Despite my cancer diagnosis, the news that I needed chemotherapy STILL came as a shock. I had convinced myself that the doctors would remove the tumour and, after a few zaps of radiotherapy, I’d be done. But that wasn’t my story.
Following my lumpectomy and sentinel lymph node biopsy, microtraces of cancerous cells were found in two of the three lymph nodes extracted – enough for my surgeon to suggest chemotherapy. This wasn’t what I wanted OR expected. For many women with breast cancer, chemo is given before any surgeries take place to shrink the tumour. Due to the type of breast cancer I had, this wouldn’t have worked for me: so it was surgery first and then chemo as a precaution.
Honestly, I was floored by this news. My single, biggest fear was how I could possibly cope with chemotherapy, as a single parent. Would I still be able to mum? How sick was I going to get? My hair…?
I was resistant. I didn’t want it. I was very, very scared. But, ultimately, we do have a choice. Following several distressed conversations with my surgeon, where I kept repeating, ‘I can’t do this,’ he asked me a question: ‘If you don’t have chemotherapy now and the cancer comes back, how will you feel?’ ‘I’d never forgive myself,’ I replied. Not for me, as such, but certainly for my daughters. And that was what sealed it. My chemotherapy felt like an insurance policy and I – reluctantly – took it.
It’s hard to prepare for chemotherapy because we know it’s going to be tough. And for me, even though I’d agreed to it, I still felt incredibly resistant and this was problematic. I really, really, really didn’t want it (but, to be fair, who does?). I had a meeting with one of the chemo nurses and she ran through all the important things (which went completely over my head, so I’m grateful my friend Nicole was with me, taking it all in) and showed me the chemo unit and the scalp cooling machine. It felt unreal. Totally unreal.
My chemo was due to start towards the end of August 2022, and an appointment was made for me to have my PICC line inserted. A PICC line (Peripherally Inserted Central Catheter) is a long, thin, flexible tube inserted into a vein in your upper arm and threaded through to the larger veins near your heart so the chemo can go into your bloodstream without damaging smaller veins (this needs its own post, down the line).
Despite valiant efforts, the highly skilled nurse could not get my PICC line in. Every time she found a suitable vein in my arm, it would literally shrink away. She gave up as my arm was becoming very badly bruised and made another appointment for the following week. We also had a chat about my resistance: ‘try to reframe it and see it as something that’s going to help you,’ she suggested.
It was such a simple suggestion and it did help me: instead of seeing chemotherapy as this awful ordeal that I really, really, really didn’t want, I reframed it. I started to think of chemo as something positive, something that was going to help me. I visualised the chemotherapy as a kind of old-school Pac-Man character, zooming around inside my body, snapping up any dodgy cells.
When I went back to have my PICC line inserted, I felt a lot less resistant. The nurse also said to me that if they couldn’t get the line in my arm, it might have to go in my neck. After that, oddly enough, the line went into my arm without any issues! And so I was ready (physically, at least)…
Key Chemotherapy Takeaways
- We always have a choice
- Chemotherapy is TOUGH but it’s DOABLE
- Try to reframe it as something positive; something that’s helping you. See it as a friend and not a foe (I did struggle with this but got there in the end)
- Take a loved one with you to your appointments as the overwhelm is real
- Ask as many questions as you need – there’s no such thing as a silly question
In Part 2, I’ll share what to take with you to the chemotherapy unit.
