Month: September 2015

Excuse Me While I Go Crop-Dust My Chin

Excuse Me While I Go Crop-Dust My Chin

by katelharc77 ♥ 7 Comments

Way back in January, while recovering from my de-boobing surgery and trying to get my head around the months of cancer treatment that were lining up on my doorstep, I found myself making lots of lists.

Lists of potential side effects, lists of products I needed to buy, lists of things to avoid on chemo and lists of emergency supplies I needed by my bedside night and day. In amongst all that scary prep work, I vividly remember trying to push through the heavy folds of despair by seeking out little silver linings amongst what felt like piles and piles of awfulness. I optimistically set out to tally up a list of chemo ‘Pros’ to sit alongside all the ‘Cons’, in the hope it would make my head and heart feel a little lighter.

Aside from the obvious cancer-slaying properties of chemo, my PROS list was pretty short:

  1. I won’t have to endure hot wax on my nether regions all year
  2. I will save a small fortune on hair cuts
  3. I will get to see what I look like bald and badass

It was clearly going to be all about the hair.

While I wasn’t all that keen on going bald, a small part of me had always had an inner desire to suddenly ‘do a Britney’ and shave my head. It’s not something I ever ended up pursuing, but I’ll admit to coming close a few times. In the end I would always chicken out. While it was a bold, brave move, it never really paid off for her, did it?

bald britney

Anyway, finally I had my chance! Cancer had provided me with not only the opportunity, but the necessity to buzz cut.

Perhaps it’ll be liberating, I thought.

So shave it, I did, as soon as mange levels reached crisis point and I could no longer carry out a successful comb-over of all the bare patches of my scalp. I get it now, fellas…Losing my hair so suddenly made me feel for all you poor blokes who have to deal with the shock of premature baldness. It ain’t fun. The best advice I got, and continue to give out, is:

 

Take back follicular control. Embrace the bald.

I actually didn’t mind my initial buzz cut. It made me feel tough. I didn’t look sick, I just looked a little military. But very quickly, the fine crop of hair adorning my scalp vanished completely, winter descended, and suddenly having a head as shiny and smooth as a billiard ball was not only über unattractive, it was freezing.

eyebrows 1

For the better part of six months I was completely bald up top, and sporting a ‘whole-body Brazilian’ everywhere else too.

Who needs regular treatments at the beauty parlour when chemo can keep you looking silky smooth and fabulous for free? One little infusion date with some cytotoxic cocktails was all it took for my body hair to start sliding painlessly from their follicles. No need whatsoever for hot wax or zappy lasers!

But while a bit of neck-down alopecia may seem like something to celebrate, when it encompasses eyebrows, eyelashes and head hair too, and you find yourself looking like a pale, pre-pubescent alien, there isn’t all that much to rejoice in!

My kids were quite fascinated with my hair-loss too, and it was certainly the topic of some wacky conversations in our shower. It made me dig deep into the essence of who I was and reflect with them on what it is about each of us that really counts. I learnt a lot from their ability to embrace this new version of their mum so easily, and tackle questions from other children with a frankness that many adults couldn’t replicate.

These days, my head is back to having a pretty good coverage of thick, short fuzz which could possibly pass for an army issue buzz-cut of sorts, although I can tell by the weird glances I still get from other people’s kids, that I’m not quite there. Young children will be the true test for me. When they stop ogling, I know I’m starting to blend into the normal crowd again!

kate hair growth sept

While head hair seems to grow slowly but surely, a new collection of chin hairs are going great guns. You know the type I’m talking about – the thick, dark, coarse ones that you’re positively sure weren’t around yesterday but have somehow sprouted two inches overnight, and are able to resist the death grip of a pair of tweezers with amazing tenacity?

Yeah, them.

I don’t know whether it’s because I have become so accustomed to the hair-free version of myself this year, or whether it’s the hormone suppressants I’ve just started taking and my new menopausal status, but I seem to be cultivating quite a collection these days.

Brilliant.

