chemotheraphy – Toxin Free Living

Realisation.

Published on August 1, 2015 by melindacooksey5 Comments

So I woke up this morning, as you do 😂 (funny aren’t I!🙈😂), and had a sort of realisation. This last week since having my new chemo last Friday called Docetaxel (tax for short!… It’s in all the forums and Facebook groups! I had to ask to be sure though 🙈),I have felt awful, I mean it, every cell in my body has ached, I fell over on the weekend and that didn’t help as I cut my hands, bruised my ankle and cut my knee, but on top of that I have just honestly felt awful.

I’m not one for pain killers but I had to take them to just ease the pain to sleep. My head, throat, teeth, bones, muscles everything seriously everything hurt I actually cried with pain one night because I couldn’t feel it easing it just wouldn’t shift. But a lot of it has and although my long bones ( collar bones, back, thighs, rib cage ) and head still ache, mostly it has calmed down and is manageable! All those DOMS days from the gym have put me in good practise for this battle.

Anyway, back to my realisation, so I’m not painting a pretty picture of the last week really, but on top of this money became a big worry and is ongoing for me, so on top of the aches I was trying to help sort someone out, worry about my financial position and just deal with you know those random situation where you are involved and just help and do what you feel is the right thing.

So cryptic message complete 😂😂😂 and Once again back to the realisation……this morning I woke with a smile and a thought and posted it on Facebook to more than a hundred likes (I was really happy about that! So thank you to my friends who liked it! As mostly what I say on my personal page is nonsense)….

…. Here it is…….. “I’m a pale, bald little chubster that aches like a granny…. But I have never been in such a good head space! I have such amazing people around me!”

It’s true, all of the above is true, I’m not happy with my weight or how I look but I seriously feel happy. I ache, I hurt but I’m happy and it’s weird and amazing to feel like it!

And following on from that I posted on a breast cancer forum………. ” I’m going to say this crazy thing that probably makes half of you want to punch me in the face but honestly apart from the pain, the aches, being bald, pale, chubbier than before, flat broke, I have come to realise how lucky I am. When the money stress and pains hit the background I stop and think how amazing the people I have around me are. And how amazing we all are. I honestly feel more comfortable just being me. Not trying to be a tanned blonde bikini model I once was. I just feel content that I am me and people like me. I don’t have to do anything to make them. I can be miserable and horrible somedays and people still want to be my friend. I am officially being real for the first time ever! Xxx love you all xxx big love for Saturday go treat yourself to a break with a brew and cake today xxx🙈😁”

And again I got nearly 100 likes and lots of comments, lots of women agreeing with me and high fiving me rather than wanting to punch me.

Because it seems I’m not the only one to have the penny drop…… That life is for living, for the people we have in it ….. Not for trying to impress, trying to be a CEO and be a powerful workaholic it is for making memories. It is for laughing and smiling and making laughter lines around your eyes.

What this god awful disease has done for me, is give me perspective, I was near my break point when I got diagnosed, I had broken the year before and I was ready to break again, and cancer took the only thing I felt I had left…. My health and my body.

I will never look in a mirror and see the girl I once was, she has gone but I’m no shell of a girl crying in a corner, and I realise just how much I needed a reality check…. And I have got it from the highest order. I am finally real.

I am grateful to all the amazing people around me, to my family to my chosen family (friends), acquaintances that give support, other ladies battling on, to everyone that supports me and other people battling on and those that haven’t well I literally don’t care. I haven’t overanalysed why some people don’t like my posts on social media, why certain people don’t seem to bother to get in touch, I truly don’t care. Because the friends that do Are the ones I want. The people that care are who matter.

And I matter, I matter whether I am tanned, blonde bikini model and athlete who works a high powered job with a good salary …. Trying to make it to the top of the corporate world…and I matter as a bald, pale, chubbier, non-worker ( I’m on sick leave so one day I will be back at a desk, but not for a little while).
I am finally able to like myself more than ever, whether I have kids or I don’t ….. I know plenty of kids so if I don’t get my own I can screw up everyone else’s 😂😂😂 my sister better watch out I’m blatantly going to be the bad aunty 🙈😂)

Of course I have my dark days but they are fewer and farer between than ever, they go quicker than they did. And of course I stress but it takes more, and I do stress less. But I’m present, I watch a film and watch it, I eat food and enjoy it, I fully appreciate the trees, the blue skies the 5 minutes I got earlier to put a face mask on.

And although I am mostly sleepy, or useless I feel happier in myself and there is no amount of money in the world that could have bought me this feeling of pure, unadulterated blissful realism.

Sometimes you have to go through a whole load of crap, to appreciate what you have.

But if anyone can learn from my lessons….. Enjoy yourself, love yourself and be real to yourself. Take five minutes to be grateful for what you have today. Xxxx

Chemo 2. What a Long Day.

Published on May 22, 2015May 22, 2015 by melindacooksey4 Comments

Omg! So I had a 9.30am appointment, and should have been away from the hospital at around 12 if not before….. Instead I left at 6.45pm! Without the full treatment.

