I'm not going to bore you all with the "sorry it's been awhile" crap. I've been out-of-touch for several good and several not-so-good reasons. The good being I was out living my life. Taking the family on spontaneous trips this summer, going to the pumpkin patch, riding ponies, picking apples. We got a tree and decorated it together as a family and Sammy learned my love of all things Rudolph and naturally became obsessed like his mother. We opened gifts at our house, watched him marvel at Christmas lights and gradually become a fan of Santa and not a terrified mess of the stranger with a beard. It was a struggle, but now he loves "Ho Ho." Things were looking up, but we were never far from the cancer diagnosis. I had scans every month since my treatment ended. Things like head pain, neck pain, routine exams, then pain in my abdomen and then ever so slowly, my liver functions started to creep back up. By the end of treatment, they had gone almost back to normal. By September, they slowly began their uptick. I was taking my Tamoxifen, getting the shot in my butt monthly, and doing my part to stay sober and still enjoy my summer. I knew by October in my mind, that things were heading downhill. They found a spot on my spine, the T9 vertebrae. This triggered a PET scan. I had gone alone to my CT appointment (first time ever) because I was sick of depending on others and knew I was strong and honestly, there comes a time in your treatment, where you just want to be left alone. It sounds selfish, it sounds ungrateful. But you want to cry your own tears, deal with your own pit in your own stomach and not have to glance around at your loved ones and see how you have broken their hearts.
Being weak, crumbling in a parked car on the far edge of a parking lot, kicking and hitting the dashboard where no one can see or hear your gut-wrenching bellows or sense your terrifying thoughts of obituaries and funerals, and how you will prepare them, all of them for the possibilities of a life without you....you it's overwhelming, it's hopeless, it's numbing. But if I can do that alone, even for just five minutes, I have let the grief out instead of letting it build. I have allowed myself time to take care of me and to wrap my mind around all the things that race through your mind with reoccurrence. It's like being diagnosed all over again.
The PET scan showed increased "hot spots" in my liver, but my doctor wasn't convinced this was bone metastases. Then in December we rescanned, and it had grown. I was sent to the radiologist oncologist who met with me and really didn't think radiation was necessary. However, I complained of lower back pain which I suspected was from lugging a 30lb toddler around. She ordered an MRI. Again, I went to the results appointment alone. She walked into the room and said "Oh you are alone." I immediately started crying. The MRI showed widespread bone metastasis. A later bone scan showed there were spots in my ribs, my hip, my entire spine, my entire pelvis. and my sternum. This was New Year's Eve. I was floored by the results. I had no idea I was walking around with that much cancer in me. I had to make an appointment with my oncologist to discuss a new plan. In the meantime, I had my sister reach out to Sloan-Kettering in NYC. I wanted all my ducks in a row. I had heard of a drug PD-L1 that was having great success in clinical trials. My oncologist did not want to do anything to put me at risk of not getting into a trial, so we agreed to hold off on treatment until I met with Dr. Karen Cadoo in NY. I won't bore you with the details of that appointment, but a lot of good came out of it. She told me she was confident treating this as a metastatic breast cancer. She is molecular testing my tumor in hopes of finding some sort of targeted therapy that could work to kill these tumors. She agreed that chemo should be the next course of action to get my liver in check and she was reaching out to her colleagues about clinical trials for after chemo. THe one thing she did stress was that there were many options still to play out. She gave me hope.
Dr. Cadoo and Dr. Cherny spoke at length and agreed that chemo was the way to go. At this point my liver was not cooperating. I had lower right rib pain and was getting nauseous. I had been through ten treatments of radiation on my sacrum and lower spine. Radiation literally and figuratively had kicked my ass. I was in bed for two weeks straight, the nausea was never ending. I had been put on a new hormone therapy that was giving me headaches, but those combined with the nausea caused concern for brain metastasis. So there I sat again with a Hannibal Lector mask over my face listening to the clanging and banging of the MRI machine and praying the whole time that at least my brain was clear. Thank God it was. So now I needed to do a restaging CT of my chest, abdomen and pelvis to see what was causing the pain. Sure enough two spots on my liver had grown and now the bone mets were showing up on the CT scan. Chemo was going to be my choice of poison again.
