Writing Workshop - Tainted Blood

Mini sometimes I look at you and it is like looking at a mini me in the mirror.  My boy, you are going to have to learn to control that temper of mine that you have.  That boiling anger that I can see clearly inside.  You are going to have to grow and learn how to engage the brain, before putting the mouth in gear, learn to count to ten before erupting into the volcano of fury you can be.  It isn't going to be easy, I have said some hurtful things in my time due to my bad temper, but one thing that being a mother has brought me is a modicum of patience.

Maxi, I see a lot of your daddy in you, your intelligence, you willingness and your kindness are all wonderful traits of your Father.    You also have your Daddy's love of all sports and it is so lovely to see you get involved and enjoy being outside.

You both fill me with so much joy, you have the best and worse of the two of us and with that all the potential to be a unique individuals.  You can mould and sculpt the traits you have inherited and turn them in to something new, something special.   This is all in your hands, they are your choices to make.  All I can do is influence you to be the best you can.

There is something though that is out of our hands, that we have to leave to destiny, to fate and to this end I pray every night to a God that I am not sure exists.  I pray that you do not carry the same genetic "spelling mistake" that I do.  I have stopped trying to see who you most take after physically in the hope that I can not passed on my tainted blood, in addition to those wonderful brown eyes you both have.  

I hope that the small top lip you both have doesn't mean that you too are susceptible to the genetics that have made me make the hard decisions I have.  

People often say "doesn't Mini look like you and Maxi like his Daddy" and each time iIhear it, I cry a little inside.  I hope that looking like me, doesn't mean that you too are sentenced like to to worry, wonder and pray.

This is my burden, mine and Daddy's and we try and carry it with dignity and grace.  I graciously accept all complements about you both, for you are my pride and joy and together we will deal with what my tainted blood will bring.  I love you.

This post as wrote for Sleep is for the Week's writing workship, I chose promt 1. What qualities or traits do you think your children have inherited from you, you partner, or even from your extended family?

Raffle in Aid of Cancer Research

My wonderful talented and very clever friend Abi from Bub's Bears and Mutterings from the moor decided to start a raffle for one of her fantastic bears in aid of Cancer Research

The response has been overwhelming and she is well on her way to reaching her target of £200, but offers of more prizes have been flooding in, so below is a selection of what else you could win.

 

Prudence the chicken made by Claire

A Book of weird and wonderful short stories by Abi's husband

A Tea Cosy from Kelly

Beautiful handmade cards from Al

 A stunning cushion by Amber

An amazing reversible adults apron from Julie

 

 

A handmade button heart from me!

So please, please, please make a donation and you could be in with a chance to win.  All we ask is that your donation is over £1.

http://www.justgiving.com/Abby-and-friends

I will come back to haunt you - Writing Workshop

I was hot, yes I know I was in a hospital and they are always hot, but normally the dressings clinic is OK. 

Yes the window is open, but I know that I am a little off, just not right, I can not put my finger in it and it is about to get worse.

The nurse has returned with all the things she needs to remove these stitches and I will be so glad to see them go.  No blue thread making  my chest look like a zip, no more pulling and pressure as the skin tightens around them.  I am so happy to see them go, the boys less so, there is something about the gruesomeness of it all that makes them love them so.

Anyway, I take a deep breath and hold on tight to MadDad's hand, "you might feel slightly nauseous" says the lovely nurse, I just press her to get it all over and done with.  I don't notice the pain to be honest, I am too busy concentrating on the drip of perspiration that is going to fall off my nose. 

"All done" she tells us chirpily, "you have healed pretty well, apart from one spot on the right, I am just going to get some dressings for it" and off she pops behind the curtain.  The curtain fabric that I have become so familiar with, the white one showing local landmarks, The Transporter Bridge, The Tees Barrage and High Force.

"I don't feel right" I say quietly to MadDad, "I am so hot and look my chest is so, so red".  "Lets ask to see a doctor, one of the ones that know you".  As soon as the nurse returns, I insist that I need to see my Consultant.  "He is in surgery" she tells me, so arranges for me to see his SHO Tom.  Tom is great and listens to my concerns and notes that I am a little flushed (normally I am as pale as a vamp) and also yes my chest area is slightly red.  He draws a line around the red area and disappears leaving me and MadDad behind that curtain again.

Cheerfully he pops his head back from the said curtain "I am arranging to have you admitted for observation overnight, they are just sorting you a bed".  I look at my watch it is 2pm, so I agree with MadDad that he will pop home and get me a bag and arrange for the boys to  be looked after longer and then return as soon as he can, whilst I grab my clothes, pop them on and make a hasty exit to the dressings clinic waiting area.