They put the canulor into my right hand but near to the thumb vein and unfortunately after the anti-sickness and flush was put through, it must have moved some how, or was never in, I don’t know I’m not a nurse, but this meant that the first lot of chemo created the sneezes again but it also started to go really cold under my arm so they were getting me a heat pack to warm it up and puff out of no where it swelled up around the canulor.

So due to this two doctors (one my oncologist) came to see me and a few nurses. And it was decided to cool it down for a while, take it out and transfer the other two chemo drugs to my left arm, even with my lymphs out in that arm, I was recited some research for that it should be ok and I trust my oncologist to do the right thing.

So I had another canulor put into my left arm this time, and off we go again, and sailed through the rest of chemo, then I had to wait an hour or so for the antidote to the stray chemo in my bodily tissue, as apparently the worst case scenario equals a skin graft so although my swelling went down by the time I was leaving they still need me to have 3 doses.

I had the first today and I have 1 Saturday and another Sunday.

Plus the White blood cell injections start tomorrow, and I have extra anti sickness and sleepers to help the first three days nausea. And some tablets for my mouth as it got so sore and full of ulcers! So all in all they are hoping to make chemo 2 easier than the first!

I am praying I am not sick tonight, and that the new regime for anti-sickness helps me and I just sleep through it so that I can eat well the first week.

Bonus is that whilst there from 9.30 -6.45pm I read my book and had a laugh playing the Keith Lemon hide your teeth game with Cass, we did America, and yes I won as she laughs to much!

I also spoke to some nice people around me. One lady even told me I looked like Jesse J with my scarf on, and the people next to me wanted to know where it was from for a friend starting treatment soon. So that’s all thanks to Cass as she bought it me for my birthday, and I’m rocking it! So now I want more scarfs! 😂😁

The C word.

Published on May 2, 2015May 2, 2015 by melindacooksey4 Comments

Well yesterday I went for my first chemotherapy treatment, which I won’t lie I was nervous about the last few days, but I decided to go ahead due to several factors: I haven’t been able to research enough about how to keep cancer at bay and feel 100% confident with natural measures, and for my loved ones who have all had major stresses along the way of me saying I won’t have it, so I’m doing it for them and security and my peace of mind.

As I walked in the room everyone stared at me and Cassie, I suppose when you look half the age of everyone else having treatment, even in the treatment room people are intrigued and probably relieved it was the ‘slightly’ older one of the two of us going into the treatment chair! Also me and Cassie caused chaos moving from one chair to another and confusing the nurse.

It’s quite a long process, longer than I was expecting, it was about 30-40 minutes saline flush, then 30 mins anti sickness bag 1, then about 20 mins or so for anti sickness bag 2! Then it was about 1 hour for the 6 syringes of chemo to be pumped into me. The 6 syringes are made up of 2 syringes of each of the 3 types of chemo I have that make up FEC (fluorouracil also called 5FU,
epirubicin, cyclophosphamide). One of the three made my nose run and sneeze and as soon as I stopped having it pumped into me by the nurse I was fine. Then the third one into me burnt as it went in. I have three cycles of this and then three further cycles of T ( Docetaxel).

It felt like it took forever but Cass came to keep me company and all but two of the other people I could see in the room had people wit them.
I apparently looked a bit dopey when it was all finished and I was a little nauseous and had a terrible headache a couple of hours after eating but it went away as I laughed my head of at Googlebox. I so want to be on Googlebox!

After sleeping for an hour a wave of sickness came across me and I ran to the toilet with my hoody in hand so that I didn’t freeze, but I wasn’t sick and then the bowl was brought out and around 12.15 I was sick, I managed to give myself whiplash, reaching for the bowl so fast, cried and sobbed that I couldn’t do this to Cass, who had to convince me I wasn’t dying and I was just being sick! Then I had relief for around 30 minutes and then the pain kicked in again and sickness again and then my period started, great! So not only am sick when I’m not sick I have period pains. Not the best combination you could imagine!

I carry on on my hourly cycle of sickness until about 6 am in the morning when I eventually stop. And then I slept for an hour and took a cocktail of pills I had been given, and had a green smoothie with added vitamin c at lunch time.

I haven’t much fancied food, I feel sick most the time and have a what feels like a constant headache but as the day goes on and I am getting better.

I had my first injection today to boost my white blood cells, at least they said I was thin, haha, that was a nice compliment as I feel so fat at the moment, not that it is important what I weigh at the moment. For the rest of the week Cassie will do my injections for me, they showed her what to do, to save a district nurse coming out to me daily . I could do them myself but I’m really not great with the thought of injecting myself!

Anyway hopefully there is no sickness tonight, and on a plus I did use my Fushi organic carrot oil that Fiona brought me a couple of days ago, so although I am not allowed sunbeds 😩 I rubbed that on my face and looked nice and tanned. Plus you can eat it as well! It’s packed full of vitamins A, B, C, D & E as well as Beta Carotene. So all round it’s good for me, organic and made me look brown….slightly orange to start with 😂 but it settled down.

So cross fingers for a better night! And no begging for it to be over. And apparently it gets bad day 4 -7 so I hope that isn’t the case for me!