Survivor in the New World

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Yesterday my husband and I drove from the Cape to Boston so that we could finally meet the oncologist at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute with whom we have been talking on the phone and corresponding via email since my diagnosis in January of this year. Think of him as my oncologist pen pal.

I had both of our children at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital very close by and numerous doctors appointments in the Longwood medical area over the eight years we lived here so I had passed the Dana Farber maybe a couple dozen times.

During those eight years of driving past the DFCI, however, “cancer” had occupied in my consciousness only a small corner as a nebulous malady. I stopped thinking about cancer as soon as the buildings were behind me. But yesterday was different.

Yesterday we pulled up and there it loomed. The Dana Farber Cancer Institute. This time we were driving right to it, not stealing a glance as we whizzed by. And we were going there for me.

It was pretty fucking weird. Even though all my treatments were over. Even post “end of shit.”

We parked the car and walked in to register for my appointment. I was issued a Dana Farber card, a bracelet and a badge. Cancer bling.

I was a little apprehensive. It’s odd coming in to see someone new, especially a heavy hitter, about something for which you have already been treated by someone else. On another continent. We had shipped my pathology over here and all of my medical records. So the DFCI had it all and had time to review it with fresh eyes. I wondered whether there would be a difference of opinion. And what the hell they would do about it ex post facto.

But despite my slight uneasiness about the situation, I knew that seeing someone in the US was the right thing to do. Good to have a reality check. Good to have someone in the New World who knows me and my case.

And you know what? It turned out just fine. Doc said I looked good and that he was satisfied with the treatments I’d had. There were no red flags. This was a relief, considering that twenty percent of the pathology the DFCI receives from other hospitals warrants some difference of opinion from its pathologists, including, at times, that there isn’t any cancer at all. Can you imagine coming in after surgery, chemo and radiation, or some combination thereof, and finding out that you never needed any of it? I would hope that in most cases, that significant a difference of opinion is rendered prior to and not following intervention. Dang.

It dawned on me that it wasn’t until the oncologist had made his pronouncements that I felt officially finished with treatment. Because until then, there was still that infinitesimal question mark about whether all the right stuff had been done.

So now I get to sit around and watch my hair grow back and wait for my thumb nail to fall off and fun shit like that. Lament the fact that I sort of missed the boat on my planned chemo makeover video because in two short weeks my eyebrows grew back with such vigour that penciling them in is just gilding the lily. Stop being a cancer patient and resume life as usual. As a survivor. A hairy survivor (but more on that later).

Someone once asked a group of us if we took issue with the term “survivor” and said that a lot of people dislike it and really struggle with it. What? Why? I raised my hand. I said “well, it sure beats the alternative.” Ain’t it the truth.

 

End of Shit

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The other day I was in the waiting room at my plastic surgeon’s office. The appointment was just a quick check so that he could see how my skin was reacting to radiation toward the end of treatment.

While I waited, I flipped though a beauty magazine, lingering longingly over pages of young, scantily clad women with impossibly perky boobs. I was interrupted by three persons entering the waiting room, two women who vaguely resembled one another and a man.

They were joking around rather loudly and weren’t being very British so we easily struck up a conversation. Turns out one of the ladies was there to get her nipple tattoos as the final stage of her reconstruction, having been through double mastectomies, chemo and radiation. It was great to see another lady out the other side of it all. It had been about two years since it had all happened for her. She was chipper as could be.

The other lady was this woman’s sister, and the man, her sister’s husband. They had come along for moral support and to watch all the magic happen.

The lady said that when she was done with her treatment, she’d had an “end of shit” party. End of shit. Isn’t that the perfect way to describe it all? I think so. Now I don’t know if she coined a term there or if “end of shit” is a British thing. Maybe someone British can tell me. Meanwhile, either way I like it. I’ll have to have me an end of shit party too.

But now I am on break. Summer vacation.

I had my final radiation Friday at noon. One more time on Trilogy (see Meet Trilogy if you haven’t met her), my arms overhead, envisioning my super heroine with flowing cape and hair, standing hands on hips atop a hill and sending white-hot fire from her eyes into the enemy below.

That was what I usually conjured during treatments. That and I couldn’t help but think of the old Raid television commercial in which cockroaches spontaneously combusted with a “pow” and a cloud of smoke, after yelling: “RAI-AID?!!!”

