How do I feel?

I have been talking this week to my friends about the fact that surgery is fast approaching.  They ask me how I feel about that and to be honest it is part relief and part terror. 

Relief because this is finally going to get Gertrude off my chest both figuratively and literally.  Up to now I have been “ok lets get on with it – whats the next step in the treatment? – ok let’s go!” and the surgery is the culmination of the treatment that has gone before. 

The terror part comes from this is where we find out how successful all the other treatment has been – whether or not there are clear margins around the cancer when they take off my breast or whether or not it has gone into my chest wall.  I get the results of the histology a week after surgery and that will be when they tell me how much I have beaten Gertrude. 

But even if there is clear margins there is also now the fact I will always be on edge to whether or not it has or will come back, and that is just a waiting game.  Life is not going to return to the life I knew before Gertrude. No matter how much I am positive and do all the things to try and prevent recurrence (eat healthy etc) ultimately I have no control over whether it returns or not. 

I remain hopeful that this will not be the case, and as Sis M wrote in her last comment ‘I will remain my usual chirpy self’.   Even when I am thinking negative thoughts I never let them get me down for long.  If there is one thing I have learnt the most from having Gertrude is that letting yourself feel down is just a waste of time and energy. 

I also need to explain why I have decided to name my prosthesis etc.  Its a control thing.  I have so little control over the fact that from now on I will have to wear things in my bras because I won’t have a breast that by naming them I regain a little more control. I also make it a little more “user-friendly” rather than just thinking of them as just a lump of wadding or silicone that  I have to stick in my bra every day.

I had my herceptin chemo yesterday and then went to the dentist to get the impresssion done for my new top plate.  I also went Easter Egg shopping.  YD is coming home tomorrow (Saturday) and we will be going out for YD’s family birthday dinner tomorrow night.  On Sunday we are having OD’s friend (and my “adopted daughter”) M and her two daughters, C aged 4, and A nearly 2, visit for an Easter Egg hunt and lunch. 

OH and I are hopeful to get out for some “couple time” later this afternoon and on Monday we might be visiting friends. 

Happy Easter everyone!!

Posted by jaydub26 on April 9, 2009

https://getoutgertrude.wordpress.com/2009/04/09/how-do-i-feel/