Friends
They say things come in threes. In my case, however, they come, and they come and they keep on coming. I know Mercury is currently retrograde, and has already been so twice this year, but this is getting ridiculous.
Firstly, as you all know, the body broke down, then the dishwasher flooded, the stove hob started leaking gas and popping randomly, soon after the washing machine crapped out, the printer stopped working, the PC too, the landline wouldn't connect, and the replacement brand new mobile upgrade I had been given to replace the one I ran over (!) 'disappeared' important text messages.
Then the car died and even though the washing machine was fixed, it crapped out again, and the printer - after being fixed - started eating paper and refusing to spit it out.
Oh, and then I was given notice to move out of my rental property, a place where I have been for 6 years. That's 2190 nights, and counting, more than the property owner has ever spent here.
I am not ashamed to admit it, for the first time since my diagnosis, I actually cried. And cried and cried. I felt all the good work that I had been putting into keeping me healthy, keeping me alive, start to dissipate.
The visit to the oncologist this week was enlightening. He showed me some software on his computer which can calculate the likelihood of cancer returning within 5 years. One called the Morbidity Calculator - or maybe it was the Mortality Calculator - said 2.1%. That's good, I thought. He then showed me the other calculator which gave me a 25% chance. Hmmm, he said. Don't like the look of that. How come they're not the same, I asked - naively. Not sure, he said. Not sure.
Then he gave me the lowdown on the hormone treatment he wants me to take. One is called Letroxole. It's very good, he said and oh, by the way, you'll have an 80% chance of sore joints and developing osteoporosis. The other is Tamoxifen, which you'll have to take for 5-10 years he said, and oh, by the way, it increases your chance of endometrial cancer, vaginal bleeding, hot flashes, weight gain, clots, you may have to have a hysterectomy, but it's good for bones, and effective if you have bi-polar disorder.
These drugs are not like chemo, he said, where you come in here, we make you feel really sick for 3 months, it might work, it might not, and you may never feel the same again.
If I were your partner, I said, what would your advice be? If it was me, he said, I wouldn't take any of them!
So, that - as they say - was that!
A very nice lady in a shocking pink shirt had delivered me of my LuluLemon in the foyer of the Oncology department, drained of the formalin that had been preserving her during her stay at LabPLUS & Mortuary, Building 31 of Auckland General Hospital. She knelt down beside me as I sat in the waiting room, and very quietly said I should wear gloves when handling the tissue. She passed me an elegant black paper bag; she's quite heavy, I remember thinking. Is she whole, I asked? No, the tissue is sliced up. That's how they found the tumours, she added and smiled gently. I signed a form and the woman was gone.
I then promptly left the bag behind in the oncologist's consulting room. Luckily he chased me down the street to give it back.
I will bury Lulu under the dwarf lemonade tree I bought especially for her. I am thinking of celebrating her enternment with a Tequila and Lemon party for Waiheke breast cancer survivors. Since my last update to you, I know of 4 more island women who have been diagnosed. I may need to buy quite a few bottles!
Yes, I did learn a lot about my cancer from the oncologist. He wore a lovely handknitted blue sweater and laughed at my jokes. He admired my scar and said it was one of the best ones he'd seen.
I learned that a Grade III tumour is very aggressive, and very, very fast-moving. Well, I knew that. I had seen it almost double in size in a matter of weeks, between thermograms. I didn't realise though that there was the potential for it to grow exponentially in a matter of days. And this was something that didn't even show up in earlier screenings, was only a 'suspicion' reported in an MRI.
In other words, I really didn't just dodge a bullet, nor a ballistic missile, I have dodged a nuclear holocaust.
I also learned that this type of extremely fast-moving and aggressive cancer is triggered not so much by epigenetics, obesity, parasites, viruses or fungi, it is triggered by psychological stress, usually one incredibly stressful event. What happens is the stress triggers the master gene ATF3, promoting the immune cells to act erratically. And even if all the cancer has been removed, I am now more vulnerable to stress and the re-activation of the ATF3 gene. Bugger. In my case, it would seem that Mercury in retrograde really does have the potential to be life-threatening.
I am still keeping up my anti-angiogenesis diet, with slight tweaks here and there, and am eternally grateful for the support of people like you, and others, who randomly pop by with edible goodies or the most generous gifts.
All I need now is to find a new home to make my own.
With so much love
