Help Diana Kick Breast Cancer's Ass

Diana wrote the following on her Facebook page, and gave me permission to update the page:

"Hi

My lovely friend Ceara arranged a fundraiser for me the moment she heard that I was proper ill. I'm always ill, but now my body really has it in for me.

I suffer from a number of chronic conditions which I have mostly learned to live with - it's actually surprising how much you can tolerate when you have little choice. But a few weeks ago I was diagnosed with Invasive Ductal Carcinoma. Boob cancer. It's not worst case scenario, yet. But it's fairly serious. The tumour is a big one, it was hiding deep down in my fairly ample right nork, so it managed to get pretty damn huge before I brushed up against it one afternoon and COMPLETELY FREAKED OUT. Seriously I highly recommend never finding any extraneous lumps on yourself like this, it's like a heart attack and a mental breakdown rolled into the worst few moments of your life, because no matter how reasonable you try to be about it your brain starts yelling OH MY GOD WE'RE DYING at you and it's about all you can hear until doctors start saying things that imply you might actually be ok.

Or at least that's how it was for me - cancer and I do not have a good relationship. It has taken too many people I care about and caused too much pain in too many lives. I'm not afraid of dying, but I'm pretty much terrified of cancer.

So here I am, already a sickness beneficiary - because this lemon of a body had Fibromyalgia, 2 different types of Migraine & a Nerve Sheath Neoplasm long before it decided to throw cancer at me as well.

All is not lost, so far the follow up tests imply that Bill (that's my tumour, because KILL BILL) has quite surprisingly not started spreading to the four corners of my insides. My odds remain reasonably high for *recovery* (in the world of cancer words don't necessarily mean what they mean in the rest of the world.)

But on the road to recovery there will be Chemotherapy followed by Surgery (we await the results of the Chemo before we decide how far the surgery will go) then maybe more Chemo or Radiotherapy or both. Then 5 years on (probably) Tamoxifen. There will be a controlled diet (high protein). And given that I already spend a hideous amount of time lying down, there will be a hellish amount of lying down. I am SO VERY SICK OF LYING DOWN.

So far, even before treatment has started, life is more expensive. I can't skimp on food anymore I have to be careful what I'm eating. I'm having to transport myself more often - so many appointments. I have to have decent warm things for winter, I need to keep the house warm. Were it not for the kindness of my amazing friends, and the occasional stranger (amazing!!) I would already be overcome by the expense.

Add to this that both my daughter (who get's to be my part time caregiver, the lucky thing) and I are going to NEED to take relaxation and time out more seriously, just so that we don't explode under the weight of the extra stress and... Well lets just say every penny being raised here is very important to our continued well being. Every week that I can stay on the high protein diet, will help me to feel less awful. Every weekend that we can do something nice in will help us to keep from going mad. Every cold I don't catch because the house is properly kept warm is more days I don't have to spend in hospital.

And every single cent is appreciated with all our hearts."

As Diana has said above, every single cent is much appreciated!