I grab a magazine and start to read, I am still hot, although I am getting a nice draft from the fan.  I take off my coat and scarf (I haven't removed a scarf since my mastectomy, it is a shield, it makes me feel as though I have breasts).  I am slowly getting hotter and hotter.  I ask the receptionist for a glass of water, she take one look at me and calls a nurse over.

It is 4pm and they have found me a bed, the nurse comes and asks me to follow her, I hear her voice, but my legs wont do as I tell them, I stumble.  I keep trying to get up and walk after her, but I cant and neither can I find my voice.  I see MadDad arrive in the corridor and he sees me and drops the bag and come over and gets me up.  Together we stumble to a bed.  I hear him talking to me, but I can not concentrate on the words.

MrsMad "wake up, you must wake up", "We need to find a vein now", "her temperate is 40.7 degrees, we need to strip her" and then I feel pain, pain like never before, they are holding me down and trying to get blood from my groin, I can hear a woman screaming in what seems like the next ward, but no that noise, that scream, it is me.  I feel so detached until I hear the words,"her kidneys are failing, her organs are shutting down, I think we are dealing with Sepsis"  Sepsis, that one word does it, it drags me from behind the curtain back in to the real world.  My dad died of Sepsis, I will not succumb to the same fate as my father.  What about Maxi's first nativity.

I hear myself speak, before I even say the words "Do not let me die, please do not let me die, I want to see my children grow up, I will haunt you forever if you let me die" and that is all I have to say on the subject and that is pretty much all I remember of that night.  The night when they opened all the windows on the ward (it was a chilly March night), had fans blowing on me, gave me the domestos of antibiotics, updated MadDad hourly of my progress (he had to return to the boys).

I don't remember my wounds splitting, or the discussions regarding surgery (I apparently begged them not to operate again, to leave it till my husband was with me), the waiting for an Intensive Care Bed.  That night I came the closest I have ever come to not surviving my ordeal, but my the morning I had started to get better.

I wish I could say it was as simple as that, but it really wasn't.  The sepsis left more scars, emotionally and physically that all the previous surgeries put together.  I spent 2 more weeks in hospital on iv antibiotics with a stoma bag over each wound.  The bags were replaced daily  and that was a trauma in itself, but the worst thing was watching my children suffer.  Maxi behaved impeccably and they were even allowed to remain in my room with me during meal session, but mini, poor mini.

He thought he had me back home, we hadn't expected Mummy to be whipped back in to hospital and hadn't prepared him for it and all he wanted was Mummy.  He withdrew, became clingy, stopped eating and sleeping.  Controlling the only aspects of his life that he could.  It was heartbreaking.

It has been a long and hard uphill struggle at times, but I am alive, thanks to the quick thinking of a great team of Doctors and Nurses and also my wonderful family.  With them by my side I can conquer anything.  Hard to think that this was just under a year ago,  We have come such a long way since then.

We may not have it all together, but together we have it all.

This post was inspired by promt 2 - Write about a time when you felt, or you felt someone you loved, was in real danger.

Dear So and So

Dear Breast Cancer
 

I found out you had took another member of the family yesterday. It makes me so sad and angry to see you focusing your attention of the female maternal line of my family. You are an evil shit and I will not succumb.

A tearful MadMum
--------------------------- 

 

Dear Mum

I am sorry that they (the powers that be) feel that you do not qualify for a stair life, but shouting at me isn't going to get you one either.

Your exasperated daughter
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Dear GP

Flu, what real flu, you have to be kidding me, what with vertigo too. How can I bloody manage to look after myself let alone anyone else this week.

A not very good sickly person
-----------------------------------

Dear Friend

Thank you from the bottom on my heart for going out of your way to take the boys to and from school and preschool this week. You have gone above and beyond.
 

An amazed and very pleased to have you MadMummy
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Dear MadDad

I am more than happy with my wonderful "Lucozade and ice cream marriage", hearts, flowers and candles are all all over rated anyway. Love you.

Lets have an early night (wink) MadMummy
---------------------------------------------------

Dear Maxi

I do hope I haven't passed on my fever to you dear, but with a temp of 39.9 it seems like a possibly may have.
 

