Monday, 31 January 2011

31st January 2011

I took a couple of days off from writing, especially as Sunday is busy enough for us as it is.  The first three days after chemo were horrible, feeling sick, tired, and dizzy and not really wanting to eat properly.   Sunday morning was a new day with the immediate effects beginning to wear off.  By the evening I felt great and got through the meeting without any problems, even laughing and joking about the situation.
Nights are still the worst as one of the side effects is not sleeping well; I woke up 3 times before I finally got up.  There were no crazy dreams or anything like that, I was just wide awake.  Sometimes this is not good but sometimes I get things straight in my head as well.  Last night I realised that there are some programmes or news articles that I am now not comfortable with, especially on the subject of cancer.  I heard about a play in London where the main star has her breast removed only to discover that it had spread to the other side and it was terminal.  It left me wondering how I could cope if that happened to me.  How would my family and friends feel; I don’t have an answer to that. 
The great thing, though, as I was thinking about it the peace of God came to me with this “We are going to get through together with the grace of God, whatever happens I (God) am with you”.  It left me feeling much more peaceful.  Will I still have the same thoughts, probably yes, but this is beatable.
If you are like me when you hear of people with cancer; you feel very sorry for them and move on with your next train of thoughts.  When it happens to you; you realise that cancer is now part of your life.  Especially in the quiet times that is what you think about; it becomes so much part of you other things take a secondary place.  I want this to be different; I don’t want it to my every waking thought.  This is my prayer for today.

Friday, 28 January 2011

Friday 28th January

Had another rough night, why does my brain work overtime at night.  I woke up feeling quite sick this morning and it is only slowly wearing off.  I have had to take the tablets before the meals today.  Look on the bright side if I don't eat too much I can loose a bit of weight.

Life will get better so that is the good news. 

Thursday, 27 January 2011

Thursday 27th January

Woke up today feeling slightly sick; here we go again, body full of drugs.  This time it is taking longer to wear off so I will take the medicine that the doctor gave me half an hour before the next meal.  Also I had a bad night as I woke up 3 times with things buzzing around in my head:  I think the drugs are messing with my brain.  Having said this I do not want the cancer or the drugs affect or takeover my life so I am hoping to continue with life as normal as it can be.  No more hospital appointments this week, I hope.

Wednesday 26th January 2011

Had my second chemo today, feel like I need a sleep but that could be because I had to get up at 6:45am to get to the hospital, I think I will listen to my body.   It was much easier this time as I had to have my blood checked and they did it through the catheter which was far less painful.  I should explain here that they inserted a catheter into the right side of my body so that they can administer the drugs.   At the first set of chemo they had to find that the vein:  check that the catheter was in the correct place and draw blood first; guess what they missed a couple of times.  I am glad to say that the people who draw blood all day long got right the first time. 

Tuesday 25th January 2011

Made a decision, we went to the hairdresser’s and had my head shaved.  I officially do not have any hair on my head.  I feel so much better now that I have done it.  I have a wig but it won’t sit right so I can only wear it with a hat on top which is ok.  Due to go out to the English Language Group but one of them has had flu which means I cannot go.  I think this will happen time and time again during the chemo – but that’s life.

Sunday 21st January 2011

Hair now coming out in clumps, or should I should small handfuls,  I also notice I have my first bald or nearly bald patch, guess I will be wearing a hat tonight for the meeting.  Oh well at least I will save on hairdressing bill as I normally have to go once a month.  How do I feel?  The same as before, if this is going to happen I am beginning to wish that it would happen quickly as shedding hair all over the place is beginning to annoy me, bring it on.

Friday 21st January

From now on I will only be putting in daily stuff so it will be much shorter and easier to read.


Just came back from a great dinner with friends, beginning to lose hair in handfuls, had to apologise to people for shedding hair everywhere.  How do I feel about this?  Everyone says I have a real positive attitude but I do not feel very positive, I feel rubbish and that is the first part.  I hope I can handle this.

