150 mile challenge update!

I just wanted to write a post updating on my progress regarding my fundraising challenge. 

As some of you may have read in my last post, I set myself a challenge of running 150 miles between the beginning of August and the 18th of October, including the Birmingham Half Marathon to raise money for Breast Cancer Care and Breast Cancer Now.

I am very pleased to say that so far I have completed just over 132 miles and there is still just under four weeks to go till the half marathon! I'm hoping to smash the 150 target this week and I'm aiming to do at least 200 miles altogether. Fingers crossed for no injuries please!!

I'm not going to lie and say its been easy because it hasn't. The chemotherapy and the medication I take to suppress my body's oestrogen production means that I get a whole heap more muscle and joint aches than I used to. A lot of physical exertion can mean that in the subsequent days I find it difficult to get out of bed. And I'm definitely a lot slower than I used to be. 

But over the last couple of months there have been achievements that I am proud of too. The evening before I went on holiday a couple of weeks ago I actually completed just over 13 miles - a half marathon:

Not too shabby a time either!

I didn't set of with the intention of doing that many miles, I just kind of had a bit of a Forest Gump moment!

On holiday I also managed to resist having too many frozen daiquiris on a couple of evenings and dragged myself out of bed at 6.30 am the next day for a couple of 3 mile runs down the beach front at Kamari in Santorini:

Beats Birmingham canal I think you'll agree!!

You can donate to my fundraising efforts here - uk.virginmoneygiving.com/rebeccas150milechallenge

You can also follow my progress here - www.facebook.com/rebeccas150miles or on Twitter - @rebeccas150mile

My 150 mile challenge!

I've set myself a challenge - between now (well technically the 3rd of August) and the 18th of October 2015 I'm going to run a minimum of 150 miles concluding with the Birmingham Half Marathon.

Eeek.

The challenge has started with a total of 18 miles this week - 132 to go!

My achy body, tried legs and blistered feet are for a worthy cause. I'm raising money for two incredible charities -  Breast Cancer Care and Breast Cancer Now. 

Breast Cancer Care are the only UK wide support charity providing information and support to people affected by breast cancer and the only one providing services, support and information for younger women with breast cancer. https://www.breastcancercare.org.uk/

Breast Cancer Now are the UK's largest breast cancer charity, formed from the merger of Breast Cancer Campaign and Breakthrough Breast Cancer. They are dedicated to funding research in to this devastating disease so that by the year 2050, no one will die from breast cancer. http://breastcancernow.org/

Please support me to raise money for these charities by donating whatever you are able to or simply sharing my fundraising page with your friends, family and followers. Every little bit counts.

http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/rebeccas150milechallenge

I'll be documenting my challenge on the interweb so you can keep track of my progress (and my mileage!):

Facebook:www.facebook.com/rebeccas150miles

Twitter: @rebeccas150mile

Thank you! xx

Breast cancer and all that jazz

For the rest of October, as my contribution to breast cancer awareness month, I will be featuring a number of stories about diagnosis and treatment from younger women with breast cancer on my blog, written in their own words.

Before I do this, I wanted to write a post containing information about breast cancer that you may not be aware of. I’ll mostly be using information taken from sites such as Breast Cancer Care, with a smattering of information about my own personal situation.

Contrary to popular opinion, breast cancer isn’t just ‘one thing’. It’s a complex beast and there are a number of different types. I won’t go in to this in too much detail now but if you wanted to find out more about the different types of breast cancer you can find this here. Because all breast cancers are different, people have different treatments depending on what will work best for them.

Some facts about breast cancer (taken from the Breast Cancer Care website):

• The lifetime risk of developing breast cancer is 1 in 8 in women

This means that 1 in 8 women in the UK will develop breast cancer in their lifetime– it also means that 7 out of 8 women won’t develop breast cancer.

• Estimated risk of developing breast cancer according to age

Risk up to age 29, 1 in 2,000.

Risk up to age 39, 1 in 215.

Risk up to age 49, 1 in 50.

Risk up to age 59, 1 in 22.

Risk up to age 69, 1 in 13.

Lifetime risk, 1 in 8.

