Harsh reality paid me a visit

We just happened to be flicking through channels last night and we stopped on Channel fours embarrassing Bodies.  This inst a channel we normally watch, but my friend mentioned it the previous night so we decided to give it a go.

Randomly, there was a piece about some relatives with the genetic BRCA1 mutation.  There were 3 women, all at different phases of discovery.  There was the Aunty, whose mother had died from breast cancer and carried the gene, and there were her 2 nieces; whose father carried the gene.

The Aunty had opted for double mastectomy and full hysterectomy.  The older of the two nieces had found out she had the mutated gene so opted to have full mastectomy with reconstruction straight after and then her sister, she had yet to discover if she had it.

The Aunts double mastectomy had been a disaster as she had gone through 7 failed reconstructions that left her in excruciating pain and horribly disfigured; so she opted for having a total removal. This helped her a lot with the pain but she was still considerably scarred up.

It showed the oldest sisters double mastectomy operation and crikey, its brutal.  They carried out an immediate reconstruction, but for some reason, it never crossed my mind that they would remove the nipple.  They use a sling made from pig skin to support the implant at the bottom but there is so much scarring.  I am also confused, I cant get my head around just how bad a job they did/do of the reconstructions.  Obviously, I'm not in the medical profession and have no understanding of how tricky it is to reconstruct a breast at this point but surely, there are better ways. than this.

I am quite a vain person, I like pretty things, I like things to look as good as possible.  I wouldn't break my back to sculpt my body every day of my life if I didn't.  Right now, grasping the concept of a double mastectomy and the aesthetic consequences of this, are sending me under.  Whilst this may seem big headed; I have great boobs.  I am incredibly lucky that they have remained fairly perky and they just have a fantastic shape. I have always been pretty proud of them and the shallow thought of them being replaced with something that, I would find repellent, is something I am really going to struggle with and could potentially have an enormous impact on my mental well being.  Its not like you can take it back, once the damage is done, it seemingly only gets worse when they try to fix it.

I am genuinely pretty let down by myself for taking this point of view, I think it is exacerbated by the fact I have never been close to anyone who has had cancer, so have no reality to draw from in that area.  I have realised that trying to get my head around it before I know is never going to happen.  I think what I have to do first is just mentally prepare myself for bad news and prepare myself for a huge amount of self reflection and soul searching off the back of it. My opinion before, was that I would definitely have the surgery if I have a positive result; I now see that that was an incredibly naive point of view and the impact goes way beyond what I imagined.

There is also the fact that if I do have it and go through with it, I will pretty much definitely never be a mother.  And even if I could be, I would never have the close bond of breast feeding to experience.   Tom and I have always said that if we decided we wanted kids and my body clock had done ticking then so be it.  However, that's totally different to opting to take away the chance totally...  I think I have buried my head in the sand and I am glad I had this wake up call.  It has made me realise I wasn't being balanced in my view point at all and I wasn't being realistic about who I am and how I think, that is going to take some time to work through.

I appreciate what I have written sounds harsh, especially if you are someone or know someone who has undergone a double mastectomy.  I am not saying these women are ugly at all, I judge myself very differently to how I judge others.  What I class as unbearable to me, would never make me draw that opinion of another person.  To me, I admire the women who have undergone this procedure even more than I did before.  It isn't just lumps of flesh that are going, they are part of who you are and who you have been for many years and is something that can rock your world in a million different ways.  My hat goes off to their bravery, every single day and i only hope that I can be that strong if it comes to that.

Voodoo doll

A slight exaggeration... I went to a new physio tonight, my mate Jo recommended him. He is the physio her cross fit gym use so he is well used to broken and battered bodies.

I wanted to go as my SI joint is still niggling away and my sternum is still causing me pain under load.

He reviewed all my issues and laughed at how I managed to sustain these issues and then he did some mobility checks.

He deduced that I have a fair few issues to be going at but the worst of the lot is my psoas on my right hand side. This is what I hurt doing a head stand when I was in agony for  week and it also explains the pain I got after walking around Edinburgh in high heels!

I am also really tight in my quadratus lumborum on the opposite side and my deltoid on the right, which is unsurprising as that is where my neck locks up quite regularly.

Then he started on the acupuncture.. I'm not sure of you have ever had it before, I thought I had, but nothing could've prepared me for this! He pushes the needle into the muscle, it felt like it was miles in there, not sure of it was as I didn't dare look. It felt like my kidney had gone into spasm and was insanely painful. It turns out that is my pissed off muscle getting really mad and grabbing a hold of the needle. He would then ease the needle in and out until the muscle released its spasm..

But that was just the start, he then took on the psoas.. This was a whole different world of pain! Every time he pulled the needle out it felt like the muscle was vibrating. This was all the scar tissue rubbing over the needle as it was being broken down, the aim of this is to improve the circulation to the damaged muscle to help it heal properly.

Now, I'm normally really good at dealing with pain and this pushed my boundaries. It's not just the pain, it's the sensation hat really adds to the whole sensation, but there were definitely a couple of occasions I was nearly telling him to stop.. So I'm there again next Wednesday!

Still grotty!

