What About Me

What about me? It isn't fair
I've had enough, now I want my share
Can't you see, I want to live
But you just take more than you give - Shannon Noll

Sometimes life just isn't fair and it doesn't go the way you want or need it to. Sometimes things look like they are getting better and a rainbow can be seen past the rain, but then the rain just keeps on falling and that rainbow goes away. These last few months have been a heck of a challenge for me and I thought things were on the up, but as I mentioned, life doesn't always go the way you want it.

Surgery and then another Surgery

If you remember from my last blog post, I got the news that chemo was loosing its momentum and I would need another couple of surgeries to remove the cancer in my bowel and lung. In Dr Kennedy's opinion, it was the only way to completely get rid of the cancer. So we agreed that this was the next course of action, and once the surgeries were over, I would undergo 6 'clean-up' chemo cycles and by the end of September I would be getting the all clear!

At the start of May, I underwent my big bowel surgery. What was supposed to be a 4-5 hour surgery ended up being 8 and a half hours, and almost put my mother in hospital for a heart attack. My surgeon was a miracle worker, he made an impossible surgery possible and even used me to brag about how amazing he is. I came out of surgery with a massive drain sticking out of my stomach to drain blood or anything else. Old Bert as I called him, was a pain in the ass, was bigger than expected and had to be carried everywhere I went. The drain was taken out after a few days, with no pain meds I might add. The nurse pulled and pulled and I swear there was about 20 meters of drain inside of me. My heart started playing up so I spent a couple of extra days in hospital before they finally let me out. I was all prepared to go back under the knife in two weeks for my lung surgery but this didn't go to plan. I waited well over a month for my lung surgery and finally went under the knife in the middle of June.

I thought this would be the easiest surgery. Only an hour or two on the table, then recover for a day or two and then off home. Oh boy was I wrong... Again I came out of surgery with a massive drain in my chest which made breathing, laughing and sleeping pretty bloody difficult. This was used to drain out blood and air from my chest cavity. But every time it looked like it could come out, the drain would start to bubble, meaning it was still draining air out of my chest. I was placed on the cardiothoracic ward, with a bunch of old people and told to just deal with it. I was sent home after a few days and recovered nicely at home with a nice big scar under my arm. After two weeks, I was started back up on my 'clean-up' chemo with the knowledge that it would only be 6 cycles and thing whole nightmare would be over with...

Tiana, I am So Sorry

After 3 cycles of 'clean-up' chemo, my body had just had enough. I was tired, my body was sore and it was taking longer and longer for me to recover from the chemo. One of my fortnightly blood tests came back indicating that something was wrong with my liver. Dr Kennedy was concerned, so we opted not to have chemo that week and instead brought forward my final CT scan to see what was going on. My liver was fine, the chemo was just messing with it a bit, so I decided that I was done with chemo. I had discussed it with one of my nurses and she agreed that it was time and I had done well and she said she would speak to Dr Kennedy. I just wanted time to recover and to start getting my life back on track and to put all of this behind me. But cancer had other plans..

I was asked to go in and see Dr Kennedy early one Thursday morning. I just knew that something was wrong, that this was more than just talking about me stopping chemo. And I knew as soon as I saw him that things weren't good. He sat me down and explained that while my liver looked good, my lungs weren't looking to good. I had four new lesions in my lungs, which weren't operable or cureable. To say I was heartbroken is an understatement. Mumma and I were in complete shock. We talked about next steps, but honestly this went in one ear and quickly came out of the other. Really my only option is to change the chemo regimen and hope that the new regimen "controls" the cancer. There is another chemo option, but unfortunately this medication is not funded by the government or Pharmac and costs thousands of dollars every month, so its quite a bit out of our reach. So the plan is, two chemo cycles, then a CT scan to check progress. So long as the chemo works, we keep going forward with it. But what happens when the chemo stops working? What do we do then?

So now I'm living in limbo. I've had a month break from chemo to give my liver some time to heal. I had a week away in Auckland for uni which took my mind off everything. I've just had my first cycle of the new chemo. Its still the same process, just one of the medications is different. I'm feeling okay, pretty tired, a little bit sick but no pins and needles in my hands or feet. I'm trying to be positive but that's a little hard right now. I'm scared and I'm angry and constantly worried about what next. It isn't fair, I've had enough and I just want to live...

What About Me.....?

A Year On

Its been a while..... Sorry for hiding away. Unfortunately there is no music lyrics to get us started for this blog. I'm just not feeling particularly inspired by music at the moment. But I'm sure as the blog goes on, you'll understand why....