An ever kissing MummyMad
--------------------------------

Dear School

Just stop already with the charity days. Yes the boys will come to school in sports wear and bring £1 each. Yes they will both walk, run or crawl a mile and I will give them more money and yes they need lose change as you are going to make a sports relief logo of coins in the school hall. I am happy for you to send begging letters, just don't tell the children how much you expect them to bring in

A skint parent
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Dear Brother

I know you are a man and I know she gets on your nerves, but just put up with mother this week please.
 

A stern older sis
-------------------

Dear Sleepiness

I could really do with you having a chat to you mate insomnia this week. I want to knock the sleeping pills on the head, but he isn't making it easy for me.

An in charge MadMummy
----------------------------

Dear Pain

Please see the above, I am going to manage so give me a break please.

A determined MadMummy
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Inspired by 3 bedroom Bungalow's Dear So and So.

Writing Workshop - What were you doing this time last year

 

It is karma that this prompt came up on this weeks workshop, as I have been discussing this with my wonderful friend Wendy (my homestart lady) today. We took the boys for a good old run out and about yesterday afternoon in the woodlands near home and stopped for a well needed pot of tea and scone, whilst the boys climbed trees outside the cafe.

It is nearly one year since my first breast surgery. I was frantically trying to fit everything in that I needed to. I have booked 6 weeks of Tesco Deliveries, a book of all the things the boys liked, ate, did and schedules. But specifically the one thing I was doing a year ago was writing letters.

I wrote 4 letters and 3, I will share with you, the one I wrote to MadDad is not and never will be for public consumption, but I wrote one each to the boys and one explaining why i was doing what I was.

Writing those letters was the hardest thing I had ever had to do, but I was so unsure of the outcome of the surgery and so scare of dying I just needed the boys to have something to hold on to if the worst happened.

Letter One - Why I am doing this

BRACA and its implications to us all as a family

I wanted to explain to you both why I am undergoing the surgeries I am and how it can or could impact on our lives, both individually and as a family.

History

My Aunty C (Grandma’s sister) died of cancer when I was younger and it was a really hard time. My cousins were in their teens and it was really hard on them. Then Aunty T contracted Primary Peritoneal cancer, which thankfully at this time is in remission. Whilst she was undergoing her treatment a blood sample was taken for genetic testing due to her older sister having died of cancer and also the link of peritoneal cancer to both breast and ovarian cancer.

We all were over the moon when she was given the news that she was in remission and that the treatment had worked, but this was tempered with the news that she had a “spelling mistake” in the gene that is responsible for Breast and Ovarian cancer. Grandma was offered a test for the same genetic fault and she too was found to be positive and had her ovaries removed.

As Grandma was positive, I too was offered a blood and DNA test to see if I too carried the spelling mistake. Your daddy and I discussed the implications and we decided to have the test in January 2008. 6 weeks later I was given the news I expected which was that I too was positive.

We met with a number of doctors and consultants and researched lots and lots and finally after lots of soul searching made the decision to have prophylactic surgery.

All the research I had done indicated that removal of the ovaries before turning 35 was most beneficial in reducing the risk of both ovarian and breast cancer, so in July 2008 I underwent surgery to remove my ovaries and fallopian tubes.

I made a super recovery, I was driving two days later and went swimming with both you boys the week later.

We also discussed the prospect of a double mastectomy and reconstruction with an oncologist and plastic surgeon. There were a number of reasons that I chose to have this operation, even though it is quite a major one.

· Breast cancer is very hard to diagnose before 40 even with annual mammograms or MRI’s as the breast tissue is denser the younger you are.

· My risk of breast cancer is an 85% lifetime risk; a mastectomy reduces it to about 6%

· It is harder to diagnose BC correctly on larger breasted ladies.

So based on these facts and after talking to people who have had breast cancer and treatment for it, we decided to go ahead with the operation and it is scheduled for 27 February 2009.

There is a risk that I still may get an associated cancer and so will need to remain vigilant, but at least this way I am not living with a ticking time bomb.

The Future

Due to the operation I am having, I will need further operations in the future, but these will be a lot smaller and less risky.

One of the things that does upset me is that there is also a possibility that you both carry the “spelling mistake” or mutation too and this will have implications in your health and also the health of any children you may go on to have. You will both be offered the test at 16 and can make the decision yourself if you want to find out.

I hope that the way medicine is moving forward that the gene is now isolated that it can be repaired and that you will not even need to make any decision about your or future children’s health.

I am doing this so that we can all have a future as a family, so that I can watch you grow, develop and change without the worry that I may not be around much longer.