In any event it was weird to have that last treatment. So much of my time has been devoted to getting through “the shit” and really it was sort of anticlimactic when it was all over. But nice nonetheless. Nice to be DONE.

I spent the rest of the day packing, or to be precise, overpacking for our summer trip to Cape Cod. I had trouble narrowing down the summer outfits because in London we have had so little summer that I wanted to cram in as many light and colourful ensembles as possible before we have to pull out the coats again.

When I’d finished with the clothes, I rifled through my four-inch thick medical file folder to find the ID cards for my expanders. I put them in my handbag along with our passports and a letter from my reconstructive surgeon just in case I set the metal detector off (see Things I Am Prepared to Say to Airport Security if this doesn’t ring a bell, so to speak).

Actually my doctor wrote two letters. The first one was to me:

Dear Emily

I do not think Style 133 metal base valves set off airport alarms. I do not want to see you wrestled to the ground, dragged off to custody, being forced to watch the Olympics from a prison cell. Nonetheless I am emailing in a second note a letter that could be produced if there were problems. Safe journey and lots of love.

Kind regards and best wishes

Yours sincerely

It’s definitely the best letter I have ever received from a doctor. And the only funny one. And I have a lot of letters from doctors, most of which I have amassed in the past seven months.

The second letter was a basic statement that I have been under his care and have these gizmos in me and that if there are any issues the airport folks can reach him on his cell.

Soon enough, Saturday morning was upon me and with it the moment of truth. I inched forward in the security line. Plunked my iPad and MacBook Air and plastic baggie of liquids and pastes into grey bins, removed my belt with chunky metal buckle and awaited my turn. The kids went through first. Nothing. Then me.

And of course my tits totally set it off.

“Step over here, madame,” said the security dude. “I need to tell you something,” I said. “I have these prosthetic devices… I have a letter,” I replied. He ignored this and just waved me toward his female associate for a pat down.

I assumed the position and again started to explain myself. But by the time I got to “I have a letter” she had completed her pat down and sent me on my way. So I never got to produce the letter. At least I have it for the way back just in case the folks in Boston are skeptical that I am an evil fembot bent on world destruction.

We had loads of time to kill at Heathrow because we had left an hour early in case the men’s cycling road race caused any traffic delays. So we enjoyed breakfast in the British Airways lounge, watched some Olympic coverage and browsed the shops.

The flight itself was uneventful. I accepted a glass of champagne before take-off to toast my end of shit.

For lunch I ordered the special “Olympic-inspired” fish pie and then had afternoon tea (sandwiches and scones) a couple hours later even though I wasn’t really still hungry. I have trouble turning away food, even on an airplane.

We breezed through customs and made it to my in-laws’ house in Wellesley, where we were to retrieve the Subaru wagon and drive to the Cape, relatively quickly.

After using the facilities, we were about to head out when our five-year-old, who was sitting in the front seat of the car while she waited for the rest of the family, announced that the rearview mirror had “fallen off.” My immediate reaction was that she probably pulled it right off while screwing around in there. My secondary reaction was that I didn’t fancy spending an hour in an auto body shop waiting for the damn thing to be repaired after a seven-hour transAtlantic flight and with a two-hour drive ahead.

I called my father-in-law at the Cape and asked if he kept any crazy-glue in the house. He admitted that the mirror had fallen off before (more than once) and that crazy glue wouldn’t work. At that point my husband emerged from the basement with a roll of duct tape.

So we duct taped the thing on and set off for the Cape. It wasn’t perfect but it held all right. And we made it.

It’s nice to be back in America in a cozy, familiar house with the ocean breeze and the outdoor shower. A welcome change of venue for my end of shit.

I suppose that technically there is more shit ahead since I have further reconstructive surgery, but that doesn’t really count as “shit” because it will be happy times to improve my rack so that I, too, can possess impossibly perky boobs.

Meanwhile, now that I have killed it I will have to find something else to do with my time. But one thing is certain. I am going to keep blogging. Because there is no end of shit about which to write.

Time Machine

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Sometimes I wish I could just climb into a time machine and start over. How far back I’d go I don’t know.

