Hi, my name is Sarah Crimmins. At age 28, when my daughter was only 11 months old (in December 2008), I was diagnosed with Grade 3 Invasive Breast Cancer.

Since then I have had a mastectomy of my left breast, gone through IVF, 4 months of Chemotherapy, 5 weeks of radiotherapy, hospitalised with meningitis and just recently in December 2009, I underwent a prophylactic mastectomy of my right breast with immediate reconstruction and a reconstruction of my left breast using the latissimus dorsi.

At the start of my cancer journey I spent hours on the internet searching for similar stories to my own and in particular, photographs of those women so I could gain an understanding of what I was about to go through and although I found some, I didn't find many.

This is the main reason for my blog. I wanted to be able to share my experience and photographs of my journey in the hope that it will help someone else with the decisions that they are about to face.

This is the story of the worst year of my life, from finding the lump all the way to my reconstruction surgery and beyond.........

Please feel free to post some comments, actually i would absolutely love it if you would xo

Over my little tantrum!

A few weeks ago when i wrote my last post I felt like i was losing it! I hated the world for a few days there and just couldn't stop myself feeling that way - i even had a few cigarettes around that time and i dont even smoke!!!

But I'm happy to say that i think i've snapped out of it because of the following;

  • I've spent some time with my aunty irene and brought her her wig ready for when she starts to lose her hair so i think i feel a bit more 'organised' if that's the right word for her. I just needed to spend some time with her and chat about everything that she was going through and to re-assure the both of us that she's going to be ok and she'll get through it. Aunty Irene and Uncle Roger were asking me some questions about side effects that i had during chemo and stuff like that and i was fine to answer those questions but when they started to ask if they put my hands in ice and asking what they did for me when the chemo was going through, i couldn't answer them. I honestly thought i was going to throw up so i had to ask them to change the topic. The same thing happened the next day when i was talking to her daughter. I just couldnt put myself back there in the chemo chair, trying to remember it going through my system and what the nurses were doing. It's still too fresh in my mind.

  • Another thing that happened is that I got my period! So out of the blue and unexpected but i'm definately glad that it came. My oncologist probably isn't going to be happy about it because i know that they would prefer for them to stay away for about 2 - 3 years but i've been on Tamoxifen for nearly a year and a half now so i feel its the best of both worlds. I hope that means i dont have to start having safe sex again because its been nice not having to worry about that ha ha ha. I'll tell my oncologist about my periods when i see her next but i'm not going to stress about it at the moment because she'll make me get a blood test and my veins are really bad at the moment after the issues with my arm. Anyway, i think all of the hormones with getting my periods etc were partly to blame for my meltdown too.

  • Turns out my arm was so swollen and sore because i had a small blood clot! Seriously, anything that can happen does to me! It wasn't DVT though which is the main thing, it was a small clot in one of my surface veins so i'm just on some asprin for preventative measures and it all should be fine. The swelling has gone down a lot already and i've had 3 ultrasounds and it seems to be fixing itself which is great news. Out of any scan/test you can have i'm more than happy to have ultrasounds cause it doesn't involve a needle so bring them on i say!

  • I was speaking to a friend of mine the other day (who was very supportive of me through my treatment) and she told me that her sister had recently been diagnosed with cancer of her sinus cavity which is an extremely rare cancer and very hard to treat. She was telling me that they had spent about $150,000.00 on her treatment already and had just indured a marathon 18 1/2 hour surgery to remove the tumor and give her a chance and as you can imagine it's been horrific for her and her whole family. Speaking to Laurelle about her sister was probably the main thing that snapped me out of my mood i think. Like she said, with breast cancer we can hide it on the days that we want to try and forget about it because people dont necessily have to know but with a cancer like her sisters, she can't and she's never going to be able to forget about it with being so disfigured by it. We've been through a hell of a lot with all the chemo and surgeries etc but she's right in that respect and made me appreciate how far i've come and where i'm at now.

So basically between all of these things, i think i've snapped out of my 'i hate the world' phase that i was in and i'm starting to feel much more like myself which is great. Good for my gorgeous Macy as well too.
Posted by Sarah Crimmins

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