Maxi Mads Letter

Dearest Maxi

I so hope that you do not have to read this letter, but if you are it means that something terrible has happened.

I wanted you to know just how much you mean to me and how much I love you and your brother and daddy too.

You bring me such joy and amazement everyday and sometimes terrify me with your ability to remember the littlest thing. You always know what to say to make me smile and are the most amazing son a mother could have asked for.

I had a challenging pregnancy with you and then an eventful birth followed. You were a beautiful baby. I and your daddy were so sure that we would think you looked wonderful no matter what and we were right, but you defiantly prove the rule that the sum of the whole is greater than the two parts.

Sleep was not something you blessed me and daddy with and you gave us quite a scare when at 4 months old you developed breathing difficulties and have to be hospitalised and helped to breath. You were a fighter and pulled through, only to go downhill again a month later (the week before your baptism), but again you made a fantastic recover and got out of hospital the night before we travelled back to R for your joint Christening with V.

Your little brother Mini was born when you were 15 months old and all of a sudden you went from being an only child to being a big brother and you were and still do look after “your baby” and “Lee Lee” as you used to call him.

You have a natural ability for mathematics and puzzles and often can do them faster than me (not that I am any good at them).

I have always wanted for you to be happy and to enjoy life, to not be too burdened with the worries before your time. I want you to have a happy and carefree childhood and have enjoyed spending time on the beach with you and also taking you swimming on a weekly basis, in fact you are and always have been my water baby. You say you would like to be a “surfer dude” and will have all the rad moves.

You can be quite challenging, but that it down to the fact that you are bright as a button and if not kept occupied then can be very mischievous. Infact once you took all the glitter out of the craft cupboard and decorated the house.

You love your food and I love cooking for you and we have had great fun growing our own veg and fruit. We have a messy, but happy time in the kitchen baking and cooking together. We like to make muffins and pizza together and we love to all eat at the table as a family.

You can use a computer better than me and can beat all of us on the wii at MarioKart.

I have been lucky to have been able to remain off work and spend lots of time with you, watching you grow and develop, but also influencing (hopefully positively) the person that you are going to be.

I would like you to remember that you were born of love and that I love you more than words can express. You have brought me so much joy and laughter. I am sure that you will grow up to be a fine man.

Remember to keep helping round the house, learn how to iron and cook and you will be a real catch. If you can be half the man your daddy is then I will be happy.

e have wanted to instil in you manners, morals and a sense of kindness and compassion. I would like you to take a look at the world and look for the best in it and in people and try to stay positive, even when times may be hard.

I would like you to try and develop a deep and constant friendship with your brother, family is important. It was the reason we return to the North East from Reading where you were born. So please keep in touch with all of them.

I hope the rest of your life is everything you want it to be. Hard things can and will happen and I know you will find ways to survive, be strong and learn. Daddy and Mini will be great people to grow up with, lean on, rely on (and argue with sometimes!). I hope you will have a group of special friends to trust and eventually someone special to love. I hope you find work that satisfies and nourishes you. I hope your dreams come true – whatever they may be. And on the special days of your life, remember me and know that I am so proud of you and I am surrounding you with love.

It has been wonderful to share these years with you. I'm so sorry I couldn't stay. I'd have done anything to be able to. My love for you is so strong – nothing can break it, certainly not something as insignificant as death. My love will surround you, protect you, nourish you and support all the days of your life.

Mini's Letter

Dearest Mini

I so hope that you do not have to read this letter, but if you are it means that something terrible has happened.

I wanted you to know just how much you mean to me and how much I love you and your brother and daddy too.

You are a light in the dark sky, a fantastic son and a wonderful brother too. You made our family complete and have always enjoyed being my baby and had a special smile that you only use for me. When you were tiny you would only settle for me and secretly it was nice, especially as Maxi is such a daddy’s boy.

You were a very much planned for a wanted addition. We enjoyed Maxi so much that we wanted another child as soon as we could. We were blessed to have you so soon after trying.

You were gorgeous, just like your big brother, but you had a wonderful head of dark hair just like me. Again you were not a great sleeper initially, but I used to look at you and your big brown eyes and everything would be all right

You were and are such a placid little man, fitting right into our family, as though you had always been there. You were a proper little mimic and it seems as though you were talking from 6 months old and have a fantastic musical ability. You love to dance and you love The Wiggles more than you love me – or so you say. You love playing on your guitar and being a rock star.

As you grow, you seem to look more and more like your grandpa B and my one regret is that he has been unable to meet both you boys.