I managed the morning in the office and had to come home, I still feel rubbish and sitting up just seems to make my tummy more painful

Been reading about how to strengthen my legs and feet for running and one suggestion was bare foot training in the gym and then this of course pointed me in the direction of Vibrams.

I know they have had a huge amount of bad press at the min but aside of that, I have read some great independent reviews and, as I had been having a small amount of success from running on my toes, I thought I might as well look into these. My training will have to be slow and steady anyway so I might as well train my body with these at the same time. A lot of people report that, even though the feet get sore, they see a marked decrease in joint pain.

I am desperate to get cracking with our latest goals, being ill is doing my head in!

Ran out

It was the 10mile Total Warrior challenge yesterday and boy can I feel it today. It's was such great fun, the weather was tragic but my running was far worse.

Half way round the course there was a 4 mile fell run, not only have I never run 4 miles in my life, I have certainly never run it through marsh land. I was so disappointed with my performance on this bit, I am tending to overlook how well I actually did.

It took a total of 2hrs 50 something to complete it and I was 57th female in my category of 300 odd. Which is pretty good for my first ever attempt but I am sorely disappointed with my run effort, even if I didn't train I expected to be better than that!

So, our new goal is to get amazing at these events; sounds amazingly simple put like that!

I do have to bear in mind the possibility of major surgery in my life, but for now we are planning with what we do know. Currently that is that we have counselling appointment on 29th and blood test soon after if that's the way I opt to go.

Today I'm sick with a tummy bug going round the office, which is do much fun!

Looking forward to switching up our training, always an adventure and so much to learn

And it goes on

I have a feeling a lot of my time will be taking up around the BRCA1 thought process for a while.  Some might say that its crazy until you know for sure, this is me though and I like to be able to plan for all eventualities; even if it is a pointless exercise.

I still feel that a lot of my concerns lie around the implications of early onset and sudden menopause on my body.  The thought of being cut open and having major surgery is also a concern, but I do know that an oopherectomy can be done by keyhole surgery so the recover time is much less.

There are so many issues when it comes to what the menopause can bring, thinning of bones is one as on my fathers side there is a history of osteoporosis in his sister and mothers.  I do quite a lot of physical activity, which helps, but I also have a totally sedentary job for five days of the week, which doesn't help.

I know that there are treatments that you can take to alleviate all of the symptoms and side effects, but I hate the idea of that too; although I am not naive enough to think that they can all be avoided.  i have read about women suffering from horrific joint pain, something I suffer with a lot of the time anyway and if that were to get worse then it wouldn't be great.  But I suppose I could look at it in the fact that I am used to it already and have pretty good coping mechanisms in place.

I have so much reading to do and understanding to get in before we go and see the counsellor, I want to make sure I have got all the most useful and in depth questions at hand as humanly possible, I want her to fill in gaps rather than present me with new questions.

It will go on, I imagine it will be a quite well visited subject on here by the time I get to the appointment!

Warrior!

During some crazy lapse of sanity, Tom, Holly and I decided that we should take part in Total Warrior. This idea was planted in my head by my bad ass friend Joanne.

Joanne is hardcore when it comes to exercise, fitness and suffering and she insisted that we do the 10 mile version of this hell, instead of the 10k lesser hell. She subsequently decided she would rather do super human, an entirely different kind of torture, so isn't even going to be there to bully me round!

As the day is drawing closer, the reality of my lack of preparation is screaming in my face. The run up to wedding totally took over our life, so this got forgotten and it's this Sunday.  Ah.

I fear that I will not make it out unscathed, my body of glass doesn't adapt well to change. Something to do though hey!

BRCA1 time

A while ago I talked about the BRCA1 gene that my mother carries, it is the gene that has hit the news with Angelina Jolie and Michelle Heaton having both had a double mastectomy and soon to have hysterectomy I believe. It is known to drastically increase the carriers chances of suffering from a beast or ovarian cancer.

With my mother carrying the gene, there is a 50/50 chance that my sister or myself may too have the gene and we have finally decided to go an discuss the possibility of having the blood test to discover if we do.

We will be going to see the specialist in around 6 to 8 weeks to discuss the implications surrounding the results and then decide is we want to know.

A lot of people's knee jerk reactions are "how can you not have found out already?" but when you actually factor in the reality of knowing, then it makes you sit back and think.

If I do decide to go ahead with finding out, which presently I'm pretty sure I will, then I have to make sure that I have all my options clear in my head. The strain in our family is mostly ovarian, so the decision would be to have a double oophorectomy. Not only is this major surgery, it also means that I will go through a very sudden onset menopause and will definitely not be able to have children without intervention. Tom and I currently don't want children, there is simply no room or want for them right now and we aren't sure there ever will be. However, having the choice taken away from you is a hugely different thing and something that would personally be quite a heavy thought. There are options to freeze eggs etc, but that carries it own set of heartaches and risks.

From the thoughts I have had on the subject before, and now, my main concern is the affects of menopause on me and my personality and long term affects of going through it so early. There is a lot to consider and I have a lot to read up on before seeing the specialist, so that I can get as much as I can from the meeting.

I am choosing to focus on all the positives in this situation, even if I were to be a carrier of the gene and I am hoping that this continues. Easy to write, doubt it will be so easy in reality.