Today marks one year since I was diagnosed with cancer. One whole year. Even though it has quite often felt like I've been dealing with this cancer diagnosis and treatment for 10 years, this last year has gone relatively quickly. And this week, this day, has really snuck up on me, like a sneaky little ninja and has put all emotions and feelings on high alert. Although it has been a year, and a lot has happened in that year, I remember everything that happened on this day, and the month leading up to it as if it happened only yesterday. While I have spent that last few days/week reflecting and thinking about the "what ifs", I realised I have never actually shared how I was diagnosed. So here it goes....

"Its Cancer"

For those that know me, know that I have a pretty serious back condition which sometimes requires pain medication to manage it. Towards the end of January last year, I ended up at the Wellington Hospital A&E, barely able to walk and in a lot of pain. X-rays were taken to make sure my back hadn't deteriorated and other tests were done and I was sent home with a pretty good array of pain medication. The pain meds were working wonders and I was feeling back to my old self. But after about a month, I noticed I was getting low on my meds and I made an appointment with my GP to get some more. At the appointment she mentioned that one of the meds, a muscle relaxant called Norflex, can cause some liver issues so we decided it was better to be safe than sorry and she ordered some liver function tests. Not that she thought anything was wrong, she was just being cautious. A few days later, I get a phone call from my GP. The tests have come back pretty abnormal and she advises we wait a month, I either come off the muscle relaxants completely or limit them to once a day and we see what happens. A month comes, I get my next lot of liver function tests and head home to Paeroa to spend the week with my Mumma. While home, I find out that those tests have come back even more abnormal than the first lot and I'm told to make an appointment with my GP for when I'm back in Wellington. So I booked that appointment for the 17th of April, a Tuesday and asked my wonderful friend Brydie if she can come with me, just in case the news isn't good.

The month between the first liver test and the second, I started noticing that there was definitely something wrong with me. I wasn't really eating and when I did eat, it was the size of a meal that a 3 year old would have. I had vomited a few times, had lost an incredible amount of weight without even realising or actively trying to lose weight. I was tired all the time, had a lot of pain in area where my liver is, had some bowel changes but all the pain meds explained that. I was dying and didn't even know it. Then came the jokes.. "you probably need a new liver", "need anything from the supermarket? I'll pick you up a new liver", "I should probably find someone to donate me a liver", "I've probably got cancer", "if I die, you have to turn up to my funeral in full black and wail and scream about how much you miss me". Little did I know.....

So I go to my appointment, we discuss the tests, the symptoms I had noticed and my GP thought I may have gall stones in my liver and ordered a full blood count test and an ultrasound. I had the blood test that afternoon and arranged for the ultrasound for the next day (Wednesday) and booked an appointment to discuss the results with my GP for the Thursday (19th). Thursday the 19th started off as any normal day. I started work at 8am and by about 9:30, my GP had called and left a pretty calm message asking me to call her back before our appointment that afternoon. The message didn't seem urgent so I decided to call back when I had more time and continued with my massive case load. At about 12pm I finally had a spare couple of minutes to call my GP back. And that is when the day started going down hill. She told me they had found something on the ultrasound and I needed to get to the hospital as soon as I could. I freaked out, called Mumma crying, cried to one of my work friends, let my manager know I was leaving and asked Brydie and Jake to come to the hospital with me. I got to the hospital and no-one really said anything to me. Another massive load of blood tests was done, I was hooked up to IV fluids and left to my own devices for a few hours. A surgeon finally came to talk to me around about 5-5:30pm and said he had been expecting me all day. And then he shattered my world. "A mass was found on your ultrasound and I'm sorry to say but its cancer". I needed a CT scan done to 100% confirm it but because it was so late in the day I wasn't able to have it done. I was booked in for the 24th which was only a few days later. The CT scan confirmed it was cancer, but also confirmed that it was actually Bowel Cancer, that had spread to my liver and lung and all that could be done for me was palliative chemotherapy to give me "more time". I was then left to deal with the fact that I was now a cancer patient. But how are you supposed to deal with something like that? How do you tell people that you have cancer and could die? How are you supposed to go on with life when you don't know how long you'll have a life for? But I did it, I dealt with it (sort of), I tried to continue on with my life (sort of) and here a I am, a year later and still fighting.

"What Now?"

So there it is, the story of how I was diagnosed with Stage 4 Bowel Cancer. So what now? What does life look like now? I can honestly say that life is very different to how it was a year ago. Life today is appointments at the hospital almost every week, sometimes multiple times a week, fortnightly blood tests, fortnightly chemo and 3 monthly CT scans. Life now is struggling everyday to get out of bed, or off the couch. Life now is struggling to shower most days and being embarrassed by everything the chemo has done to my hair, skin and body. Life now is struggling to eat more than one meal a day. Life now is being admitted to hospital because I have an infection that my body can't fight. 