• Both women and men get breast cancer

Although it is much rarer than in women, men can get breast cancer too. Every year about 400 men are diagnosed in the UK.

• Older people are more likely to get breast cancer than younger people

After gender (being female), age is the strongest risk factor for developing breast cancer – the older the person, the higher the risk. Around 81% of breast cancers occur in women over the age of 50.

• Most cases of breast cancer don’t run in the family. Most cases of breast cancer happen by chance. Only around 5% of breast cancers are caused by inheriting an altered (faulty) gene.
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• Breast cancer can affect any woman, regardless of the size of their breasts (trust me mine are very modest!).
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• Finding a lump in your breast doesn’t mean you have breast cancer. There are several benign (not cancer) conditions that can occur in the breast and may cause a lump. Also many women will experience lumpy breasts just before their period. This is a normal response to changing hormones and often the lump or lumpiness disappears after the period. However, if this doesn’t go away, it’s important to get it checked out by a doctor. Any new lump should always be assessed by a doctor.

Even though breast cancer is more common in older women it can and does happen to younger women! Please check regularly and visit your doctor with any changes or lumps. And never be fobbed off. If you are unhappy push for a referral to a breast clinic.

Please click here for information about what breast changes look and feel like.

Breast cancer can be oestrogen receptive or not, HER2 positive or negative or triple negative. If a breast cancer is oestrogen receptive, simplistically it means that oestrogen is making it grow. My tumour is as strongly oestrogen receptive as you can get. This means the little bastard is doing the happy dance on the stuff. 

However, this is apparently a good thing as because they know what’s making it grow, they can use drugs to try and stop it coming back.

Tamoxifen (or Tamoxibollocks as its affectionately known) is a drug that they give women who have had oestrogen receptive breast cancer. Sometimes it is given to women with an increased risk of breast cancer as a preventative measure. Tamoxifen is usually given for five years after active treatment (chemo, surgery, radiotherapy) for oestrogen receptive breast cancer has finished. However, studies are now showing that ten years may be the more effective treatment strategy. I’ll be having Tamoxifen to try and reduce my risk of recurrence.  Because breast cancer can come back. Unlike some cancers, the term ‘cured’ is not used with breast cancer. It can return – either as a local, regional or distant recurrence. Most people do not have a recurrence, however it can and does happen.

So there are measures that you can take to try and prevent this happening. Tamoxifen is one. On the whole I am happy about this, but there are things that I find a little difficult to deal with. The first one is that you can’t get pregnant on Tamoxifen due to the risk of damage to the foetus. So ten years would take me to the age of 43 - fertility is not at its peak by this point. That’s if the chemotherapy hasn’t fried my ovaries first. But, for me I think I’d be terrified to get pregnant even if it were possible. All that oestrogen flying around. Would be like bloody Christmas for breast cancer. So, children more than likely out the window for me. Not literally obviously. I don’t go around throwing children out of windows…

Anyway, Tamoxifen also has some lovely side effects, mainly in the way of menopausal symptoms such as hot flushes, weight gain and osteoporosis. Delightful.

Surgery

On to surgery. As I have one node involved I will need to have a full axillary node clearance. This means taking out all the lymph nodes from under my arm pit and possibly the right side of my chest. Cutting through layers of muscle and nerves. Not pretty. I’m still in pain from having four nodes out so having around 20 removed doesn’t bear thinking about. It also leaves me at risk of lymphoedema – a permanent, painful and sometimes disfiguring condition which can involve having a very swollen arm.

I’m having chemotherapy first to try and shrink the tumour as the surgeons want to do a lumpectomy rather than a mastectomy. If they took it out now it would leave me quite disfigured as I’m definitely not Kelly Brook in the boob department. I think the words my consultant used were ‘quite small breasts’…

Chemotherapy is usually a given if you are a young woman with breast cancer. They want to try and give you the best chance possible to live a long and happy life essentially. The main purposes of chemo are to try and blast any other stray cancer cells that may have done a runner from the original tumour and be floating around the body and also to try and reduce the risk of recurrence.  Chemo is nasty and makes you feel like shit, but I’m happy to lay back and take all the NHS has got to try and give this thing an almighty battering.

