Before I can have my second lot of chemo I have to visit my oncologist and I am quite excited about going. You see I think the lump as actually shrunk and quite a bit too. It may be me just my mind going into overdrive and wishing for it to shrink or it may be it is true but the only way of knowing for sure is by seeing my oncologist.
I arrived at the hospital and firstly went in to have my bloods taken. They check that your blood counts have raised enough for you to be able to go ahead with your next chemo. I was told that with the earlier chemo’s that this shouldn’t really be a problem but later on it may be that they postpone the chemo for few days just to make sure that they are back to a level that my body can cope with. If my blood counts are too low and they give me more chemo I would definitely be more prone to infection resulting in being admitted into hospital ad even though I have excepted the fact that I will be visiting the hospital for treatments and have to stay in for my surgery; being admitted for infections or other reasons is definitely not on my agenda and I will do my utmost avoid this.
After I'd had my bloods taken and got settled in the waiting area, my nurse without acknowledging me walked straight passed but quickly looked back when she realized who I was as she hadn't recognized me at first with the wig that I was now wearing. She was quite surprised that I was on my own saying that she thought me to be very brave as I was going to be having some more biopsies done. Everyone again was so nice and after a short wait I was taken in to see Dr Chan my oncologist. He asked me a load of questions on how I’d been over the last couple of weeks and discussed the few side effects that I’d had. He was pleased with me and I think he was pleasantly surprised of how positive and happy that I was. He told me that I had dealt with the first lot of chemo very well and said he couldn't see there being any problems about going ahead with my second chemo. Then it was time for him to examine me and the biopsies. I told him that I personally thought that the lump had shrunk and had been excited about coming to see him “Well! There is only one way to find out if it has shrunk” he smiled. I smiled back at him and then climbed up onto the examination couch. He did the usual checks of checking my breasts, around my neck and under my armpits and and then the ruler came out. Anxious and feeling very positive I watched him while he took the measurements. ‘It has shrunk, I know it has, I can feel it has’ I told myself, and Yes!! It had definitely shrunk; Mr Chan had pleasure in telling me that the chemo was working well and that it was now measuring approximately 50mm in diameter a reduction of 25mm. Not bad for one round of chemo. I couldn’t contain my huge smile showing everyone in the room how pleased I was feeling.
Another four biopsies were taken which by now I am dealing with like a pro and with the usual do's and don’ts I was free to go home. As soon as I was out of the hospital building I was like a giddy school child. I couldn’t wait to ring Lee to tell him the good news. "It's shrunk Lee, I told you it had shrunk" I blurted out to him as soon as he answered the phone. Lee was very pleased and went on to ask me every little detail about my appointment. 'Now who shall I phone next' I thought. My mum was to be next. I know I was gabbling on but I couldn’t help it. I was so excited of how much it had actually shrunk. This is such a big deal for me, to feel the lump getting smaller and smaller and at such an early stage of my treatment. How small will it be at the end of my chemo? At this rate it will have totally disappeared.
The incision from the biopsies were feeling very sore and wouldn't stop bleeding, which I was surprised about as with all the others I’d had this had never happened. Getting up for work the following morning things still hadn’t settled down and as the day went on it got sorer and sorer and had to change the dressing a couple of times. At 2.30pm I gave in to the tiredness and the soreness and left the office for home. The bleeding was on and off for the rest of day and into the evening. Sometimes I wish I could keep my big mouth shut as Lee finished up ringing the hospital, telling me that I can't be too careful. Luckily they didn’t tell me I had to go to back to the hospital, but to put pressure on the wound for about 15 minutes to try and stop the bleeding and not to use my right arm to much as this could aggravate it which could in turn make it start bleeding again. I was instructed that if it hadn’t cleared up by the morning then I had to go up to the breast clinic for them to have a look. Now Lee was on straight on my case. “Don’t do that, don’t do this, Where you going? Sit down I’ll Get it.” Isn't it supposed to be every woman’s dream to have a man wait on them hand and foot? So why did I feel so uncomfortable. It made me feel incompetent and lazy. Maybe it’s because I’m too independent, and sometimes it seems easier and quicker for me to do something myself rather than have a half hour conversation about how and where. Well I’ve never been one for waiting around for someone else to do something that I can do myself, I’m quite a handy woman, and can do more than just fit a plug or change a light bulb. When renovating my old house I really got stuck into the dirty stuff, sledge hammering walls down, digging concrete floors up, mixing plaster. Yeah I can mix the stuff but you would need probably 20 layers of wallpaper to cover up the imperfections if I were to put it on the walls. But I did have a go.
Where was I? Oh yeah, Not being able to do anything in case it aggravated the biopsy site. Anyway the following morning Lee was straight on my case. “Its fine now, it’s just very sore” I told at him. “Has it stopped bleeding, shall I ring the hospital to say were on our way up, shall I take the day off work” I interrupted him as I didn’t want the conversation to carry on “No its fine, it’s not bleeding anymore and NO I don’t need to go to the hospital. It just feels very bruised and sore, now will you go to work and let me have some piece” I was laughing at him and he soon was laughing back as before closing the door behind him as he set off for work he had to have the last word didn’t he “Make sure you take plenty of pain killers and you’d better ring work to say that you won’t be going in today, you'd better Karen or you'll be in trouble”. I let him have that one and agreed as it was exactly what I had in mind anyway. The First thing Lee said to me when he rang me for my first checking in phone call was "Where are you" as soon as I said I was at home he hung up on me. 'What on earth!' I thought, and then the landline phone started to ring. Knowing now what he was up to I started to laugh and answered the phone by saying "I'm not in". Lee started to laugh. "Good girl" he said.
Maureen has volunteered to come with me to the hospital for my next chemo which I have warned her we will be a busy day. First of all I have to be at the hospital for my second lot of chemo for 9am which fingers crossed will go even better than first time. The only thing that I am hesitant of is the red stuff (epirubicin) going in as I still have a strong memory of it really burning. Hopefully it will be as the nurse said and that it would go a lot better as I now know what to expect. At 4pm I have to be back at the Gynaecology Unit, this is for them to investigate what the CT scan showed up on my right ovary. The hospital doesn’t seem too concerned about this and strongly believe it to be a dermoid as I’ve said before. So if they are not concerned then neither am I. Plus if it was cancer I’m already having chemo so won’t the chemo shrink that too? It's weird, but where do these dermoid’s come from, what triggers them off to grow? The thought of having a cyst thing that looks like bone hair and teeth is a little freaky but like I said; I am not going to fret about it, they have spotted it and are doing the tests to check it out.
I seem to be putting a lot of trust in these Dr’s and Nurses that I have just met. Why do we do that? Just because they have the white coats and clip boards, we as a nation put all our trust into them. I did this a year ago and look where that got me. It got me absolutely nowhere, just a lecture about being paranoid and stupid. We put so much faith into the NHS and automatically think that they are always right. Well I have proved that they are not. I was right a year ago and she was wrong. I wasn’t paranoid, which leads me to say that I have actually took some action and done something in regards to complaining about ‘Dr X’
I did a bit of searching on the internet about clinical negligence and rang one of the numbers that I found. A solicitor rang me back immediately who asked a lot of questions. Talking about that day with ‘Dr X’ and how she treated me I found quite upsetting and found myself apologising for crying a number of times. The solicitor is sending me out their information pack with a letter explaining how to put a complaint letter together, where to send it and the timescale for acknowledgements and responses. Once I have the response they have informed me to forward it straight on to them so that they can assess it and start taking action. They have told me that it can be a very long drawn out process but I feel I have to do this, if not for me but for other women out there.