Home Again

If I heard it once I must heard it at least 10 times a day “mum don’t do that” or “mum, you shouldn’t do that”.  It was everything from hanging washing out, cleaning the fire and generally doing work around the house.   Somehow I felt my kids were getting their own back for all the times that I shouted at them.   I felt great, a bit lop-sided maybe but I had never felt better.  It was probably something to do with the drugs that I was given at the hospital but I had never slept better or eaten better for a long time.    Ruth, our elder daughter, arrived on the Tuesday after I got out of hospital on the Friday and so began a catch up time between two sisters.  Sarah explained all I couldn’t do, so I had two of them going at me.  Having said this I could not have managed without them. 
Life began to get back to normal; Bill returned home about a week after me and began his long recovery.  Ruth was able to be his nurse as well as mine – and to police his diet, activities, and medicines.   
Christmas arrived along with an invasion; we had all the family with us, as planned.  Everyone was a great help; doing far more than was even needed.  We even managed to have a New Year’s party at the house.  During the week between Christmas and New Year Bill, Ruth and myself went to the hairdresser’s to choose a wig; it was recommended that I get one while I still had my hair so they could see what my style looked like.  I was entitled to a free one within a certain price.  I tried on the “free one” and immediately could see why they were giving it away.  I looked and felt a complete idiot.  That again was where I had to blink back the tears as it came home to me what was going to happen within a very short time.  I finally got a wig, not great but not too bad.
They allowed me time to enjoy a family Christmas and then I started chemo on the 5th January; it was much better than I thought it would be.  The staff was great; all trying to speak English.  One even explaining that one of the chemicals went into me red in colour and it came out red in colour; you can guess where.  They also told me all the stuff that I shouldn’t eat, basically anything that isn’t cooked or you can take the skin off.  No salad, no apples and even more no strawberries or sushi. I felt good and only complained when I had to wear a mask to go shopping or meet a lot of people.  It wasn’t me who was the problem but them, just in case they had a cold or anything like that.  I could feel my immunity lowering as I got more and more tired.  The first week between treatments was fine it was the second week that I felt really tired but I just rested more.  I guess I am just too awkward to let it affect me too much.  I can honestly say that I had a couple of days when I felt down and that was because I was tired.
OK that is the run up to the regular blog which will hopefully be more up to date if not more interesting.  After my first chemo session 5 January, I have three weeks for it to take effect.  For the first week it kills my immune system, for the second week it kills the cancer and for the third week my body recovers – ready to start again.   Sit back and enjoy and if it helps, great, please feel free to contact me; either through my blog or though my email which is tinamasonaguda@gmail.com


Bill's View


Recovering from my operation was less fun than a week in Blackpool (a well-known British music-hall joke says that the first prize in a competition is a week in Blackpool; the second prize is two weeks!).  In truth, it was totally traumatic.  I was again in an ICU, with an extremely limited view of the world around me, surrounded by patients who had been through cardio-thoracic surgery (the posh name for having your chest demolished so that they can get at your heart).  There were monitors and machines everywhere – it looked like something from a science fiction film.  During the day it was fine, but night was a nightmare.  You can imagine that these procedures generate more pain than our bodies can stand and so a large part of the after-care is concerned with pain reduction.  I have no idea what drugs they pumped into me through the several drips and catheters, but I am sure that it was a pretty sophisticated mixture and would probably be illegal if you bought it on the street!

During the first nights I kept waking up to electronic sounds and flashing lights, which I later realized were the alarms of the many different machines .  In my diminished state of consciousness I came to believe that I was in a room where someone was playing on those brightly coloured old pinball machines with the flashing lights, flippers and bumpers.  I later found out that some of the alarms were my own – I had suffered two infections which had blown my temperature sky-high and my heart had, for some reason, reversed its rhythm – probably out of protest at the surgeons mucking around with it! 

On her way home from 'her' hospital, Tina came in to see me.  At the time I was in the process of being moved from the ICU to the ward.  Somehow, in the process, something went wrong and I appear to have had a minor stroke.  I was completely out of it for two hours - so they tell me.  When I came around, I was back on a trolley and Tina was there beside me.  I felt worse than at any time in my life - Tina had struggled from her own hospital bed to walk into a hugely tense situation like that. I really believed that there was a serious danger that I was not going to survive and was so sad that I would not be there to help Tina with her long treatment.  I burst into tears and cried myself to sleep.

The next day arrived and I was still alive.  Various different experts came to see me to try to understand what had happened and whether my brain was still working (actually it hadn't worked for years, so I couldn't imagine why they thought it would now!).  Gradually I recovered sufficiently that I was released into the care of my family a few days later.

Still in hospital but ready to go home

I was told off immediately by good friends as I even on the first day I was using my left arm to type and play Farmville.   OK I have to get my priorities right here; I didn’t want my crops to wither.  This is where the lymph nodes start to play a part.  Due to them being removed I was not allowed to use my left arm for at least a couple of weeks.  OK this is fine apart from I mainly left handed and use my left hand for everything; it is my stronger arm.  I am not sure exactly what they do but I now know that I cannot sit out in the sun without my left shoulder being covered; I cannot have a really hot shower, which I love etc etc life has suddenly not become fun.   I also cannot lift anything over two kg, now this not for a short time; these limitations are for the rest of my life which also includes the hot shower and sun.
Another one of life’s lessons is to take a piece of paper to write things down or have a good friend who has a better memory than you do.  It isn’t that there will be anything wrong with your memory but I think after a while it shuts itself down with too much information.  The relevant info, like turning up for appointments, was ok but after that my mind would often blank out when I tried to remember what a particular doctor or nurse told me something.


