Just when I Thought I Was Out:Chemotherapy by Holly Searle

There's that scene in The Godfather where Michael Corleone expresses his frustration his fate's inability to allow him to disassociate himself from his mob ties. "Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!" He rasps, fists clenched.

That was me when I started my chemotherapy post operative part of my treatment.

I had literally just learnt to walk upright again without pain and regained some energy, when they stuck another cannula into my vein and filled my battered body with a racy pink cocktail of chemo mega mix. Two for one, 4 times, every 21 days until early November.

During my first session, my vanity told me to wear the Cold Cap: a contraption invented to freeze your scalp to -4 in the hope that your blood flow, with the tasty chemo on board, avoids your hair follicles to prevent hair loss.

However great an ideal this maybe, it's really just an additional sensory overload considering the needle in your hand and the warm gel pad on your arm to keep your vein open and receptive.

Plus, I just looked like Woody Allen in Sleepers (see image at the end of this post, then google Sleepers and have a laugh on me. Not at me!)

Before and after chemo, they fill you with anti sickness drugs, and pre filled injections that are meant to help boast your immunity system, that you self inject into your stomach for 5 days after your session.

After session one, I was so sick I thought I was going to die. The sickness was awful. It took days for my stomach to settle and for me to actually find food tasty or edible again. I still ate and have puffed up as a consequence, which makes me very depressed, but I shall deal with that later.

They tell you to buy a good thermometer, as you have to take your temperature every day. They worry that you'll develop all sorts, as in the first ten days after your session, your immunity is plummeting to zero at a horrifically rapid rate and taking your temp temperature is a good rule of thumb to monitor if there is something more sinister happening.

You develop chemo brain. Which is like a fog inside your head obstructing your ability to think properly about anything.

Best to avoid busy places or people with germs.

Hard call that last one when you live in a city with population of 8 million.

After the sickness subsided, there is a limited period of time when I felt like eating food that I wanted to eat. But then when I ate, I had stomach ache. Don't even ask about the constipation. That saucy little chemo mega mix obviously has the same effect (and ingredients) on my internal organs as a bag of cement mix.

I was sourcing Senna Tablets like an addict hot for her next fix.

To pass your poo without feeling like you are shitting rock, is a pleasure I thought I would never write about. I am sure they deleted that line from The Godfather.

Then I had a series of odd little illnesses and a dry cough that lasted for a short period of time and an unrelenting need to sleep, that even Sleeping Beauty couldn't relate to.

Then it was time for my next session, before which I have to get my blood taken to make sure I am well enough to have my next chemo. I used to be a blood donor, I was always proud of how quickly my blood filled the bag at those sessions. But when I went to get my blood taken for the test, my vein had constricted that the phlebotomist couldn't even get a drop out. So he took it from my hand and I cried as it was so painful. He said "I am really sorry." I said " I can't wait for the day when no one is sticking needles in me."

Then you wait for the oncologist to tell you if your okay. I was surprisingly as I felt so shit. " Your bloods are fine, although your liver is a bit dodgy. We'll keep an eye on that."

Is it really surprising that my liver is having a mass panic? I don't even drink alcohol!

So there I was session two out of four. No Cold Cap this time as I wanted to talk to my chemo buddies and hear their stories, rather than worry about my now dead hair falling or looking like Woody Allen.

They are a nice bunch and just like me, they are just people who are going through the same crappy treatment so that they can get on with their lives.

They gave me additional anti sickness this time. That worked. I wasn't sick, but still felt sick. Smells, mention of food, the smell of smoking or perfume, all turn my stomach.

Then the chemo brain starts again. You feel like your doing everything in slow motion and have the worst hangover in the world. This time, the tiredness was just awful and I haven't been able to do as much. It's incredibly frustrating and annoying and I cried the night before my second session and it was one of the first times my repressed angry about having cancer surfaced.

I didn't want my life to be like this: but it is, for now, until it's done and dusted and this cancer is out of my bloody life and I can close the door in its face like Michael Corleone did to his estranged wife Kay.

Sometimes, you have to be cruel to be kind.