Life now is a cabinet specifically for all my medications that helps me to function like a normal human being. There are five different pain medications, five different anti-nausea medications, sleeping tablets and other miscellaneous medications. But no antibiotics (high five) and no immunity booster injections (high five) so I'm kinda winning at life. Life now is constantly having a low white blood cell count, chemo destroying my bone marrow and randomly bleeding because my blood can't clot due to low platelets. Life now is being covered in scars and wondering how much more stress and trauma I can put my body through. Life now is being in pain from my head to my toes and feeling like a 90 year old woman in a 26 year old body. Life now is being scared when a new symptom appears and worrying that the cancer has spread. Life now is knowing that the headaches, sensitivity to light and sound, blurred vision and mood changes could indicate brain cancer. Life now is lying in a CT scan having a brain scan and wondering what is going to happen next. Life now is being told that after months of chemo and some radiation that nothing has changed and that the cancer in my lung has actually gotten bigger. Life now is knowing that the chemo is losing its momentum and that surgery is the only way to make sure we get rid of all the cancer. Life now is preparing for two major surgeries to happen within weeks of each other. Life now is wondering what life after cancer will look like. Life now is being in a constant state of anxiety, worry, being scared and wondering what is next. What news am I going to be hit with now. What is next?

This is my new normal. This is my life now. This is what I go through every day. This is what a year after a cancer diagnosis looks like...

This Is the New Year

This is the new year
A new beginning
You made a promise
You are the brightest
We are the voices
This is the new year
We are the voices
This is the new year - A Great Big World

I'm a bit late on the Happy New Year bandwagon but it has given me time to reflect on what a year 2018 was. If I'm being completely honest, 2018 was a pretty crappy year for me. 2018 started off as a really good year. I was still enjoying my new job (probably because I had barely any work to do), I celebrated turning 25 with amazing friends, I went to the Wellington Cup day races and won a decent amount of money and I was finally moving out of my crappy flat and into a house with some awesome flatmates. Then 2018 decided things were going too well and turned my life upside down within the blink of an eye.

A Review of 2018

I guess I was lucky enough to get almost 4 months of life going well. But then I was hit with the Big C and everything changed. In 2018, I received cancer treatment from three different hospitals, I've had five CT Scans and one MRI scan, I endured three high risk surgeries, three surgical procedures, 14 cycles of chemo, one surgical wound infection and countless hospital appointments. The last 8 months of 2018 revolved completely around treatment and getting rid of the Big C. But 2018 didn't just teach me that things can change in the blink of an eye. It taught me how to be strong, how to look for the positive in all of the negatives, it showed me how a family can come back together after a long time of being apart, it showed me the friends that are in it for the long haul and it helped me find myself again. I spent the first few months of 2018 as a hot mess. My job was stressing me out, my home life was stressing me out, family was stressing me out. I was just generally a big ball of stress. Life was tough, but things were about to get worse and I didn't know just how bad things were going to get. You always think "it'll never happen to me". But then it does happen to you and you don't know what to do. You don't realise how badly you want to live until your life is close to being taken away. Its funny how it takes a life threatening situation for you to pull up your big girl pants and get on with it. But I suppose the saying is true, you don't know how strong you are until being strong is the only choice you have.


2018 brought Dr Kennedy into my life, without him, I don't know where I would be or if I would be here. He doesn't take any crap, he doesn't fall for my excuses, he makes sure I understand everything that is going on and doesn't make me feel stupid and he pushes me to keep going with treatment. It also brought me all my amazing nurses, without these nurses I would be an absolute mess. Your nurses become your extended family. They know when your having a good day or a bad day/week, they know when a kick up the ass is needed, and they know when to just be there when no-one else is. Nurses are the most amazing people and they make going through cancer treatment that much easier. 2018 also brought Dr Bartlett into my life. He may of taken 70% of my liver away but without him, I wouldn't have a fighting chance. These are the people, alongside my family and friends of course, who have kept me going for the last 9 months.

