!!! FUCKING WOW! what a thing to say to someone you know has secondary breast cancer and after all the wonderful things she has said, it begs belief doesn't it? I was flabbergasted to say the least, I decided to respond with you "you don't know how strong the survival instinct is until your in the dammed situation" I mean its easy to say I wouldn't do chemo but faced with life or death situation your natural instinct is to survive you go into it looking into every possible option and I do hate this word but you fucking fight. Its the same for any living thing on this planet faced with impeding death you fight. No matter how small or how large the creature your instinct is to survive and fight whether that involves taking chemo or having surgery and radiotherapy your trying to survive and live. I defy anyone to say otherwise. My cat brings home small rodents sometimes they are still alive, they fight to the bitter end, they don't give up there instinct is to live. Phew....... end of rant sorry but that really really pissed me off for so many reasons.

Thyroid.......that old chestnut!

Can't believe I'm back in this spot again...... the dammed thyroid conversation......... Last year it was suggested to me that my thyroid might be playing up so I went for the test with my GP, this first test did show a problem with my thyroid being very sluggish but the protocol for these tests is you have one test and re-test 3 months later, so this we did and the second test turned out normal. Due to this my GP told me they wouldn't be putting me on thyroid medication as the tests weren't consistent. At this point I dropped it and tried to move on although I still suffered with symptoms associated with an under active thyroid.

Fast forward to last week, I'd been experiencing bad fatigue and when I say bad I mean it! Everyday waking up late and exhausted, some days not being able to climb out of bed or just about drag myself to the sofa where I slept for hours during the day!!! Obviously this was becoming a problem so I phoned my breast cancer nurse and told her about it, I even suggested maybe it was the Herceptin, she didn't agree that it was Herceptin but told me it was a sign of under active thyroid....... here we go again!!!! and as I'm still putting on weight she reckons its a sign of an out of balance thyroid and told me to go back to my GP. So there it is, what to do? going back to my GP and being re-tested, I'm currently not feeling fatigued this week but think when I am fatigued they should conduct the test, I think its up and down with the thyroid which is why we can't seem to get to the bottom of it. Prior to all this cancer shit I didn't have anything wrong with any of my bodily functions including my thyroid.

So want this to get sorted out its starting to really get on my nerves.

2016 TFFT

UPDATE Dec 2015: Finally got in to the Nurse to have the Zoladex shot this went well and as I was in there I asked her to look up and see if my Thyroid results came back, yes they were back but nothing was abnormal cholesterol was on the high side but the Thyroid has gone back to being normal, so where does this leave me, it leaves me feeling stuck and desperate. I spoke with the lovely nurse who gave me the Zoladex and told me about the Thyroid she told me that she found it near impossible to loose weight going through the menopause and she told me that the weight I am carrying is indicative of menopause as its mainly all round my tummy like a tyre. I asked her how she managed to loose weight she told me and I quote "the only way I lost weight going through menopause was by fasting at least 2 days a week" she went on to say "I tried everything, extreme exercise, strict diets everything was tried and I didn't loose a pound!" she advised me to forget about loosing weight as it wouldn't shift until I'd been through the menopause completely something none of us know when we will be through, as for me personally Im in chemical menopause and will go through the menopause naturally again..... when I would of gone through it at a later date until then I have to suffer this dammed affliction and all its barbaric side effects. As you can imagine I'm not exactly on top of the world and am back to square one with the view that the only way to loose weight is to fast!!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR

And it was just that a Happy New Year spent on top of Glastonbury Tor with my best friend and partner. The view was spectacular you can see for 25 miles all around from the top of the Tor, the weather was clear and cold, the moon was out and the stars, people let off fireworks all around us at the stroke of midnight it looked magical, a beautiful spectacular night, all three of us thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Can't believe I managed to get up there a lot of huffing and puffing and sitting down about 25 mins in all but I did it I managed to get up the Tor, something I've always wanted to do on new year.

