You never expect the least expected, especially when the
unexpected is from a crazy bunch of ladies that I have had the honour of
knowing through the support group that I
created over a year ago called ‘Breast Cancer Chatter’, along with a list of
friends I have come into contact with on my breast cancer profile too.
It all started when I posted the not so good news regarding my CT Scan, immediately I received messages of support, well wishes and anything upbeat that they could possibly thing of with the majority telling me to kick ass. There were however some messages of sheer shock and horror that my news was definitely not the news that they were expecting to hear, and through them I realised that they were indeed hurting and frightened to death for me. I suppose with the added stress of losing some lovely friends to this awful disease since January this year already, the bad news like I had just received, just made them worry that things had started to go in the same direction for me. Hey but come on!, this is me were talking about and even though the news wasn’t frickin great, I have not taken it has being the bloody freaking, panicking, losing my mind thing that I am going to die sort of news. I see it has a sort of good thing, that my great team of doctors have been watching me closely and have been on the case of finding me my next treatment plan even before the results came in. There is a plus side too, as this new trial that I about to embark on looks to be very promising indeed, and has had some amazing results so far with other patients who have been on it, and like all of us out there who have cancer, We live wishing and hoping for the cure, wishing that one day we will receive that one treatment that will obliterate our cancer to kingdom come. So you never know; this could be the one for me.
I don’t like people worrying about me, and defiantly don’t like them being upset. You get upset only results in me getting upset and so, just as I was about to walk of the front door with my Bessie mate Pauline who was taking me to the pub for a good old drinkies, I took a picture of me sticking out my tongue, uploaded it to my facebook wall and captioned it ‘Ready for the Pub and Saying Fuck You Cancer’ My objective was plain and simple, it was merely to show everyone that I was indeed ok, and still the mad Kazza that they had come to know. I had no idea what would become of it, and while sat in the pub later tucking into the biggest mixed grill ever that could have fed a thousand people and of course drinking my extra large dry white wine and soda, Pauline and I logged in to facebook to post on how our evening was going, what we saw had us in hysterics.
It all started when I posted the not so good news regarding my CT Scan, immediately I received messages of support, well wishes and anything upbeat that they could possibly thing of with the majority telling me to kick ass. There were however some messages of sheer shock and horror that my news was definitely not the news that they were expecting to hear, and through them I realised that they were indeed hurting and frightened to death for me. I suppose with the added stress of losing some lovely friends to this awful disease since January this year already, the bad news like I had just received, just made them worry that things had started to go in the same direction for me. Hey but come on!, this is me were talking about and even though the news wasn’t frickin great, I have not taken it has being the bloody freaking, panicking, losing my mind thing that I am going to die sort of news. I see it has a sort of good thing, that my great team of doctors have been watching me closely and have been on the case of finding me my next treatment plan even before the results came in. There is a plus side too, as this new trial that I about to embark on looks to be very promising indeed, and has had some amazing results so far with other patients who have been on it, and like all of us out there who have cancer, We live wishing and hoping for the cure, wishing that one day we will receive that one treatment that will obliterate our cancer to kingdom come. So you never know; this could be the one for me.
I don’t like people worrying about me, and defiantly don’t like them being upset. You get upset only results in me getting upset and so, just as I was about to walk of the front door with my Bessie mate Pauline who was taking me to the pub for a good old drinkies, I took a picture of me sticking out my tongue, uploaded it to my facebook wall and captioned it ‘Ready for the Pub and Saying Fuck You Cancer’ My objective was plain and simple, it was merely to show everyone that I was indeed ok, and still the mad Kazza that they had come to know. I had no idea what would become of it, and while sat in the pub later tucking into the biggest mixed grill ever that could have fed a thousand people and of course drinking my extra large dry white wine and soda, Pauline and I logged in to facebook to post on how our evening was going, what we saw had us in hysterics.
In just 1 hour the picture had received 31 comments and the whole wall of the ‘chatter’
group had changed in appearance, instead of being a normal support group of the
girls chatting about breast cancer, asking for advice or just venting out their
frustrations, I logged into find lots and lots of bloody great big tongues
sticking out everywhere, and all of them saying 'Fuck you Cancer'. It didn't
stop there either, pictures of monkeys, dogs, and cats started to go on too and
then my profile wall started to get invaded with the what appeared to be one
big disease of tongue mania.
