Happy Canniversary to me!

I think it was fitting that my last blog should be on my canniversary, this day last year, 24th July 2013, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. The last year has been a whirlwind where my life was flipped on its head. All I knew and did was up in the air, my thoughts, dreams and aspirations. This night last year, I was drinking copious amounts of wine (nothing changed this year!), crying and asking why me? Something's I have realised this last year is to be grateful for what we have, we take everything for granted, we moan about the smallest things and when you put it in perspective, we are so lucky to be walking around being healthy able to do the things that we enjoy. To sum up what procedures I have gone through, 8 rounds of Chemo, a double mastectomy, 32 sessions of radiotherapy and another surgery.
This night last year I was a mess, but tonight I'm sipping my glass of wine, I got my hair done today, just after getting a spray tan and my biggest worry was getting caught in the rain so I wouldn't have any streaks, (first world problem!)

The 1st July saw me return to work, I was a wreck, so nervous, would I be able to do my job again, have I dumbed down over the last year, will I be able. That morning, I was so nervous, I have gotten up earlier to apply my make up, trying to look my best, I had a knot in the bottom of my stomach, Gordon got up and was getting dressed, he came to say goodbye and I know he was going to give me the speech, like you can do it, you will be great, go and knock 'em dead.

I couldn't even say anything to him, I was so emotional, this was a huge day to me, so with a lump in my throat, I told him to go and not say a word. He knew by my face that I was about to burst into tears so he did as I asked, don't even start me on Mr. Bond, (my silver tipped chincilla persian) my baby, his big sad blue eyes, I couldn't even bring myself to look at him. You know those mom's that go back to work and they are upset to leave their children at the creche, well I now understand. I left the house without saying a word to him or giving him a big kitty snuggle.
When I got to work, everyone was so nice and understanding and made me feel so welcome. They even had cakes and surprised me with flowers, I have to say it was great to be back into the swing of things again, talking to adults, having adult conversations.

There are something's again that we take for granted and that is appreciating your friends, some people have been great to me through this whole ordeal, I'm not going to do the Gweneth on it and go on forever thanking everyone but I do want to note some people that were especially kind to me.

John, Cathal, Dee, Alan, Breda, Pauline (Mama 2), Angela, Martin & Teresa, you don't realise what your friendship and kindness has meant to me, they say when a crisis happens that you know who your friends are and really, I was so lucky to have you in my life. Being brought off to various castles around the country to sample afternoon tea! Coming out after your long day of work to give me my injections and listen to me moan and help me down glasses of wine. Calling out to visit me and again listen to me moan about being bloated, getting masses said for me. For those of you that send cards and messages, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Last but not least to my long suffering husband, Gordon, someone once said to me that "Gordon has a lot to put up with", this was before I got sick! Yes, I am a diva, I have a penchant for expensive bags,I like nice things, and he has to drive up to Dublin to bring me shopping while he waits for me, puts up with my cats and then he had to nurse me, mind me, clean the house, do the washing and all this while working on growing his own company. So the biggest thanks is to you.
I've done so much this last year, I went to London at Christmas, I started back running again, I did the Galway 5k series and I ran 8k out in Roundstone, visited lots of castles and became an expert in afternoon tea sandwiches and pastries. Once the "girls" were reconstructed I went on holidays to Tenerife sporting my new bikini so all in all, I had a pretty good year considering what I had gone through. Gordon always says to me that when I am 80, I will have the perkiest boobs in the nursing home!

To anyone reading this that is about to go through your journey, its not easy, but if you surround yourself with good friends and family, you will get through it. Stay strong and there will be times that you will look in the mirror and think you are uncle fester in a wig, but it will grow back!

I hoped that you enjoyed reading my blogs as much as I enjoyed writing them. So to life, love and happiness. Cheers.. !

I'm signing off now with one of my favourite songs, anyone that knows me personally will know straight away that this song sums me up! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNSUOFgj97M

I plan to run a 10k later this year and if you would like to support a great cause, the NBCRI. The key is curing breast cancer is research, this is for your mother, sister, aunt, daughter. So donate if you can, every little helps! http://www.mycharity.ie/event/yvonne_dolans_event/

Always look on the bright side of life

Coming towards the end of Chemo was very tough, the doctors had told me it would get harder as you go on, it is the accumulation of chemicals that are in your body. And yes you guessed it they were right. It was getting harder and harder, was getting fatigued very quickly, bloated, weak, and just fed up. I used to cry for no apparent reason just because it was so hard. I can't really describe it but when you feel like crap and then look in the mirror at your bald head, that used to set me off as well. When people used to say to me that you look well, they were either lying or else my make up skills and my wig were really very good.!