There is a picture of me from the 1970s on a shelf in the office — maybe I am about four in it. I am sitting in a tree in a yellow turtleneck and red overalls (yes, the colours of McDonalds but as I said it was the 70s). Young, wide-eyed and full-cheeked. Fresh, innocent and… cancer free. There is something about passing that photo and looking into my own eyes that I now find very unsettling. I’d like to warn myself. Protect myself. Almost as if I were one of my own children.

I want that innocence back. I want the feeling of living without knowing that I had a life threatening disease back. I want to put the black smoke back into the box and then hurl that box into the abyss. When I think about this I feel like a frozen computer that needs rebooting. Something gets stuck.

But in life there is no rewind. Plus there is the fact that I am a total realist. An optimist, but also a realist. So my mind won’t let me pretend too much. Won’t let me be that four-year-old again. The smoke can go back in the box but the box will always be in the corner, sealed but present.

It is very hard for me to convey what I feel when I get stuck like this. It isn’t so much sadness, but confusion. And a touch of helplessness. Not helplessness against this bitch of a disease, because that I know that I can kill. Just helplessness against being where I am now, against finding myself in this most peculiar situation.

How do I make you understand? I am not dwelling or even obsessing. I am not freaking out about “the cancer.” Sometimes I am just sort of dumbfounded. This is it. This is where I’m at.

Whenever I get stuck, I think about all the good that has come out of this. How I have an easier time saying “no” when I don’t want to do something. How I don’t get quite as stressed about shit that in the grand scheme of things is not that important.

I know who my friends are and aren’t. I know that I am supported and loved by my family. I’ve a renewed interest in exercising and cooking. In savouring. And I find humour in the damnedest of places.

After my twenty-second radiation treatment this morning I went to have a complimentary therapy session (I get four — what a deal!). This is not a counselling session, but rather something spa-like. A massage or acupuncture or reflexology or aromatherapy. It’s one of the nifty perks of being a cancer patient. Which I won’t be for very much longer.

So when I went in to get my treatment and the nice lady ran through the list of things I could get I selected the scalp massage. I figured, hey, I’m pretty much bald, so I will get more out of this now than I ever will again. She’ll really get a grip on that scalp of mine, I thought.

Plus I have that nice crop of tiny little deep brunette (and white) hairs sprouting all over my head (ch ch ch chia…) and I figured they could use some stimulation. Grow grow grow!

The massage was good. I don’t usually enjoy massages except for reflexology, which is just the feet. But the scalp is good too. It occurred to me that the last time I had a scalp massage of any kind was when I was shampooed prior to my last haircut. Five days before one-quarter of my hair fell out and then I shaved my head. So it seemed fitting that I would have another longer and better one when the hair was coming back in with a vengeance.

I was sitting there thinking about that when the therapist started sort of tapping on my head (part of the massage) whereas before she had been doing more pressure points and rubbing. For a moment I felt completely ridiculous. Sitting in a chair, bald (well mostly) having someone tap on my head. It was like she was playing a bongo drum lightly and I was the instrument. But I went with it. And it was good. And I managed not to burst into laughter at the absurdity of it all.

Things I Am Prepared to Say to Airport Security

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In a recent e-mail, my mother-in-law asked me whether she thought my saline boob expanders — if you don’t know what I am talking about think of them space savers for my implants — would set off the metal detector at the airport on account of their magnetic ports. I credit myself with thinking of a lot of things but this had not occurred to me. And I doubt it will happen. Nevertheless, in the spirit of the Boy Scouts, I have decided to be prepared.

I have thought about what to say to the authorities should bells go off when I step through, having handed over my watch, belt and iPhone.

Feel free to vote for your favourite.

Option 1: “Stand back; bionic tits coming through, people.” I mean Jaime Sommers has nothin’ on me. Cue corny bionic sound effects and slow-mo.

Option 2: (Said when wand is passed over each breast and sound indicates presence of metal.) “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet; the dude behind me has a metal asshole.”

Option 3: “Oh, those are just my 24-karat tatas. I like to travel in style.”

Option 4: “Take cover! They’re gonna blow!” (That one probably isn’t a good plan because it would likely subject me to rough handling and possibly even a cavity search in a small windowless room, causing me to miss my flight).

And Option 5: (If I get the pat-down rather than the wand.) “Ooh, baby don’t stop. That’s more action than they’ve had in six months.”