I suppose after bemoaning my bald face so regularly over the last six months, writing odes to eyebrows and hoping for my lashes to grow back lickety-split, I should be embracing this new foray into facial hair with the humour and nonchalance it deserves.

After all, it is just hair!

Now, please excuse me while I go crop-dust my chin.

Kate x

Let’s Re-think the Pink

Let’s Re-think the Pink

by katelharc77 ♥ 5 Comments

october pink

October is Breast Cancer Awareness month and things are about to get very PINK.

There’ll be pink ribbons everywhere, with ambitious brands professing their dedication to increasing Breast Cancer awareness by ‘going pink’ for the month – whilst, of course, lining up their products for purchase.

Those of us touched by Breast Cancer will likewise be enticed to show our commitment to raising awareness by purchasing everything from pretty pink fishing rods and work boots, to pink-labelled apple sauce or loo paper.shoesmandmskfc

Social media feeds will be laden with cryptic word games involving bra colours, calls to ‘go bra-less for Breast Cancer’ and pink lipstick selfies, in the guise of ‘raising everyone’s awareness’.

Breast Cancer will be everywhere we look, dressed up to be fluffy, pink, feminine — and sometimes just ridiculous…the very antithesis of what this ugly disease actually is.

I’m all for spreading awareness: I work pretty hard to get the word out about the importance of regular breast examinations and knowing the normal look and feel of your (or your loved one’s) breasts. It’s one of the reasons I write so passionately on this little blog of mine.

It’s Time to Rethink the Pink

The ‘pinkification’ of Breast Cancer began more than 35 years ago. In that time, it has certainly increased the profile of a disease that had previously been taboo.

In the last 35 years we have seen survival rates steadily rise, and more and more people able to talk openly about their experiences. So it has done a lot of good.

These days, reducing Breast Cancer to a pretty colour or a cryptic status update trivialises a disease that claims the lives of more than 3,000 Australians every year.

It lulls people into a false belief that they have ‘done something’, when in actual fact it does nothing to improve the outcome for the 15,000 people annually diagnosed with Breast Cancer. I’d even go so far as to say it practically normalises this insidious disease and minimises awareness of its devastation.

Making people more aware about serious diseases like cancer is great, but at times the real objectives are lost in the sea of pink, and the seriousness of Breast Cancer is diminished.

So, after 35 years of turning pink, I believe we have had enough ‘awareness raising’. I think we all know this devastating disease exists.

While survival rates have increased, what hasn’t changed is the overall incidence of Metastatic disease, the real Breast Cancer killer.

Metastatic Cancer

I’m always surprised at how little people know about Metastatic Cancer. You see, no one dies from a diagnosis of Early Stage Cancer. Cancer that stays contained within the tissue it begins in, is usually very treatable. It is when cancerous cells spread to other parts of the body that cancer becomes almost impossible to cure.

Many, many women get diagnosed every year with Early Stage Breast Cancer, which doctors will treat very successfully with surgery, Chemotherapy and Radiation where required, and prognosis is deemed very good. Even my diagnosis of Stage 3C, where the cancer had invaded local lymph nodes, is considered curable by my doctors.

What many of you don’t know is that around 30% of people diagnosed with Early Stage disease will go on to develop Metastatic Breast Cancer at a later date.

Metastatic Breast Cancer occurs when Breast Cancer cells leave the breast via blood vessels or the lymphatic system and grow tumours in other parts of the body. There is no cure for Metastatic Breast Cancer, also known as Stage IV Breast Cancer.

My doctors are throwing everything at my cancer in the hope it is enough to cure me for life. But once active treatment finishes, it will become a game of vigilance and hope. I will try to get on with my life, all the while having regular check-ups in the hope my cancer does not recur.

My plea to you this October, is to thoughtfully engage with raising Breast Cancer awareness. Try to pull back from social media games that implore you to post ridiculous phrases or status updates that do nothing to lift the profile of what Breast Cancer really looks like.

Instead, talk to family and friends about my experience. I’m the perfect example of someone who knew the risks and was pretty in-tune with my body, but got caught out anyway.