And The Wind Cries Mary - By Holly Searle

I am not going to lie to you. I am absolutely terrified of embarking on my chemotherapy treatment. This whole cancer thing has been exhausting. I absolutely hate it. For the last five months it's been at the top of my agenda and I just wish it would stop. Sometimes I fantasize about just going away somewhere peaceful to digest it all, as it all just feels like too much at once.

The suspicion, the diagnosis, the advice, the education, the treatment plan, the operation, the recovery and now I will have to deal with the shitstorm that is the FEC-T chemotherapy treatment.

A few weeks ago, I had an appointment to see the oncologist. This was the part two if you will of my cancer narrative: they operate, then they decide the best course of follow on treatment to avoid the cancer returning within the next ten years.

So I am curious to meet with the doctor, to have this appointment and to find out what my next task will be. I wait 90 minutes passed my appointed time to see her.

When I finally hear my name called, she beckons me into her consulting room. She's no fool, as she obviously notices straightaway that my face looks like a wet weekend in Bognor, because she asks me if I am okay.

'Yes, I am fine' I tell her 'I am just a bit annoyed at having to wait an hour and a half.'

We proceed. We sit. And she asks me how long I have been dealing with cancer and if I could give her a synopsis of my cancer treatment. This tells me that she hasn't read my notes, not a great start. So I tell her the concise but detailed version aware that someone else in the waiting area has now taken my place and is checking their watch.

Mid flow, a woman enters the room. The consultant says 'This is my registrar, she wants to ask me a question about Mary.'

I pause, what now, or in a minute I wonder to myself. The registrar is silent, so I carry on talking aware of this woman now waiting to speak. There's a queue here love and if I don't say my bit, I am prone to forget all the juicy bits because the doctor hasn't read my notes.

Then the consultant starts to speak really really fast whilst illustrating the points she is making with drawings. I can't look and listen and digest it all with the added pressure of woman behind me waiting to ask about Mary.

She asks me if my hair is dyed and says that it will all probably fall out and that I need to be aware that this chemotherapy treatment can actually cause cancer to grow again in my body.

Then the desk phone starts ringing and the doctor answers it, but holds the handset in the air away from her ear and carries on talking. I think aren't both of these actions, the woman here about Mary and the person now listening about me in breach of some sort of code or something?

She takes the call and I am sure this is a set up. She hangs up and I ask her a question about the treatment she is proposing. I ask her what the percentage is of my cancer returning if you don't have this treatment. She tells me that there is a program online somewhere that explains all of this but that she really needs to speak to her registrar about Mary.

I ask her if she would like me to leave? She says no no no. I am to wait here until she comes back.

I am now alone in the room that I have waited over an hour and a half to gain access to. The phone starts ringing again. I am tempted to pick it up and tell them that she is not here and that she has left me alone during my appointment to have a meeting with her registrar about someone else.

I don't. But, I am tempted.

Then there is a knock at the door and the nice breast cancer nurse comes in. She asks me where the doctor is, so I say having a meeting with her registrar about someone else.

I am really annoyed now. 15 minutes of fast talking and diagrams, but I am not really that clear about what I am having and why I am having it. I later log a complaint and ask for another appointment with another oncologist.

Most of the information I have ascertained about the proposed treatment has been via the nurse, a booklet, my friends and the internet.

It's all pretty shit and is making this bit of the treatment a festival of anxieties for me. I don't want to me pumped full of poison that will make me sick and tired. Or have port inserted a vein next to my heart placed there via another operation. Or worry about the chemo ruining my veins with the possibility of damage to my heart or lungs. I am such a secret hypochondriac, that this is playing havoc with my nerves.

I do not want to do this. I haven't been brave, I have just got on with it, because that's the only option you have if you want to not have cancer.

But now my courage is failing as I do not want these chemicals invading my body and lowering my my immune system. I do not want to be vulnerable any more, I just want it all to stop.

I am in line to have some counselling when a therapist becomes available and I shall look forward to it as I am mentally bruised from all of this.

