Another year on…

Facebook memories! It has its upsides and its downsides. Upsides being it reminds me of that happy sparkle I had in my eyes and that genuinely happy smile I had pre-cancer. Downsides being it also reminds me of how life has changed since my first diagnosis in 2013, and how unwell I’ve been and all the crap life has thrown at me over the last four or so years.

This time last year, I was genuinely feeling well. I was working in Sports Administration and we were in the throws of the 2016 Rio Olympic Games! I was busy, I didn’t have time to be sick. South Australia’s home grown talent Kyle Chalmers had just broken Australia’s 48-year drought in the men’s 100m freestyle to win GOLD! It was an exciting time for us, and I was busy hassling his coach to make sure Kyle would be available to attend our one big awards event of the year. Surely I would earn some brownie points getting Kyle to attend our event, and that I did, as well as Anna Meares! I was pretty chuffed with myself. In fact, out of the approximate 12 awards we had to hand out, I had managed to get 11 of the award winners to attend on the night, which was a first for many years. I was proud of myself.

Photo: Me with gold medallist and swimming superstar Kyle Chalmers at the event I organised. In this photo, despite knowing I had cancer again and was facing more major life-altering surgery, I still managed to smile, I was proud of myself for powering through!

So I was working 24-hours a week, being kept occupied with the Rio Olympics and taking charge of our major event for the year. I was looking at increasing my hours and trying to get back to full-time again. I was hitting the gym about four times a week to regain my strength and fitness. I was finally back on track after an 18-month hiatus to beat my first cancer diagnosis.

Working in elite sport is a very high paced environment and I had to schedule all my routine medical appointments and tests on Wednesdays, which was my only day off during the week. People were jealous that I “only” worked a 24-hour week, that I had every Wednesday off, but let me tell you, my “days off” were not fun ones… and I was also struggling to get by financially by only working 24-hours a week. If I could manage a normal 37.5 hour week, I would have done it. There was nothing “lucky” at all about my situation.

If Bowel Cancer is going to return, it generally does within the first two years. I had reached the two and a half year mark without recurrence and I had become complacent. I was still keeping up with all my tests and scans to monitor my condition, but the very real feeling of “scanxiety” had definitely subsided, finally!!

That was until a routine CT scan showed a “new mass”. It could’ve just been some scar tissue from the copious amounts of surgeries that I’ve had. I wasn’t worried. However when my surgeon’s office rang telling me that my surgeon wanted to see me, I knew it wasn’t going to be good news. He always told me over the phone that my CT scans were fine, so the fact he wanted to see me, I thought are you f**king kidding me!?!?! This isn’t happening!!

I took Mum to that appointment, and sure enough, he delivered the “recurrence” news and I lost it. I was in absolute disbelief. He wanted me to have a PET scan to confirm it. I went into work the very next day, put on a brave face, and didn’t tell a soul. I went about my business and did my job to the best of my ability.

On another “day off” I had a PET scan and because the “new mass” hadn’t been highlighted as anything to be concerned about, I was absolutely elated and cried happy tears. Thank goodness – a false alarm, talk about dodging a bullet.

However, when I went to see my surgeon again, proud of my PET scan results, he said he was still concerned. Far out. I had gone from being absolutely beside myself, to elated, to now worried again!! Again, I fronted up to work the next day, put my game face on and did my job.

On another “day off” I went into hospital and was put under an anaesthetic so that my surgeon could do a biopsy. A biopsy meant he could get some tissue of this “new mass” and test to see whether it was cancerous or not. I was worried but still hanging onto hope that because the PET scan didn’t highlight it as being a real issue, that maybe it would be OK, it would be benign or just scar tissue.

I went to my next appointment on my own because I was convinced it was all going to be fine. But in true Sherie fashion, and my history of being delivered the dreaded “cancer” word while I am on my own, it was confirmed that yes – it was definitely cancerous. Sometimes PET scans can come back as a “false negative” – and that’s what it did to me unfortunately.

As my surgeon told me the extent of the surgery that I needed to have – one of the biggest I’d had yet – I was in such disbelief. I was feeling fine, how can I have a new tumour?? I was too busy to be sick again! I haven’t told many people this, but as I left that appointment to cross the road to get to my car, I saw a bus coming and for a split second I thought about stepping out in front of it. But you know what the sickening thing was that stopped me?? I thought, knowing my luck, I will survive being hit by a bus and will only end up worse off than I already am. How bad is that?

Again, I fronted up to work the next day, I had so much work to do. Our awards evening was closing in, I had too much to organise and too many things to focus on, to the point where I delayed my surgery so that I could finish organising the event. How I managed to pull it all off, I don’t know, but I did, all while knowing I had cancer again and I was about to go under the knife for the billionth time!

November 29th, 2016 I underwent major 8-hour surgery. I spent one week in intensive care and one week in the surgical ward. I was told it would be a 6-8 week recovery, but secretly I was hoping I would recover earlier considering I was relatively fit and healthy going into this operation, which is a far cry from my previous operations where I’ve been incredibly frail and sick.

However, as we now all know, that initial 6-8 week recovery period is long gone! I am now in my 9th month of recovery, and often wonder if my surgeon was meant to say 6-8 MONTHS, instead of weeks?? Nope, he definitely meant weeks.

So what’s delaying my recovery? A few things. I was discharged from hospital with an infection in my surgical wound. I have been plagued with infection since that operation and most of it would’ve been preventable had I received proper care in the hospital to begin with, and had the then home nurse/s not left dressing inside of the surgical wound thus resulting in sepsis and a second operation over Easter.

My poor body has just been battered with surgeries and with infections. I am now finally on IV antibiotics which I can only HOPE will rid me of this infection once and for all. If the infection clears, the surgical wound will have a better chance to heal. The hyperbaric chamber oxygen therapy is also being used to help my wound to heal.

As there is always “something” when it comes to me – my hyperbaric chamber oxygen therapy will be stopping at the end of next week and I am forced into three weeks break, basically prolonging my recovery unfortunately. There’s nothing I can do about it, as it’s due to the move to the new hospital. There’s a new chamber at the new hospital and staff need to have their training and move equipment across. It’s not their fault, but it is definitely frustrating on my end. I am however trying to look at the positive in this three week break. I am starting to experience some “Barotrauma” symptoms, which include headaches that are lasting all day, everyday. Blood is present when I blow my nose, and my eye site is a lot more blurry than normal. Thankfully all this is reversible once treatment finishes. I am turning my thought process around and thinking this three week break will be what I need. The break will do my sinuses, eyes and head the world of good and help them recover, so that I don’t feel as shit anymore. Plus I will only have eight sessions left once I go on the break, but they will round that up and give me 12 sessions after the break which is a clean two weeks. So the hard yards are already done, I will be on the home stretch once I go back for more.

So much more has happened in the last year or so, but a lot of it isn’t really worth me rehashing and bringing to the surface again as I don’t feel it will do me any good. So until next time……. thank you for reading 🙂