Onto 2019

There was no easing into 2019. Life definitely started off with a bang or a zap if you like. Only 2 weeks into 2019 and treatment was full on. I underwent a week of high intensity radiation. Although it was only a week and 20 minutes for each session, the radiation wasn't easy. I was already experiencing side effects after the first session of radiation. And these side effects stuck around for a good few weeks after radiation had ended. Radiation was definitely a lot easier than chemo but it was also hard in its own way. Two weeks after radiation, I was having to get in contact with my Radiation Oncologist to get medication to help with the side effects. Dr Whalley was absolutely amazing and sorted me out straight away. These doctors have plenty of patients but they always make you feel like your the only one. January also brought discussions of surgery into the mix. The week of radiation was a lead in for surgery. I meet with the surgeon and we discussed surgery to my bowel. A date was booked in but within a week that date had been changed. Then it was changed again, and again and I still don't have a date for surgery and its been over a month since the initial surgery appointment. 

February was the month for everything. I finally took some time for myself and I headed on holiday to Hawaii and the Gold Coast for 2 weeks. My amazing Aunty came along with me and we had a blast. I swam with dolphins, went to Pearl Harbour, parasailed 750m in the air, swam with seals, fed a tiger and got to spend some time with my little sister. I am so lucky to have an Aunty who wanted to give me a holiday. Although I was sick for the last week, she still made sure that I had the time of my life. I will forever be grateful to her for that amazing experience. This month I have also had yet another CT scan, an MRI scan, a pre-admission appointment, an appointment with Dr Kennedy and another appointment with the surgeon. Hopefully we will be able to book in a date for surgery. This year I also decided to do something else for myself. I always regretted not going further with my psychology degree, so this year I will be doing post-graduate psychology papers through Massey so I can hopefully get my Masters in Psychology and maybe become a registered Clinical Psychology.



2019 has definitely been busy so far and has shown me how amazing family can be. On the downside, it has also shown me how crappy some friends can be. When you're going through a tough time, all you want is for your friends to be there for you. Or to know that should you need them, they will be there. I have some absolutely amazing friends, people who have been there for me since the moment I was diagnosed. These friends walked into my life and proved that they deserve to be there. I've often heard people say that its the friends you've known the longest who will always be there for you, but I've now realised that isn't always the case. I have friends who I have only known for a short time, and yet I couldn't imagine my life without them. They are the ones who check in all the time, the ones who take time out of their busy schedules to visit, the ones who drive 8 hours to come visit for not even 2 days, the ones who put a smile on your face without even knowing they are doing it. Those are the friends who want to be in my life. Not the friends who are too busy to deal with you, the one who can't even check in or visit, the one who has better things to worry about, or the one who says they want you around yet can't even make that happen. 2019 has already shown me that there are certain people who shouldn't be in your life and if they want to be, they will make an effort. And if they don't, then "thank you, next".

So for now, we will just have to wait and see what else 2019 has in store for me. It's a new beginning and.....

This is the New Year!

Don't Dream It's Over

"Hey now, hey now
Don't dream it's over
Hey now, hey now
When the world comes in
They come, they come
To build a wall between us
We know they won't win" - Crowded House
It's been a while since my last blog post and life update. Things have been a little crazy around here and I just haven't really felt up to writing. But I'm back and there is so much that has happened. 

"It's important we start chemo as soon as surgery is over"

Since my last surgery, the plan was to have three cycles of chemo without the Oxaliplatin to give my liver some time to heal and to have a pressure test to make sure my liver had healed and we could move ahead with surgery two. I finished my three cycles of chemo with zero issues. At the start of October, I went back to Auckland to have the pressure test done. I would like to say there were zero issues with this, but that would be a lie. My appointment was at 12 and they mucked me around for almost an hour, had trouble accessing my port-a-cath (apparently they didn't have the correct sized needle for it), and spent ages setting up the treatment room. They shoved a massive tube into the artery in my neck and spent the next hour blowing up a balloon and deflating it to test the pressure. After pulling the tube out, the radiologist realised that they had only tested the right side of the liver. She spoke to one of the liver surgeons who said they also needed the left side tested. So they wheeled me back in and spent another hour testing the left side. To say I was annoyed is an understatement. And to say that it didn't hurt, would be a massive lie. You try having a massive tube placed in your neck and having someone tug on it every couple of seconds...

About a week later, I had a check in with Dr Kennedy which also included an updated CT scan. No matter how many scans I have, it never gets any easier. You constantly worry that something has changed, that things have gotten worse or haven't changed at all. Your mind goes to all kinds of places that you know it shouldn't but you can't really help it. But this time, my worrying was justified... My liver was looking better, and Dr Kennedy was sure surgery would go ahead. The bowel tumour was looking better. However, the tumour in my lung had gotten slightly bigger. I almost broke hearing those words. But Dr Kennedy wasn't overly concerned. It has just increased the need to get back on the full dose of chemo as soon as we can. We also spoke about whats next in treatment. I am now looking at bowel surgery pretty soon, as well as radiation to my bowel and potentially radiation and surgery to my lung. While I'm glad that we are now able to use other treatments, it means that I am on this journey for longer than what I had hoped. Because we are now talking about radiation and when you have radiation to the pelvis area it can completely destroy your ovaries, I decided I probably needed to broach the fertility subject with Dr Kennedy. I had tried talking to him about this when we first came up with my treatment plan, but due to how serious my diagnosis was, we didn't have time to investigate anything relating to fertility....

