As Good As I Can Be

This is a comforting reply from a dear friend every time I ask how is she doing. And today, I need to borrow the reply and put it up as my post title.

Been contemplating to update this blog for sometime, and here I go finally.

3.5 months into working force since I returned to work in early May.. things are working 'oohh-kkkay'. Not very comfortable with the system, people and environment yet. This is probably due to a change in mindset and priorities set after the whole recovery process.

So I try making the daily work a better place. I prepare my daily breakfast and lunch every morning. I look forward to savour my own guilt-free lunch everyday. Every Friday, I'll lunch out with my selected nice co-worker for our weekly feast.

I try to kick off or technically remove all the old habits to a new fresh 'workstyle'. My desk used to be messy but not anymore. The wrapping up and packing up to go home is the most look forward. Ok, I have to move the lunch to the 2nd favourite, cos nothing beats going home on time! :)

Sometimes I linger on the thought of, 'why did it take me so long to have this clearer mindset and priorities now?' Well, maybe cancer did indeed help in alarming me in that matter. Ironic huh? I'd really like to think that cancer helped to improve my life now!

I'm eating, breathing, working ...e-ve-ry-th-ing... greener and healthier now. Cut the toxic, cut the nonsense. And I feel the closer bonding among family and close friends too.

Life, could be better, nonetheless.
But giving the current circumstances, my life is.. as good as I can be!

Thank you MM as always :)

Moving On

2 weeks now before I go back to work. Today I took the courage to go out sending and fetching the kids without hat on. A little intimidated by people's looks/stares initially. 

A little talking to myself and I think I've overcome the fear. Only I know what I've been through and not the strangers. 

Losing hair is nothing as compared to losing life.

Now, I'm cherishing every millimetre that the hair grows,  and every single day that I'm blessed with.

Keep Smiling!

That's the wishes coming from my friendly radiologists on my last day of course, on top of "All the best to you!"

Yeah!! I have finally 'graduated' from the 15-day course of radiotherapy.

A little mixed feelings during my journey to the hospital earlier, but now I'm celebrating with a cup of coffee and toasts at its canteen. Good thing I only realised how good the coffee was on my 2nd last day, else it'll be extra pounds to shed again! :)

I was a little teary when hearing the wishes from the radiologists, but as my dear friend suggested, some goodbyes are meant to be good.

I'm thankful for the pretty good experience during the RT and the friendly people that made lying down half-naked everyday easier too. 

And so I will ... keep smiling!

Here's to RT!

2 more days to the end of my radiotherapy. So far it didn't give me much trouble, only darkened skin colour at the treatment / surgery area and slight hardened muscles there as well. It kinda encourages me to keep up with my physio exercises daily — Allow me to find some positiveness in every thing I do :)

I saw the radio-oncologist as well today as part of the weekly check-up. I was happy to hear everything seems fine. I need to see him in mid May. The 3 musketeers (in my own interpretation: my surgeon, oncologist and radio-oncologist) will be seeing me alternately in the coming months and years.

About 9 months of ups and downs, treatments and tests, surgery and therapies so far, I think it's time to move on, like REALLY move on!

The current goal is to prep myself to go back working, to prep the kids that mummy can't be spending so much time at home playing or studying with them while recuperating, so they'd better well discipline themselves! 

....

End-note:

Started Tamoxifen for about a week now. Two changes I noticed are:

– slower bowel movement, a little constipation it seems. 

– disturbed sleep at night (waking up to either really slight noise, or that urge to the toilet). This is quite noticeable cos I have been sleeping well and through the nights after I complete my weekly chemotherapy

Survival Lessons by Alice Hoffman

Recently read these simple lessons which are uplifting. A good reminders for surviving the hard times:

1. Choose your heroes — someone who inspires in any way 

2. Choose to enjoy yourself — chocolate or anything you wishes 

3. Choose your friends — it's ok to lose contact with those who doesn't care or irritates you. But 'don't hold back' when it comes to people you love and care. 'Live right now!'

4. Choose whose advise you take — self explanatory :)

5. Choose your relatives — only answer the phone when you want to, and give yourself permission to say you can't talk 

6. Choose how you spend your time — another self-explanatory

7. Choose to plan for the future — like a yearly to-do-list 

8. Choose to love who you are — I'm beginning to talk to my own body and soul for this matter 

9. Choose to accept sorrow — "I could not run away from my circumstances, or control the path of my disease, but I could control what I did with my experience of that illness"

10. Choose to dream 

11. Choose something new — new hobby or maybe old interest which you'd like to revisit

12. Choose to give in to yourself — 'do something and don't feel guilty' attitude

13. Choose to make things beautiful — beautify and spice up what you enjoy most 

14. Choose to tell your story — inspire others

15. Choose to forgive — apologize to people you've wronged

16. Choose to claim your past — collect family photographs and stories 

17. Choose to be yourself 

18. Choose to share 

19. Choose love 

20. Choose the evidence — and blogging things down is my interpretation to this 

And we could all survive...

