Hmm

I wasn't going to use this blog to write about my mastectomy and failed reconstruction, but it is a really big part of my life and, therefore, our family's life too.

I underwent the bi-lateral prophylactic mastectomy and reconstruction at the end of February this year and due to compilations had to have the reconstruction reversed. I then developed a post operative infection that very nearly killed me (sounds very dramatic, but at the time was horrific) and am just healing both physically and mentally.

I have been very lucky in that I am receiving some wonderful counselling from Tees Valley Counselling Trust to help me to become accepting of my issues and also have a very good team looking after me at the hospital.

I went to see my Consultant yesterday, who very kindly saw me at the local hospital rather than me going to the main hospital and very possibly having a massive anxiety attack. I needed to discuss with him the fact that my scaring was causing me issue with my prosthetics and could he do anything for me without putting me to sleep. It turns out that he is will to operate on me under a local anesthetic and also sedation too rather than a general - woohoo

I don't think I was fully aware of the pressure and worry that I was suppressing until we left the hospital. It was like someone had lifted a weight the size of a large house of my shoulders.

It is not going to happen for a couple of months (at least) to fit in with the MiniMads starting Reception and Preschool, but it will happen and then I can wear my prosthetics hopefully without pain.

When times are hard, I focus on the reason I made the decision to have the operation, my family. We really are a team. I think we all complement each other, enjoy each others company and prove the rule that "the whole is greater than the sum of the parts". I love my family with all my heart, they are the joy in my heart and the substance of all that I do and am.

Also I am so grateful for the wonderful people that have come into our lives because of this. I arranged for us to have a homestart worker when I knew that recovery would be quite hard and she is wonderful. She comes once a week and plays with the boys. She is a calming influence and ex-primary school teacher and a wonderful woman. We are blessed to have her in our lives, she enriches us all.

Speech Therapy Assesment

The eldest Minimad was born with a tongue tie which didn't go until he was 5 months old and it has caused him to have issues with the F sound, so the preschool referred him to a speech therapist.

This morning was his assessment at home and she asked him to sound out lots of words, to try and isolate where he had any issues.

He can sound it out at the end and middle of a word, but not at the beginning, so she is going to send us details of some fun exercises we can do over the holidays and see him once he enters Reception class this September.

I think we all want what is best for our children and I was so relived to hear that he has fantastic language and vocabulary and that she really has no concerns at all.

He did the exercise with her and then disappeared to play games with Grandma Mad and the youngest Minimad, whilst she explained all this to me and then as we were finishing up she put her arm on my shoulder and told me she had had a mastectomy two years ago and asked how I was getting on. I don't want peoples sympathy and hadn't told her of my issues - although I haven't got my prosthetics on (not many people notice or if they do they are too polite to say).

She told me that you could feel the love I have for my children from the moment she walked in the house and that I should cherise everyday as they grow up far too soon. How wonderful to have a virtual stranger come in and say that to you. I have tears in my eyes.