goodbye Jellybean

I've felt like part of me has been missing this week and really there has been.

I got out of hospital Monday afternoon and spent the evening with Chris and the dogs. Jelly seemed fine that night but by morning she was a lot sicker. Chris had spent a lot of time up and down during the night with her and when I woke just after 7 she had been coughing for a while. (Coughing is a sign in congestive heart failure dogs that their lungs are filling with fluid).

Chris gave her extra medicine in the hopes that would slow her heart and begin to dry out her lungs but it didn't help so around 7.30 we decided to drop her at our local vets to be put on oxygen and for the vet to see her when she got in.

We had already discussed what we would do if she had another coughing episode so we knew in a way what was going to happen, we were just waiting for the vets confirmation. Around 9am Lucy (critical care vet) called Chris and confirmed our worst fears, Jelly had reached the point where medicine would do nothing more for her. We agreed we would head to the vets and do what we needed.

Waiting at the vets was almost as hard as saying goodbye, we decided to pay the bill before we went through to the consult room so that way we could easily leave. We had to sign a consent form for them to give her the drugs but I just couldn't do it, I felt like I was signing her death sentence (which it essentially is) so Chris had to sign.

We were taken through to a consult room to wait while they brought her in, she was still in the oxygen box and looked so sad. Her little heart was working overtime and her chest was pounding. Lucy pulled her out of the box and gave her to me and we could just tell she was struggling to breath and wasn't comfortable. We had a few minutes with her alone to say goodbye and give her hugs.

Lucy came back in after a while and told us what would happen and began administering the drugs. So we sat there and held our girl as her heart slowed and then stopped and she took her last breath, in all it was less than 30 seconds and her pain was over but mine began.

We stayed there and held her for a while longer and said our final goodbyes. Lucy was wonderful through all of this; giving us privacy when we needed it and we could also tell it made her upset as well.

Eventually as much as I wanted to stay there with her I needed to leave so we gave our beautiful girl to Lucy and went home and cried.

We decided to have her cremated and had already picked Lawnswood to come collect her and bring her home. Jelly was delivered home to us on Friday morning and the reality really sunk in that she is gone.

I don't regret the choice we made as it was best for her but I just wish I had more time with her, I feel like I was robbed of those 2 weeks because I was in hospital. It's been difficult adjusting to life without her. Gizmo and Millie are grieving, Gizmo especially has been very quiet since Tuesday and has mostly just slept the days away and refuses to play with Millie.

Jelly was such a big part of our lives and such a big personality. She loved to chase cats and play with Gizmo, she dominated a Weimaraner and took crap from no one. But she loved nothing more than sitting on a lap and having her ears rubbed, she always turned to putty when she had her ears rubbed. 

my beautiful girl

a photo from the shoot we had done in October 2012

in her jammies this last winter, cuddled up with me on the lounge

 

the not happy new year

No witty puns or remarks to be had in this post.

I spent my new year in hospital, 14 days to be exact.

On the 28th December our oldest dog Jellybean became very sick late at night so I spent many hours at Murdoch Emergency Vets with her. We were told her heart murmur had developed into congestive heart failure. Over the rest of the weekend I went back to emergency vets and our local vet after she had more trouble breathing.

I'd been feeling down (energy wise) since the Friday and I was focussing more on looking after my girl than myself but by Monday there was no denying something was wrong, I'd nearly fainted at the vets office and just had zero energy. By the afternoon my temperature reached 39 so I had to head to the hospital.

Now I thought it would be a simple case of doing a couple tests, giving me some drugs and sending me on my way but I was wrong. Turns out I was febrile neutropenic (fevers and no immune system) and that's not a good thing.

So I was admitted that night (New Years Eve) under the impression that I would be there a couple days (wrong again). Thankfully being neutropenic meant I got a private room, don't think I could have survived 14 days in a shared room. Neutropenia is where your neutrophils (to do with your white blood cells and immune system) drop below a normal level. Normal neutrophil levels are between 1.5 and 7.5 and mine were 0.05 when I was admitted.

Not much else happened for a while. I sat around for days while they tried to take blood and put in new cannulas, my veins in my right arm have all pretty much gone caput. So after a week of begging they finally relented and organised for the PICC team to come and put a line in my arm so no more needles.

I had a CT, chest X-rays, ultrasound and a gallium scan (2 trips to Fremantle in ambulances were required for this) and all came back with no result as to where the infection started. All in all they still had pretty much no idea what it was that was making me sick. By sick I mean I felt fine but was having regular high temperatures, on a good day I'd have 2-3 temp spikes a day and on a bad more than 4.