When they perform a lumpectomy they need to get what is called ‘clear margins’. This means that when tested, there are no stray cancer cells in any of the healthy tissue that has been removed with the lump. If there is, it can mean another lumpectomy. And if this then fails again, a possible mastectomy. So, not as straight forward as whipping the bugger out and stitching it up!

Breast reconstruction

A mastectomy means removing all the breast tissue. Essentially taking the whole boob off. I wanted to clear a few things up about mastectomies and reconstruction. Breast reconstruction after a mastectomy is not like having a boob job. You do not just get a ‘new boob’ Pamela Anderson style. Reconstruction is a lot more complicated than that. I’m not an expert but here is my limited knowledge about breast reconstruction:

One method of recon is to build a new boob from tummy fat. This wouldn’t be an option for me as I don’t have enough. Reckon they would be able to build about a nipple from mine

Another is an implant. However, if radiotherapy is required, an implant can’t be inserted at the same time as the mastectomy as the radiotherapy is likely to damage the reconstruction. In this case, something called tissue expander can be used. This involves inserting an empty implant which is gradually over a period of time filled with saline. This essentially stretches the skin and tissue so that an implant can be fitted at a later date. But then this means another lot of surgery later down the line. And obviously no feeling or sensation in that boob.

Or you can just go flat and wear your battle scars with pride.

There is also an operation that involves taking tissue and muscle from your back and reconstructing breasts from that. My friend Sarah, who will be having a double mastectomy and this op due to a gene fault, described it like this:

'They take muscle and tissue from your back. I think this is what I'm having. It's basically swung round from your back to front. So boob removed at front chunk taken from back, swung round to front and stitched in to the gap, and hole in back sewn together. Lovely!  

There are other options and I’ve definitely explained reconstruction very simplistically - its much more complicated than this, but as you can see, definitely not a boob job!

So there we have it. Some breast cancer facts and information. Please do click on the links I have put in this post to find out more as I am definitely no medic and no expert! i hope you have found this whistle stop tour through the land of breast cancer informative - please stop by again soon! 

Breast cancer awareness month malarkey.....

As many of you may know, October is breast cancer awareness month. Cue the saturation of the world with all things pink for four weeks.  But for what purpose? I mean, everyone knows about breast cancer right? It’s the most common cancer in the UK. Around 55,000 people are diagnosed with breast cancer each year. One in eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in their life time. The openness and honestly of celebrities like Kylie Minogue have ensured that breast cancer has appeared on the public’s antennae and stayed there.

I know that breast cancer awareness month provides excellent opportunities for charities to raise awareness about their services, to increase donations, gather support for campaigning work and to reach out to those who may be in need and I fully support that. I can’t help feel however, that sometimes the real, important messages about breast cancer get lost in the plethora of pink and tits. The amount of times I've heard 'well, its not that big a deal now a days is it?' scares me. And breast cancer is often sexualised like no other cancer – I refer to The Sun's Check 'Em Tuesday and the Playboy Club London's #bunniesinpink as examples.  I don’t even want to think about the photo of the ‘save second base’ t-shirt I recently saw on Twitter…

So, in the midst of all things pink, I want to provide you with some information and facts about breast cancer, some taken from brilliant websites like Breast Cancer Care and Cancer Research UK but also personal, from the heart stories. I want you to hear from young women who have been personally affected by breast cancer – about the signs they spotted, how they were diagnosed and their treatment.  I want to raise awareness that no one is too young to get breast cancer and that every young woman should be vigilant regarding any changes to her body.  I want you to hear from the heart what it means to be diagnosed with this disease and the effect that it has on your life. How all of a sudden you are plunged in to a whirlwind of tests, scans, results, hospital appointments and gruelling treatment that leaves you feeling like you no longer recognise yourself anymore and that the person you once were has been lost forever.  That breast cancer is not all ribbons, fluffy teddies and pink tea towels. 

But I also want you to share in the pride and awe that I feel regarding my wonderful friends from the Younger Breast Cancer Network. Many of these women I have never met in person but yet every day I know they are just a keyboard away, willing to take the time to respond to any fears, concerns or rants despite battling through diagnosis, treatment and the aftermath of breast cancer themselves.