What? Yeah, I know. I’m a weirdo. But one has to have a sense of humour about these things for Christ’s sake.

Tumour in a Blue Bag

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In case you were wondering this is not a take-off on Devil in a Blue Dress, but it would be cool if it were, eh?

A while back I decided it would be prudent, or as my British dermatologist likes to put things, “sensible,” to see an oncologist at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute (the “DFCI”) in Boston during our visit to the US. Arranging for such an appointment may not sound like a big deal but let me tell you, it was.

Because all of my reports, imaging, pathology and histology stuff is over here in London, I have to transport not only myself to Boston but all of it as well. And this is why, yesterday, I found myself walking down the street carrying sections of my tumours on slides in a blue plastic bag.

I would have liked the hospital here to take care of all of this for me, but somehow that didn’t happen. The hospital (which is a world-famous cancer centre, by the way) didn’t seem to do this sort of thing and although it is apparently used to receiving a great deal of biological materials via international mail it doesn’t seem to happen much the other way around.

So anyhow, the samples I requested (because the DFCI wanted to review them prior to my appointment) ended up in my breast surgeon’s office and I got a phone call that it might be best if I just came and picked them up in person and simply took them with me on the plane to Boston. Somewhat bewildered but nonetheless pleased that the requested materials had been made available promptly, I agreed.

After I ended the call, I imagined myself going through airport security at Heathrow and having my carry-on bag searched. “And what pray tell are these, Madame?” The guard asks suspiciously. “Oh those. Those are just sections of my right tit. I like to carry them around with me when I travel.” Hmmm. No thanks. I thought the better of the plan. Called back and asked if they could do the mailing from the breast surgeon’s office. But their mail room didn’t use one of the carriers that the DFCI had listed as acceptable. So I went and picked the damn things up after all and out I walked onto Harley Street, tumours in hand.

As I ambled along, gently swinging the blue bag, I had irrational thoughts of accidentally leaving it somewhere — all physical evidence of my disease being lost forever. I descended into the tube at Warren Street and boarded my train. I clutched the bag in my right hand and my purse in my left and looked around. Satisfied that no one was about to wrestle my plastic baggie of tumours away from me, I pulled from my purse my latest addiction, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, and read a few pages during my brief ride.

I alighted at my stop (the British like to use the term “alight” rather than “get off” because it sounds fancier) in Belsize Park, triple checking that I still had the bag. When I got to my house I put the bag right on my desk so that the cleaning lady wouldn’t mistake it for trash or recycling and heave it outside. And there it now sits. Awaiting dispatch.

How terribly odd to carry around my cancer in a bag. Those bad bits of me that were, only six months ago, on the inside of my body, slowly growing and threatening my health, my life. I’m looking at the bag right now. I feel rather smug. Sort of like “ha ha, asshole. You are so low that you are in a second-hand, rather crumpled, blue plastic shopping bag and that is all you deserve.”

I spent part of the day wringing my hands over whether to use FedEx or DHL to dispatch the goods and what to write on the customs form. It demands a value. What should I put? Worthless? Priceless? The lady at the DFCI who deals with international patients (which I now am on account of living in the UK and having international insurance) suggested that I write in $1.00. One dollar for my cancer cells and their unique characteristics. One dollar for the thing that has changed my life forever.

As much as I don’t want them lost in the mail I can tell you that they don’t deserve to be valued at one red cent. They are dead. We cut them out and killed them and squashed them between slides and put them in plastic cases in a blue plastic bag. Now they are just specimens. Just evidence of what was.

You know, it’s funny. Years ago, right after my husband and I moved from our small apartment in New York City to the Boston area he joked for no apparent reason one day “your bosoms arrived in the mail.” Not knowing the odd significance of this prognostication we both thought it was wildly funny — albeit totally random. Now I am about to mail my bosoms to Boston while I take British Airways. It’s pretty weird, people.

 

Off Duty

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Two weeks from today, provided there are no airplane delays, riots, floods or unwelcome and unforeseen side effects (such as a right thumb the size of a blimp) from treatment, I will be eating my breakfast in the United States of America (say that with a Southern drawl, please, emphasis on the “YOU”).