Thyroid Test

Up early and waiting in anticipation of my second Thyroid test, last time I had the test it was 3 months ago and it showed that my the Thyroid was under active and that my cholesterol off the scale, I was told that normally we would wait for a period of 3 months and re-test to make sure that it wasn't a a random reading the first time round. I am secretly hoping that it shows my Thyroid is still under active as it would certainly explain all the depressing symptoms like not being able to loose weight no matter what you do or eat! loads of headaches, high cholesterol, blurry eyes these are just some of the symptoms that I have suffered and continue to suffer on a daily basis so as you can see it would be in my best interest if it did prove that my Thyroid wasn't working properly at least then they can administer some drugs that might help. I highlighted the word normally because I would of thought due to all the drugs I've been on and the treatments I've had you couldn't really class me as a normal patient! Prior to getting ill I never had anything wrong with my Thyroid or any other part of my body, my file at the doc's was wafer thin and they never needed to see me about anything then this shit storm hits me and I get every thing under the sun and I end up with a file the size of the old style yellow pages! Its a simple blood test but it could change my life over night again! this time lets hope for the better.

5:2, jucing, Atkins combined diet

Hi all,
So, the weight is kind of stubborn ie: been following the self imposed no carbs, sugar, dairy diet for got to of been 8 or 9 weeks now and initially lost half a stone then a lot slower another half a stone then it stopped coming off so have decided I need to impose more restrictions in my diet and looked at the 5:2 diet this is the one where you eat normally for 5 days and on 2 days a week only eat 500 calories per day so in  my case I'm going to continue with the no carbs, dairy, sugar etc but on 2 days a week I'm going to only drink juice. Apart from the obvious ie: weight loss the reason I am doing this is to make sure I am getting the green stuff at least for 2 days a week. I've sort of dropped off the juicing wagon for a while mainly because I was pretty sick and tired of putting on loads of flipping weight and also because I just couldn't be bothered with the phaff of doing it. I had been juicing for 3 years solid every day without fail taking supplements and drinking pints of it and got to the point where I was very bored and pissed off with it. So, as of next week I am going to be adjusting my diet to include juice and eat nothing other than drink juice on those 2 days a week. We will see if the weight starts to drop off then its working if not then to put it bluntly I'm fucked!!!!! cause basically I would of tried all within my power to loose weight the only conclusion I will be forced to come to is that its an under active thyroid causing the problem. Which reminds me I will be going back for a thyroid scan on the 1st of Nov as it will of been 3 months since doing the last test which showed my thyroid function wasn't working but due to there protocol I have to wait 3 months to be re-tested to make sure it wasn't just a glitch first time round. Shit isn't it?

Blood tests, scans and anxiety....

Last friday I had my 3 monthly CT scan I'm waiting for results and as is the normal for my hospital it could be some time anything up to 8 weeks (I'm not kidding!!!!). On Tuesday I had my 3 weekly Herceptin shot in the leg which has left a big black bruise and tomorrow I go in for a blood test to verify the status of my thyroid and also to check my blood sugar levels straight after that I go onto the hospital for a heart scan (Herceptin affects your heart) so its been a week of scans, tests and anxiety. I always feel anxious waiting for results which is understandable but its also the anticipation of having to have a cannula put into one of my poor collapsed veins it stress me out no end, they never get it right or listen to me when I tell them don't try that hand etc so subsequently they try 3 times and then hand over to a doctor who invariably looks about 10!! who tells me not to worry it wont hurt and he'll/she'll find one and hey presto it always does bloody well hurt and they have a good poke around to try and find it. WHY DON'T THEY JUST USE MY FOOT urghhhhhhh...... its so fucking annoying.

Hypothyroidism and Breast Cancer

A quick post first of all today I've just come across the connection between breast cancer and underactive thyroid gland (hypothyroidism). It would seem many women are suffering with side effects from having this problem with there thyroid. Of course again our dr's and onc's don't agree that it is caused by breast cancer treatments BUT and it seems to be associated and is happening. Here's a list of some of the symptoms of an underactive thyroid gland:

Weight gain (urghhhhhhh the bain of my fucking life)

Extreme tiredness

Being sensitive to the cold

Depression (another urghhhhhhh had meltdown whilst out in Totnes thought I was having a nervous breakdown!)

Dry skin and hair

Muscle aches

Blurred Vision

and they go on and on and on!!!!! I'm not kidding see this page for the full symptom rundown its excessive to say the least!

http://www.thyroiduk.org.uk/tuk/about_the_thyroid/hypothyroidism_signs_symptoms.html

and this article say's quite a lot about the connection to breast cancer.

http://www.dslrf.org/breastcancer/content.asp?CATID=37&L2=5&L3=6&L4=0&PID=&sid=132&cid=624

So you've guessed it I'm going to the Dr's to be tested for this as so far I tick all the boxes. If it is an underactive thyroid then they will put me on Levothyroxine hormone tablets to raise the thyroxine levels.