curlygirl

I'm doing fine. I recently started working again after almost six months of chemotherapy and surgery. I blog quite frequently on my Swedish blog, and I have more or less decided to discontinue this blog.

My puppy is growing up fast. She is now 7 months old, and she is so beautiful!

Wilma 7 months old

This is Wilma, now a member of our family. She loves sleeping in my or hubbys lap, and chewing on things. Preferably shoes. She is also very energetic. Why walk when you can run? She w ill be 10 weeks old on Wednesday.

Wilma

Since I started my new Swedish blog, http://blogg.curlygirl.se/, it appears that I have forgotten about this blog here on Vox. It's just that it is a creative blog and I haven't been up to much creative activity lately that is worth blogging about. These last few days I have made some more jewelry, I'll post pictures when I have taken some.

What I have done in a creative way is designing my new blog (see link above), and also designing logo and website for my husband's new business. It's not quite finished yet though.

So what else is new. Well...in just four days we're getting a puppy! A little Parson Russel Terrier girl, and we're naming her Wilma. Here is a picture of her in my arms when we visited the kennel last Wednesday. Isn't she beautiful?

Wilma, Parson Russel Terrier puppy

This is my creative blog, so I will not be blogging any more about my breast cancer here. I have reactivated my old Wordpress blog where the main subject will be my cancer treatment and life during it. That blog is in Swedish, and the URL is http://mariadahlin.wordpress.com.

On a more creative note, here are some pictures of jewelry that I made last weekend during an introductory silversmithing class. The beads were added at home. We only worked with silver wire, 1.2 mm in diameter. I enjoyed it a lot, and it is not unlikely that I will get some basic tools needed for this form of silversmithing, e.g. a blowtorch.

Silver bracelet 4593

Silver bracelet 4579

Silver bracelet 4595

Silver bracelet 4590

Silver pendant 4583

Silver earrings 4598

I had an appointment with a breast surgeon this morning, and I got my diagnosis. Yes, I have breast cancer, and it has spread to a lymphic gland in my armpit. This means that I will not start off with surgery, first I will go through chemotherapy, starting in 2-3 weeks. Fortunately, it appears to be "ordinary" breast cancer and not inflammation breast cancer, so the prognosis for full recovery is pretty good (no exact figures). But still, chemotherapy...not a dream scenario. I will feel like shit for several months, and I can't go to work. That is a bad thing, I like my work. I was meant to start a new assignment next Monday (I am a consultant), but of course that has to be cancelled. And I will loose my hair! I really like my lovley, curly, spiralled hair. Thinking about it more rationally, losing my hair is a small sacrifice if it means I can get rid of the cancer. It's just that my hair sort of defines me. I wonder if people will even reconize me without my hair? And what are the chances are of getting a wig that resembles my natural hair?

Lots of women get breast cancer and fully recover. It is not necessarily a death sentence. However, I think that even if I recover physically I will never again feel entirely at ease, I will always be worried that it can come back, and I have to go for regular checkups. So, starting now, I will for always be a slightly different person.

More info will follow.

Semierotic 4567

One of my more creative jewelry photos. The theme is semi-erotic jewelry photography. It's great fun!

It's not that great being me at this time. I use my blog mainly to display my creative work, and to write about creative inspiration. Lately I am feeling less creative and inspired than usual, sometimes even depressed. Several bad things have been going on in my life. At first it was great, I finally got pregnant in November, only it didn't last very long. In December I miscarried for the third time. This was very sad, my husband and I want children very much.

Anyway, the miscarriage was finally over and life could go on. Christmas was pleasant, and New Years's Eve. Then, on January 1st, I discovered a lump in my left breast. Not a small lump that I found after close examination, but a large lump that sometimes feels sore, and the skin is sort of red in this area. I doubt that it can have existed at this size for very long without my noticing it, but obviously my focus has been on other things the past few months. Suddenly, from one day to the next, I went from finally feeling both physically and mentally OK again to feeling nothing but fright and deep despair. I must add that cancer is one of the things that scare me most in this world, having witnessed and heard of so many tragedies involving various forms of cancer.

After a visit to a general doctor I felt a lot better, he told me that it is much more likely that the lump is something other than cancer. I thought it might be a cyst (gathering of fluid) caused by changes that my breasts went through during the pregnancy and miscarriage. Yesterday I finally had my appointment at the breast clinic. It is not a cyst. They took tissue samples with a fine needle from the lump, and now I have to wait 11 days (!) before I get the results. I am in such a state of panic! I feel nauseous, I have no apetite, and I have trouble sleeping. A kind word will make me start crying without warning.

I just couldn't go to work today, probably I would have sat staring at my screen doing nothing, and anyone asking me polite nonsense questions like "How's it going?" would have been rewarded by a flood of tears, or my running away hoping to hide my tears. I just don't know how I will get through next week. I need a new theory regarding what is wrong with me that I can cling to. The cyst theory was comforting. But, looking for information about a possible inflammation, I found out about inflammation breast cancer that I hadn't heard of before, and my sort of symptoms fit (as far as I can tell). Of course this doesn't mean that I have this condition and I'm not qualified to make any guesses, but instead of a comforting theory I now have a possible nightmare scenario!

I will try to focus as much as possible on creative work to distract myself until I have more inormation. I'll get busy editing some more of my latest jewelry photos, and try some new setups in my photo tent. And perhaps paint a bit.

Got some colored paper today (A2 size) to use as photo backgrounds. The first photo below uses a white paper, but it looks gray if the photo is not over-exposed with the lighting that I use. The second photo uses a turquoise paper. I need to process more photos before I publish them. No time tonight, it's getting late and I'm really tired.

Necklace 4478

Necklace 4502

Some pieces of jewelry that I gave to female family members for Christmas.

Necklace and bracelet 4373

Necklace 4378

Necklace 4371

Necklace 4382