After those two short weeks I will have completed not only chemotherapy but also radiotherapy. Of course my treatment will technically continue for some time because I am now on Tamoxifen (endocrine therapy) and will remain on it for the next five years. I waited for two weeks after getting the prescription before popping the first white tablet because there are different schools of thought regarding whether to begin this drug subsequent to or concurrently with radiation. Some business about the theoretical possibility that cancer cells may be less active while on Tamoxifen and thus radiation somewhat less effective. But then there’s the whole get your body the protection of the Tamoxifen as soon as possible argument. I opted for “in the middle of” radiation, not wanting to carry the burden of an all or nothing decision and because it didn’t appear that anyone else was going to decide for me.

Taking that first pill was sort of weird. I kept staring at the box of tablets on my night table. I felt like Keanu Reeves in The Matrix in that moment before he considered whether to take the red or the blue pill and forever change his life. Go down the wormhole. This drug is powerful and it is excellent protection for those of us who had/have oestrogen-positive tumours, but many powerful good things come with a price, such as putting a woman through early and sometimes irreversible menopause. That may not seem like a big deal if you are already of a certain age or you are male and just don’t “get it” but to a forty-year-old who always thought she would have a third child it is not nothing. It’s unnatural and odd to think about such things before their due.

But I did it. And have been on it for a week now. I don’t think I have noticed anything (probably too early) apart from the occasional hot flash (hot flush if you are Breeteesh but to an American a hot flush might denote something else entirely, if you catch my drift) in my face, which could be totally unrelated. The chemo may have knocked me into temporary menopause in any event, so the effects of the Tamoxifen may go less noticed for me. Time will tell.

So this is how these two weeks will go: I will finish radiation, dutifully schlepping to the London Clinic for treatment every morning, and meanwhile I will begin to pack for our trip. Every day I will run my hands over my now slightly fuzzy each day slightly fuzzier scalp (it is irresistible) to monitor my salt ‘n’ pepper chia growth (see previous post). I will stare at my brow bones and lash lines in search of baby fine hairs. I will take my once daily Tamoxifen. And then that Friday will come and I will be done with radiation and about to fly across the ocean for, I think you will all agree, some well-deserved r&r. Off duty at last. Not even thinking about the further surgeries down the road some months away.

But it occurs to me that I will not really be off duty. Ever. I will relax and, not having to undergo any treatment other than that pill every morning, my stupid fucking breast cancer will fade from the forefront of my mind. But it will never really go away completely. Even after the Tamoxifen part is over. I figure every year it will get a little bit easier and occupy a little less thought depending on what else is going on in my life and in the lives of those around me. It’s just part of the deal now. I, like so many before me (and with me), some of you who are reading this right now, will have to lug it around even when it becomes almost imperceptible, virtually weightless.

I’d love to have your thoughts on this. How does it feel one year out? Two years out? Twenty years out? Do you have scars or tattoos that you see every day in the mirror and do they remind you every time? Or don’t you even “see” them anymore? Do you worry every time you have a check-up or a scan? Do you laugh at cancer jokes in movies without thinking that on some level they apply to you differently? I suppose these things are highly personality driven. I do not imagine that I will be seized by worry very often if all goes according to plan. But I know I’ll have my moments.

One of my problems is that I have never been one to let myself off the hook. So if I stop thinking about it for very long my mind will admonish, “Emily, stop focusing on how long it will take for your eyebrows to grow back or [insert other trivial beauty crap] and remember that you were diagnosed with cancer in January of 2012.” At which point I may have to tell my mind to shut the fuck up. Because once in a while I really would like to be… completely… off duty. Killing it passively.

 

Salt ‘N’ Pepper Chia Pet

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If you are American and of a certain age and owned a television and/or visited a K-Mart growing up then you will remember the oh-so-wonderful (and giftable) Chia Pet. Here, let me refresh your recollection: click on this.

I am thinking about going to one of those make your own pottery places and doing up a head to resemble myself and then putting some seeds on that sucker and filling it up with water. Because I have been feeling sort of Chia Pet-like these past few days. But instead of green, it’s salt ‘n’ pepper chia. And it isn’t nearly as fast. I just spent the better part of an hour scrutinising my scalp to try to determine whether the itty bitty fuzzy regrowth I see is predominantly white. Under overhead lights it looks white. But in the magnifying mirror there appears to be a lot of pepper mixed in, thank God. We’ll see how it looks in a few weeks.