I used to love this book when I was a child about a bull that just like sitting under a tree and smelling flowers. One day he gets stung by a bee and jumps about and they think he is fierce and take him the Madrid the flight the Matadors in the bullring. But he just sits there smelling all the flowers in the hats of the seated ladies in the audience. So, in the end they take him back to his field, where he sits under the tree and just peacefully smells the flowers again.

That book, is the story of my cancer treatment and the way I feel about it.

Spit Spot!

Why Having Cancer is like being a Celebrity - By Holly Searle

From the moment you are diagnosed with cancer, all of these people whom you have never met, start making a massive fuss about you. They can't do enough for you as you slowly descend into the world of all things cancerous and how to treat them.

Appointments are made with very nice people who do all they can to help you as you head towards your initial treatment. In my case, this was my big op to remove the tumour from my left breast and then to reconstruct it, by importing living tissue from my stomach.

This is just the first bit. The cosmetic surgical replacement of the familiar, that now no longer exists because they found a lump of mutated cells within your breast.

As I have had my babies, I am okay with it, as I won't be nursing any more offspring. Plus, Only I look at my boobs these days, so as long as they look okay, that's fine with me.

The replacement reconstructed breast, certainly is worth the giant Jokeresque smile that will now and forever scar my lower abdomen.

And, throughout all of this, you are at the centre of it all like some highly worshipped deity. Then, all of a sudden, in recovery, it suddenly stops as you are home alone in pain without a healthcare worker in sight.

It's positively soul destroying.

But then, the reality of your cancer starts to kick in when you realize that the operation was only the start of it and that the real kick in the teeth is the follow on treatment. That bit where they inform you of how they are going to try and eradicate the possibility of your cancer returning within the next ten years by blasting your immune system with either or chemotherapy or radiotherapy, or both.

This is the nasty bit, as one of its consequences will make my hair fall out. Call me vain, but, it's the one thing I quite like about the way I look. I have a long fat face that reminds me of that Looney Tuner Droopy the dog in addition to my funny little piggy eyes. I am no oil painting. But I have always liked my lovely sunny yellow hair. I have never once dyed it even in my advancing years. It remains to this day a beautiful blonde colour. But now it will all be going. I will probably wake up to find it on my pillow or see it waving me goodbye for now as clumps come away as I brush it in a pathetic attempt at normality.

Apparently, two weeks after my initial treatment of chemo will see all my current lovely repunzel locks gone.

For the first time since I was diagnosed with cancer, I suddenly became really angry about these constant intrusions in my life. And this one just takes the fucking biscuit.

I will have to wear a wig, or a hat or something, until my lovely locks grow back.

I am also dreading the effect that the chemo will have on my body. Apparently, having this treatment, although it's the most successful, can cause another tumour to grow.

I really hope that isn't another shitty episode I will be an extra in, I really do.

I am not a celebrity, please get me out of here as soon as possible.

In the meantime, if you see me, I will be the cartoon dog in the wig, looking forward to next spring with new hair and hopefully, no more cancer.

Ippa-dippa-dation My Operation - By Holly Searle

For Nicole and Luke.


First of all, I am glad that I am writing this blog, as at one point after my op, I honestly thought I was going to die.

However, I didn't, so let me tell you what happened.

Monday 2 July we arrive my first born and I at the designated hospital at the time requested (7.30am). We see a succession of people, all of whom will play a part in my 8 hour op.

Lara, the aesthetician was first up. She tells me that according to my body and bone scan, the cancer in localized to my breast. I cry. It's the news I had wanted to hear, especially before this op.

I feel more positive about it all, even though this 8 hour op is not something I am looking forward to. My greatest fear, is of course that I will die on the table and never wake up. I have made my will and sorted out my life insurance so that my children will find this all easier to negotiate
if I do.

My breast surgeon is next. He and I do not think the same and this often means that he says things in a a way which annoy me. His heart is in the right place, but he is a classic example of one of those highly intelligent individuals who have no people skills at all.

So when he tells me that my scans are Unremarkable and I say `Well that’s good isn’t it?` He says `It just means that there is no great mass of cancer anywhere else.` I say `You’re not filling me with positivity, I feel like going home.`To which he replys `Please don’t do that.`

I decide to flag his poor pre op exchange with the head theatre nurse as she is next. My daughter confirms our bizarre exchange and she says that she is sorry and that she will mention it and that just so I know, these surgeons ARE really the very best.