"Are babies in my future?"

Kids and fertility has been a pretty sore subject for me over the last few months. Its quite hard to come to terms with the notion that you may never be able to have kids and to have that choice be taken away from you, makes it even harder to deal with. When I was first diagnosed and chemo was booked in, Dr Kennedy mentioned that chemo can make you infertile. So while it wasn't 100% that I wouldn't be able to have kids, there was still a big possibility that it could happen. So for my own piece of mind, I needed to know for sure. My amazing nurse Aleisha was in this appointment and having her there made approaching the topic so much easier. Dr Kennedy then referred me to a fertility specialist and within a few days of this appointment, I was booked in to meet with the fertility specialist. We talked about egg harvesting and freezing, but as I've already had chemo this was not the best option. So option number two. We relocate my ovaries into my chest so that when I have radiation to my bowel, my ovaries will be out of the way and will still be in working order. She organised with my liver surgeon Adam Bartlett to have my ovaries relocated during my liver surgery. The fertility specialist also tested my egg hormones to make sure that I am still fertile and it turns out I am. She also reassured me that because of how young I am, the chemo is not likely to make me infertile. So for me, it was a really successful and reassuring appointment and has definitely lifted that weight off my shoulders. It's amazing the kinds of things that they can do to help preserve fertility. When the fertility specialist mentioned relocating my ovaries I thought she was crazy and taking the piss. But apparently not. They do this kind of thing all the time and its the best way to preserve fertility when radiation is on the cards. So if anyone has plans to punch me in the chest, please try to remember you'll probably be punching me in the ovaries... 

"Liver surgery round 2"

After having the pressure test and the updated CT scan, the wait to hear about surgery two was excruciating. But I finally got the call that surgery was to go ahead on the 24th of October. I knew surgery this time round would be more complicated. But at least I knew what to expect in terms of recovery. So on Labour Day we made the trip back to Auckland City Hospital. I was wheeled into the operating room around midday, leaving poor old Mother Duck to wait around. After almost four and a half hours under the knife, mum got the call that surgery went well but I would be in the High Dependency Unit due to how tough the surgery was. But I wasn't having any of that. I woke up feeling amazing and the recovery staff were more than happy for me to go back to the ward instead. So they successfully removed all the cancer from my liver and I am now left with about 30% of my liver. They also successfully relocated my ovaries to my chest. Additionally, my gall bladder was removed because when my liver starts to grow back, the gall bladder would be in the way and halt the growth so they whipped it out. I was up walking around the day after surgery and the day after that, the epidural was taken out. I recovered relatively quickly from the surgery but was seriously struggling with eating. Apparently this is very common after losing most of your liver and even now, I'm still struggling to eat three meals a day or to even finish an entire meal. After a week I was sent home to finish recovering, with an appointment to restart chemo three weeks after surgery. However, my body had other ideas. After a week of being home, I started to get quite sick. I was having hot and cold flushes, pain around my incision, nausea and my incision was weeping in places. Back to Auckland City Hospital we went on a Friday afternoon. After blood tests and a CT scan, I was told my primary tumour in my bowel was infected and I needed to be started on IV antibiotics but that they would try to get me home as soon as they could. Come the next day, I was being told by a completely different doctor that I had a deep muscle infection, IV antibiotics to treat it, that they don't like to discharge people on Sundays (which was a lie, they were discharging people left, right and centre), that they wanted me on IV antibiotics for at least 48-72 hours before letting me home on oral antibiotics but that IV anibiotics were probably over the top and I didn't really need them. So by about midday on Sunday, I discharged myself and wasn't even given oral antibiotics cause apparently I didn't need them. I spoke to Dr Kennedy the next day and found out from him that my incision was infected but the IV antibiotics did treat it. Moral of the story - don't go to hospital on the weekend as they don't know what they are talking about! 

