Pregnant with Breast Cancer

I think I jinxed myself. It seems the universe or the divine being who controls it thought I needed more challenges. It has been hard to comprehend all of the emotions, information, stress and anxiety of the last few months, so I feel the need to just let it all out in the best way I know how – this awesome blog! I hope that it will help others in a similar situation and bring them some solace.

Present: I’m sat in a beautiful pink recliner chair receiving chemo. 32 years and 8 months old, pregnant at 23 weeks. I’m the youngest one here. My gorgeous rock of a husband is sat across from me and I can tell that just as much as me, he wants this first session over and done with so at least we know what to expect…

So the big question: how the F**k did we end up here?!

As many of you will concur, we have had a fair amount of poop thrown at us in our 8 years of being together – from my near deaths from peritonitis 8 years ago to losing our little baby girl Rey on New Year’s Day last year, to moving continent and having to move back for health reasons…

My friends, here is a little bit of an insight into the madness that is our lives.

Rewind to January this year, we were blessed with a little nugget of awesomeness who will be joining us sometime around the end of August/beginning of September! We knew this nugget would throw a few spanner’s into our long term plans – we had only just decided at Christmas that we were going to apply for a US green card. Things unfolded in ways we did not expect – we couldn’t get it in the 6 months we originally thought,so it looked like we’d have to move back and then relocate again, once the green card had been approved. There is so much of America we still want to see and we barely scratched the surface in the year we were there!

At 8 weeks pregnant, we found a lump in my breast, but there was no immediate concern from the doctors. At 10 weeks I took the Counsyl genetics test to check for any abnormalities with the baby. The good news – she is perfectly fine and wonderful! The bad news is that markers flared up in my DNA pointing towards something less fun growing in me simultaneously. It could have been literally anything from polyps through to a 1/1000 chance of cancer, but the test didn’t provide a definitive answer as to what it was and where, which meant a lot more testing needed doing (X-rays, pet scans, MRI, Bloods etc…) We made the decision that we had to come back to the UK, which SUCKED but needed to happen.

And I am so glad we moved back. (We’ve been blessed with some lovely weather too!)

Doctors appointments, midwife appointments, followed by tests were all organised very quickly and we found out within 3 weeks of being back that I have triple negative grade 3 Invasive Ductal Breast Cancer. Before we sat down in that room we knew it wasn’t great news – we were introduced to the breast cancer care nurse (before being given the diagnosis?!) and there were a lot of people there.

The consultant did the best thing in this situation and told me straight up that you have breast cancer, but IT IS TREATABLE.

So here’s the plan – once every 3 weeks I will have a round of chemo for a total of 12 weeks. Our little girl will be born hopefully pretty normally and I get to play mum for a short while, and then we will work out what surgery options I have to have around October. This may then be followed by either a bit more chemo or radiotherapy, but as of yet we don’t know.

In the meantime, I will be keeping you all updated with my progress on this interesting twist in the road – It may not be the most fun of adventures, but if I am to believe everything happens for a reason, I will do my darnest to help others out of it at the same time and carry on dishing out that positivity instilled in me from Rey.

Mummy’s Star is a charity I’m using to help me through this. They provide support for expecting mums who have received a cancer diagnosis whilst pregnant, and they have been fab.

MacMillan have also been great support so far through this testing time, and I know they will be in the months to come!

I didn’t see the point of keeping my long hair if it’s just going to fall out and end up in the bin, so I’ve donated to Little Princesses Trust who have wigs made for kids going through cancer treatment and they currently need hair longer than 7 inches, so why not? If I can make a little girl mike through this, then it was well worth it.

React, adapt, breathe, take action. Life certainly is 90% how you react to situations and I will beat this, and come out even stronger than I could ever imagine.

A Taste of Marietta

As we had the parents over from the UK, we wanted to fit in some local cultural activities. Fortunately the annual event, A Taste of Marietta was taking place on that weekend, and I thought this would be great for them to experience some American style foods and music.

Tents lined the square, offering all sorts of delicious delicacies for you to try ranging from $1-$5. Different restaurants and eating establishments from the loacal area provided the food, from Taqueria Tsunami to The Freakin’ Inca, there were cuisines from all over the world, so we weren’t short on choice!
We made our way around the circuit first to check out what was on offer and also what was gluten free (we’ve been gf for just over four years now). This proved a little tricky as there were no signis to say what was allergy free, but after a little investigation we settled on a lovely dish called the cowboy stack from the Andretti Grill and it was beautiful! Pulled pork, spring onions on a sweet potato waffle. It was superb, I could have eaten many more! 
Being British, we just had to stop at the British Cornershop for supplies! The lady who runs the shop has been here for nearly 20 years! She was originally from Caernarfon, but she hasn’t been back for a long long time and had no intentions of it either. It was lovely to hear her accent, although, it was jumbled with a lot of American twang in between! So I stocked up on Ribena and thought long and hard about the Dairy Milk, but didn’t give in! 
Back on the square, we tried out some of the ice creams on offer, and Brusters Real Ice cream came up trumps. Their mint chocolate chip was simple, yet divine, and all of us were suitably full after with smiles on our faces afterwards. We are normally dairy free as well, so it was such a treat to have some proper ice cream. It reminded me of the Hampshire ice cream back in England. 

The parents loved the fact that there was music on all the time, and took a particular shine to the band, Men in Blues. They played an eccentric mix of songs from the 50s, 60s and beyond. People were toe tapping, head nodding, and dancing during the entertainment in the heat of the day. 
We had such a blast (as did the parents)! If you ever find yourself in Marietta at that time of year do go! It was a really well organised event, and it gave us a great education in what the local eateries have on offer.