I say, please don’t mention before the op.

My daughter and I hug each other. We both cry. I am fecking terrified. We walk to the Terry Gilliam styled lift. The nurse tells my daughter she can’t come with us any further. I say `What!` I tell my daughter I love her. The lift door closes and we head inch by inch closer to my op.

In the anti chamber I again meet Lara and her colleague. They say Holly we are glad when we start the day with people like you. They place needles in veins and a mask over my face and tell me not to worry if I feel drowsy. I think this is it and then I am out and everyone else is worrying instead.


8 hours later I wake up in recovery.

The taste in my mouth is vile and I am hot. Profusely so.

I am covered in a huge bubble wrap blanket that is heating my body. To ensure the living tissue that has been taken from my tummy and used to reconstruct my new breast is kept alive. It needs to be kept warm and the blanket is there for this purpose.

I am so thirsty and the nurse says yes please try and sip and small amount of water. I try but I am sick and throw it up. I try again. It happens again. This goes on for a worrying amount of time, so much so that my transfer is delayed to ward especially after it is discovered that one of my three drains has fallen out.

I have 3 drains. One each from the post operable sites: tummy, breast, lymph nodes. The drains drain excess fluids off of wounds after the op until the dip eases up.

I have one from my lymph nodes, because the histology was borderline with regards to prognosis of further cancer in those that remind. So I took the decision to have them all taken out just in case.

The doctor checks the drain site of the one that has fallen out. She says it’s fine. However, this has delayed me by an hour. I finally transfer to the ward at 8pm.

My children are there. I am glad to see them, but still aware of the taste and my inability to drink and keep any water down.

I know that you can go for some time without food, but fluid, well that’s a different story all together. I am starting to worry.

Hospital wards run on a 24 hour rota with shift changes divided into two 12 hour shifts. These begin and run from 8am – 8pm and 8pm - 8am.

I have arrived as handover is taking place. This is where my care began to go down hill a bit.

My nurse is stressed and she has obviously NOT understood my issues. She needs to do my observations ever hour; temperature, heart rate, and the application of the ultrasound to ensure that the blood flow is strong and healthy in my new breast.

But I also have leg pumps on which mimic walking whilst I am laying down. These are to prevent a blood clot. Mine will not work. I keep telling her and they try three machines none of which work. It isn’t until the following day that this is sorted out.

I am still throwing up water literally my the bucket loads of which, at one point I have several balanced on my body whilst I wait for the nurse to return. I start to panic and at one point she says `Look I have other patients to see.` I don’t ask her for anything else after that, but I stay awake for most of the night wondering if this awful experience has been in vain. I worry that my phone will pack up as it is my only link to people who will believe me. I text two friends as I need help.

I start to cry and the nurse tells me to stop crying as I will just cause myself more issues. I don’t like her at all.

The next day the new shift begins. I am so thankful.

I am still having issues with fluids. Various doctors and people visit. At some point the nursing team try and get me out of bed and I tell them I am only to faint. I do and am put back to bed.

My friend visits with my brother. My head feels like it is full of cotton wool. I am finding it hard to focus. I explain about the previous night. I know I look terrible as I know my friend as well as I know myself. So when she says `...You’re looking...a bit, ...oh no, I think it’s the blue curtain.` She can’t fool me.

Dread increases as I head towards the 8pm shift change as I feel absolutely shit. But then she came and saved me.

Nicole is an angel. She appears and says to me `I am here to take care of you tonight. I am going to do just that.` and she does. And it’s good that she does because I slowly go downhill and the night becomes the early hours. Lack of fluid, sleep and food have all taken their toll on my body as I start to shake as much so that they worry about my heart and take all sorts of readings and blood tests.

I am in so much pain. Imagine the worst period pain ever and times it by a million, it’s that bad. I worry that I will die. I say to Nicole and Luke the night doctor `Please don’t let me die.` The pain is so bad I actually think death might be a better option as this isn’t right.