Both oncologists agreed that I was to start on Taxol. This drug is for metastatic breast cancer. I go in once a week, three weeks in a row, for my infusion. I get the fourth week off to recover. Side effects are not as bad as my last chemo. I could get numbness and tingling in my limbs (which I already got vitamins to combat), nausea, and yup, the hair is gonna shed. But as I told my PA, I would rather be bald and here, than dead and coiffed.
People have asked if I'm upset with this treatment plan. If I'm feeling like its a setback or I'm sick of being sick. Yes, I am so sick of being sick. But I am actually looking forward to this chemo. Why? Because I gave it up to God a month or so ago. I was reading the bone scan results in the still of the night, while my husband slept after we tried to have a night away. Truth be told, I've been very sick for a while now. My radiation oncologist looked me in the eye and asked me if I knew, if I had a feeling when she gave me the MRI results. I told her I did. It's the low-grade fevers at night that are unexplainable. The all of a sudden not having a desire to eat all the things you love. Not wanting to get out of bed, because of a nagging depression, yes, but also because the thought of having to walk downstairs and exert yourself in any way is impossible to fathom. You hear the pitter patter of your son in the morning and his squeals of delight and you just can't do it. You can't make the trek because you just don't have it in you. The staring at your loving husband as he sleeps and whispering that he deserves so much more than this. A wife that can give herself to him, who can take a shower, clean the house, and make him dinner and be an equal partner. All things I can't do these days. My liver is hard to the touch, I have had to lay in a separate bed. He brings me pills, and drinks, and never asks for anything in return. And it's just not fair, because I don't want these to be our memories. I never envisioned myself being this person. I'm such a far cry from the girl he met. It's just not fair.
So as I lay next to him that night, with tears streaming down my face, I told God, that I believed I would fight my way through this. That I was strong, I am strong, and that my husband, my baby, they need me. I said in that moment that I placed it in his hands, because only he knows what my fate is and that I would continue to be the best person, the strongest person, I could be. I believe in miracles and life everlasting. And I believe that I will be healed. I know it will be hard, and I signed up for hard. I will not break, I will come out the other side of this. I didn't bargain, I just said what I needed to say, that I will fight the hard fight because that is my purpose. And with those words, an unexplained calm washed over me, this feeling I have never in my life felt. A feeling of being wrapped in warmth, your tears dried, and your fears subsiding. I knew I was heard.
Walking into battle today, armed with my mother, some smutty magazines, lots of diet soda, and my best chemo swagger, I knew I was taking the first steps in getting the job done. I don't care if I have to be on chemo for years. This is my job now. My job is to live. To show others that miracles do happen, that believing in yourself is the basis of all that is good. So I sat in my chair, put up my feet, answered the nurses questions, and watched as she fanned the alcohol dry on my port. I took my deep breath in as she plunged the needle in and watched my blood collect in the tubes. It was surreal, it was deja vu, it was old hat. But this time, there is less fear of the unknown. I've been down this road before. I know it can work. As she hung each bag of medication, asked me my birthdate and mom made sure I was comfortable (I forgot how much I love a heated blanket!), I watched the drips go through the tubing and into my chest. I just want to feel whole again. To not get winded going up the stairs, to enjoy a meal out with my friends, to put make up on and feel like me. This chemo is allowing me to take back my life. Take back control of my body and to be me again. I just know it is. I'm not living in denial, and if you feel I am, you can take a hike! Negativity has no place here. And I am living in reality. I know that I will never technically be "free" of cancer, but I can live with a chronic disease. I can and I will. So let there be no more tears in the still of the night. Let there only be visualizations of health and wellbeing. Of running through the yard with my growing son, of romantic walks with my husband, and laughter, oh so much laughter, at my sister's wedding. Tears are not necessary. Smile big, laugh til your belly hurts and you can't catch your breath. That is what living this life is about. And when you realize that, then you know that "We got this!"