Anyway I pretty much demanded I be discharged on Monday as I had been feeling fine for a couple days and felt no point in being there another 2 days. So at 5pm Monday the 14th January I was finally released from hospital.

My hair began falling out on my third day in hospital so on the Thursday night I had Chris shave my head to reduce the stress I was feeling about it. We were meant to have our fundraising headshave BBQ on the 6th but I was still in hospital so we had to cancel that. My beautiful friend Thanh and Chris's stepdad Darren have both shaved their heads too.

Chris and I with our baldies

Darren - Chris's step dad

Thanh Le

round 1

well first round of chemo is done and dusted. I'm pretty up and down this afternoon/evening mood and body wise.

It was a super long day, rocked up early for a blood test that I didn't actually have to have or end up having, had to wait an hour past my appointment time to actually see the oncologist so by the time we actually got to the treatment room we'd already been there 2 hours. I obviously wasn't in the best of moods at this point.

Anywho slight wait for the cocktail to be prepared (stirred not shaken) and we were in; but wait there's more! Naturally my veins sucked today and it took nearly an hour of heat packs, 2 attempts and me almost fainting before the 3rd nurse (yeah you read right 3rd) actually got the needle into a vein they could use.

So I get the lovely red drugs first (about 220ml of a drug that makes my pee go pink for a day or 2); all 5 syringes of them then they switch on my goon bag. All up the drugs only took like 2 hours so we were out of the hospital just after 2pm. Not fantastic but we now know for next time to be well hydrated and take snacks. Oh and also sit in a comfier chair or get the bed. Was hoping to swap the chemo to Rockingham so we wont have to spend so much time and money on travel and parking but it looks like the doc forgot from last time I saw him and the nurse will likely forget to bring it up with him (or I might call and remind next week after Christmas).

Glad I've finished 95% of the Christmas shopping now, was getting down to the wire and I didnt want to have to worry about going out if I wasn't feeling up to it. The nurse suggested wearing a medical face mask if I go to shopping centres to minimise the risk of infection but seriously unless it's a Hello Kitty or bedazzled one I doubt that's gonna happen.

The fundraising has been going great guns, I hadn't expected so much support considering the time of year so I really do appreciate all that everyone has done. I am really looking forward to the head shave and catching up with people I haven't seen in a while and debuting my new 'do'.

Starting to feel crap as I write this so that's all for now, might post more later in the week depending on how I am feeling.

Peace out

amazeballs

been a little while since I've updated, not much has been happening. All the appointments finally slowed down to the point of actually having a full week without any.

Had a very up and down time emotionally in that week but it certainly wasn't the worst I've had so far. Just having periods of meloncholy not for any particular reason for the most part though I have been keeping pretty well.

I have had a load of stress taken off my shoulders by deciding to take a few months off from work, will suck financially for a while but work is just a tad too hectic and considering how many infections etc I've had lately being around dozens of people all day doesn't really appeal.

So for the amazeballs part of the post - most of you (and by most I mean like 95% of you) know that I am doing a fundraising head shave on the 6th January. http://www.mycause.com.au/page/kirbyscloseshave

We've already raised over $2000 in online and offline donations!!! I have been absolutely thrilled with how quickly the amounts went up and how many people have donated money, I know it's not a great time of year to be asking for money but it really does make me feel so loved to see what's coming in. Chris sent the link and an email around his work explaining the situation and they have been amazing, had so many super online donations come in and people giving us cash donations. There is a collection bucket up on site and some of the staff in Melbourne have even organised a raffle.

I asked Chris if he could write a post on my blog for me and he actually went and created his own, http://itsdrabz.blogspot.com.au/  naturally I cried.

Well it's less than a week until chemo starts and I'm starting to feel nervous. No idea why, I sort of know what to expect and I know it wont be painful. More the how I'll feel after is whats eating at me.

I finally hit 25kg lost the other day and I'd like to say I'm feeling better for it but I can't really say that because I know I would probably feel better if it weren't for the cancer. Get rid of one problem to gain another and unfortunately the new one is a lot more serious.

I'm looking forward to Christmas even though my sisters and parents are staying in Kalgoorlie this year (I think it's about time my sisters travelled to Perth for once :P ).

Looking at life like it might be the last time I see that date which I know is a little depressing but when you think about it anything could happen to anyone anytime/anyday so don't wait for something like cancer or illness to come along before you start to live and experience life.

hey all, new update here.

This weeks been a pretty tough week emotionally/mentally. Had bad news with our fertility stuff and we wont be able to try again now so all our eggs are still in my basket and at a slight risk of going off before we get a chance to use them.