I tried to keep out of the limelight, you will notice if you were a friend of mine on FB, there were very few pics of me up there. Gordon used to do the shopping in Tuam, as I was afraid to run into someone I knew.

My chemo was due to finish on 26th November about a week after my birthday so Gordon, myself, John and his partner went to Rouge for dinner. It was lovely to get out but I couldn't drink much. Yes sadly, my taste for alcohol was another side effect of chemo, but here's a pic of me enjoying a glass of champagne.. :)

The last few days before I finished I was so excited, the thought of finishing was brilliant. It was better than Christmas and my Birthday rolled into one. There may have been cryptic clues on my FB, like...

And so it came, the final day, 26th November 2013. I hoped and skipped into that Chemo ward like I was Michael Flatley, all the nurses knew it was my final day. But before they give you the drugs, they have to do your bloods to make sure you are healthy enough to take it. So they were saying just don't get too excited yet until your bloods are back. I knew my bloods were fine, I could feel it. When they came back and said Yes, your bloods are fine, I was like, I told you so! Never was someone so happy, I was practically beaming from ear to ear while they hooked me up.

I am a person who believes in signs, kinda like in the film Final Destination, when you see a sign you must not ignore it. That afternoon, my drip was almost finished and on comes the radio, "I will survive" by Gloria Gaynor, I couldn't ignore it, pardon the pun, but I'm sitting in a chemo ward with everyone hooked up and this song comes on the radio. I had this compulsion to get up out of my chair and start singing it. Gordon looked at me disapprovingly and No, you can't do it. He was right, it would have been inappropriate to do it but wouldn't it have been gas to see everyone in that room singing, I will survive. I regret not having the guts to do it. Finally the drip had finished and they removed all of the tubing, I was free to go. All the nurses wished me luck and I told them in no uncertain terms, that I didn't want to see any of them again! (in a nice way)
We of course heading to The G Hotel to have a cocktail to celebrate!! What this picture does not show is about half way through, I spent about 1/2 hour in the toilet being sick. Not the best idea but still glad I managed to get half a Pina Colada into me!

Slowly but surely the effects started to subside, but even today I'm still not right, they told me it would be a year before I am fully right after chemo. It stays that long in your system. About 4 weeks after chemo I went to visit my two consultants. Firstly, Prof. Kerin, he was very happy to see how well I had done and positive I had kept through the whole experience.He examined me and he could not feel any tumour at all. I beamed with delight. I questioned him a second time, "Are you sure" and surely to God, that man had another examination and there was nothing there that he could feel!!!
We were both so happy, he thought that the effects of the chemo were successful and the only way for sure to see if there was anything there was by surgery. I had thought about this and I knew exactly what I wanted to do. So when he asked me about my surgery options, it was a no-brainer. I want you to do a double mastectomy, I want everything gone cause I don't want to go through this again. (If this is your first time reading my blog, reasons are: Mother died of breast cancer, my sister had it twice, both my second cousins had it the year before me and I am a carrier of the BRCA1 Gene.) My boobs were a ticking time bomb ready to explode. Hence the name of my blog!!

So you can see why I it was a no-brainer for me. They told me that surgery would be some time in January as you have to leave the body time to heal after chemo and get your bloods back up again. We went to see the oncologist as well that month and he had exactly the same opinion of Prof, he couldn't feel a thing. It was a great relief going into Christmas knowing that I had at least some good news.

That Christmas Day was one I will always remember, I love Christmas, anyone who knows me will know that I love everything about it. I'm worse than a child, with decorations, buying the cats Christmas clothes and just about anything that is Christmassy. Oh and I love Christmas Jumpers as well!
I wasn't sick that day but I didn't feel like my good old self, I did think what if this is my last Christmas here, what if this is the last turkey that I will cook, the last Christmas jumper that I will wear?
I did get upset that day as we visited my parents grave and I asked myself where would I be this time next year.  I'm not a morbid person and I always look on the bright side of life but I can't help each time I do something memorable that it could be my last. You can't possibly live your life that way but I hope in time that will subside. Even just back from my holidays I still couldn't help but think, what if this is my last holiday? Well if it is, then make it count. None of us know what the future will hold so all we can do is our best to enjoy ourselves and not take the serious stuff too seriously. If I'm able to do something then I'll do it. Life is indeed for the living.

Yvonne
XXX

Me and Mr. Bond Christmas 2013.

P.S. I am going to do a 10k run this year in aid of breast cancer research, if you would like to sponsor me, you can do so via the link. http://www.mycharity.ie/event/yvonne_dolans_event/
xxx

C Day

Okay so I had gotten the worse news of my life but before I go into that and how I reacted, I should tell you first about how it all came to be.