I'm finally back on FOLFOX (the full chemo dose) and will be going in for a second cycle this week. I meet with Dr Kennedy on the 18th of December to find out what's next. I've just enjoyed two weekends in a row with visits from some of my amazing friends. These friends traveled hours just to spend a day or two with me and I am forever grateful for how amazing these people are and how they willingly take time out of their busy schedules to see me and make my day/week/month. After the last few months of constantly feeling knocked down, I'm starting to feel like I can keep going. I'm starting to get my life back and not feel like things are being taken away from me. And I'm starting to feel like the cancer wont win and that maybe I don't have to...

dream its over!

The Sign

I saw the sign and it opened up my eyes, 
I saw the sign
Life is demanding without understanding
I saw the sign and it opened up my eyes, 
I saw the sign
No one's gonna drag you up to get into the light where you belong
But where do you belong? - Ace of Base

Let's talk about signs. Not just regular signs but the signs or symptoms of Bowel Cancer. Sorry if you thought this was going to be another upbeat life update or something about rainbows and sunshine. No, no, no. We are going to talk about butts, poo, and probably colonoscopies. A lot of people don't like to talk about their butt or poo or having scopes put up their butt, its considered pretty taboo.. But its time we started and break the taboo because if we don't, more and more people will die from Bowel Cancer.

New Zealand has one of the highest incidences of Bowel Cancer in the world. Each year about 3,000 people are diagnosed with Bowel Cancer and more than 1,200 people will die from it. This is why it is important to know what the symptoms are. The earlier Bowel Cancer is caught, the easier it is to treat and the better the chances are of curing it.

"75% of Bowel Cancer is curable if caught early"

For those who aren't well acquainted with human anatomy, the bowel is part of the digestive system and is a long tube made up of the small bowel and the large bowel. Food and liquid are passed into the small bowel to be digested. The remains are then passed into the large bowel. The large bowel is made up of two parts: the colon and the rectum or butt hole as I like to call it. The colon removes liquid from the digested food leaving poos which is then passed into the rectum/butt hole and held until you go to the toilet. Who doesn't love a good poo yarn!

So, now that is out of the way, what the heck is Bowel Cancer? The most common form of bowel cancer occurs in the large bowel (colon or butt hole) and is sometimes called colorectal cancer. It can also occur in the small bowel, but this is unusual. Most bowel cancers start as benign (non-cancerous) innocent growths - called polyps - in the lining of the colon or rectum. Polyps are like small spots that for the most part don't produce symptoms and become pretty common as we age. Its important to note that polyps are not pre-cancerous - you can have polyps and never get bowel cancer. So just because you have a few polyps does not automatically mean you will be diagnosed with bowel cancer. However, it is always better to be safe than sorry. When left undetected, cancer cells will multiply to form a tumour in the bowel and if left untreated, the cells can travel into the bloodstream or lymph nodes, and can travel to other parts of the body. The most common places for bowel cancer to spread to are the liver and lungs. This is what happened to me.... This is why it is so important to catch bowel cancer early.

"The Doctor will see you now"

There are a number of symptoms that could mean bowel cancer, so it is important to know your body and be aware of when things change. The most important symptom of bowel cancer is bleeding from the butt and this can usually be paired with straining, soreness, lumps and achiness. The other important symptom is changes in bowel habits that continues over several weeks or longer. These changes could be constipation or diarrhoea, or feeling that your bowel doesn't completely empty, going to the toilet more often, or blood in your poos. Because blood loss goes hand in hand with bowel cancer, anaemia or low iron is a symptom of bowel cancer. Alongside this is unexplained weight loss, weakness and fatigue. You may also notice abdominal pain and lumps or a mass in your stomach. And just to make you feel even worse, you may even have persistent abdominal discomfort such as cramps, gas, bloating and stomach pain. 

SPOILER ALERT: you could have bowel cancer and never experience any symptoms. Or, the symptoms could be explained by other conditions or medication. Whether or not you suspect or are concerned about bowel cancer, it's still important to have these symptoms investigated. REMEMBER: just because the statistics say bowel cancer is more common in the 50 years and older age group, bowel cancer affects people of all ages. DO NOT accept "you're too young to have bowel cancer" as an explanation for your symptoms. Ask to be referred for further investigations and if you are still concerned, seek a SECOND OPINION! Don't settle for "it's just women's problems", "you're too young" or "you don't have a family history". Early detection is key to survival. 75% of bowel cancer is curable if caught early, which is why it is so important to know the symptoms, and get yourself tested.

