First blog post from Devonshire Sofa Central...

Dear friends, first 'test' blog today so here goes!

A very belated first day of school term proud mum pic of my wonderful boys attached...

plus photo below (taken by Georgina 'Bailey' Wright) of my totally amazing hand crocheted blanket (created by the very talented Morag Wishart, thank you honey) which is currently used daily in my new capacity as ‘professional’ couch potato...

So having made the mistake of opening up my email account and the camera card at the same time, been at this for a while and think I now need another lie down and more pain relief!

On the update front, still very sore and tired. On the docs advice yesterday I changed the Tramadol to Dihydrocodeine which gives me a weird spaced out feeling but I'm in much better fettle. Tramadol made me very down and a real nightmare patient for Michael and my mum who's staying at the mo - no there hasn't been a murder but they've had a few daughter\wife from hell 'moments' as I'm not an easy patient (which I know many of you will be laughing at as you expected this already!!) however both Michael and Mum are doing a really fab job of putting up with \ helping me :)

The care nurse did say that I would need to really take it easy this time due to the mastectomy being a bigger op than the lumpectomy and being under general anaesthetic twice in less than a month. Easy for her to say but am so tired at the mo can't do much anyway...

Managed a very short walk to Nicky's new coffee shop 'Cognito' at the end of the road once this week and it was very tiring but worthwhile (scones to die for!) Due to my tiredness creating a goldfish span of attention, I have indeed become a TV addict and am working my way through Game of Thrones series 4 and a US comedy series called 'Community' - thank goodness for Lovefilm and Netflix. Julia's going to drop off a box of West Wing DVD's this week as it comes highly recommended. Can't recommend a WLD in the afternoon highly enough ;)

Now just waiting to hear from the consultant about an appointment for this week or next to go through the second pathology report and then hopefully get a date to meet the oncologist to find out about starting chemo which should definitely start within 3-4 weeks. Its been exactly two months since diagnosis, which I would describe as having been weirdly a both strange and wonderful time.

For the record, I'm not bothered about losing a breast, let's face it I didn't have much anyway in that department and its a really small price to pay if it gets rid of the cancer and keeps it away.

This afternoon was a second post hospital snail's pace outing, this time to the school to wave Elliot off on his P7 trip to Dalguise for his activity week. Delighted to report he packs just like his mother (i.e. everything plus kitchen sink in rucksack!). It doesn't seem like minutes since I was waving him off on his first nursery trip 8 years ago so there's bound to be a repeat of the Kleenex moment from me but this time resulting in total embarrassment from him (well as my friend Claire always says, if we're not embarrassing them we're not doing our job properly!).

A really massive thank you for all your supportive emails, text messages and cards, they are very very much appreciated I can assure you so please keep 'em coming in spite of this new 'blogging' gadget!

Looks like you can post comments on this blog too so feel free to try it out and we can learn this new technology together. Tell me if there's anything obvious I've missed, settings to change or questions you'd like to ask etc.

The wonder that is my friend Nicky has just arrived with scones fresh out of the oven so eating beckons once again - this is now also a daily high frequency activity I may add... (it's replaced the now non existent wine consumption....yes shocking I know).

So onwards and upwards, sending lots of love to you all

Skerry

x

Probably won't do this everyday as this has worn me out this morning but will try and do an update at least once a week if this goes ok...

PS a huge thank you to you Becky in Perth, Australia for setting this blog up for me - supporting me from over 4000 miles away, fantastic :)