Pauline and I had a fantastic evening. I had lots of hugs from Pauline that she was ordered to pass on from everyone in the group and by the time we had gotten to the twentieth hug or so, Pauline and I started to get some really weird looks, which were obviously looks of 'oooh there lesbians'. Why is it that friends can't hug to show how pleased they are too see each other anymore, without it getting out of context, there was no holding hands or kissing, so the only reason I can think of, was my boyish good looking charm lol. After drinking my 2nd glass of white wine spritzer and being total and utterly off my face pissed, Pauline took me home. Giving me an extra big hug as she left on top of the thousands she had already given to me. The night was fantastic, who says you have to be morbid and miserable when you get bad CT scan results. Life is for living and having fun and that is just what I did.
Pauline and I had a fantastic evening. I had lots of hugs from Pauline that she was ordered to pass on from everyone in the group and by the time we had gotten to the twentieth hug or so, Pauline and I started to get some really weird looks, which were obviously looks of 'oooh there lesbians'. Why is it that friends can't hug to show how pleased they are too see each other anymore, without it getting out of context, there was no holding hands or kissing, so the only reason I can think of, was my boyish good looking charm lol. After drinking my 2nd glass of white wine spritzer and being total and utterly off my face pissed, Pauline took me home. Giving me an extra big hug as she left on top of the thousands she had already given to me. The night was fantastic, who says you have to be morbid and miserable when you get bad CT scan results. Life is for living and having fun and that is just what I did.
 |
The following morning (Thursday) my sides hurt with laughing. The group wall
and my wall had gone completely bonkers with big tongues, little tongues,
animal tongues, and multi coloured tongues. Laughing uncontrollably I posted an
update to my wall 'change your profile
pic and stick your tongues out to say fook you cancer for 48hrs' to see how
many of my friends who really mad nutters.
Ha haaa, yup, ALL my friends are totally utterly bonking mad, their crazy,
because as soon as I posted it, the tongues kept rolling in and fast. Till today I had not realised how completely
bonkers my facebook friends are, and yet they call me MAD KAZZA.m How dare they
call ME mad when they are doing things like this, you see it didn't just stop
with just them, they were now sitting there families down and forcing them to
stick there tongues out too, so pictures of nieces, nephews, sons, daughter,
granddad's and even a newly born baby appeared.
I cannot explain in words how all this made me feel, but to try and tie
it up into one little sentence, I would have to say ‘Bloody Special’.
On Friday I went along for my one super high dose of radiotherapy to my L6 vertebra of my spine. Easy peasy, so I thought, well I have had rads to my spine before and knew all the ins and outs of it, such things as the pain can get worse before it gets better sort of thing. Who the hell was I kidding? An hour after the rads, I started vomiting, another hour later my legs started to feel funny, the pain set in, but yet at the same time they felt all tingly and numb. Hubby came running to the rescue, “You OK Girly” he shouted as he came running upstairs at which point i couldn’t answer through the snotty tears that were now rolling down my cheeks. The tears weren’t the only thing rolling either, as I was now in that much agony that I had starting rolling around all over the bloody bed trying to get some sort of comfort and ease. Lee tried to massage my legs for me, hoping that it would help, but I couldn’t keep still long enough to even give it chance. Lee took charge completely when I went to get up for another wrenching session on the loo and my legs gave way, he rang the hospital. Now my surname is Goodwin, I have been Mrs Goodwin for 2 and a half years, but oooh no, not today I wasn't. Brilliant sexy hubby was in so much of a panic that he gave the wrong name, 'Karen Roberts' he spluttered out and then after a good 5 minutes of the nurse at the other end of the phone trying to find this patient names ‘Roberts’ that they had early, he panicked and very quickly tried to correct the mistake.
Ironic, but I have now learnt that pain makes you sick, the more pain that you are in, means the more vomiting you will do, and that is just what happened with me, more, which then inflicts more pain from the wrenching of the stomach muscles. To stop vomiting, you have to take non stoppy vomit pills, but how do you take them when you can’t stop throwing the buggers straight back up.