Bill's View


As it happens the government has recently invested heavily in coronary care (Portugal previously had a high mortality rate) and the Vila Nova de Gaia hospital (CHVNG) has world class facilities both for care and for surgery.  Within less than two days of first arriving at CHVNG, they carried out a procedure to insert a catheter from my wrist into my heart to ‘look’ at what was going on – all this with me wide awake and watching on a monitor.  I learned a lot about medicine during this time, because the staff were amazing and very happy to talk about their work! 


As soon as the catheter procedure had finished, the doctor in charge came out and explained that there are three main arteries that take the blood from my heart to the rest of my body.  Two of those were virtually completely blocked and the third was partially blocked.  He reckoned that the heart attacks were caused when the third artery went into spasm for some reason and became effectively blocked as well.  The only possible cure was a triple by-pass operation, which the hospital could perform if the surgical team accepted me as a suitable case for saving.  He agreed that perhaps concern for my wife – going for her own operation in two days time - might have been a contributory factor! 
The cardiologist firmly refused to let me leave the hospital while I waited for a slot in the operating theatre; he went as far as to make veiled threats that they could not guarantee the outcome if I left!  So Tina went into hospital without me, although she was probably better supported than if I had been available.  Like I said, the church folk were wonderful and our younger daughter had arrived from the UK to help out.  We gave her a car and a GPS and she spent most of the week driving between home and the two hospitals – keeping the family together.  Not bad for someone who cannot speak a word of Portuguese!


After about a week I was scheduled for my operation.  Tina had had hers and was already recovering quickly, albeit in a different hospital.  I must say, in honesty, that I searched my conscience and asked God if there was any reason why I was not ready to meet Him if anything went wrong.  I came to the conclusion that I knew that Jesus Christ had gone before me to prepare a place for me; but unlike Paul, I was not yet ready to say that I would rather go there just yet.  Call it a lack of faith if you like, but I could not escape the thought that our two daughters, the elder of whom was due to arrive at any time to take over from her sister, would clearly be very upset – but the worst was the feeling that I might not be there to take care of Tina throughout her long programme of treatment for her cancer.

The surgeons explained that they had to cut me down the middle; cut through the muscles which are centred in front of my chest; cut my sternum in half; open up my rib cage and get access to my heart.  This was scheduled for six hours but, in fact, took about eight.  They told me later (I didn’t know much about it at the time and they didn’t wake me up to ask!) that they had had to stop my heart and replace it with an external pump.  I’m not sure why – but it made the whole procedure more hairy!  However, the very good news was that the heart attacks had not caused any damage to my heart muscles – apparently the danger is that muscles start to overheat and burn out when there is no blood (with its precious oxygen).  However, in my case the heart had never been deprived of blood – it had been pumping away but the blood had nowhere to go.  Praise God!

The operation

Perhaps not all public health hospitals are like this, although I suspect they are, in that the one important thing you need to learn is patience.  Imagine arriving at the hospital at 8:30am, having no breakfast and particularly no coffee.  You check in and then you have to wait for your bed to be free.  I was fortunate to have the company of Gabi and Sarah, our younger daughter, who had come to help her dad look after me.  This went out of the window when Bill was rushed into hospital only 5 days before my operation with a heart attack and then needed a triple bypass operation and yes we were in two different hospitals at the same time.  Poor Sarah couldn’t have stopped for the 10 days that she was here, it certainly wasn’t a holiday.  Perhaps I should mention here that one of the hardest things to do was to tell the girls about the cancer.  Bill actually phoned them as I couldn’t face up to it, they knew something was wrong when he phoned; one said “Dad never rings so we knew there was a problem”.  Even though they are both adults I wanted to protect them from hearing bad news.  I needed to find out that although they were still my kids there are adults and as adults they handle bad news far better than we would ever give them credit for.
I was finally given my bed at 4:30; immediately prepped for the op and was probably under the knife by 5:30.  One useful addition was that I had had an appointment to have a mole removed just left of the breast so I asked the surgeon to remove that as well, which he did, saving me a second op; might as well make the most of a bad job.
Before the operation I was told that they would wake me up just to get a response and to check that everything was OK.  According to Gabi, who was there, my only response was “go away and let me sleep”.  I guess I was OK.  The four nights in the hospital weren’t that bad, apart from the food.  I was told that I must have been hungry when I ate breakfast, which was probably the best meal, and then ate both lunch and dinner on the Tuesday.  I knew I was feeling better as each day I ate less as the food wasn’t the best part of the hospital.  I heard later that they bring in a company and Bill and I were getting the same food, poor guy. 