So, during the month of October, as my contribution to breast cancer awareness month, I will be featuring a number of personal stories written by some of these wonderful women on my blog. I hope you find them as bloody fantastic as I do.

Frightening Fun-raiser!

Please come and support our night of fundraising for two amazing charities!

Breast Cancer Care is a fantastic charity and is the only one I have found that provide information, support and resources specifically for younger women with breast cancer (we are a rare breed!).

Breakthrough Breast Cancer carries out cutting edge research focused entirely on breast cancer. Their scientists are discovering how to prevent breast cancer, how to detect it earlier and how to treat it more effectively.

DJ is booked to play a mix of 80s, 90s and current chart.

Event ticket price includes a donation to the charities and Halloween cocktail.

Raffle prizes include:

• A tour of the Houses of Parliament and afternoon tea in the historic Pugin tea room with Jack Dromey MP.
• Cut and finish with the style director at Nicky Clarke in the Mailbox.
• VIP Pamper party at home for four people with a choice of treatment each.
• Two guest passes for Virgin Active Gym in Solihull.
• 2 x vouchers for a needle piercing at Dollyrockers Piercing
• Selection box of fireworks worth £150.
• Two tickets to Embraced Burlesque Caberet Show plus a bottle of wine.
• Two tickets for the Midland Arts Centre cinema.
• Bottle of Veuve Cliquot champagne.
• Bottle of prosecco.
• Marvel Collectors Edition Monopoly game from Oggames.
• Two tickets for a production at the Crescent Theatre.
• A signed Peter James novel.
• Bottle of rose wine.
• 15 consecutive days of unlimited yoga at Yoga Haven Birmingham
• Two lots of 3 personal training sessions at Boxfit Birmingham worth £75 each -
• £20 voucher to use at Beauty for Queens
• Three crossfit classes at Crossfit Digbeth
• Two passes for Adventure Island Mini Golf at Star City.
• Mancine body product hamper worth £80.
• Make up goody bag with lip balm, lip glitter and Christian Dior Mascara

Raffle tickets are £2 each or 3 for £5.

If you would like to donate or buy raffle tickets but you aren't able to make the event you can do this here - http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/frighteningfun-raiser
Please e-mail me on becswift@yahoo.co.uk or contact me via this blog if you donate for raffle tickets.

Our chemo 5K!!!

This post is a little delayed as I've felt a bit rough over the last few days. I'm learning that the feeling rubbish bit of chemotherapy kicks in for me around day six. I've had a couple of days of feeling pretty tired and low and basically just wanting to stay in bed. You can't quite pinpoint exactly what it is that doesn't feel right. It's kind of everything. You just feel generally a bit shite. Bit floaty, sicky, headachy and low. A bit meh.

Anyway, back to something positive - we did it! We ran a 5 k race after our second chemotherapy treatment!

For those of you who know me, you'll know that running has been a big part of my life for the last two and a half years. I had recently started training for another half marathon when I was diagnosed with breast cancer. One of my first thoughts after my diagnosis was 'well there goes that idea'. I really struggled with the thought that one of the things this cancer would be robbing me of was the level of fitness that I had built up over the last couple of years.

Running is my way of coping with things. Some people turn to food, drunk or drugs but my way is running. Probably doesn't sound as fun though right? I continued running after my diagnosis and have kept it up since chemotherapy started. Its harder and I'm covering less distance but I'm still doing it. I made a deal with myself that no matter how unlike running I felt during my treatment I would make myself get out there, even for just a short one.

When I decided to enter the Big Fun Run 5K in Birmingham it seemed a little bit silly. The race was four days after my second chemotherapy treatment and I had no idea how it was going to affect me. I hadn't actually entered when I mentioned it to Sarah, my friend from the Younger Breast Cancer Network UK. The idea was met with her usual unfailing enthusiasm and we agreed to run it together and also to raise money for Breast Cancer Care and Cancer Research UK in the process. So our entries were made and the fundraising page created.

I'll be honest, it gave me a bit of a buzz. Well, a lot of one. It gave me something to focus on other than cancer and made me feel like I was doing something useful rather than being a massive burden to my family, friends and the National Health Service.

