Encore Performances

People are often surprised at some of the basic things I’ve found difficult after each surgery, so I thought I’d list some for you.

For this op and the last reconstruction, the restriction of movement is definitely top of the list as far as frustration goes – one wrong move and my chest is burning with nerve pain as I try to hold back tears that seem to come from nowhere. It really stops me in my tracks.

Some of the other things are so simple they’re kinda funny;

• holding the phone up to my ear for more than a few minutes – amazing how quickly my (big strong) muscles tire,
• grabbing something from the fridge/pantry (& even soap/shampoo in the shower) – the essentials all have to be at waist-shoulder height (needless to say any chocolate etc. has been safely stored where I can’t reach it!),
• showering – making sure soap gets to all the right places can be tricky (ohh – & shampooing my hair resembles some sort of contortion act as a bring my head down to hand-height!),
• drying myself – getting a towel around my back (especially if it’s already wet and heavy) – not easy,
• sitting up straight for long periods of time – after a while the blood pumping to my chest region (particularly around the new scars) really starts to hurt in a way similar to one of those throbbing headaches,
• getting in to & out of the car – pushing and pulling of any nature, especially your full body weight, is out of the question.
• getting in to & out of bed – same as above, blood rushes and no twisting around or pushing/pulling to prop yourself up or help in any way,
• cutting up dinner – steak (no matter how tender) is off the menu for a while!
• lifting a full kettle of water – when anyone drops in for a cuppa it’s not BYO, but pour-your-own,
• this only applies to the first fortnight after surgery, but those compression stockings are bloody hard to get on at the best of times, let alone when you can’t reach forward very far and are a bit weak. Not having to wear these will mean I can have a bit of independence back, but for now I have to ask for help before and after (& okay sometimes during) every shower. Uurgh.
• Clothing – it has to button up down the front, or be something (like pants/a singlet top) that I can step into.

In short – when Dr D says ‘you should be right with everything straight in front of you’, he’s right.

It’s still early and I know from past experience that these things become less of an issue with each day. Thank goodness! ‘Patience & Tolerance!’

I’m not really -but you know the Matchbox 20 song!

I just can’t sleep – equal parts pain and nausea. I can’t think what’s making me feel sick, other than the pain. Vicious cycle huh?

So – seeing as it’s 10 days now since my last op, the heavy duty pain relief has ceased. I’ve come downstairs popped two Panadol and two ginger tablets to try and settle my stomach. With a chest full of stitches, the last thing I wanna be doing is vomiting. Come to think of it – coughing and sneezing are also pretty high on that list, so keeping warm is also a priority.

That’s a saying I heard repeatedly as a child and one my Mum actually hasn’t had to use all that much during my little ride.

Almost by default (you know – having to endure a range of procedures which often involve long, sometimes painful waiting periods), I’ve become a lot more patient in certain circumstances. Like when Paul’s driving and we get a red light now, I just shrug my shoulders as steam blows out his ears. I just don’t care, it’s no big deal. (Truth be told I’ve actually found his impatience stresses me out more than the situation.) Another example is when Mum’s had a bad day and the issues come spewing out of her mouth as she walks in the door. Although irritating, fortunately none of them are overly life-altering. So again – I just shrug my shoulders. Not being rude – but those little things, just don’t matter in the big scheme of things.

As far as my tolerance goes, well it has changed too. To put it bluntly – I’m far less tolerant of things that don’t work for me. If a shop assistant is rude, or say we go to eat somewhere and I don’t love the look of something on the menu – I just walk. No offence intended, I just make that decision and act on it, rather than being polite and staying because I feel obliged to. It’s just – bye! On a positive – I’m far more tolerant of people whose individual situation might dictate their behaviour. I’ve found myself stopping to really listen and give consideration to what the reasons behind certain actions may be.

This experience has most definitely brought to light some different examples of patience and tolerance.

Seems I got a bit excited. The bra was yet to come.

Later that evening Dr D popped in to check on things (looking like he could do with a very strong coffee to get through the final surgery he had to perform for the day..I mean that in the nicest possible way of course!). He seemed surprised that I’d been up and showered and sternly instructed the nurse to ensure the waterproof dressing was put in place asap (oops..).

He put some big strips of supportive tape along the outside edge of my right breast, pulling things into the centre rather firmly. As Dr D flew back to the operating theatre, the nurse taped up the other side and helped me get into the zip & buckle up bra.

It was getting late. I was left with my oxygen, push button pain relief and a flimsy curtain separating me from my not-so-well-mannered neighbour who moaned throughout the night. Ohh – she also felt it necessary to make demands on the nurses each time they popped in for the two-hourly obs ‘get me morphine’ she bellowed….. It was a long, looong night.

