My little secret.

Over the last few months, there is something that has been going on in the background of my life. I have kept it somewhat quiet in order to minimize what could be unnecessary stress, worry and concern. I try to look at life with the thought of " Life happens and it is our job to live it, not to sit about and worry all the time." Although I am not perfect at holding to that principal, I do strive to hold tight to it.
The time has now come that I am able to draw a conclusion to this hic-up in my journey through life, and so I have decided to write a post about it
I have been contemplating how I would tell this story and what exactly I would say, but I wrote a diary entry on Thursday and have decided that sharing that entry would be best seen as it sums the story up nicely and the thoughts that i had during the time.
Warning: This is a long diary entry, so i hope you have time to read.

Thursday 6th January 2011

Today is a significant day. Not only is it the first entry of 2011, but I had a scan today.

Round the beginning of November last year, I found a lump in my left breast. Despite the fact that I had finished breast feeding (mischief 3) about March/April the previous year, I was still mildly lactating and after talking to mum, I thought it might be a blocked duct. So I attempted - completely out of practice - to express the lump away. A lot of stuff came out, but the biggest thing I achieved was giving myself a lovely big bruise.
So the very next day, I toddled off to the Dr. Even tho my G.P is awesome and I grew up with him, exposing my breast to him still felt very uncomfortable. But at the end of the day, I had to do it. Then came the talk about family breast cancer. My Dads Mum, My Dads Fathers Mother and I think there is more on that side but I can't remember. And of course, my personal history with cancer.
We had a talk about things. He could not say for certain, but his ideas are leaning more towards something like a cyst. He sent off a referral to get an ultrasound of the lump.
So I waited and waited. Telling very little people as not to scare, stress and worry people unnecessarily. Got annoyed when Mum told siblings because Nerissa especially worries.
But I started to laugh and joke within myself and those who knew, about how awesome it would be to get a double mastectomy and get bigger breasts, seen as I'm the one in the family that was not gifted with such voluptuous assets and often had that pointed out to me by none other than my Mother. Not to shine a bad light on her, she said it a lot while making my brides maids dress for Nerissa's wedding. She is making all the dresses, so she intimately knows everyones size. Bigger, firmer would be good. Breast feeding 3 kids doesn't help. But no regrets.
After two months of rigorous checking to make sure it was not getting bigger, or smaller, although that would have been good, I finally got my scan.
The mischiefs went to my folks place while Nerissa looked after them and my Mum came with me. Even tho I'm 27 with children of my own, there are still times in a girls life when she needs her Mum. She was there when I gave birth 3 times, so of course she is there when I scan a lump.
I turn up and start filling out the form. Name, D.O.B, When did I find the lump? Where is it? Any other symptoms? Any Family history with Breast Cancer? etc..
As I was filling out the form, I got the first wave of nerves with all of this. So far I've been pretty good. "I can't change anything, so why worry" has been my attitude. Nerves made it more real.
I was then called into the room. Got explained to about what they were doing, then took my tops off and i laid on the bed waiting for the specialist.
Quick Hi's and questions, then I was exposed once more. Uncomfortable but it had to happen. Deep breath, it's ok, He does this all the time. He doesn't care what they look like. Just relax.
Found the lump straight away. About 1cm (100mm). Yeah that was my estimate. White lines coming off it indicates a more benign nature, that's ok ... but it's nobly. Hmm. Could be like a cyst thing but not 100% sure. More tests needed. First one I can do is a mammogram. So again more exposing, touching and prodding. It wasn't as bad as others who have had them said they were. But I'm much smaller than those people. Next step, booked a biopsy 8am Monday morning to get a sample of the cells.

Is this the beginning of a long journey and battle, or just one of those road bumps in life that tend to catch your breath for a second?
I would say that right now i still have the attitude of "I can't change anything, so why worry" but It's slightly different. I'm worried about the journey ahead and how it will affect those around me. I'm not an island, so I know this will affect people. I seem to think we are all swimming in the sea of life. Any move someone makes sends ripples out that touch and affect everyone. We do very little in this life that affects solely us.
I'm not worried about death. When it's time to go, it's time to go and there is very little you can do to change it. I know where I'm going and I have a strong faith that is the rock of my sanity. But I also know it's not my time to go back home just yet. There are still things I need to do and been asked to do in my life that have not yet been finished. So I am very much needed here.
What worries me is how big this could be and how life changing it can be, not only for me, but my family and close friends, and to a degree, anyone I know and anyone I meet because of it. How hard will this journey be? Will it be quick and easy, or long and painful? I don't know, and that scares me. I don't like not knowing. I'm strong enough to get through this, or at least I think I am, But are my kids? Are my family?
Deep Breath. What ever happens happens. Accept it and love life xx

..................................................