We completed the race in our pink tops and me with my new pink running hat to hide my chicken fluff stubble head - Sarah in 26 mins 30 secs and me in 25 minutes and 25 seconds (yes seems very fast but it was actually about 4.7K rather than 5K but lets not dwell on that bit!). Then we went and ate cake, which was well deserved I reckon!

We also featured in the Birmingham Post, although they got the distance massively wrong, and completed a bit of a photo shoot for the Birmingham Mail. The photos consisted of some very silly 'running' photos and catalogue type shoots of us grinning and staring off in to the distance. The story hasn't been featured yet but we'll let you know when it is!

We've been blown away by the generosity of the people we know and some that we don't. So far we've raised £1510 for Breast Cancer Care and Cancer Research - two fantastic charities. Breast Cancer Care have been fantastic since the point of my diagnosis by providing excellent information resources, a volunteer from their Some Like Me Service and also pointing me in the direction of the Younger Breast Cancer Network UK where Sarah and I met. We are also attending their Younger Women Together two day event this weekend, organised to provide information, support and networking opportunities for younger women with breast cancer. We are quite a rare breed and I don't know of another charity who provides the level of support and information for us that Breast Cancer Care does. Cancer Research UK save lives with the work that they do and they provide some pretty good information and resources too.

If you would like to donate to these fantastic causes you can still do so here.

Thank you again to everyone for the positivity and support that you've given us. It really does make all the difference. xxx

Support and Superwomen

So I’d like to give this next post a slightly different flavour and focus on some of the positives (yes, you read that right) since my diagnosis of breast cancer.

One of the first things I did after my diagnosis was tell as many people as I possible. I know that not everyone deals with it like that, but I just wanted it out of the way. I felt there no way I could just pretend that everything was ok and hide it from everyone around me. In my head I now had a massive neon pink sign (yes pink – it’s the colour of breast cancer don’t you know?) above my head pointed at me saying ‘person with cancer right here’.

I had some lovely, supportive responses and have continued to receive lovely kind messages since then from a number of those people. I’ve had offers of help and displays of kindness from some unexpected sources.

Two days after my diagnosis, I decided last minute to run the Race for Life, which was an incredibly hard thing to do. It was only 5k which is a very easy distance for me physically but the emotional toll was far worse. I will admit a few tears were shed before the race began. I received some incredibly generous donations from people for my efforts, all of which go to Cancer Research UK, an organisation that works continuously to find new and pioneering treatments for cancers like mine.

I’ve had some frank conversations with friends about how much support I’m likely to need over the next few months. I very rarely ask for anything from people, both emotionally and practically, so this is going to be very hard for me. But luckily, I have some amazing friends who I trust to be there for me at the hardest time of my life.

One of the first things I did when I was diagnosed, was call Breast Cancer Care who run a service called Someone Like Me. They can put you in touch with a volunteer who is a few years down the line since their diagnosis, but in a similar position to you. Within a couple of hours I had a call from a volunteer who was diagnosed when she was 30 (she is 34 now) and had an incredible frank and open conversation with her which made me feel so much better (well as much as I could do at that time). She now rings me regularly and it is so helpful to discuss what I’m going through with someone who has been there and has come out the other side.

She also mentioned a network on Facebook for younger women with breast cancerFacebook network for younger women with breast cancer. Yes! Facebook is actually good for more than just repeated updates about what you’ve had for dinner, your child’s toilet habits and photos of drunken nights out! The network has over a 1000 members now and is quite possibly the best thing I have ever found on the internet. Until now, I have never appreciated how wonderful women are and the strength and support that they can provide. These women are all at different stages of their journey – at diagnosis, active treatment and beyond and are going through some awful times but still have the time and energy to speak to others about their fears and concerns.

I recently met up with a member of the network I had been talking to for a while, an incredibly brave lady (she won’t like me saying that!) who was diagnosed on the same day as me. It was wonderful to meet her, albeit only for an hour before she went wig shopping. However, I had a massive anxiety attack and ended up throwing up all my tea and cake outside the café. But if anyone is going to understand it’s her right? This is the beauty of that network. There is no judgement, no concern or question is too silly or too small and there is always someone there to talk to day or night. They truly are Superwomen and I am so, so grateful that I have found them.