One extremely troublesome wrinkle is that there doesn’t seem to be any regrowth to speak of in the middle of my head. I hope it is just growing at a different pace. Because a hairdo approximating male-pattern baldness (no offence to those who suffer from it) is not the post-cancer treatment look of my dreams.

In other news I counted my eyebrows and eyelashes today, which persist in falling out five weeks after my last chemo treatment. I guess they are on their own schedule. Oh sorry — I only did the right side on which there are fourteen eyelashes — wait, make that thirteen. Dang. And twenty-four eyebrows. Trust me; this is not a lot. Drawing on the eyebrows with pencil has become sort of a daily experiment. I change it up a little every time. Not really on purpose but because I am still not used to it. One day I may just do Bozo the Clown or Bert from Sesame Street.

The benefit to all of this is that I hope to do a chemo makeover “how to” video pretty soon. I have to get on it before everything grows back. I have never done a video so expect really low budget (like it might just be me trying to film on my iPhone while applying eyeliner to myself in bad lighting) but the point is to get it up so that other women who might like a little guidance can have a look at some techniques from a real live cancer patient. Or at least it might provide a good laugh.

Meanwhile let me lay it out there for you. The “before” pic. This is what I look like right now without a single bit of make-up on. It’s dark so you can’t see my chia regrowth. Strange, hmmm? I can’t even remember what I looked like without examining pre-chemo photos. But I know it’s still me in there somewhere. Killing it.

 

 

Top Ten Reasons Not Having Use of Big-Ass Bandaged-Up Right Thumb For a Week Isn’t All Bad

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Reason No. 10: One less fingernail to paint.

Reason No. 9: Makes other fingers feel more important.

Reason No. 8: Don’t even have to think about doing dishes.

Reason No. 7: Realised I can type pretty well with nine fingers.

Reason No. 6: Detracts from baldness, lack of eyebrows and eyelashes.

Reason No. 5: Good blog fodder for several entries.

Reason No. 4: One more thing to bitch about and I just love to bitch.

Reason No. 3: Easier to hitch hike. (Cars are stopping miles away now.)

Reason No. 2: Gives me something to think about other than stupid fucking cancer.

And the No. 1 Reason Not Having Use of My Big-Ass Bandaged-Up Right Thumb For a Week Isn’t All Bad: Realised at Yo-Sushi yesterday I am perfectly competent chopstick user with left hand. Now how else would I ever have found out that crucial bit of information?

All Thumb

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Thanks to all you optimistic well-wishers who thought or pretended to think that the thumb would actually resolve on its own. But really? Alas, such was not the case.

Meanwhile we had plans to go to a beach party (in the 50-something degree drizzle) Saturday night in Beaulieu in the New Forest. I had some concerns about taking the thumb to the country. The first of which was whether, given its size, I might be required to purchase it a seat on the train to Brockenhurst.

I decided to risk it. Somewhat comforted by the fact that both my rads oncologist and my dermatologist (not the one at Hammersmith) had a look at it Friday and said I wasn’t in imminent danger of it exploding. When I spoke to my rads oncologist she said she really felt the nail should come off after all, so we could clean up the area and get a proper look at things. Her people made me an appointment to see a “Taxol nail” specialist on Tuesday (that would have been today) to determine whether the eleventh-hour diagnosis from the dermatologist at Hammersmith Hospital last Wednesday was correct, and presumably, to remove the nail. Delightful.

So off we went Saturday morning to Waterloo Station to catch our train.

It decided to rain all day so we ate lunch and then lazed about at a charming 350-year-old B&B (Pepperbox House) on the High Street in Beaulieu, napping (well not me cuz I don’t nap) and reading. I finished Solar. We dressed for the party, the theme of which was verdant green. I did wear a nice bright green cardy. But I had to whip out Candy Floss — surely you know her by now — for the finishing touch. Very pink and very green but not at all preppy. Not easy to do, that look, but I think it worked. And white jeans of course because they are so practical in the rain. And platform espadrilles — also a solid choice for soggy outings.

Sorry but I don’t have a photo.

There was a lot of green at the party, including Astroturf in lieu of carpet which I thought was a groovy concept. I might have to put some under my dining room table. Just think, it would be like having a picnic every meal! Neat! And no water required. Just add food and ants.