Indeed, Life is More Meaningful Now

Went through weeks of suffocated, lost and unhappy moments. And finally today I could bring myself to come back to the blog again. And I certainly hope this happy, positive vibes could stay longer and eventually take over the daily mood swings.

Turning 32 today, and I'm trying to declutter, re-organize and put into focus on what matters most.

I want to be able to live at least another 20 years, to grow old together with the husband, so we are able to witness the children's life achievements and hopefully  building their own sets of family too!

With the recent appointments with the oncologist and the new radio-oncologist, I've come to learn, or maybe, finally digested and accepted the fact that breast cancer is one of the cancers which is most likely to relapse.

That explains the long sets of treatments being carefully lined up for years to keep cancer at bay. In another word, to actually buy more time for the patients.

So I pledge to myself, to cut down the pointless negativities, to identify and solve the problems faced, rather than ignoring and running away from them. 

I am pulling myself together again to achieve this. I've just picked up some books on how to really take good care of myself from the library again after months of denial. I hope I could keep this up.

Dealing with the uncertainty of the future, I could only force myself to be more vigilant, counting every given day as a blessing of what I've put effort in. 

...

Keeping track of the treatments, I've completed my 12 weekly PAC + Herceptin chemotherapy last week.

It has left me with really numbed fingers and toes, tight leg muscles, menopausal, high sensitivity of taste towards saltiness, rather puffy especially seen in the face. 

I need to complete the one year dose of Herceptin, therefore I'm completing it in the form of 3-weekly infusion now until about November this year.

3-monthly heart scan MUGA needs to be performed to monitor any heart deficiency side effects due to Herceptin.

Adding on, I'll be starting my anti-hormonal pills, Tamoxifen, next month for at least 5 years if not 10 years. A low possibility of endometrial cancer but heck, the survival rate is outweighing the side effects, as my oncologist explained. 

Lastly, I'll soon be getting a daily radiation therapy for 3 weeks too. Seems like a complete package of treatments to me, but I'm doing whatever it takes to keep living on!

Here's to many good years ahead! Happy birthday to me!

Half Way Mark

Had my 7th weekly PAC + Herceptin 2 days ago. Ironically, although the medicine feels 'lighter' as compared to AC, but the built up side effects are starting to be quiet noticeably disturbing.

My fingers and toes had started to feel the numb after the 4th. I was very occupied in the house-moving at that moment. The new floor lamination and all had got me wondering when would the dust and powdery feeling of the floor could actually settled. 

Only another week later that I realized it wasn't the dust or dirt which I felt on my feet, but it's the 'sparkly' numb sensation which I felt all over my feet. How lame...

Then they got stronger by each infusion that I must probably be quiet used to it now.

However, handling small fine objects which needs precision of strength and touch is quite a hassle by now. And the fingers are exceptionally sensitive to the slightest heat of my cup of breakfast tea, or feeding myself my cold blueberries actually felt like I'm holding balls with spikes or needles. 

The 2–3 day recovery after each infusion is now better managed that I could actually step out of the house the very next day. But the insomia or difficulty to go back to sleep couldn't be helped, like how I'm blogging now in need to unload all the temporary stored datas from the brain — hoping I could actually sleep back again soon. 

As expected from my oncologist, I haven't had my period ever since I started on this weekly regime. In another words, this must be the 'early menopause'. It feels great without the menses, but the stirred up emotions, mood swings, worries are horrible.

I got worried over every small matters. I questioned myself over decisions made, no matter how small it is, let alone the bigger ones. It's a ridiculously multiplied negativity. 

Plus the foggy chemo brain weakened my ability to form a nice complete conversations. Often the family members got puzzled of my sentences. And I was pretty damn stubborn to think that the words came out from my mouth were actually what appeared from my mind.

Helpless it is. 

Now I hope finding small accomplishments could help build up my confidence, like how unpacking and organizing all our belongings to the new home.

How daily packing with my girl for her first few days of Primary school actually felt like completion of projects which I used to manage at work. 

How my boy has improved a little on his speech delay (articulation problem). Hearing at how he could now pronounce a clearer 'f' and 's' and the ability to differentiate a 'k' sound from a 't' sound, brought me moments of joy. 

Incredibly small achievements, which I used at least double the efforts as compared to the old me, before the cancer came knocking my door.

With the extra efforts, I truly hope to bring out the best in me + all the loved ones and people around me. 

I hope the positivity could win over the mess of negativity in the mind, body and soul soon. The growing fine hair does help to motivate a little, to remind myself to fight on and recover completely.

I wanna go back to the cheery old me, minus the cancer yet double the love and care to all the people around me. 

End note:

Update on surgery healing — unfortunately underarm and the bulge of fat still have the same numbness from day 1. Although my right hand has no problem reaching height and stretching now, I think I might have developed another problem here. I might have overused or overworked the right hand that I feel tight pain on some parts of the muscle near the elbow. Another sharp tight pain which I fear for lymphedema. Time to make a soonest appointment with my physiotherapist! :(