Don’t get sucked into October’s pink hype. Many brands give generously to Breast Cancer research, but some market cleverly to piggy-back on others’ goodwill. Not everything that’s pink has Breast Cancer awareness or fundraising for research as their main objective.

And most importantly, do a breast examination every single month, not just in October. Maybe bust out Christy Amphlett’s ‘I Touch Myself’ whilst doing so, just for kicks.

Kate x

Hospital Lyfe

Hospital Lyfe

by katelharc77 ♥ 1 Comment

A week inside and I’m seriously starting to go a bit batty. If it weren’t for my lovely nurses, I think I’d probably be hatching an escape plan to get out of here using my IV pole as a scooter. Geez I wish we had IV poles like this one:

trike IV

This little blog post is going to be all about giving three cheers to everyone who works in the medical profession! Hip, hip hooray! I’ve talked a lot about my ace doctors in past blog posts, so this one’s going to be about the other ace people who have been caring for me a lot this year…nurses.

Nurses – and I’m going to add the extra demarcation of Oncology Nurses – are extraordinary beings. They are cheery in the face of the Big C every day. They cop all manner of wacky bodily functions being thrown at them (literally), and they buzz around tirelessly making us sickies feel a little more normal. I have not encountered one nurse who hasn’t impressed me in the Oncology wards of the Epworth…and believe me, I reckon I’ve met them all this year.

During my spectacular days of chemo, they’d practically have to drag me like a tantrumming toddler to the treatment chair, sit holding my hand as I sobbed and sniffled and snotted all over the place in absolute misery, then run like Usain Bolt across the linoleum to frisbee me a sick bag at juuust the right moment, and reassure me with the most wise and experienced words, that despite feeling like death, I would make it through this week, and every infusion to come.

They got me through.

Then through rads, the nurses and radiation staff made every attempt to keep me smiling, even when I turned into Lobster Boob and my skin started to shrivel and fall away, they dressed my wounds and said, “Look how far you’ve come.”

And this week I just feel like they’re on my team. And I really have witnessed them care for the old, the young, the grumpy, the mad, and the spectacularly incontinent with patience and a smile. Kudos to you, nurses of 4ES!

When I first arrived, as my last blog post explained, I spent a few days in a shared room. I’ve since been moved to a private room (YAY) in what can only be described as Operation Stealth.

After surgery on Saturday I was actually feeling quite good on Sunday, but the infection spiked again on Monday and I was febrile, vomiting and utterly miserable all day. I couldn’t eat, drink or sleep. There was a concern that the antibiotics I’d been given weren’t the right ones for my kind of staph. In the end, it started to ease again by Tuesday, but my beautiful nurses organised for me to move out of the communal nursing home I was in and down the hall a bit to what feels like The Epworth Penthouse. It was very secretive. None of the oldies was allowed to know, as then everyone would be on their Zimmer frames trying to beat me to it.

While the grumpy one was busy calling her daughter Lorraine to complain about the food, another was belching loudly behind a curtain and the third was adjusting her Poise pad, they whisked me out of there in a flash!

Peace at last! The room I’m in now feels like the one they reserve for VIPs (ha). It’s huge, has a sofa and an ensuite – even a desk and a big fat TV perfect for watching The Bachelor at night. Rose ceremonies have never had this level of intensity before! It was nail-biting! Last night, as I clutched my knees to my Heparin-bruised, queasy stomach, I felt the DRAAMAA like I’ve never felt it before!

Why oh why did it have to be TLBCG Heather?! WAAAHHH!

(Click here if you have NO IDEA what I’m on about. Rosie Waterland does the best Bachie recaps ever)

Anyhoo…

So, whilst hospital is totally not my favourite place to be, if I have to be here all week, I’m bloody rapt to be in the Penthouse with the lovely nurses of 4ES. Even if they do ask me way too many questions about my bowels being open or not, and come in multiple times a night to check my temperature and blood pressure…I think I’ll survive.

Plan is, I escape on Sunday. As it stands now, the IV antibiotics have ceased, I only have one more drain tube left to be pulled out, and I start oral antibiotics this afternoon. I might even get to have a shower tonight, peeps, what a novelty that will be!