You have the ability to make even the sternest person smile and seen to bring happiness to everyone.

You have been blighted with my temper and are a stubborn as a mule refusing to back down and if you don’t want to do something, then boy do we all know.

You may not have wanted to sleep early on, but you love your bed and sleep now and cuddle all your bears in bed – there is Bear, Bear Bear, Spare Bear (to wash against the other), Moon Bear and Red Bear who all have to go to bed with you and you take two on car journeys too.

You love to colour and read books, you like to tell me the story, in addition to having them read for you. Your imagination is vast and filled with a childish innocence. You have great fun at toddlers when it is sticking and gluing. In fact you are filled with a wonderful creativity. You love watching the moon on a night.

I would like you to remember that you were born of love and that I love you more than words can express. You have brought me so much joy and laughter. I am sure that you will grow up to be a fine man.

I like to think that I have been blessed to have been able to spend the precious early years of your life with you and hope that I have managed make a positive impact on you and shape the person that you are going to be. I hope that you have a strong sense of belonging and that you always remember how much I love you.

Remember to keep helping round the house, learn how to iron and cook and you will be a real catch. If you can be half the man your daddy is then I will be happy.

We have wanted to instil in you manners, morals and a sense of kindness and compassion. I would like you to take a look at the world and look for the best in it and in people and try to stay positive, even when times may be hard.

I would like you to try and develop a deep and constant friendship with your brother, family is important. It was the reason we return to the North East from Reading before you were born. So please keep in touch with all of them.

I hope the rest of your life is everything you want it to be. Hard things can and will happen and I know you will find ways to survive, be strong and learn. Daddy and Maxi will be great people to grow up with, lean on, rely on (and argue with sometimes!). I hope you will have a group of special friends to trust and eventually someone special to love. I hope you find work that satisfies and nourishes you. I hope your dreams come true – whatever they may be. And on the special days of your life, remember me and know that I am so proud of you and I am surrounding you with love.

It has been wonderful to share these years with you. I'm so sorry I couldn't stay. I'd have done anything to be able to. My love for you is so strong – nothing can break it, certainly not something as insignificant as death. My love will surround you, protect you, nourish you and support all the days of your life.

Please don't call me brave.

Please don't call me brave, please don't tell me I have done the brave thing.  What I have done was the easy option, the only option I felt open to me.  It was Hobson's choice.  How could I live knowing the risk I had and not worry with every passing moment that a cancer was growing inside me.  No I took the easy way out.

Please don't call me brave.  I have never had to tell my children, my husband, my mother or my friends that I have cancer.  I have never had to make them feel that everything is going to be OK, when actually I want them to be positive and hold me and tell me we will fight this together.

Please don't call me brave.  I have never been put under a general anaesthetic not knowing how much breast I will have when I wake up, or the uncertainty that they cancer has spread to my lymph nodes.  I will never have the wait for pathology results to come through, whilst I try and get my head around what is left of me and why me of all people.

Please don't call me brave.  I have never had the chemotherapy, the drugs which are toxic and poisonous, which are delivered in a blue bag and slowly take away all my hair, my ability to sleep, to eat and to want to open my eyes on a morning.

Please don't call me brave.  I don't have a tattoo, so that the radiotherapy could be administered to the right stop each time I go to the hospital.  I don't have the lasting reminder of yet another treatment to rid my body of cancer.

Please don't call me brave, I don't have to wear a hat or a scarf to cover my bald head.  I don't worry that my children will cry when they see me, or that strangers will automatically know I am a cancer victim.  I don't have to live with peoples sympathy.

Please don't call me brave.  I don't have to have tamoxifen on  regular basis to try and ensure that the cancer does not return.  I do not have to ensure the regular visits to the cancer ward.  The side effects of the drug that is supposed to be helping my body.

Please don't call me brave.  I do not have to be cancer free for five years before I can say that I am officially cancer free or in remission.  I don't have to worry every time I shower if there is another lump in my other breast, if my life is slipping through my fingers like sand.

Please don't call me brave.  I am not looking at my children wondering if this is the last time I will feel their skin on mine, smell their delicious smell or stroke their wonderful hair.  I do not close my eyes at night wondering if they will open again.

Please don't call me brave.

This post was written for the weekly writing workshop at Sleep is for the week and was inspired by prompt 2 - What do people always wrongly assume about you? 

Genetics - Would you want to know?

Geriatric Mummy is in the very unfortunate circumstances of watching her beloved Father go rapidly downhill with early onset dementia and she has asked what other people would do in her situation.  I decided to do a post, rather than a comment, as it would be rather long, as this is a subject close to my heart.

