My Nana:The Greatest Woman

~* I realise that it isn't a good piece of writing. Im just writing from the heart and my experiences.*~

My Nana is an aneamic, like me, and has to receive B12 injections every 6 weeks. Nana had other medical problems, but they are not for me to share.

My nana received a letter to go to an annual mammogram. She went, and returned home. Later, she received another letter to go back to Dublin to get checked again, they found something. Everyone told her it was a cist, that it was nothing. She was so worried and I listened to countless people reassure her.

In late April, Nana went to the dreaded re-check. She received broken news. Cancer cells had started to form in her left breast. The only way to treat it was to remove part of her breast.

Nana went for surgery to remove a lump on the 28th of May, the day before my brothers Confirmation. She didn't tell me she had to go for the operation, though. In fact, she never told me she had cancer. She said she didn't want to worry me. She got it removed with no complications and was sent home. She went back up for another mammogram, but there was still something there. She was taken in again to get this one removed. Several weeks past after the second operation, my nana was given the all-clear. She had lost allof her left breast. She began her chemo in the Summer, a dose every three weeks.

In September, we noticed a great change in Nana. She wasnt her usual chatty self and stopped drinking tea, her favourite drink. On the 3rd of September, Granda called for an ambulance for Nana. The emotional suffering she was going through, the changes in her body, losing her breast, losing her hair, had all gotten on top of her. I visited her in hospital, but she didn't realise I was there, she just folded and unfolded the bed sheets, looking down. She wasn't ignoring me, she just didn't want me to see her this way. It was on of the scariest experiences I've ever gone through. Because she is phyically big, and emotionally strong, doctors mistook the amount of chemo she was able to take. She just wasnt fit for it mentally.

I think her weight lose and new looks scared her and I realise now,she didnt want to change. Chemo is the most hardest thing anyone willever have to go through. No-one knows whats it's actually like or how strong it is. You really have to hrough it to understand.

Now, after months of hard chemo and beginning her radiothearpy, life couldnt be better for her. She has Christmas to look forward to and she confirmed that we would be making several trips to Newry for the Janurary Sales.

We were all there to help her through it. We understood it was a horrible time for her, but she survived it.

*~Nanny, I love you so much, I don't know what I would do without you. You've always been there for me, sharing everything. Now, Im sharing our story.~*