Marguerite
Active Member
It never rains but it pours.
I haven't actually posted separately about all of this. I did post about my breast cancer diagnosis, but I need to update there.
The cancer was removed on Feb 26. The tumour was invasive, but slow-growing and hormone sensitive. The pathology said the doctor got it all and my chances of complete recovery are about 99% +. It was the size of an olive; the doctor took out about a golf ball in size.
I started radiation treatment (25 treatments, over 6 weeks) in May and finished about 2 weeks ago. I found my skin blistering and breaking down in the last ten days or so of treatment; wet dressings for the last few days only, until a couple of days ago. I stopped wet-dressing it a couple of days ago and I'm now using essential oils and massage oil over the whole area. It's healing up well now, there might be a little scarring under the breast from the burns and I think my armpit will be permanently tanned, but its going great. My boob is now a bit smaller from the radiation, on top of the shrink factor from having some tissue removed - the radiation seems to do to breasts what heating in the oven does to shrinky dinks. When I see the doctor next month I'm going to get them to page the breast care nurses, to see if they have a breast form I can try out for size. But because I'm off wet dressings, I'm now back to wearing my maternity singlet top with built in shaped bra cups, as distinct form the tube top with shelf support (not a good look, with gauze dressings peeping out form every angle) so despite the reduction in size, I've got cleavage again.
Then over the weekend in Canberra, my right eye started to play up. Large brown floaters plus lighting flashes indicated a need for urgent assessment. It's taken a few days with constant eye drops, but it seems I had another stage in vitreous humor separation (it's been going on for years apparently; nobody would explain when I saw doctors in the past) and this time it caused a small bleed behind the retina. But no separation as yet.
I went back to see the eye surgeon today because I thought I saw something new - I suspect it wasn't new after all, it's just that I finally had a day in between getting my eyes dilated, and so I was at last able to see more junk in my eyes.
I was told I shouldn't drive for three hours after getting drops in my eyes, so difficult child 3 was as happy as a pig in mud, to do the driving for me as a learner driver. I was able to see well enough to supervise, but I'm so tired from concentrating so hard!
Hopefully there will be nothing more to worry about, no more appointments, until I see the eye doctor in two weeks.
One more day of school holidays, then the weekend, then it's ease back into the next school term for difficult child 3. And his next assessment task! Oh, joy...
Marg
I haven't actually posted separately about all of this. I did post about my breast cancer diagnosis, but I need to update there.
The cancer was removed on Feb 26. The tumour was invasive, but slow-growing and hormone sensitive. The pathology said the doctor got it all and my chances of complete recovery are about 99% +. It was the size of an olive; the doctor took out about a golf ball in size.
I started radiation treatment (25 treatments, over 6 weeks) in May and finished about 2 weeks ago. I found my skin blistering and breaking down in the last ten days or so of treatment; wet dressings for the last few days only, until a couple of days ago. I stopped wet-dressing it a couple of days ago and I'm now using essential oils and massage oil over the whole area. It's healing up well now, there might be a little scarring under the breast from the burns and I think my armpit will be permanently tanned, but its going great. My boob is now a bit smaller from the radiation, on top of the shrink factor from having some tissue removed - the radiation seems to do to breasts what heating in the oven does to shrinky dinks. When I see the doctor next month I'm going to get them to page the breast care nurses, to see if they have a breast form I can try out for size. But because I'm off wet dressings, I'm now back to wearing my maternity singlet top with built in shaped bra cups, as distinct form the tube top with shelf support (not a good look, with gauze dressings peeping out form every angle) so despite the reduction in size, I've got cleavage again.
Then over the weekend in Canberra, my right eye started to play up. Large brown floaters plus lighting flashes indicated a need for urgent assessment. It's taken a few days with constant eye drops, but it seems I had another stage in vitreous humor separation (it's been going on for years apparently; nobody would explain when I saw doctors in the past) and this time it caused a small bleed behind the retina. But no separation as yet.
I went back to see the eye surgeon today because I thought I saw something new - I suspect it wasn't new after all, it's just that I finally had a day in between getting my eyes dilated, and so I was at last able to see more junk in my eyes.
I was told I shouldn't drive for three hours after getting drops in my eyes, so difficult child 3 was as happy as a pig in mud, to do the driving for me as a learner driver. I was able to see well enough to supervise, but I'm so tired from concentrating so hard!
Hopefully there will be nothing more to worry about, no more appointments, until I see the eye doctor in two weeks.
One more day of school holidays, then the weekend, then it's ease back into the next school term for difficult child 3. And his next assessment task! Oh, joy...
Marg