Life has to go, it’s hard you try and not think about the cancer and all the treatments you’ve had but there is always the what if. When your watching tv it is full of adverts for this drug and that drug. Some times I want to turn the clock back but to when? Before I was born tell my mum that drinking and smoking during pregnancy might not be a good idea! Or to when I was a fat kid eating crap should I have stuck to salad? So when which clock to turn back.
This week I went to a wake for a young man that took his own life, he left a 52 page of why and who not to blame. They say it’s a mental illness but he took time to write and attempted to end it 3 times.
So was it a mental illness or just a young man looking to be understood and loved. We’re the signs missed and if only you could turn the clock back but again till when? Do you look at his childhood, his teens? Why was he so tormented. 
Life is so fragile and can be taken at anytime, talk to your kids, so the love and most of talk to them and listen, make time you gave life to your little ones so help them to live.

8th Year Clear

My Yearly check with the girls

Every year should get easier, but does it really?

As the day draws near, your mind does over time, thinking to much into it, any little pain or muscle ache. Even though people tell you it will be find not to worry.

The day comes, not sleep the night before just wanting to get the appt and get it started, walking into Moffitt, after parking the car, into reception to get checked in. Wrist band and buzz ready for action. Take elevator up to the 3 floor for the mamo...Its time

You want it to go well, your still in a panic, then your buzzer goes off and your name is called, into the waiting area where you change into a gown, you are not the only one sat waiting, other ladies, all with the same fears wait for good news, no one speaks, everyone looking down at their phones.

The radiologist calls your name and explains what she is about to do, are you listing, not really, just get on with it and tell me whats happening, 

With the pictures taken, you are asked to wait back in the waiting room, while the slides are checked. Tick Tock time goes real slow....

The you are greeted by a smiling face telling you that everything looks good, and you may now get dressed.

Now its off to the next appointment with the doctor to discuss the results and any concerns you might have.

The doctors are always so busy so you wait up to an hour, finally you are with the doctor, who herself had breast cancer and she explains that just because you are in the Breast Cancer Club, not one cancer is the same and no woman is the same, so don't compare notes with each other because we are all different and there are different levels.

Still doesn't stop you comparing apples to apples and getting oranges does it!

So for now November 2018 I have the all clear, I still have to lose weight and make changes! But for now its all good and we get to live our lives and move forward into 2019

So I made it through 8 weeks of college. I passed my maths course and still waiting on the Reading course I took. After leaving school at just 16 a very long time ago, and going straight out to work, it was a bit daunting but I wanted to at least try it and see if I could make it, and I did and now I move on to the next maths class.

I did not enjoy school when I was younger, I never did fit in, not only was I over weight and just ripe to be picked on by the school bullies, I was just not very good. All my school reports said that I tended to do was look at of the window and day dream! I just didn't find school very interesting.

I was informed by my mother that women never went to college, only men did and it was up to me to get married and have a man support me! Now this was only in the 80's and yet my mother still believed man brings home the money and woman does the cleaning! 

Well this girl was not going to sit around and wait for a man to bring home the bacon. 

So I have been working since I was 16 and now well on my way through my 40s and soon to be in my 50s and its now my time to go back to school and do something for myself. 

I actually like to learn now, when we arrived in the USA we decided to do our GED and then we did our Real Estate Licence and now I really want to learn more, and I will because I want to. I am not worried about school bullies now and in fact I should never have worried about them as a child, ask thanks to Facebook I can look for all those horrible people that made my life unbearable and see that in fact they didn't amount to much. If we knew that when we were young that bullies were really nothing it might have made school a whole lot easier to bare.

So as they say onward and upward and on to the next 8 weeks of maths and English and   hope that I can keep my grades up, while I work and bring home my own bacon lol

Life Moves On

Like most people who are told they have cancer time just stops there and then. You don't hear another word that is said from that moment on. It is the disbelief that someone has just given you the worst news ever.
Your world then consists of perhaps an operation, then chemo and then radiation and the hope that you make it through the other side, your body is not your own, it belongs to the medical world in the hope that they make it all go away.
You never expect in your whole being to be told such horrible news ever. You go through life doing the best that you can do and try and do right by everyone and yet the cards are dealt in the worst way.
I have never smoked, I have had the occasional drink and I can safely say never ever done drugs so the question is why me? But we all know there is no answer to that it is what it is and you now have to make the most of what you have.
So after rolling along in a fog for some 7 years its time to do something anything but something. So back to school for me. Believe me what I went to school all those years ago I wasn't top at anything I spent my days day dreaming as all my school reports said, so will being 40 something make a difference NO I still day dream, why change, dreams are what everyone should have. So I will keep at this school, I've nearly done 8 weeks and then if I pass this maths I get to move on to another 8 weeks and I will keep going, because I want to and because I can.
Those of you that have been giving bad news its just a moment in time that you can get through and as long as we wake each morning and the sun is shining its going to be a good day.