I have a faulty gene, technically they call it a spelling mistake in the DNA and in mine and my family's case the issue is with the BRCA 1 gene, which for me due to my family history means that I had an 80% lifetime risk of breast cancer and a 60% lifetime risk of ovarian cancer.  It also means that I am more susceptible to a number of other cancers too.

Now to put this in to perspective, genetic breast cancer accounts for approximately 5% of the cases of breast cancer, so it is a relatively small amount and pretty unusually to get the positive result for the spelling mistake.

The reason I came to find out was down to my wonderful Aunt T, she was diagnosed with a very rare type of cancer, primary peritoneal cancer and during her treatment she was treated for a genetic spelling mistake, mainly due to my other Aunt dying from cancer and the history of cancer on my maternal side of the family.  We all concentrated on my Aunts recovery and through nothing of the results not coming back, so that when they did informing her of the genetic issues we were all floored.

Initially the NHS offered a genetic test to my Aunts remaining siblings, her daughters and my deceased Aunts children.  My mum chose to have the test, even though she is the oldest in the family.  She was diagnosed as carrying the spelling mistake too, which meant that the test was opened up to me and my brother.

MadDad and I received counselling from Macmillan even before we made the decision whether or not to have the test.  We were really lucky in the care we received and we were also both of the same opinion, that finding out if I carried the spelling mistake would enable us to take proactive actions against any cancers.

In all honesty I thought that I would be fine and to find out otherwise was a real punch in the solar plexus, but we decided that we would research all the options open to me and started meeting with consultants, cancer survivors, woman who had undergone mastectomies, nurses and anyone we could really.

I had a mammogram, an MRI, a colonoscopy, a gasgoscopy and an ultrasound before we had come to any conclusion about what we would do. Initially I decided to have my ovaries and fallopian tubes removed.  There were distinct advantages to having this operation prior to turning 35, both for the reduction in risk of ovarian cancer and also the fact that the changes in my hormones due to the operation would also reduce the breast cancer risk marginally.

I underwent this initially operation in July 2008 when Maxi was 3 and Mini was 2.  We both yearned for a larger family but decided on balance that it would be better to concentrate on the two we have rather than risk having anymore and subsequently developing ovarian cancer, especially as it is very hard to diagnose.

I was in hospital for one night, back driving the following day and swimming 4 days later.  It was a really easy recovery and I was very lucky indeed.

We were also discussing the possibility of breast cancer and also the diagnosis of this, which would hampered by the fact that I was a larger breasted lady (38GG), so after much consideration, deliberation and after taking as much advise as we could that I would have a bi-lateral prophylactic mastectomy with an immediate reconstruction.

I also decided that initially I would have a reconstruction with implants, as this meant the recovery should be quicker and less traumatic for us as a family as a whole.

Knowing that I have this spelling mistake, also leaves me with the knowledge that I may have passed this "bad blood" on to my two wonderful boys.  They will both be entitled to the genetic test at 18 should they wish and I will stand by whatever decision they make, but I also live in the hope that as they can now detect which gene the spelling mistake is in, that they make even be able to correct it by the time the boys are older.

After seeing what people with cancer go through, the chemo, the radiotherapy, the long term drugs to hopefully prevent the cancer returning, we are in no doubt that we made the correct choice for our family.

Yes what we have been through has been traumatic for the minimads, but the possibility of putting them through cancer and its treatment makes me feel physically sick.

In doing what I have, I have not wiped out my all my changes of developing cancer, but I have reduced the lifetime possibility drastically.  I understand that not everyone would have done what I did, but it was the right decision for me, I could not live year at a time just waiting for the cancer to show itself.  I was lucky in that I could take preventative measures, which is not always possible.

So Geriatric Mummy that is my blog post on it, although it hasnt answered your question about dementia. I feel for you I really do, to watch your father slip though your fingertips must be unbearable. No one can make this decision but you and your loved ones, but what ever decision you make, I will be here to support you and yours in any way I can.

I am guesting at Bah to cancer

Over at the fabtastic (yep that is a cross between fabulous and fantastic, as she is both) Stephanie's Bah to cancer this morning.

I am finally telling my story and my choices, if any one is interested.

Whilst you are there, please also take a look at Stephanie's  blog, which is a heart wrench, but positive story of her dance with breast cancer.

Remember that is is Brest cancer awareness month, so get checking those breasts.