The plan was that Lee was going to drive me to the hospital, but from seeing me get worse so rapidly, Lee changed his mind and rang for an ambulance. Can you believe it; he gave the ambulance people the wrong blooming address. ok easy mistake to make, with us only living at our current address for a mere 8yrs , with the added plus of me never living at the address he gave either, and neither has he for over 10 yrs. Luckily he corrected it before hanging up the phone and getting back to me to try and massage my very pain full legs again. He realised that he had still given the wrong house number. Now this is when I relished that my very sensible and in control husband wasn't in control at all and was in totally freaking out panic mode. Obviously with me crying out in pain and demanding he take the pain away from me didn't help him. Must make a note for the future... DO NOT PANIC HUSBAND.
The paramedics hadn’t even gotten up the stairs when I was shouting out for morphine or anything else they had to get rid of my pain, Gas and Air, went down a treat and my fear of needles completely vanished as I shouted ‘Just stick it in me’. With the fandabadozy morphine working its way around my body, I got my first free and only one I hope, ambulance ride. Some more morphine later and a partially deaf ambulance driver and paramedic from all the jabber jabber I was doing on the way to the hospital, which is a norm for me to go full speed ahead of talking absolute nonsense when I get into a panic, I was admitted onto the hospital ward and waiting for doctors to come ad assess me.
Doped up with morphine and pain meds sure does help with pain, it helps with hallucinating too and at 2.15am, I was happily watching and laughing away to the dickie birds perched on the curtain rail that was around my bed singing 'come fly with me'. Ha ha so know I know that I have definitely gone off the rails and will definitely be admitted into the Phyco ward very soon.
The sticky out tongue pictures and comments that were still being bombarded across Facebook kept me laughing and on Sunday evening I got another shock. Talk about playing on your emotions, the lovely Kate Harbridge linked and tagged me to a short video she had created. A video of all the tongues that had been sent and were still circulated profile pics, all played to the music of 'we'll stand together'. I cried and I laughed and I cried some more realising that not only was I there for all these girls, but that these girls had pulled out all the stops to show how much they cared and are they for me too.
(update on 20th May - sorry the video has been made private cos someone complained WTF)
How does anyone want to spend a back holiday weekend and bank holiday Monday,
well a hospital bed is not the place that you can have your normal bank holiday
nutty days experience, saying that, even though my pain seems to be controlled
with the endless amounts of pain medication to the extent that they were now
keeping an eye on my pupil size (size of pin pricks due to maybe slightly
overdosing on the stuff) not to mention the red bloated face from the addition
of steroids. This hospital is where I actually want to be as I know I'm in the
right place to get the right pain relief I need and the checks required to make
sure everything is as it should be internally. ( roll on tomorrow for my MRI.)
Anyways visiting times has never been a big deal for me, my
family love nearly 70 miles away and so it's usually Lee rushing back and forth
to try to keep me occupied as much as possible. Today, Pauline turned up first,
then my mum with my younger brother Neil and his future wife Kez. What more
could I have wanted. (to be out of pain and in the pub would have been nice but...)
An hour later, and an almighty noise hit the ward 'what the feck' I though and
as unturned round 4 familiar faces appeared through the doorway. Dawn Sheldon,
Kate Harbridge and Penny Stanton, who I have up to now only know through the
virtual world of facebook and they were accompanied with the nutty Pauline
Edwards. Fully equipped with bottles of
vodkacillan and vinocillan that they had kindly drank on their long journey
getting here, they also had badges of special instructions of vodcacillan to
attach to my drip line bag and not forgetting a space alien gun to shoot down
my hallucinating dickie birds from the curtain rail late in the evenings. My quite little ward was no longer quiet as
these amazing girls told their stories how they got there from different parts
of England and Wales. Pauline Castledine was in on the secret the bugger.
 |
| Left to Right Pauline Edewards, Pauline Castledine, Penny Stanton & Dawn Sheldon |
 |
| Left to Right Dawn Sheldon, Me, Pauline Edwards, Penny Stanton & Kate Harbridge |
 |
| Vodkacillan and Vinocillan |
My gorgeous hubby arrived for the last visiting at 7pm with Luke, a nice quiet
visit which consisted of them polishing off all my grapes that our Kez had
brought in earlier.
I am laid in bed now totally knackered and reliving the fantastic day that I have had over and over. All off you made my day so special, you made me feel special, and over this past week since getting my scan results you have a been there to help me through and kept a smile on my face. I love you all xxxx
P.S sorry if its a bit ga ga, I'm bloody stoned lol
1 comment:
I only wish I could have been there, it sounds as though you had a fantastic time. lol.
I also wish I could be this articulate whilst being stoned, rod iron lady. XX
Post a Comment