‘Changing’

~ Debra Mesecke

Exactly 1 year ago today at approximately this time, I got out of the shower after doing 2 classes at the gym and put my knickers on. I had a habit of doing this in front of the full length mirror and then checking my self out full frontal then profile view, always totally focussed on my stomach….was it less fat than the day before?

About 2 weeks prior Todd had made a joke about one of my nipples, commenting how it looked funny, and at the time I’d looked down at it, acknowledging it did look funny then put my bra on. Out of sight out of mind!

On this particular day I let my eyes ascend above my waist line in the mirror and noticed that in fact my right nipple did look rather odd. I describe it as inverted. In my brain I thought ‘oh yeah Todd mentioned that, I thought that would be normal by now, well I guess I should cop a feel’.

I cupped my right breast and immediately knew there was a problem. Not knowing how serious, I was hoping for a cyst but had a negative nelly whispering ‘I hope it’s not cancer’, on my shoulder.

On further investigation the lump felt like a small water balloon, filling my entire breast cavity and spreading puffiness into my upper chest and neck region. On closer inspection my breasts actually looked the same size (right has always been smaller) and my right upper site above the breast gave the appearance of looking swollen. It was ever so slightly warm.

I rang my GP, told Todd in the car on the way to Mt Gambier that evening and the rest is history.

Today I put my knickers on in front of the full length mirror, check myself out full frontal and profile. Needless to say I don’t notice the missing breasts because I rarely looked past my stomach anyway. Somethings change but some things stay the same!

Happy days xc

Published by Debra Mesecke

I was 21 and I was planning a wedding, buying a house and had a job interview for the job of my dreams on my 22nd birthday.  You see I was being made redundant and had to find a new job by August.  Especially with the new mortgage now.  It was April.  I worked for CML and my new job was a done deal.  All I needed was a medical.  And with that, just like that....my life was turned upside down and I was diagnosed with CML, ha ha, I know the irony.  My hematologist had a laugh at that too.  I had Chronic Myeloid Leukeamia, which was normally reserved for 70 year old men.  Quite rare for a young adult to get, so how would they treat it?  I underwent two separate trials until finally it was decided my best chance of survival (all be it only 50% chance), would be a MUD BMT (matched unrelated bone marrow transplant), now known as VUD Allograt (volunteer unrelated donor).  I was told 21 years ago the chance of finding a match was 1 in 20,000 (and that is everyone was on the bone marrow donor registry).  Scary odds. So being the risk taker I am I said "go for it".  They found a match and that was my first miracle in this journey.  The second miracle was, it worked - new blood type, two different DNA profiles and the miracle of medicine was reborn inside me.  The third miracle is my son.  25 years on, I now face a new challenge.  Breast Cancer.  Certainly not the first person to have cancer, to have invasive ductile cancer, hormone receptive and HER2 +, or to even have a dual diagnosis.  But this is not another Webiste about a cancer survivor, this is just my excuse to finally publicly write.  Along the way I  am hoping I can share some insights I have learnt over the years and at the same time, give you a good belly laugh.

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