Friday 16th December

Sitting in the departure lounge at Jersey airport ... But that's today's story, firstly lets go back to December the 3rd!

We had an amazing Bingo/ raffle/chopping hair off night at St Clements Parish hall, with over fifty friends and family attending. My boys did me proud, bringing friends and spending money( also if you were Tom, winning raffle prizes !)

Rena had a JustGiving page where she had already raised over £2,000, so that with the £1,300+ we made on the Bingo made for a large sum of money to go towards Ovacome. http://www.ovacome.org.uk/( my chosen charity) .

It is incredibly humbling to know that someone who cares enough about you can organise ( with mums help!) an event where your chopped off hair will go towards The princess's trust - and monies raised go to a very worthy charity that helps women with ovarian cancer in the uk .

I was hoping that by now there would have been a write up in the local paper, as we did have a photographer , but nothing so far, also Ovacome bring out a quarterly magazine and they want to do a piece about Rena and myself, which we are pleased to do of course.

Words are not adequate but for now a very large capital letters THANK YOU , will have to suffice . :-)


Since finishing radiotherapy on the 4th November ( seems a long time ago now) I have had a few side effects. Although I believe I have been more fortunate than most. It wasn't until about ten days after the last dose that the extreme tiredness really hit me- I really couldn't do much at all, except sleep ( and visit the toilet at fairly regular intervals) . Bouts of nausea but no actual sickness thank goodness.

I basically spent a week sofa surfing, unable to even do a gentle(!) dog walk, mind you the weather was appalling so I felt very lucky (!) to be able to be nursed by Dan, sit by the fire and have hot drinks made for me.

Anyway, moving on, I am getting back into the swing of things now, picking up the sporting activities, going on dog walks, gardening, shopping, cleaning etc. Still not 100% but much better than I was, and as hubby pointed out, the radiotherapy is accumulative, it has still been working since finishing the last dose , and as I'm now six weeks further on I should only now be starting to recover.
He's right of course.

Back to today and why I'm at the airport. My friend had to fly back to Southampton for more treatment and I have a feeling she won't be home for Christmas , and so hoping to cheer her up ( although other people would say the opposite!) I thought I'd just fly over for the day. Unfortunately the only direct flights now from Jersey to Southampton are 7 am returning at 7:50pm, so it does make for quite a long day. However it means I can spend longer with my friend.

I have a hospital appointment on Tuesday with my consultant ( in Jersey) , hopefully all is well post radiotherapy and I will find out when my CT scan has been booked.

I also have questions to ask, as I received a letter in the post yesterday from Guys hospital in London as a follow up regarding my genetic testing.

It seems I carry a mutation of the BRCA 2 gene, which gives me a greater risk of getting Ovarian and breast cancer. Some things you wish you'd known earlier! It's probably inherited and passed down from my fathers side of the family , as he had three half sisters who died from Ovarian , a half brother who had bowel cancer, and he himself had a urinary/prostate cancer.

This means that it is worth my siblings getting checked themselves as forewarned is forearmed, and now my own children are aware they can decide if they wish in the future, to be checked.

Had I had this information I would have had a hysterectomy in my forties, as I found out my American half cousin did, but I didn't know about these aunts until two years ago! C'est la vie .





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