Now for those of you who don't know, I am a prime example of someone who had bowel cancer and never experienced any symptoms. Well that's not entirely true. I had symptoms but didn't really notice them until I was going through the process of being diagnosed. And the symptoms I did notice, I was able to explain them with something else. I was on pain medication which explained the changes in my poos. I have endometriosis which explained the stomach pain. I was quite stressed out due to work and had just left a stressful home environment so thought my weight loss and decreased appetite/vomiting was due to this. Also from what I knew about bowel cancer, I thought I was too young to have it. And anyway, who notices some symptoms and automatically thinks "OMG I HAVE CANCER". When I was diagnosed, the symptoms I had been experiencing and the ones I failed to notice, totally made sense. I was a walking time-bomb and didn't even realise it. This is why it is soooooo important to me to make the people I care about aware of the signs and symptoms of bowel cancer. If I can save one person from having to go through what I am going through then my journey will be worthwhile. 

If I had just opened my eyes and saw the signs, then maybe I could have been diagnosed earlier. But I didn't know the signs, and I didn't think I was old enough and quite frankly, I didn't think I would get cancer. So maybe you can open up your eyes.....

And see the signs!

You Can't Always Get What You Want

You can't always get what you want
You can't always get what you want
You can't always get what you want
But if you try sometimes you might find
You get what you need - The Rolling Stones

Its been two weeks since I went under the knife to have the cancer removed from my liver and I am slowly beginning to recover with the help of some amazing pain medications. While the safety of being in hospital was great, I must admit, there is nothing like recovering from a major surgery in your own bed.

"Surgery didn't go as expected"

I woke up from surgery feeling pretty good, until I realised just how many needles I had sticking out of me. I had gone to sleep with an IV line in each arm and an epidural in my back for pain. But I woke up with two IV lines in each arm and a central line in my neck, I couldn't feel anything from my chest to the top of my legs and to top it all off, they had placed a catheter in while I was sleeping. At least I didn't have to worry about going to the toilet... I was supposed to spend at least 24 hours in the High Dependency Unit (HDU) but because I had responded well to surgery and woken up feeling like I was walking on sunshine, they didn't think HDU was necessary. I lay in recovery happily chatting away to everyone, while also nagging at them to take me back to my ward. It wasn't until I got back to my ward and saw my relieved mother, that I was told just how long I had been away for and that things hadn't gone as planned. I was wheeled into theatre at 8am, was in surgery for a few hours and sat in recovery until 3pm. My poor, poor mother, I'm still surprised that she had any hair left.



It wasn't until Dr Bartlett had opened me up that he saw just how damaged my liver was from chemo. My liver was BLUE!!! Apparently one of the chemo meds, Oxaliplatin, had made my liver really fatty and increased the pressure in my liver making it really hard to work with. He managed to cut out the cancer in the left lobe, but due to how much I was bleeding, it was too risking to try and do anything with the right lobe. Plus, they found a new lesion by one of the main arteries and had to stop surgery. They got it tested, not cancer but still cause for concern. So had he gone further with surgery it is highly likely I could have bled out... So it was still too risky for Dr Bartlett to do the second surgery a week later, so liver surgery number two has been postponed six weeks. Hopefully thie will be enough time for the liver to heal, and the pressure to subside. In the meantime, Dr Kennedy has decided that its to risky to be off chemo for too long and I have already had another cycle of chemo. This chemo regimen is different however. Dr Kennedy has taken the Oxaliplatin out and I only have the Folinc Acid and Fluorouracil. By taking out the Oxaliplatin, it wont increase the pressure in my liver and will give my liver time to heal. So I have this chemo regimen for three cycles, then get an updated CT scan and undergo a test called a Wedge Pressure test. This test involves inserting a catheter either through my arm or groin into my liver, place a balloon inside and blow it up and it will test the amount of pressure that pushes back on the balloon. So long as the pressure has subsided, surgery will go forward. If not, then D Kennedy, Dr Bartlett, and myself will be having a major discussion about what is next...

On the bright side, I finally got my wish... A porta-cath was inserted during surgery and is already in use for this cycle of chemo. It is accessed by numbing up the skin, and piercing the skin with a rather large needle with an IV line attached to it. You can feel it underneath the skin and can see a slight bump on my chest where the port sits, but otherwise you wouldn't know it was there. Apart from when the chemo pump is attached of course... In terms of pain, the first few days after surgery were fully pain free, thanks to my amazing friend the epidural. If you are ever having surgery and this is offered as a option for pain management, I highly recommend it. It makes those first few days after a massive surgery easier to get through and allows you to get up an moving around much more quickly. I was going for walks less than 24 hours after surgery, granted it was only to the shower but at least I was up. On the Monday, the catheter and the epidural were taken out and my pain was managed by oral medication instead. There was a massive difference between the epidural and normal pain meds. I went from feeling absolutely nothing to feeling everything. It took a bit but we managed to sort out the right way to manage the pain. I easily became the nurses favourite patient on the ward. No complaining, no unnecessary buzzer pushing and the most eager to get home. Another plus, no stitches! I was actually looking forward to seeing how many stitches I was going to have, until I remembered having to take them out. Instead, Dr Bartlett just glued me back together. The incision is looking pretty tidy so I wont quite look like Frankenstein's monster..

