Right, I thought you all needed some pretty pictures after the nasty ones.  Bluebells and Kingcups at Styal Woods, Cheshire.
I drove for the first time today.  I had too because the van had sat in the garage since before my operation.  I drove to Sowerby Bridge and then back through Ripponden-yes, I know it's the Darkside but it makes a simple circular drive that puts some juice in the battery.  I was completely wacked when I got back and it was a bit too much of a strain on the wound but to put your minds at rest I was safe.
I think this has probably been one of the few days when I have not felt 100% mentally fit. I am putting this down to tiredness but I suppose the wait for the results has having some effect.  Although the pain is greatly decreased I have experienced some unexpected types of pain, pain that I was not prepared for.  So this puts some doubt, fear anxiety into the mind.
Two of my friends text or phone me and start the conversation with "Hello Sweetie".  These terms of endearment blow me away.  I am sure that they have healing power.

This is the wound 9 days after the operation-amazing.  Amazing the ability of the body to heal itself.
I have now had my third outing- Vernon Park, Stockport.  Anyone who wears glasses may well remember their first experience of glasses. I well remember walking out of the Co-op opticians on Barn St. to a wet Oldham day, the stone flags fair sparkled.  Having a health scare is a bit like having your first pair of glasses.  I have noticed a lot more things around me and I do appreciate more and I certainly appreciate life more.
I have spent the time since the operation with Alix in Longsight being waited on hand and foot and I will shortly be returning to Chadderton.  Not only has Alix been wonderful, I have had fruit and booze brought to me by H____ and had a meal cooked for us by J___.  Wonderful people.  In fact there have been lots of wonderful people.  It has brought home to me how important small kindness are and how we should not under estimate what and how we say things to people.
Take care.
xxx

You will probably have worked out that I had surgery last Friday when the tumour was removed along with some sentinel nodes.  These lymph nodes go for analysis to see if the cancer has spread.  It is quite a long wait for these results, part of the reason being that the team have a case conference after they get the results to discuss the next step in treatment.
The whole process has been very streamlined and very efficient.  Having said that everyone has been very compassionate and caring.  I think one of my big fears was that the staff would be brusk and seemingly uncaring.
The 17th of May was a long day.  Once again we arrived too early, so I had my photograph taken holding my rainbow flag outside the Nightingale Centre.  I was called in very soon after sitting down in the waiting room.  This is when they put the wire in.  OF COURSE it was under local anaesthetic and it didn't go in through the nipple-mislead by the Internet!  It did however stick out of the other end and nearly had my eye out.  It was then coiled round and taped down.  I was then sent for mammograms to check that it was in the right position.  I have discovered that the best way to have a mammogram is under local anaesthetic.  I was then sent to have a radio-isotope put in the breast.  This is injected into the area surrounding the nipple.  This was certainly not high on my list of must do things.  It was perhaps the most painful part of the operation but no where near as painful as toothache.  I was then driven to the ward (hospital supplied car) and the operation took place at 1:45. 
After eating the best toast I have ever tasted I was allowed home.  This was 12 hours after I arrived.
I am feeling good although I need the result day to come quickly.  I am bruised and cut (very neat embroidery) but alive!

It's 12 minutes past seven in the morning and the taxi will be here in a few minutes.  I am doing this so the time will pass relatively easily.  Started to get a bit shaky last night but I am reasonable now.  I have found strengths that I didn't know I had or at least considered them negatively.  I learnt to detach myself many years ago and it has given me an air of alloofness (spelling not a strong point) so at times it has not worked in my favour but at the moment it is a handy thing to have.
I am bowled over by the good wishes I have received from people but also by how practical people have wanted to be.
What I have found I have not wanted is people being 'matter of fact' (I can do that for me self).  Sympathy is something I am generally not comfortable with but it has felt good to receive it.
I am not going to check this for mistakes-I am just going to publish and be.......off.
Love you all. xxx

My first experience of pre op today.  Blood pressure fine-amazing cause I have white coat phobia.  Probably the best it has been in a while.  Nurse starts to take blood from my right arm and comments on how easy it will be to get into my vein-she had found a lot of the bloods difficult before me.  Sticks needle in and blood refuses to flow.  So sticks big plaster on that and goes for left arm-better luck this time.
Sent off to ECG.  Quite a wait.  Eventually get called in by a very pleasent women who comments on my Winnie the Pooh socks.  I now have proof that I have a heart.
Sent back to Women's Health Ward to see doctor. Another long wait, by this time we are booth starving.  Told ECG is fine, general chat and consent forms signed. We are now that hungry that we go to hospital canteen.
Still finding it difficult to say I have cancer.  Very strange to think that there is something growing far too fast in my boob cause I feel quite well.