Bill's View



The day after I preached on Romans 8:28, I felt some chest pains.  I had had these before and no harm had come to me, but this time they were particularly persistent.  I was a bit unhappy that the pain spread to my lower jaw, but they went away after a while, so I decided to ask my doctor the next time that I saw her.  However, at midnight they started again and I was in such discomfort that I couldn’t sleep.  In fact, at two in the morning, I woke Tina and said that I thought that I really needed to go to the hospital.  While she was trying to wake up – she’s not really good at that – I sat on the edge of the bed and suddenly the pain stopped.  Tina went back to sleep – so I just lay down and slept peacefully for the rest of the night.


The next morning the same pain started again and I didn’t feel like working. I went to the doctor’s surgery and she gave me some tablets to reduce my blood pressure, which was very high.  Although I didn’t realise it at the time, I had driven to and from the doctor’s surgery while having a heart attack.  I was even sick while I queued for the appointment, which I didn’t know at the time is a classic symptom.   

One of the church leaders is a doctor (although not practicing in Portugal) and when she heard about the pains she sent me an email telling me to go immediately to either the doctor or the hospital – ‘just to get it checked out’.  As I didn’t have any more pain that day, I was trying to think of a way to avoid going, but I knew that Gabi would give me a hard time (she later told me that, as a doctor, she sometimes has an instinct or premonition when things are serious and that she felt particularly worried about me). 

On Wednesday morning the pain started again so I called a friend who speaks better Portuguese than I and drove us both to the hospital.  As we got near, the pain got quite bad and I did think about asking Tim to drive – but I got us there safely.  That was the last I saw of the real world for nearly three weeks!  They looked at me, called the cardiologist and had me undressed, on a trolley and off to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) before I really knew what was happening.  Within less than an hour I was hooked up to all manner of exciting machines and monitors with bells, sirens and buzzers going off all around me!  And there I stayed!  Poor Tim had to drive my car home and explain to Tina that there was some doubt as to whether I could take her for her operation.  In fact Tim and his wife Julie, Gaby (our doctor friend) and all of the church leaders have been great.  During the weeks when I was out of action, I am pleased to say that – the church continued without missing a heartbeat – which was more than I managed – but more of that later.

Before the operation part 2

After all the tests I was booked into hospital early November for the operation.  How did I feel during the time, living and working in a foreign country where I can only understand the basics of the language, being away from our two girls?   When I look back I almost think I was living a dream world and this was happening to someone else.  Perhaps that is how I got through or that I was being protected by God and He helped me get through.  There were times during the tests I just wanted to cry as I couldn’t understand the Portuguese nurses although most of them were really great and spoke just a little English to help me, perhaps I was a novelty by being a foreigner.
During this time I was amazingly blessed by having Isabel who works in the hospital, Gabi who is a doctor and came with on various times to translate and Julie who is just a great mate and was there when I needed someone to talk to.  As well as that they are just a few of the people who have been totally amazing over the last couple of months.  Not least of all I should mention Ruth and Sarah who both gave up their time to fly over from the UK to help us both out.  We could not have managed without them.


Bill's View



Tina was referred to the IPO, the principal cancer hospital in the North – and one which has a really good reputation as a research centre for cancer.  At this time I was still hopeful that the whole thing would turn out to be a false alarm.  However, in praying about the matter, I believe that God gave me a verse from the bible that became very important to me (probably to both of us).  It is found in the book of Romans; chapter 8; verse 28.  In the New Living Translation this reads:  “And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to His purpose for them.”


Now I knew that we both love God; we are convinced that we are called according to His purpose – so we could safely believe that He causes all things to work together for the good!  However, in the way that I understood what God, through His Word, was saying; there is a very important point that is often overlooked.  I was very convinced that the verse was NOT saying that nothing could or would go wrong.  What I believe strongly that the verse is saying is that no matter what does go wrong, God DOES cause even the wrong to work together for good.  Now that starts a whole train of thought going and, although we continued to pray that the best would happen, we became slowly resigned to the possibility that it might not turn out as well as we hoped. 

In fact, the problem with Tina’s armpit was a bad sign and she was scheduled to have a mastectomy operation.  The week before she was due to go to surgery, I preached that message to the church!  I had no idea at all how I would be tested by that – over and over again.

