This is me

Hello new readers and subscribers! Thank you for reading my ramblings. I thought it about time I did a (re)intro ramble.

So, what’s going on?

I’m currently waiting on DIEP phase two (COVID 🙄) when I’ll have nipple reconstruction, fat-grafting to my foob (fat boob) & lipo of my pubic mound, which is more moundy after being hoiked upwards during DIEP flap reconstruction phase one. A 14cm abdominal seroma capsule that developed after surgery will also be taken out.

This’ll all be combined with ovary removal and a full hysterectomy, but more about that after my pelvic ultrasound tomorrow - scanxiety much?

Although no longer in “active” treatment, I still feel in treatment. I’m trying to figure out what life “after” cancer is all about for me, which usually involves a fair bit of swearing and air-quotes.

#FuckCancer an’ all that.

So, how did I get here?

I moved from Liverpool(UK) to Sydney in 2013. The back end of 2017 I was working at NIDA & studying a Masters in Information Studies when I was diagnosed with invasive lobular carcinoma (ILC) in my right breast (grade 3/ERPR+/HER2-). Shitshowsville.

ILC is known as the “sneaky” cancer. It lacks an adhesion protein that means it may not present as a lump & can be difficult to see on scans. I had no symptoms & my cancer was multi-centric & multi-focal (in multiple areas in more than one quadrant).

I had pleomorphic ILC, a rare sub-type that means the ILC behaves more like ductal cancer: it’s sensitive to chemotherapy & has the same metastatic tendencies (classic ILC can mets to unusual places like the GI tract, abdomen, reproductive organs, eye/eye socket).

2017-2018 I had neo-adjuvant chemo (FEC-D), skin-sparing mastectomy & 25 radiotherapy beamz. I was thrown into medically induced menopause & put on the hormone blocker, Tamoxifen.

In May 2019 I had a single DIEP flap reconstruction when abdominal tissue was used to reconstruct my breast (see #100DaysDIEP). It was a big op that knocked me about a bit but wasn’t half as bad as I thought it’d be.

That’s (cancer) me!