Have got my pre op date so things are becoming more real.  The detachment I learnt at thirteen has come in handy as I have felt that this is happening to someone else.
There is a danger that life could be come one big cliche as all those sayings are now having a lot of meaning-life is for living, you might be deads tomorrow, life is too short.  For someone that has had some hard times I am now thinking that life is too short and there is still so much to do. 

Quote of the day 'will you go back to being normal after this?' This is what Alix said after she  arrived at my house for tea and I had prepared a decent meal.
It would be difficult for me to be normal as I don't have a normal bone in my body.
We spent Sunday at Styal Woods.  We cycled there and spent the afternoon taking pics of  flowers-wood anemones, celandine, king cups and bluebells.
Stop me if I start to turn into Polyana but life is pretty good and I am glad that I can love the flowers. On the way there we passed a few magnolias which were full of blossom, stunning.  The round trip was about 19 miles.  Not our longest ride but it was long enough on Sunday.  I was pretty well worn out when I got home but really glad that we had done it.  It was a beautiful day and we had waited a long time for some good weather and it was good to get out into it.
On Sunday we were lucky enough to have dinner with Jane into her city centre apartment.  It's such a calm peacefully place and Jane is a lovely woman.  Good to do some catching up while eating on her balcony.  Amazingly there were goldfinches flying around.  We walked done to The Warf afterwards  for a drink.
Had a couple of emails from long term friends.  It's easy to take people for granted or not keep in touch life is short and good friends are hard to come by.
Thought for today-be kind to people, you don't know when you might need them.

It's easy to think that the world is a terrible place, wars, bombs, famine etc.  Popular press seem to like to run people down.  People are scroungers scivers layabouts.  Truth is people are kind, generous and caring.  I did know this already but I have been touched by the incredible people in my life this last week.
Trouble is at the moment I want to tell everyone.  It has come in handy though.  BT phoned me up one day saying I was a valued customer and was I finding my broadband too slow and would I like it improved?  Course I would I say, but can't be arsed having workmen in the house at the moment as I have just been diagnosed with cancer.  Poor lad, didn't know what to say but assured me that they wouldn't trouble me again. Wonder what a decent time is to keep using that to cold callers?

So since being diagnosed life has gone on much the same.  My van has had its MOT test and service, I have cut the grass and am now trying to get round to doing some decorating.
The worst thing has being telling people and hearing the sort of stories that I didn't want to hear but there again I have had some very positive reactions and lots of support from good people.

So on the 24th April 2013 I go along to The Nightingale Centre at Wythenshaw Hospital in South Manchester.  I am called in 10 minutes before my appointment time, and have several mammograms.  The radiologists finds it difficult to get things right because of the position of the abnormallity.  I then go to see the consultant who carries out ultrasound and tells me that the mass is concerning so they do a biopsy under local anaestetic.  An appointment is made for me to go for the results the following Monday.
The following days I spend at the dentist, bird watching in Cheshire and some time in a state of numbness.

Somehow Monday arrives and my partner and I catch two buses to Wythenshaw.  The journey is bumpy and I feel sick.  This doesn't stop our gallows humour.
Once again the wait is short and we are soon taken into a room with settees, pictures on the wall and tissues.  Oh dear this is the room where they tell you the bad news and sure enough a doctor soon arrives along with the nurse from the biopsy to tell me I have cancer.  I am asked by the doctor how do I feel.  Well that's a daft question. 
We are left alone and we go for coffee when it's a pub we need.  We return to this room which looks onto the 'scented garden'.  The garden needs some special attention.
Soon we are taken along a corrider to the consultation rooms.  This is the first time it has smelled like an hospital and I fight all my bad memories of hospitals.  We wait to see the surgeon.  A smart casually dressed man arrives and tells me that my lump is 1 cm in size and they will remove it under a general anaestetic after locating it using ultrasound via a wire inserted through the nipple.  This I didn't need to know but the breast care nurse says that it is nothing compared to the biopsy. 
I am given an information pack by the nurse who goes through it all. 
I leave the hospital still the same person I was two weeks ago but now I am a cancer patient.

There I was happily bowling along enjoying my life.  I took early retirement 5 years from a job I didn't enjoy and was at last feeiling that life was for living and I was going to live it. 
I went along for my three year mammogram not thinking much more than this is a drag and I would rather be doing something else than having my tits squashed. 5 days go by and a letter arrives from Wythenshaw Hospital.  I open it thinking it would say that everything was fine but no, I had to go across Manchester for more tests the following week.
This proved to be the most trying 6 days.  During that time I went every through possibility.