Bill's Operation


Bill's View

After about a week I was scheduled for my operation.  Tina had had hers and was already recovering quickly, albeit in a different hospital.  I must say, in honesty, that I searched my conscience and asked God if there was any reason why I was not ready to meet Him if anything went wrong.  I came to the conclusion that I knew that Jesus Christ had gone before me to prepare a place for me; but unlike Paul, I was not yet ready to say that I would rather go there just yet.  Call it a lack of faith if you like, but I could not escape the thought that our two daughters, the elder of whom was due to arrive at any time to take over from her sister, would clearly be very upset – but the worst was the feeling that I might not be there to take care of Tina throughout her long programme of treatment for her cancer.

The surgeons explained that they had to cut me down the middle; cut through the muscles which are centred in front of my chest; cut my sternum in half; open up my rib cage and get access to my heart.  This was scheduled for six hours but, in fact, took about eight.  They told me later (I didn’t know much about it at the time and they didn’t wake me up to ask!) that they had had to stop my heart and replace it with an external pump.  I’m not sure why – but it made the whole procedure more hairy!  However, the very good news was that the heart attacks had not caused any damage to my heart muscles – apparently the danger is that muscles start to overheat and burn out when there is no blood (with its precious oxygen).  However, in my case the heart had never been deprived of blood – it had been pumping away but the blood had nowhere to go.  Praise God!

Before the operation

I was once taught that each story has to have a beginning, middle and end so I guess I should start at the beginning which sort of makes it easier for anyone reading it.
I first noticed a lump under my left armpit, not in my breast as we woman are taught to look for.  I will be honest in saying that this was in May and we had booked a holiday at the end of May so I decided to go to the doctor after the holiday; maybe not a good idea but that is what happened.  I won’t bore you with all the details so the short story is: visit doctor; arrange for tests; tests not conclusive and then go back to for an echo sound.  I guess this was when the we both realised that this was more than just a lump as the clinic where I had the echo sound done prepared the results while we waiting – unheard of in Portugal - sent me immediately to talk to my own doctor. 
We could see God’s hand in this as normally when you go to our doctor, unless you have something serious, you wait for ages for an appointment.  We walked in and within an half hour we were sitting talking to the doctor; or at least Bill was due to my appalling Portuguese.  Within one week I had an appointment at the Institudo Portugués de Oncologia (IPO) which is one of Portugal’s top cancer hospitals and had had a biopsy.   
Within three weeks we knew the worst, the lump under my arm was not only cancerous but it had spread from my breast to under my arm.   I would have to have the left breast removed and the lymph nodes removed from under my arm.  If you are like me the lymph nodes don’t mean much but as I discovered they do some really important things, I will explain more later.


Bill's View


During the summer of 2010 Tina asked me to speak to the doctor about getting her a ‘routine’ mammogram.  She didn’t bother to tell me that a small lump under her armpit was causing her pain and discomfort, but it probably wouldn’t have meant much to me if she had.  Apart from the aging process, both of us had been remarkably well and very active for the whole of our married lives and we didn’t really expect that to change.

The doctor requested a set of routine tests for both of us; the excellent Portuguese health service has a series of protocols that come into force when we reach certain milestones – based on age, certain symptoms (such as high blood pressure) and so on.  That reassured us that there was nothing specific to worry about and we proceeded to visit different clinics to have the tests carried out.  Even when the doctor asked Tina to go for an Echo-Sound on her left breast, I didn’t really think very much was amiss.  I think I was confident that our general good health would continue forever.  How wrong can you be?


When the second test came back positive, we decided immediately to tell the church.  This was for two reasons – first because we wanted to get them praying and secondly because I believe in facing life’s major problems head-on.

Where it all began

Hi there, my name is Tina Mason, I am 59 years old, and along with Bill my husband we have lived in various different countries and have ended up in Porto, Portugal  where we started and now run an English speaking International Church (www.riversideporto.com).  This is the story of how I discovered that I had cancer and the story of my recovery.  Some is good:  some not so but I hope that you get something out of it; we certainly are.


Bill's View


Hello,  I am Bill and I have been married to Tina for almost 40 years.  We thought that this blog would be more complete and, hopefully, helpful to others if we added some of my input as well - so you will find a new section to many of the posts called 'Bill's View'.  If it's helpful - great.  If not - sorry.
We came to Porto in 2004 to start an international (English language) church.  That meant that I was commuting between Lisbon and Porto for five years.  For two years now my full-time job has been running the church.   We are very aware of God’s amazing timing.  If Tina had become ill while I was commuting to Lisbon we would probably not have been able to continue.  If I had had my heart attacks while travelling very long distances (my duties often took me to South East Asia, Australia, USA and even Eastern Europe), the outcome may well have been very different!