The party was quirky and fun. A hodge podge of people of varying ages and plenty of finger sandwiches, Pimms, wine, kiwi mojitos (I should have had one), cakes and later smoked pig and home-made pizza. There was a sassy magician with a dry sense of humour and a chihuahua, and a ukulele band from Bristol (?).

The girls dragged Bill outside and collected seashells from the beach in the whipping wind and watched the horses gallop around. In Beaulieu there is a law or something that animals can roam free and graze where they want to so there are horses and cows and other four-legged critters everywhere you look. Sometimes they all decide to cross the street together and stop traffic. I would like to have that kind of attitude. Just decide to wander into traffic and fully expect it to stop. Devil may care.

We decided to pull out at about 9:45 because it was getting late for the kiddies. They didn’t get to sleep until about 11. Oops. For a change we each took a child and a room so I slept with Isabel. That night my thumb started to hurt again and woke me up about four times. I was also awakened by Isabel who in the middle of the night started vigorously stroking my bald head. I wondered what the hell she was doing and rolled over to look at her. Her eyes were open but unfocused and she was clearly fast asleep. Must have been an interesting dream. Too bad we will never know whatthat was about.

Come Sunday morning the pain was bad and the thumb looked terrible. Even worse than the day before.  See Exhibit A below.

Now I ask you, if you were walking around with this thing for several weeks would you not have a hard time focusing on other things? Needless to say I was concerned about and distracted by my right thumb. I couldn’t ignore it because every time I tried to do anything there it was.

Saturday afternoon my dermatologist called and arranged for me to have an MRI Monday morning to check (again) if there was a collection under the nail or any evidence of bone infection. When I went to get it yesterday morning, after getting up early, taking a taxi there and changing into a gown, robe and slippers, and then waiting, they asked if I had any bits or pieces in my body and I told them about my boob expanders with magnetic ports. I had figured they would be all right because the MRI was just of my thumb. Not so. Apparently the whole thing acts as a magnet so once you walk through the door you are no longer in the safe zone. I had images of my expanders busting (pun intended) through my chest. “I’m not going anywhere near that thing,” I said.

So I decided to use modern technology to my advantage and texted my dermatologist. No can do MRI due to bionic tits, I said. Or something to that effect. Do u want me to get ultrasound while I’m here? He responded immediately. Yes he was down with that plan. Or something to that effect. So we did one and guess what? There was a big-ass collection of fluid behind the nail, 7mm deep. Gee, I wonder why it was deformed and uncomfortable. He said it would be sensible (I love the English) to see a hand surgeon and could I try to get an urgent appointment. By the way do you Americans and persons other than the English know why surgeons are referred to as “Mr” rather than “Dr?” I do but I’m not going to tell you right now. Maybe later. If you’re nice.

Anyhow I called and they squeezed me in for yesterday afternoon. Turned out the hand guy was at the same office as my boob guy. Good karma, I figured. I liked him and his confident but not at all cocky manner.

If you get queasy easily or are eating a big juicy burger right now, please read on.

Bill and I spoke with him for a while. Then he took me into the back while Bill was banished to the waiting room.

He shot the base of my thumb several times with local anaesthetic with an enormous needle and proceeded to drain that sucker. Out came about 10ml of bloody fluid, not counting the part that gushed out and wasn’t collected in a small vial. Then he sliced the nail away from the bed at each side and folded the nail back like a hatch. He made a tourniquet out of a rubber glove and clamp the base of my thumb to stop the bleeding and examined the nail bed. It looked good. Pink and healthy. No obvious sign of infection. He cleaned it thoroughly with saline. After this, he decided to leave the nail attached at the base because he saw the new nail growing underneath (which he showed me) and didn’t want to disturb it or further traumatise the area. The collection had been so impressive and the pressure so great that the nail bed was concave like the basin of a pond. After all of this, however, the thumb was much closer to its original size. It started resembling a thumb again rather than an unhealthy sausage.

Finally, he dressed it by inserting a piece of gauze between the nail and the nail bed and wrapping the thumb with gauze and more gauze. Until it looked like a small white potato.

So now I have this big white thumb for the next week. Should come in handy if I decided to hitch-hike to radiation.