So Monday morning, I got up, got myself ready and made my way to my parents house by 7.30am. My Mischiefs had stayed the night there so I didn't need to wake them up and force them out the door in the early morning.
Mum and I made our way back to Canterbury Breast Care. More nerves, more waiting. I finally went back into the ultrasound room and had to endure more exposing myself. I want to say that the needle was massive, but I feel that gravely understates the size of it. It was roughly the thickness of a knitting needle and it had another needle that would shoot out of it and collect worm like samples of tissue. They had to make a decent size nick in my skin to help get the needle in. They also used the ultra sound to guide the needle to get a decent sample. They did this 3 times. It was rather uncomfortable even with local anaesthetic, but extremely fascinating to watch. When that was done, a 20min wait was needed to make sure the needle site was ok and I was not bleeding too much. Then the waiting game was on. I had to rest, no exercise or swimming. I was not able to go for my run, or even swim my laps. I was a bit frustrated with that, but it was worth the sacrifice.
Monday ticked by, then so did Tuesday and it ended with no word of results. I took a deep breath, and rung my Doctor this afternoon...
I can now breath again. Results are in and it is just a Fibradenoma.
Such relief. I am so thankful that I do not have to go through anything more serious right now and I don't have to make my kids go through any more drama just yet. A nice quiet life from now on would be bliss.

Devin is too cute!

Lately Devins School teacher had mentioned to me that when she is reading with him, he often looks at the book sideways and is rubbing his eyes. She mentioned that this could be a sign he that the poor wee man might need glasses.
Today I took him to the Doctor to get his eyes checked. Lovely Doctor lady preformed a few eye tests on him, one being "cover one eye and tell me the letter" test. As she covered his eye she asked if he could please say what letter he saw. He with his 5 year old mind looked at the letters and said ...
"bah, dah, rrrrrr, hhhh, mmm"
I had to hold back my giggles, I could see him trying to hold back from doing the jolly phonics actions that go with each letter.
But good results. At this present time, there are no concerns from the Doctor.
Devin is too cute .... at times.

Ps - He is not cute all the time and he has just reminded me off that. Jahshia was getting annoyed because he was taking too long on the toilet. So she came along and flushed it while he was still on it. He got upset, but not at the usual "you got me all wet" but because he could not count the number of poos he had done. It was a rather long meltdown on his part. That's just gross!

