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Since being diagnosed with breast cancer in March my little world has been turned on its head, there are no words to describe the overwhelming emotional train wreck that is a cancer diagnosis with your name on it. This is where you can check in on my progress so that those I love can hopefully feel a little closer and become part of my journey back to vibrant health.

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Thank you so much for all your love and support x


Tuesday 14 May 2013

Bless me Father for I have sinned..... it's been two weeks since my last update...

Eh, three hail Marys and a decade of the rosary there Aisling and mind it doesn't happen again.....
I thought we'd start at the very beginning of all of this and get some of you who haven't a clue what's going on up to speed.. Where to begin, well, I first noticed the lump in my right breast around September of last year, around the time that my dearest mam Milly was being diagnosed with late-stage lung cancer. I thought and hoped that it was benign and would go away and put it to the back of my mind and focused on her.....ye feckin eedjit says you, indeed, but I was so consumed with the possible death of my mother and the all encompassing cancer swamp that had taken over my family, that I simply couldn't imagine another Mul with cancer. Milly fought with grace and was an absolute champion is every respect but her time was up and my darlin' dad Pat Mul was beckoning to her, so off she went.....
A month and a half later I'm back in San Francisco and trying to get on with it, finally I tell someone about the lump and being a dear friend she urges me to get it looked at, I get a breast biopsy and wait for the results, the whole week praying for a benign outcome..........Coming home from work on the train I get the call from the doc who casually tells me the results came back as cancer. I had the textbook response of hearing the words but not actually taking them in....I have always danced my way through everything and this time was not to be the exception....I can't have cancer I feel fine... as I think this I fade back into hearing him talking about mastectomy, chemotherapy, radiation and the whole shebang, going on and on, barely giving me a second to digest the news, I start to hyper-ventilate and then I start crying, let's just say that was not an easy evening.
It's early March and I begin the merry go-round of out-patient visits, firstly to San Francisco General and then onto my second opinion at the nationally renowned UCSF hospital, where I felt I had found a better fit with my oncologist and surgeon. It's been two months of solid testing, 20 mammograms, 20 breast biopsies, CT scans, bone scans, MRIs and PET scans, which ended last Friday with a chest core biopsy, where they had to go through the lungs from the back and carefully avoid piercing the aorta, terrifying and painful and lets just say I'm glad to have a fully inflated lung and an intact aortal wall. AMEN !!!!
That little something that showed up in a scan near the heart will hopefully come back as benign and we'll know exactly what we're dealing with.
My life has been a whirlwind of work, hospital visits, online research, reading books, talking to survivors and experts and generally trying to catch up as fast as I can, all the while trying to remain calm.... It's no joke folks, this pile of cancer doo-doo is a full-time job and it truly takes over your life. Most days I feel strong but sometimes my heart and mind is taken over with fear and negative thinking, which is a killer with cancer, so I turn it around by imagining myself beaming with health, all this behind me and living life completely.

My diagnosis thus far is stage three, (based on the size of the lump) triple negative http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple-negative_breast_cancer, lobular breast cancer. My team At USCF want me to do 5 months of chemo, followed by a lumpectomy.
I have decided to step back from the pressure to rush into chemotherapy and weigh up all my options, do the research and figure out which course of action will serve my health and recovery best. As many of you know I have always been a firm believer in healing and alternative medicine and am looking for a whole mind, body and spirit approach to this illness, getting a broad and full picture as to why this happened and how to prevent it from ever recurring. To me just accepting one doctors opinion as the ultimate truth without looking any deeper or looking at alternative options is unwise, so while I'm open to both traditional and alternative methods, I need to make the right choice for me, for my body and ultimately my survival.

It's easy to get obsessed with the pathology and treatment of a disease, lord knows it's all the oncologists focus on, what's easy to forget is that there is a person underneath the diagnosis and treatment plans, who is going through a lot, so next time you speak to someone going through this or any serious illness, instead of focusing on the illness and the treatment plan, maybe ask them how they are and leave space for an answer.....

Well my loves now you're all caught up, it's time to rest so I'll sign off for now, sending you all loads and loads of open hearted love,
Aisling xxx


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