Nicole and Luke do EVERYTHING for me, and give EVERYTHING to me. They eventually give me Morphine and I sleep.

When I wake up the pain has gone and I feel human again. I have also had a drip so my fluids are better. It’s a beautiful morning and I start to feel more like myself.

That’s all the bad bits.

My blood results indicated that my heart was okay.

After five days I really wanted to come home and so I did with one drain in situ.

That’s now gone.

My pain is okay now. I can now walk, but cannot stand up straight yet. My wounds are all healing and this week I will find out what next.

The cosmetic bit has been done and the cancer removed and sent to histology. This week I will be told what grade the cancer they took away was and how they will further eradicate it.

I will keep you posted.

This is what I have learnt.

I will never take anything for granted again. I will never moan about my body. And I will ALWAYS trust my instincts.

I have also learnt how loved I am and how every text, voice mail, email, card and calls you have all sent or taken the time to make, have carried me through this.

I am so, so grateful.

Thank you all so very very much.

In order to climb a wall you need support to get over it.

Thank you, literally, forever.

Send in the Clowns By Holly Searle

Two months ago I was diagnosed with cancer. It seems like years ago now, as it's really starting to drag.

Since then, I have met and taken my clothes off for strangers, visited 3 hospitals, spent in excess of thirty hours waiting to see people or attending appointments whilst hemorrhaging lost income.

I have had blood tests, biopsies, cardiac reports, MRI's, scans, ultrasounds and one operation.

And this is just the beginning.

Because I decided on the living tissue op (boob off and reconstruction carried out in one fell swoop), it has caused a slight problem in communication between two of the hospitals that have been sharing my care.


In my post lymph nodes removal state, I still had a long list of appointments to attend prior to my big op on June 25th. These are starting to manifest themselves like some crazy most do list in my head that I need to complete as I edge closer to the big cut.

High anxiety.

I attend my surgical appointment to discuss my up and coming op to be informed it's now a week later on July 2nd (I didn't get that letter), and then wait around for two hours to see the cancer surgeon, who within moments of finally sitting down with me, it becomes apparently clear that he has none of my information or notes.

He is obviously more than a little stressed about this. But not as stressed as I am about it. Instead of fessing up and saying Look, there's been a massive cock-up, fancy coming back on another day when there isn't, he just tries to apportion blame elsewhere, which makes him look like a clown.

To add insult to injury, he starts calling my cancer my disease. He repeats this phrase several times during the course of our meeting. Disease, disease, disease. So much so that it really starts to grate on my nerves. I haven't got the Bubonic plague, I have cancer.

Seriously. I feel like Alyssa from The End of the F***ing World.

I am furious, as I do not leave knowing anything else or what he proposes to do. I do bag a body scan and a bone scan and the knowledge that if my cancer is bigger, after asking about the histology results from my lymph nodes, that my disease may have spread.

Great.

I am so angry. I have a whole weekend to worry about all of this and if my once sex-bombed re-imagined time-bomb body is hosting further possibilities.

My disease and I send emails of despair to those who might be able to shed some light on the situation. All weekend we stress.

Monday I make calls. I am literally shouting HELP as I have lost all confidence in the support from hospital two. Finally I get some.

The incredible supportive team at hospital one rescue me with their empathy, kindness and humanity. They tell me to come and see them and to talk. Then I realise I will be able to hear my lymph nodes histology result a day earlier than anticipated. So I brace myself.

They contain micro cancer too.

Thanks disease.

I ask the doctor I trust what he thinks. He tells me that there are four types of possible cancers that they look for in lymph nodes and that I have the more positive one. He says he thinks my prognoses in his experience should be okay.

But, I probably won't have radiotherapy but chemo instead.

It's all a big top of fun.

On the day my solo exhibition was beautifully hung in Bath, I sat under the hospital atrium in the bright sun light reviewing the images and enjoying that moment of pure joy and normality at the end of an otherwise hectic and emotional day.

Don't you love farce?

Do the Locomotion - By Holly Searle

I am finding this cancer interruptions a bit bloody annoying. The amount of medical appointments it has generated is almost record breaking. It's a task to remember them all to be honest, especially when they keep being rearranged to accommodate yet another test. I feel like a stream train struggling to get up a steep hill.