The experimental gene therapy treatment that helped one woman fight cancer

New Challenges for 2017

As they say life is about twists and turns. When you have not experienced cancer or really know someone in your life with cancer it is hard to understand, but with social media now you hear from friends of friends someone going through a life changing moment, its hard to be in their shoes.

I never thought that reaching my 40s would be so traumatic, first with Melanoma, and my first ever surgery in a hospital, as a child I have never even broken a bone. Then to discover that skin cancer really is very dangerous, that really shocked me. To get over that and not 3 years later be told that I had Breast Cancer and that I had a 50/50 chance. I mean seriously I had been having mammograms since I was 28 years old, every year without fail so why was it never discovered! It was not found when I lived in the UK and still not found when I moved to the USA. The doctors seemed to think it had been there for at least 8 years, tucked away. So as they say, I was a walking time bomb and just didn't know it.

It really has been a very long road, just not physically but mentally. You read so many stories how women just the same as you with young children, husbands and most of all a happy life, loose their battle and you stop and think, that could be me, but I'm still here, and yes I am very grateful to be here to enjoy my family. I have been spinning my heels for the last few years with so many negative thoughts, going for 6 monthly checks, MRI's and mammograms just getting through each one and hoping all is well, the worry each time takes its toll. I prefer to go to these on my own, as I stress and I just want to do it on my own, that is the way I am. Late 2016 I made the decision no more spinning and I was going back to school, I need to do something I need to learn.

I know cancer changed me, perhaps I needed to change, who knows. Hopefully I am a better person, I take more time now to think about things before I take action. Some say I am very laid back now, but when you are told you only have a 50/50 chance it does make you stop and think.

I have my second chance and I want to do something for me, I want to learn new things and just do it for me. No one knows really how long we have left in the world so its time for me to do what I want to do and try and do it well.

Do People Really Understand

Being hit with cancer has to be one of the hardest things anyone has to cope with but you do get through it. You have the treatment they tell you too, you have the operations and fingers crossed you come through the other side, but what next, people say you have changed and that your not the same. Well of course you are not the same you just lived through something that you wouldnt wish on anyone else, so yes we are different and life will never be the same again, well for me it won't.

It Seems I missed 2013!

It seems I missed a whole year! It was a crazy one, my son was graduating and then I took both my children over to the UK to visit, which was a lot of fun and memories were made.

I went to see the cancer doctor who felt it best that I didn't have a mammogram as it was just too stressful and too much radiation to put into me. So I went for my check up and he said it all looked good and scheduled another check up for September but he told me I have to loose all the weight that I had put on since I started my treatment. Before the cancer I had been working out and got down to the 160s and felt good but as soon as I got the news about the "C" it didn't seem to matter anymore. I realize now I should have tried to carry on working out to keep me fit but I just felt too sick and sorry for myself! So after the doctors I decided that I would get back at it until my next doctors appt in September.

September came and I had lost 30lbs by not eating carbs and had even started going back to Zumba which helped and I was also back in the right frame of mind to do this. The doctor was pleased with my efforts and told me to continue on and I am hoping by April 2014 when my next appt is I will be in the 150s as this is what I want, and I want to do it for me.

Recently one of the Zumba ladies suggested I join them at Jazzercise and I thought why not if these older ladies can do it so can I!!! Well my first class I thought I was going to die as it was such hard work but I loved it and the weight is still coming off.

I know that my life will never be the same but I have to work with what I have an enjoy every moment and live it the best I can.

Life Goes On

So life moves on! Well you try but peole still come to you and ask you questions and then go on to tell you about that they have and what do I think. I dont really think to be honest.
I have take the past 2 years and boxed it up and put it in a box marked do not open!
My challenge at the moment is to get this weight off, thats what I find depressing, if only I could wave that magic wand.
I have read about the right food you should be eating to ward off the C word, so I really want to master eating correctly but I fall off the wagon and then get back on and then fall off lol
I will get control will just take time.
I recently had my mamogram and check up with the cancer doctor who was very pleased nothing showed up and he said to come back in 6 months.

See you soon L

New Year New Start

Well all I can say is what a year! I had my last treatment on October 31st and my medi-port removed November so fingers crossed we are done...

I am having a mammogram done Feb 2012 and I just hope we can move on from this and put it behind us and put it down to a diversion off the path of happiness!

My hair is all grown back. The original color that it was and still curly. Theres me thinking it would come back straight but no lol Got to love curly.

I start working out this week and getting back to it. Its now time for me to take control again, this fat off.