Coming home after a major surgery is never easy. I was in a lot of pain and angry at the world for surgery two not happening. While I understand why the second surgery couldn't happen, I'm still annoyed that I will have to go through all of this again in about a month. But at least I'm home, in my own bed and have mumma bear to help me. She's a real trooper. You really can't always get what you want, I've learnt that with this experience. But at least.....

You get what you need!

The Final Countdown

It's the final countdown

The final countdown - Europe

I am currently sitting in my hospital bed, counting down the time until I am wheeled into the operating room to have a surgery that will leave me looking like Frankenstein's monster. Well I wont actually look like a monster, but the scar is going to be pretty impressive. Although i'm scared and nervous for this surgery, I'm still amazed that it is happening and I know that I need to have it. Without this surgery, the cancer is highly likely to come back, so I just have to suck it up and pretend to be superwoman.

"The surgery is necessary to prolong your life" 

When i was first diagnosed, I was told that the cancer had spread to my liver and that there were multiple tumours in my liver. What I didn't know or didn't want to know, was how much of my liver was over taken with cancer. Later on, I found out that one of the tumours was 10cm and pretty much took up the entire right lobe of my liver, and there were smaller tumours in the left lobe. I guess this is why they told me that surgery was not an option to begin with. Many people have asked why they can't just give me a new liver, and the reason is because it can spread to the new liver which would be a waste of a perfectly healthy liver. Besides, I wouldn't want to take a healthy liver away from someone else who may need it more. So, the only option is a liver resection, which is where they remove a portion or portions of the liver that is diseased with the ideal outcome of all the cancer being removed. The awesome thing about the liver is that it can regenerate to its original size within a few weeks to months. So although they may need to take quite a large amount of the liver out, within a short amount of time, my liver will grow back to its normal size. It will also be able to function the same way a full normal sized liver does. It just wont look like a normal liver.

"I'm a pretty conservative surgeon"

I met with the surgeon, Dr Adam Bartlett, last week and I can honestly say that he is one of the best surgeons that I have ever had to deal with. Of course, he just had to mentioned his success rate - out of 800 patients, he has only had one die. That's pretty reassuring in my humble opinion. He was also pretty honest about the situation, and admitted that he doesn't know what he will actually do until he slices me open. Although I have had multiple scans leading up to surgery, the scans can only tell him so much. So, we discussed the two procedures he may use, depending on what my liver looks like when he opens me up.

The first procedure is just a normal liver resection where he will go in, remove the entire right love of the liver and remove the parts of the left lobe that contain the tumours and then sew or staple me back together. His problem with this procedure is that I could go into liver failure due to removing such a large amount of liver. So while, he would love to just do everything in one surgery, he also knows that this is probably not the best option. The other procedure is called the ALPPS procedure. This is a relatively new technique that involves resecting the liver in two steps and makes use of the regenerative capacity of the liver. The first surgery will involve Dr Bartlett cutting off the blood supply to the right lobe so it only functions at 40%. He will then remove the parts of the left lobe and tag the remaining arteries and veins that will either stay or go during surgery two. He will also wrap the right lobe in a plastic bag to stop it from sticking to other organs. After a week, he will go back in and completely remove the right lobe. By completing the surgery in two steps, it reduces the risk of liver failure, and allows the liver to grow significantly within a short timeframe. Dr Bartlett prefers this option as it has a higher success rate and allows the liver to grow quickly. So, hopefully I'll only spend about six hours in the operating room and hopefully only two weeks in hospital. This is the more conservative approach and Dr Bartlett has refined it from being a 12 hour surgery to only four or five hours, and the second surgery is barely even a surgery as it only takes about 45 minutes.

Obviously, I'm not a surgeon, so I don't know all the ins and outs of what will be happening. But this is my basic understanding of the surgery, As much as I would prefer to only have one surgery, I would prefer to have Dr Bartlett take a more conservative approach rather than trying to be a total rockstar and have something go wrong. He is a rockstar anyway, but let's be honest, we don't want him to be too risky.

I'm looking pretty good in my hospital gown and socks and I'm first on the list for surgery this morning. Haven't slept too much but at least I'll have a nice long nap today. Got my mumma sitting with me waiting to be wheeled up to the operating room. Wish me luck!

It's the Final Countdown!!