You can do it you can do it sang the carriages.

At the end of last week, one that I had managed navigated without anything to do with cancer (forecasted appointments already bagged), I get four calls on Friday from two nurses asking me multiple questions. Had I booked my Sentinel Node Scan? No, I hadn't. Was I meant too? I can't recall this part of the conversation with the doctor the previous week. The lovely nurse says well we need to get this sorted as the timeline is decreasing as we head towards the big op on the 25th.

I also have two bagged appointments in the wrong order, so the nurse says that she will change these. Then the other nurse calls from the other hospital to run through the plan for this week and to explain about my pre op op.

What?

Then she explains that prior to my big op, they need to carry out a biopsy of my lymph lodes, by removing several, in order to determine if the cancer is living within their cells. This will in turn, determine how much addition tissue will be removed during my big op.

I am horrified as I will find out earlier than anticipated, if I have cancer in my body's motorways.

I knew it was due, but now I am being forced to deal with it before I feel ready too.

Cancer, the gift that just keeps giving.

The first nurse never does call back with a rearranged prearranged new appointment.

To be fair, I am not her only patient and I have been on the phone to the other nurse for a while.

So, I do this myself.

I also call Macmillan Cancer and speak to the welfare team there as I am starting to stress about money. My mortgage provided has agreed to give me a two-month holiday. This will be a massive help but I still need the security of knowing that I will be able to claim something. I find out that I am entitled too Statutory Sick Pay (SSP). Looks like I might just stay in the red, but only just on £92.00 per week, a total drop of £700.00 per month to my income.

My Will has been made and my Life Insurance left in trust (all needed to be done anyway).

But I have lost my art mojo. This really upsets me as I have solo show coming up and even though I have some pieces, I can't seem to find my muse. She is probably as overwhelmed as I am with so many appointments and trying to balance life, work, money and bloody cancer, isn't really leaving too much time or energy for art.

I called Macmillan to have a cry and a talk as I don't want to burden my nearest and dearest too much. The man I speak too suggests I try doing something I enjoy. I think I can't at the moment as I am just too exhausted micro managing this poxy blinking cancer.

It's starting to railroad me from my life and I hate that

I decide to think about this time next year, when I will look back on all of this and be glad it's all over. I am focusing on my plans to finally leave London.

A seaside dwelling seems like just the ticket to start a new chapter in my life. So, once I am back on track, that's where I will be off too.

After all, life's a bit too short not to think about the future.

My Milkshake Brings All The Boys to the Yard - By Holly Searle

Here is the news.


After deciding on the living tissue option to reconstruct my left breast, I then had misgivings. The thought of having a ten hour operation to enable this in addition to another incision and scar on my torso, seemed quite overwhelming.

No, I thought, the best option would be to shorten the time spent on the table, and to have an implant.

But then I attended a seminar at the Maggie's center based at Charing Cross Hospital, held and given by the plastic surgeon in charge of these operations.

Go, my nurse told me, as you might change your mind.

So I did.

The seminar's are a great idea for those of us still shell shocked by having breast cancer and its consequences. A one hour gig delivered by the man who carries out these reconstruction ops, featuring before and after images of women who have been through both options.

They are a center of boob excellence here and painstakingly take their time to tell you EVERYTHING. Don't buy a white mastectomy post op bra as it will just go grey from all of the washing we are informed.

The images are quite graphic and harrowing. I try to divorce myself from their surgical mutilations and focus of the after images where you would never be able to guess what once transpired to the women who feature on this Power Point presentation.

But as I sat there, I thought to my self, do I want all of this? Who is this reconstruction for? It won't even be the final score. Oh no, that comes after they check out, what they took out. This is just the removal and replacement operation.

No one every looks at my boobs these days apart from me.

I ask myself, am I really that bothered? Then I think, yes, I bloody well am.

Who knows, maybe one day, apart from the surgeons, nurses, doctors and all the other hospital staff, that have already had the pleasure of poking and prodding my breast, to draw their diagnostic conclusions, someone else might like to inspect it for more pleasurable reasons.


