Are you bikini ready and body confident? I’m really struggling at the moment with body positivity. Having gone through a double mastectomy and failed reconstruction, I was always going to have issues with my changed body. However, it has really come to the fore this spring with the influx of social media campaigns declaring that […]
Body Positivity – Has it become an issue of privilege? Read More »
At this point Mini, my second child was around one I was offered the test too. MadDad and myself went along to meet the pretest councillor and discussed all the implications of having a positive test. We left those meetings really feeling as though I needed to have the test and I need to be aware of what my risk would be. Do I had the test and two weeks later we went back for the results, only to be told that I too carried the faulty gene too.
We went home reeling, especially as I had been told that my lifetime risk of breast cancer was over 80% and my lifetime risk of ovarian cancer was in excess of 60%. However, we decided to look up on this as a positive thing and do the only thing I felt able to do which was to gather as much information as possible about treatment and screening. I had a mammogram and an MRI on my breasts, but both were really hard to interpret due to my age (the younger you are the more dense the breast tissue is) and also the fact I had large breasts.
It was around this time that we made the hard decision that we were not going to have anymore children and that I needed to be well for the two I had and to have my ovaries and fallopian tubes removed. I did this first as there is some studies that shown the risk of ovarian cancer increases at 35 and also it is a silent killer and there was no screening I could have at the time.
Four months later we made the informed decision to have a double mastectomy and immediate reconstruction with implants. We made the decision to have implants due to MIni being under a year old and the recovery would be quicker. So I went in for my operation on 28 February. Unfortunately for me things were not straightforward and I had issues with the implants and subsequently spent a lot of time in hospital with sepsis and had to have the implants removed and another operation to remove some more tissue sue to the pathology of the previously removed breasts.
It was a hard and very emotional time for me and my family. I was in hospital for over six weeks over a two month period. But I reduced my risk of breast cancer to less than 5%. I still have not had a reconstruction, but when the boys are more self sufficient I will.
I was hot, yes I know I was in a hospital and they are always hot, but normally the dressings clinic is OK. Yes the window is open, but I know that I am a little off, just not right, I can not put my finger in it and it is about to get worse.
I will come back to haunt you – Writing Workshop Read More »
It is nearly one year since my first breast surgery. I was frantically trying to fit everything in that I needed to. I had booked 6 weeks of Tesco Deliveries, a book of all the things the boys liked, ate, did and schedules. But specifically the one thing I was doing a year ago was
A letter to my children in case I do not wake….. Read More »
White on white, raised and hard So obviously foreign in their origin Not flowing, not organic Just Jagged and sharp Like quiet footsteps on a hard floor Pattering against the soft smooth skin puckered, raw and taught Alien in the lunar landscape gripping pain, prevents rest and sleep no amount of rubbing can realise me
Please don’t call me brave, please don’t tell me I have done the brave thing. What I have done was the easy option, the only option I felt open to me. It was Hobson’s choice. How could I live knowing the risk I had and not worry with every passing moment that a cancer was
Geriatric Mummy is in the very unfortunate circumstances of watching her beloved Father go rapidly downhill with early onset dementia and she has asked what other people would do in her situation. I decided to do a post, rather than a comment, as it would be rather long, as this is a subject close to
In an ideal world a hospital for me would focus on healing the mind, in addition to healing the body. It would be a calm and peaceful place catering for all the needs of the people there. Now I have been in and out of hospital enough lately to be able to say that the
Just a quick post to let you all know that I am home, sore and tired, but so glad to have escaped from the hospital. Unfortunately I have had to have more surgery than anticipated and had to have old fashioned stitched, which means I will have to go back and have them removed. But