Unknown illness and a walking Mischief

One Friday morning, i woke somewhat still tiered, but that is not unusual for me seen as the sandman often makes a bypass round my house and avoids putting me to sleep, or even keeping me to sleep. Not even the adult version in the form of little blue pills brings on the much needed cuddly sleep creature. But this is all irrelevant and inconsequential to that story that is about to unfold.
I got up and dealt with the day at hand. Went through the motions of getting the mischiefs their breakfast and dealing with the days normal issues when you have children.
At 1pm i bundled the mischiefs in the car and ventured out to do a few things before we need to arrive at a 1 year olds birthday party. The party was good, and the mischiefs had fun. At 3.30pm i start gathering everything and think about heading home. By the time i arrive home at 4pm im starting to feel a mild twinge in my throat. Only 3 hours later when the mischiefs were in bed my throat was becoming rather swore, my head was starting to pound and my chest was getting a twinge of pain. By 9pm i was lying in bed not really wanting to move, by body was starting to ache.
I was forever waking up that night finding it a struggle to breath. At one stage i had to find a bucket to have beside my bed because when ever i had a sip of water it did not feel like it would stay where it was meant to. What on earth could come on so fast and so viciously? When the mischiefs got up at 7am, i was unable to move. I was in a fair amount of pain from head to toe. The only thought i had was this is the flu, i have had the flu before and this was very much what i had felt like. Except this was slightly different. The aches and pains and the mildly blocked nose with a sore throat where all things i knew with the flu, except this not knowing if i could hold water down was something i had not experienced with this virus. Could this flu i have be the dreaded H1N1 Swine flu? Sometime that morning my Branch President of My church had shown up to give me a blessing. While he was there i rung the urgent doctors because i wanted to know what the difference was between the "normal" flu and swine flu. The nurse on the phone wanted me to come down and get checked out because she could tell that i was having difficulties breathing. So the hunt was on to find someone to look after the mischiefs while President took me to the Doctors because i was clearly in no state to drive and take myself. We found someone (amassing Esther and her awesome hubby Moo ... They need a post all of their own in order to give them the right gratitude that i have) so off i went. Luckily because i had trouble breathing and chest pain i was seen right away. But come to think of it, i don't think they believed me because they took my temperature (i was already so dopped up on panadole which not only is a pain killer but it brings your temperature down) and it was high but not extremely high, and even though it was painful to breath, my blood was still getting a very good amount of oxygen in it. They looked at my throat and saw it was red, so gave me some antibiotics and sent me on my way. Didn't tell me why my chest hurt or why my entire body felt like i had been thrown out of a 10 story building. I wanted to know what exactly was wrong with me. But i was far to much away with the fairies to even to think about asking what they thought was wrong with me before i stumbled back out the front door. Later that night Esther and Moo turn up and find me in my bedroom struggling to breath. My chest was hurting as much as what labour pains feel like and im not talking about those beginning stages of labour pains, i mean the full on take your breath away tears flowing down your face sore because you opted to not have drugs. I then got checked out again by someone, this time it was paramedics that Ester had called for, but they had said that i was ok and didn't exactly believe me that i had a flu.
Wow this is turning into a much larger post than i had anticipated. So cutting a long story short, I was extremely sick. Im not one to complain when im sick and it takes an awful lot to knock me off my feet. This mystery illness did. Was it the dreaded swine flu or some other nasty greebly that found its way into my system.

But during this ordeal, Mischief number 3 - Madison, decided to put one foot in front of the other and try out walking. She is now walking all around the house and enjoying it immensely. Although sometimes to much as she get over excited and falls down. That is when i to fall on the floor with fits of laughter.

Three walking mischiefs ... what ever shell i do?

Chickenpox stole my weekend!!

As a mother there are no such things as weekends. I work from about 6.30am till about 10.30pm everyday, 7 days a week. calculate that and its an average of 112 hours a weeks. More than 2 full time jobs combined. For 18 hours of that week, i only have 1 mischief to deal with while the other 2 are at pre-school. Another 6 hours i only deal with my 2 girl mischiefs. The 18 hours happens on Monday 9 hours and Wednesday 9 hours. I consider these days my weekend days. I know they are broken up but its still my "days off". I cherish these days.

Today is a weekend day. Today i planned to do the grocery shopping, buy a present for Ella's birthday on Saturday which the mischiefs are going to, walk around town, do some house work and have a sleep. I was looking forward to today. You could then imagine my horror as i dressed the mischiefs this morning to find some rather ominous blistering spots on them. Chickenpox are going around and my mischiefs did not escape from the jaws of this evil bug. So even tho everyone at pre-school has been exposed to it, its still policy to keep them at home. One good thing tho is that they are not fazed by the ordeal. They are not trying to scratch, they are not sick, they don't have a temperature, they just have spots.
So today we went off to the doctor and confirmed that its chickenpox, then came the fun part ... Shopping!! I needed to go grocery shopping and had to take all 3 mischiefs with me. It wasn't actually that bad. Madison and Jahshia sat in the trolley while Devin helped me get things we needed. We ran into Sarah and Ella at the store. The mischiefs are in home based care and Sarah is the persons house they go to and Ella is her daughter. For a good part of the day Sarah had no children but her own seen as mine weren't aloud to be there. For the rest of the way around the shop all Jahshia was yelling was "Ella Ella". We also ran into Mary and her 2 children Samuel and Rebeca.
Then came the present hunting. I tried to take as little time as possible seen as kids in a toy section is not the funnest thing ever.
Then we went home for a sleep. Jahshia fell asleep in the car and Madison fell asleep not long after. So while Devin sat down and Watched "The Never Ending Story" for the 100th time, i had a lie down. It was nice but not as good as the sleep that i was looking forward to.

So with the Mischiefs with chickenpox, who knows when i will get another weekend day.

I just got a txt from Sarah. Ella has them now to and she is still going to be taking children at her house if parents are ok with it. That means weekends are back on. Friday Devins at pre-school!!