But l will be bothered, as I will have to look at either an empty desolate space that will be devoid of what was once was there.

Or, l can look at a similar amalgamation that has replaced it.

But more than that, I don't really want to have this fecking cancer or have my favourite breast removed. I don't want to be sitting in a room with a group of strangers looking at images of women who have been changed so radically by cancer.

This breast fed my babies. It was always more reliable than the other one, it never let me down and now it has.

So, l have no choice but to allow its removal. Its nasty hidden contents banished to histology where my post op fate will be decided.

When the plastic surgeon explains that the living tissue op takes less time than first anticipated, and that implants will need to be replaced in 15 years (plus it won't age and I will), I decide to go with the living tissue option. This option is also what they term surface. It's literally not brain surgery.

The surgeon explains that they identify a fat profitable location of your body: inner thigh, bum or tummy (I am rich in all of these areas – who knew), remove it and relocate it to where the carcinogenic breast is/was. They then create a new breast. Later after this has settled down, you return for a second op to have both breasts aligned. Then, you return at a later date to has either a prosthetic nipple added and or tattoo.

Blimey. It's a lot to mentally digest.

And the way I deal it is by focusing on the next bit. I quite like a point of reference.

After the seminar I see the surgeon. I tell him that I would like the living tissue op. He calls a nurse in and I take my clothes off for another stranger. He measures my breasts and then checks out the fat deposit on my stomach. Phew, there is enough there.

He leaves me alone with the nurse. She's lovely. I say 'I knew there was a reason for eating all those biscuits.' She laughs.

My op is scheduled for June 25th. Before then, I will have to attend another scan to locate the blood vessels in my tum. But for now, I have a beacon to head towards.

I will be hospitalized for five days (please visit). I will then need five to six weeks to recover. I am not too sure how I am going to manage this money wise as my income pays for our life. But, Macmillan offer directional help for you in these situations. So I will call them, call my mortgage provider and get this all set in place before my op.

Six weeks ago, I was diagnosed with Early Stage Breast Cancer. Fingers crossed in five weeks time, they'll get it all out of my body. Then I will face the next bit with my head up and my sore, but replacement boob.

You're Gonna Need a Bigger Op - By Holly Searle

So, I still have cancer, only it's bigger, 5 x bigger than they initially thought.

My doctor, a lovely human being, interrupted the already planned pre op tests and scheduled operation, by sending me off to have a Breast MRI.

I am ridiculously claustrophobic. If you are looking for an additional member for your pot holing team, please don't ask me. I hate small confined places as much as I hate the way this cancer has caused chaos in my life.

Before the MRI, I asked my GP to prescribe me something to help me get through it. But then I think about the night that follows this MRI and how I have a piece of artwork in a group exhibition in London opening that evening. I want to go, but I don't want to be off my face when I attend. So I decide to do the MRI cold turkey and it's just awful. After 20 minutes in there laying face down with my boobs in a cage, I get them to pull me out. The lady tells me not to worry as not everyone can do MRI's. I say what happens next, she says that they need to inject me with radioactive liquid and take images to see if the dye flags up any additional cancer. How long will it take I ask, my claustrophobia is manageable as long as I know EXACTLY what is happening, why and how long it will take.

I strike a deal with the guy in charge of the MRI. I ask him to let me know when there is 5 minutes left. He agrees. So with the canular inserted in my arm and pumping radioactive dye (which I taste as it passes through my body), I lay there hyperventilating with my eyes tightly shut, until he calls time.

When it's over, I cry, as I hate MRI's and the fact that having cancer has made me endure this one.

I try to brave it at the gallery that evening, but I am exhausted. When I get home, I worry that I am trying to do too much: work, be an artist, deal with cancer.


I sleep well that night and silently pat myself on the back.

The MRI reveals that the cancer is much bigger and this changes everything.

So instead of having my intended op, I have a further biopsies to determine the parameter of the newly discovered super size cancer. This involves having my left breast numbed and then having a long needle inserted and a staple gun snap when they take the sample. Five of these I don't feel, one I do and nearly pass and or throw up due to the pain.

