Cool Kid

Another 2 weeks of treatment in the books and I am consistently walking every day.  Not very far, and not very fast but dang near at Olympic speeds and distances compared to 4 months ago. Made it a whole mile today walking trails with my friend, Xena and gorgeous fall weather.  24 minutes is all it took (hahaha).  But still, huge improvement over being winded just walking from my bedroom to the bathroom or feeling like my legs would give out getting up the steps.

Whereas I’ve been going on an upswing with my health, it seems that many of my family members and friends want to be part of the Cool Club and be as cool as me.  So my mom thought a couple of strokes would be a fun way to kick off the fall (she’s doing better and in rehab for a few days before heading home), my cousin landed himself in ICU for a few days (I know I made it look awesome, but he didn’t need to follow suit!), my sister-in-law thought a cast would be a nice accessory to her wardrobe, my dad thought pulling his hamstring trying to help my mom get up would also be a fun event to try out, my friend heard of my breast cancer and thought – gee, I wanna try that too and I know I’m omitting a couple others.  So I’m thinking they were all getting jealous of the attention I obviously was seeking (note sarcasm font) and thought they would try their hand at this. Cut it out peeps – we need to be healthy together but not necessarily sick together.

I’m on my week off which is always nice. The chemo still knocks me down and I face some pretty severe exhaustion the day or two after treatment.  Add in my anemia, the scans I am getting this month and the fact it is dark by 6PM, and I find myself going to bed by 730PM on the day of and post treatment days.  But speaking of scans….I finished my 6th MRI for this year (I feel like I should have a punch card where my 10th one is free), we are doing them every 8 weeks to continue to see how the lesions and tumors are marching along.  Another great report as nothing is growing and a couple still continue to shrink. The mass of small lesions (which totalled 14 originally) are essentially unnoticeable on the scan and only the four larger enhancing/non-enhancing lesions are left to really give a hard look at.  So in 6-8 weeks I will go for my 7th MRI of the year to see if I get the present of Gamma Knife for the holidays. Both of my oncologists (radiation and general) were beyond thrilled with my response and the miracle drug of immunotherapy (Keytruda is my drink of choice). It was nice to finally meet with my radiology oncologist face to face and not be bawling my eyes out. Instead we talked about fishing, elk populations, where we went to school (he did his residency in Apple Valley, MN right next to where I great up), where I went to school, beekeeping (I pay off my doctor’s and nurses with fresh honey since I’m not dead yet), his kids interest in bugs and the outdoors. All of this after the good news of course.  Again – nice change from me demanding they don’t use the term pallative care or talk about Hospice, in between sobs.  I have now heard from both of my oncologists that the doctors they talked to (from Idaho) that initially discovered the metastatic recurrence of my cancer told them they were recommending me to hospice and pallative care.  This is why you must find a team that will fight for you as much as you are willing to fight for yourself, and maybe even more.

So next week I will get my PET scan before my doctor flees the country.  Hopefully my anemia will be improved with my new medicine and things for not only me but those around me will continue to go in the right direction.

Hope everyone is having as beautiful weather as we are in Idaho, but if not, hope you are enjoying a fire, good book (or blog) and a warm drink.