I had taken up running a few months previous to this thanks to my good friend John, I had lost about 1/2 stone and I was in the fittest shape of my life since I was a teenager, even my boobs had shrunk and I was delighted!!!  I took part in the Galway 5k Series and had run my first 10k in the Kinvara Rock & Road.
I was in pretty good shape and I was working on getting my body into bikini shape for a cruise that we had booked later that year.

John,Clair,Sinead,Goron,Bradley & me at the Galway 5k Series.

I had noticed a small bump when I was in the shower, to be honest I forgot about it, but a week later it was still there. I thought it was a muscle that I had built up from the running.So when I noticed it again I said to myself, I better get it checked out, so I called the Consultants office and asked if they could arrange for a Breast MRI, which they did.
I had the MRI on a Monday and the following day the Consultants office rang me to arrange an appointment to see the Consultant himself. We went through the results of the MRI scan, he said that something showed up but to be on the safe side we'll do a biopsy. I told him that was perfect, lets get this out of the way, make sure I'm fine and then lets see about doing the preventive surgery.

Off I trotted to get the biopsy done, the Doctor that did it was very nice, it was a little sore and the only way I can describe it was like a little stapler going off inside you. I had a mammogram before and after the biopsy and I nearly fainted again!!! This time, I had to be brought into a room to lie down and was given a Bourbon biscuit and a cup of tea. They wouldn't let me leave until they were sure I was okay. I was going to go back to work afterwards but then the Doctor that had done the biopsy came back to me and asked if I was okay. I told her I was fine and was heading back to work, she looked at me and told me to go home, "you've been through a lot today" it was only then that I realised, that something was wrong. I was in on Monday for MRI Scan, then the results on Tuesday, met the Consultant on the Wednesday and biopsy and 2 mammograms done. It was all too quick and really I knew what that meant.

I drove home in quite an amount of pain from the biopsy and it seemed to take forever to get home. It was going to be a week before the results of the biopsy came back so we (my husband - Gordon) decided to carry on as normal.
Fast forward to the following week, I had an appointment with the Consultant again for the biopsy results. I had already convinced myself that it was bad news but I wasn't going to take it lying down. So what does a girl do in crisis, I got myself dolled up to the nines that morning. Did the GHD on the hair, put on a Fabulous dress and gold studded Topshop shoes. Well I wasn't going to look bad after getting bad news now was I!!!

We waited in the Consultants rooms and people went in and out and it seemed that we were left until last. I told Gordon, "OMG, they are leaving us until last, you know why that is don't you". I had him up in a heap until eventually my name was called.
My heart was in my mouth, I could feel it pounding in my chest, the Consultant put out his hand and shook mine and said, "Yvonne, I'm sorry but you have Breast Cancer", before he finished his sentence, I had burst out crying, ruining my freshly applied make up and said, "Yes, I knew it was bad news". The rest of the time in that room was a bit of a blur, Gordon asked most of the questions. I asked one question that I can clearly remember. "Am I going to be alright?" he answered saying "I hope so". That's when it really hit me, Jesus this is serious, I might die from this. We left his room and went into another room with the Breast Care nurse, she gave me a booklet on Breast Cancer (which I still haven't read) and her phone number, she was very nice to us both. We made some small talk and she walked us out, she admired my shoes and we left. We didn't know what to do, we got out of there and headed for home, we rang our friends and family, well Gordon did most of it as I was too upset. We got home, I opened the fridge and took out a bottle of wine and poured myself a glass, it was early only about 4 o'clock but I needed a drink.
Some friends of ours came out to see me that night, Alan & Deirdre, Breda & Pauline. They all brought wine bless them. One of them (I won't mention who) brought back 3 bottles of wine, a bag of ice and a pack of Xanax! We drank, we laughed, we cried and smoked way too many cigarettes. It was that night where Deirdre after a few glasses of wine had said to Gordon that you have to get her a cat with a squashed face (cause I LOVE cats!). Breda stayed that night with us, when I went to bed I broke down. Gordon ran up to the kitchen and got the Xanax and hugged me until I had calmed down. I slept that night due to wine and Xanax. (I am not condoning this!!!)

Things didn't seem as bad the next day, I rang the travel agent to cancel our cruise and some sensible things like that. Gordon brought me into town shopping to take my mind off things, well what else can a girl do in a crisis. Things were bad but not that bad where I can't shop!!!! I bought a few bits and pieces and when I got home I started my search for a cat with a squashed face!