Laterz,

Stinky Kate x

P.S. Have you all go your tickets to the Gala? It’s only a month away! I’m really thinking I might try and do a duet of ‘Bedroom Eyes’ with Kate Cebrano. Think she’d be up for it?

When It Rains, It Pours

When It Rains, It Pours

by katelharc77 ♥ 17 Comments

It never just rains in Cancerland. It pours.

And this week it has done just that for me. Poured, that is. Again.

Chemo and radiation finally had great big ticks next to their names. After nine months, they were finally done.

And then last Wednesday I spent most of the day hooked up to an IV having my wonder drugs, Herceptin and Perjeta infused into me. As I stepped out of the Epworth Day Ward as the late afternoon sun dipped behind the rooftops, I thought to myself ‘Freedom at last. Three weeks of no hospital! Let’s get back to life!’

On Friday I treated myself to a Gunnas’ Writing Masterclass with the feisty and passionate Catherine Deveny. It was my little present to myself; a pat on the back for getting through the gruelling events of the last nine months.

She didn’t disappoint. She was hilarious, inspiring, brutally honest and full of great tips I will definitely take on board as I push myself further away from Cancer Cans and attempt writing beyond the borders of Cancerland. I left ready to ‘Fail while daring greatly’, and take up her challenge to write for an hour a day, four days a week, for four weeks – the Gunnas’ Challenge.

‘It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.’ – Theodore Roosevelt

As I arrived at my sister’s place that afternoon, buoyed by a day of indulgent food and lots of writing, I noticed my boob was hurting a bit. Nothing crazy, just a weird kind of ache. Now, let me tell you that neither of my boobs, with their hard round tissue expanders in situ, ever feel all that comfortable. They’re always getting in the way, and can sometimes feel a bit sore if I sleep on them strangely or perhaps lift something too heavy. So the fact that one of them was a little achy didn’t flash immediate warning signs to me.

But, as the hours dragged on, my boob got more and more sore. It got to the point where I had to lie down on our couch and couldn’t move without wincing. Something was wrong. The weirdest thing about it all was that the sore boob was actually my ‘good boob’, not the boob currently slathered in burn gel and wrapped in glad wrap. Not the ‘cancerous can’ that tried to kill me, but its innocent twin that got lopped off prophylactically in December so that I could still look somewhat symmetrical. What was going on?

Jay rang my surgeon who suggested it was some torn scar tissue. He advised pain relief until I felt better.

That night, while my brain went foggy under a haze of Endone, my boob continued to worsen. The pain was excruciating – far worse than even childbirth. I couldn’t stand without feeling faint, I developed a fever and began vomiting.

The next morning we rang an ambulance. My surgeon wanted me to get to hospital but I couldn’t walk myself to our bathroom without falling over.

Once at hospital, and the pain and nausea medication had started working, we discovered via a needle aspiration that I had a staph infection, most likely due to the bad boob’s broken skin post-radiotherapy letting in unwanted germs. Apparently these bugs like hiding behind foreign objects, and so they’d taken up residence behind the tissue expander and were having a good old party, making me sick.

It meant surgery that day…They would need to open me up, flush out my chest, sterilise my tissue expander and give me IV antibiotics for a week. I never expected that!

So here I am again. Back in hospital for the week, hooked up to IV, with drains of gross-looking fluid dripping out of me. I woke up this morning to find myself completely nude, from the waist up, sporting what looked like a giant geriatric nappy. I wasn’t happy. No one really should ever see themselves clothed in a nappy at the age of 38, surgery or no surgery. After calling for the nurse for some answers, she giggled and told me it actually wasn’t a nappy (although it sure as hell looked like one), but a special heat sheet to keep me warm.

I’m currently sharing a room with two other cancer patients, both in their eighties, who are farting, belching and talking loudly because their hearing aids aren’t in. They’re already comparing cancers, prognoses, and are completely suspicious of all the doctors and nurses.

It’s going to be a loooong week.