I start chemo on the 18th of this month and have to do it once every 3 weeks for 6 cycles. Once thats all done I move onto radio therapy and start a 5 year plan of tamoxifen. Not too happy about the 5 year treatment but I guess I gotta do what the doctors think is best to minimise the risk of recurrence. After all the treatments are done he said the risk should drop to just below 25% which to me still seems pretty damn high. But I'm not the doctor so I have to trust in them.

I'm sorry if I seem to be cutting people out, just sometimes I feel like being around people and sometimes I just like to be by myself.

My arm is slowly but surely getting better, the pain is minimising and I think the sensation is returning is small bits. I've ended up with a slight infection in my axillary incision (2 for 2 on post surgery infections yay me).

More tests coming up next week a PET scan on Monday, a gated heart scan and blood tests on Tuesday and more blood tests on Wednesday. Starting to think I look like a bloody junkie for all the needle marks in my elbow lol.

Weight loss has slowed cause as before the sleeve I am an emotional eater (something I really should get sorted) and since I haven't worked since the 7th November I've been pretty sedentary. Gotta get my butt into gear and start doing some light exercise.

Maybe doing Christmas shopping would help ;)

and the verdict is.........

I'll cut to the chase here, it's stage IIB and I have to have chemo. Then radiotherapy.

I also need to consider having a mastectomy.

Not great news (not that I expected anything different, well maybe I thought I had on the mastectomy front) and not especially happy after having to wait nearly 50 minutes to actually see the doctor to only have a 5 minute consult.

But anyway, she's happy with how I am healing (yay), but also mentioned that although they got all the cancer out there are abnormal cells and I need to think about whether I want to have layers of tissue scraped out or just go in and have the whole breast removed. Now I managed to hold it together while I was there but right now I'm feeling pretty crap.  

The tumour in my breast ended up being 34mm and not the 25mm initially thought and 3 out of the 18 nodes (which is all of the ones in my armpit) they took were cancerous, one they could feel through the fatty tissue, the others were found under the microscope.

I meet with the oncologist on Monday and the nurse said they are one of the best/friendliest I can get.

Of course none of the chemo will start until after we've done all our stuff with the fertility clinic, all I will say is that we are doing IVF under recommendation of 2 doctors and unless I have already spoken with you about it I wont be discussing it with anyone so please do not ask us. No offence it's just a pretty personal matter to me and although I'm happy to talk about my tits my reproductive bits are off limits.

Well the side trip to the seroma clinic on Tuesday was absolutely pointless as the doctor then just said to wait for my surgeon to look at it and she barely looked and said to just let it reabsorb into my body. Sloshy boob is here to stay, at least for a while anyway.

So I now have more decisions to make and I just don't want to have to do it. I know people say to keep positive but sometimes that just isn't possible. Doesn't help that Chris is leaving for work tomorrow but thankfully it's only one week. After the crazy whirlwind 3 weeks he's had off I think he needs a break from me and my neediness haha.

In the space of 3 weeks I've gone from having the initial mammogram, ultrasound and biopsy to a diagnosis, diagnostic testing, surgery, fertility treatments and a constant string of doctors and hospital visits. I've had more than my fill of needles with plenty more to come.

I know I have Kylie on my side watching over me but her situation is always in the back of my mind.

The water boob

Just a quick update here with a creepy yet hilarious side effect from my surgery.

I have had a mild reaction to the adhesives used in the dressings on my incisions and as such am itching like a mofo. I finally got the all clear to remove the dressings from the lumpectomy and axillary clearance sites but i have to leave the drain site covered due to the stitches.

so i felt the urge to scratch come on and I need to be careful of the steri strips that are still in place so instead I give the itch a little rub instead of a scratch. This would have been fine if I didn't hear a massive sloshing sound inside my tit. I swear I thought I had busted it open or something it was so loud. I had to ask chris to listen to incase I was hearing things, sure enough its there.

Turns out I have developed a seroma in my lumpectomy site. It's basically where clear fluid builds up in surgery sites as it can't drain freely. Going to get the HITH (hospital in the home) nurse to check it out tomorrow and maybe freak her out if she's never heard a boob slosh before.

Still trying to get used to the whole being selfish and asking for help and things when I need/want them. Worried how I will go once Chris goes back to work next Friday. I'm still having my weepy moment but we're getting through with humour. I just want next Thursday to hurry up and come so we finally know what the next step is. Oh and I really really want this drain out cause lugging around a canister of bodily fluids is getting gross (the nurses only measure the quantity, they don't empty it so it is getting fuller by the day).

If no one is freaked out by the site of my semi naked side boob I can post a picture of my gory side haha.