Yep, next week will be round five.
Explaining this could be rather detailed – but in short, these implants are coming out and new ones are going in. In fact, the consent form says ‘remove and replace implants’.
I’ve been in two minds about this for a while now. As you may recall my ‘adjustment’ to this new body hasn’t been as smooth as I would like. Not long after the reconstruction Dr D cottoned on to this and said we could go back in and try and refine things. I very quickly snapped no, that I’d had enough surgery and I just needed to let my head catch up with what the body has been through. I’m almost ashamed to admit that unfortunately (not for a lack of trying), that hasn’t happened over the past few months.

A recent appointment brought the issues to the surface. Try as I might to just suck it up and well, not love – but just feel good about things, I couldn’t. Don’t get me wrong – I’m incredibly grateful to be here and on most days view my scars almost as kind of battle wounds, that through them – I’ve been given the best chance at a long and healthy future. It’s actually not the scars. The position, shape, ripples, distortion and an unsightly divet of my new ‘breast mounds’ are taking some getting used to. (This all sounds so much worse than it is!) Most of the time I’m okay, but occasionally it all is too much. The disbelief I feel is enormous.

I’d been keeping my mouth shut, so as not to offend Dr D. This was his work – he’s worked so hard to re-build me and here I was not handling the end result. How dare I? What an ungrateful sod.

He’s most perceptive and as I removed my gown he started with ‘we can do this, this and this….’ I was so relieved, I got a bit emotional and nearly cried (after all of this – it’s the first time I’d come close and I didn’t want him or Andrea to see me cry!). In a very business-like manner we talked about the ‘tweaking’ as he called it.

On leaving, Dr D reinforced that it’s okay, they often do revisions of reconstruction and that if I don’t tell him – he doesn’t know.

So – he knows. I feel like the weight of the world has been lifted and am now ready to focus on fine-tuning.

Today, marks a year since I sat in Dr D’s rooms and heard the term DCIS for the first time.

That’s the day my life changed forever (the significant changes to my body of course came later, another bizarre kind of anniversary to mark).

No shock, no fear, no grief, no sadness – just relief he was detailing what could be done to prevent it from progressing to the next stage and determination to get the process underway. Boy, did I feel lucky.

The sadness and at times disbelief is only just starting to seep in. What a year?!

For as long as I live I think April 23 – date of diagnosis, May 20 – date of bilateral mastectomy (plus to a lesser degree the surrounding dates on which I had the lumpectomies, partial mastectomy and later the reconstruction) will always hold a bit of a heavy, painful weight. It thankfully will be balanced by the gratefulness I feel to be here.

Thanks again, to everyone involved. Happy Anniversary.

Certainly not me, or anyone who knows me well.

12 months ago to the day, it was just like any other day (Friday) at work. I was fulfilling my role as News Director dealing with the station’s operational requirements, then methodically assessing releases, doing interviews, editing grabs, writing content, pulling together rundowns and presenting news during the drive show (I was covering Ange’s leave in this timeslot) with Mal Lees and Luke Bradnam.

The 6pm bulletin came and went – at the end of which, Luke – with whom I’d worked since day one at Hot Tomato, casually said (whilst still on-air) “so that’s it Katie, another week?” My response was an off-the-cuff “…yeah, this is my last bulletin with you guys”. “Whadda ya mean? EVER?” Luke quizzed. “No, I’m just off for a couple of weeks, on leave”, I replied.

I was going to have those bi-lateral lumpectomies on the Monday. Surgery booked. No big deal. Just wanted the lumps out.

Despite the four months of backwards-and-forwards, different scans, mammogram, biopsies etc. I think there were two things going on at that point; I may have known deep down there was a lot more than just a fortnight’s leave in store, and perhaps – somewhere in my consciousness I did realise that yes – that may in fact have been my last bulletin.

There’s part of me that is still obviously grieving for that ‘some sort of normal’ that I was so comfortable with. I do miss being on-air – it’s a tremendous buzz and something I worked very hard at, I always tried to do well, then do better.

Today however, as I mourn that particular career (and let myself indulge in a little moment of ‘geez, it’s sad…..I really loved it’), I began a trek down another path. I did my first media interviews as the spokesperson for the Gold Coast office of Cancer Council Queensland. Here am I answering the questions rather than asking them, crafting a response in order to push a key message, rather than searching for a compelling and easy to understand statement (grab), and having a good old belly laugh at the irony!

With the help of my oh-so-funny physiotherapist Tanya – things are slowly getting back on track.

Tanya has very quickly cottoned onto the fact that I’m a determined and somewhat pig-headed kinda girl. When I’m ‘in the zone’ things at pilates go well, when I can’t shake a headache or don’t really feel like doing a particular exercise (for very good reason of course!), there’s no making me.

We share lots of laughs while navigating our way through exercises including ‘elephant’, ‘nasty tummies’ and ‘pole dancing’!

It’s actually become a bit of a family affair, with Paul joining us once a week and having survived her initial consultation – my Mum will also be coming along on a regular basis.