I feel violated even though I know all these nice people are doing all of this to help me battle this nasty mutation in my body.

You're being so brave the lady tells me.

I don't feel brave, I feel like running away. I feel like screaming PLEASE STOP THIS MADNESS.

So today is the first of many High Noon days I am sure I will have to face over the coming months.

My surgeon tells me that after all these additional tests, it is bigger and that this means I will have to have a mastectomy. My oldest friend has accompanied to this appointment and I hear her sharp intake of breath from the other side of the examination curtain that divides us.

My brain swirls. Reconstruction I ask? Yes he says, we can actually do both at the same time. We discuss an implant option against the benefits of a living tissue one. With the living tissue, they take the fat off of your belly. Win win I think. New boob AND a flatter tummy. How lucky am I?

Ironically the fat on my belly is a result of the HRT, which could also have caused my cancer.

But this is a 10 hour operation. Prior to this I will have to attend a kind of lecture at Charing Cross Hospital to explain the entire cancer journey, options and out come.

I may change my mind after I have attended this. I won't know until I do.

It's all been an emotional roller coaster, one that I can only deal with by focusing on the fact that all rides must end at some point.

Everyone has been amazing. Everyday I get support and love (and tears) from family and friends.

PLEASE keep that coming. It's making this all so much easier to bare knowing that you all are.

C is For Cancer By Holly Searle

So, I have cancer.

How scary is that word?

When the consultant told me, I didn't hear another word he said after he said that word.

My mind just went into overdrive.

Am I going to die?

Is this how I am going to die?

Really?

Is this it?

How bad is it?

CANCER?

What the fuck.

The nurse found a room for us to talk in. The first thing she said was 'Well you probably didn't hear a word he said after he said the word Cancer. BUT, I am going to run through it all with you, so you understand exactly what is going on'.

And so she did.

I have Invasive Ductal Carcinoma.

It's in my left breast. It's small, early and treatable.

If you could want to choose which cancer to have, it would be this one she said.

But I was still thinking, really, cancer?

My mind works like this: the day before I was told I had cancer, I knew nothing about it, but today I do. So I just need to know what and how to proceed from this point on to resolve it. I am the same person as I was yesterday, I now just have something else to deal with.

Then, I started to think emotionally about it.

I would quite like to be really old when I die. I would like to watch my grandchildren grow-up and see them blossom. I would like to see my son graduate from University and continue to be so so proud of my daughter's incredible ambition.

I would like to travel a bit more and finally move into a house with a garden and be kissed passionately by an as yet, unknown lover.

These are all of the thoughts that are knocking on the door of the cancer space in my head. I can't let those thoughts in right now until I know I am going to get rid of this parasite that has become an unwelcome guest in my body.

My surgeon asked me if I would like to feel the lump. I didn't really want too as I would rather not acknowledge its existence in my life: by doing that, would be having to admit to it being real. But, I did and it is.

What a massive pile of crap that is.

I am just going through the motions.

Because it is small, early and treatable, the prognosis based on all the science, looks good. However, until I have my initial op and the results that follow on from it, I am still holding my mental breath. I have pacified those knocking thoughts for now by posting a note on the door that simply says ' You'll know when I do.'

I know that cancer doesn't always equal death, but I think a lot of people do draw that conclusion. I know this from the reactions I have received. But, I also think that is the reaction that they would have if they had been given the news themselves.

I have never had cancer before and I hope I never have it again. I want it gone as I have too much to do.

As I have got older I have realised that the value of time and how and I spend it is the only currency of worth in my life, and I am going to spend as little of it as I possibly can on and with this cancer. It can do one.

It has certainly made me think about the relevant and irreverent on a daily basis, so much so that I wonder why I hadn't thought like that before.

For now, the future is several appointments prior to surgery and then then more pathology results, followed by (fingers crossed) some intense radiotherapy. Then, touch wood, my surgeon tells me that it should be as though I never had it.

Small, early, treatable.

He said to me 'Someone is watching over you, not once but twice. Once because you were called back, and twice because it is so small.'

Just between us, for a man of science to tell me this, gives me hope.