Who knew killing it would be fraught with so many weird-ass side effects. I give this one a big thumbs down. But here’s to hoping that it is finally on its way to resolution, with a lot of help from Mr Hand Surgeon.

Nailing It

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The thumb issue persists. It is the size of a small country. As Mike Myers put it in So I Married An Axe Murderer, “that’s a virtual planetoid.” (Yeah I like quoting Mike Myers.) And it is slightly numb and a wee bit painful as well. Not to mention it looks disgusting.

So this afternoon I hauled ass to Hammersmith Hospital (a walk, one Overground, a tube another walk and a bus later) and saw the infectious disease doc. She said she didn’t think it was a bacterial infection at all but rather maybe a fungus. And had I ever been to Arizona to the desert. Really? A fungus? Arizona? I was skeptical. The nail wasn’t thick and it just didn’t seem right… and I have been to Arizona but twenty years ago. But she called in a dermatologist and they conspired to remove my nail and do a biopsy of the nail itself and some skin underneath. Ew. I swigged the last bit of my tea and put the cup down on the saucer.

I was not feeling it. In fact, I seemed to be having an out-of-body experience as I allowed myself to be led downstairs to sit among nameless patients to await this unwelcome procedure. Now look. I am not what you would call squeamish. I remind you — in February I underwent a bilateral mastectomy. And I got eight hours of sleep the night before it sans sleeping pill. I have endured a number of other procedures in my life as well, including several eye surgeries while conscious. I could go on but who has time?

Something about this just didn’t feel right. I furrowed what’s left of my brow. I waited for a few minutes. Then the fire alarm began to sound. Deafening repeated bursts of ringing. No one reacted. Not the patients. Not the staff. I looked around. Nothing. Finally someone came up and said “oh it’s just a test or the fire is in another part of the hospital.” Gee, that’s reassuring. Are you fucking kidding me? I don’t get that mentality. But that’s just me. I’m a lawyer type. Highly analytical and skeptical. I cannot help it.

Finally, after about ten minutes, the alarm ceased. I waited. And waited. I started to freak out, but quietly, inside. It was hot in there and crowded. The air was stagnant and the clock ticking. And the appointment during which I agreed to this procedure was brief. Thoughts raced through my mind. How did I get here? How could this be happening? Why am I upset by a mere fingernail when a few months ago I had them cut out all of my breast tissue? What if it isn’t necessary? Doesn’t reveal the answer? Who invented liquid soap and why? And meanwhile, how will I type? How will I blog?

Finally they called me in. The doctor explained the procedure. He would inject the base of my thumb with anaesthetic and then saw the nail in half and cut about a millimetre under it and remove it. Then he would cut out a square of flesh beneath it and send all off for biopsy. Wet and dry vials awaited their contents, ready and labeled with my name and birth date to be sent to the lab. Entranced, I arranged myself on the table. The doctor swabbed my thumb with alcohol. I mentally gritted my teeth and succumbed to my fate.

“I just want to have my colleague take a look at this,” he said. A moment later, the colleague poked her head in. “Has this patient been on taxane drugs?” She inquired. Well, yes, as a matter of fact I have. Taxol is a taxane drug and that was what I had four times as the second half of my chemotherapy.

“This is acute onycholysis. Grade IV. It is due to the taxane drug she was on. Don’t do anything. It will resolve on its own.” I stared at her. Everyone got all excited by the diagnosis. I was excited not to have my nail removed surgically even if it will fall off on its own. The new nail is apparently already growing back underneath it and the discolouration on the sides of my nail is a subungual hematoma. The numbness due to pressure on my nerves.

Photographs were taken. I smiled pleasantly as I agreed to sign a consent form to be part of a publication on the subject — anything to help someone else who presents with this nonsense in the future. “Just email me,” I said. And suddenly I was free to go.

The bad news is that because I am analytical and skeptical I am still not convinced this is the right diagnosis. But time will tell. I have been on enough antibiotics to kill a small horse and systemically I am well. So we’ll see. Lee Press-On Nails, here I come.

I stand armed with two publications on the topic which I will hand over to the oncologists. If the diagnosis is correct, surely persons taking this drug should be checked for such a condition and it should be recognised when it presents itself.

Boy oh boy. Killing it has had more than its share of weird side effects, hmm? I sure hope that the colleague dermatologist nailed it.