PET(S)

Look at me write one of these in under 3 months.  I’m just rocking the blog these days.

The biggest news I wanted to report is I had a PET scan this past week. I get these every 3 months (much like my MRI which will be in a week) but I still manage to give myself scanxiety the night before the scan and/or results.  This past week was no different as I might have slept 3 hours prior to my scan.  Grateful for my big bro driving me this week. The worst part of the scan (aside from the anxiety that accompanies it) is the fact you can’t eat for at least 6-8 hours prior, no coffee, no teas, nothing but water. So if my scan is at 130 PM that means by 530 AM I can have nothing, and by that time I just don’t feel like eating. So I went until 330PM before being able to eat – and did I eat! Found a Mexican restaurant close to the clinic, got enchiladas, a margarita AND churros stuffed with banana cream and whipped cream to dip into. I think I’ve mentioned that I go 10 days without sugar, but no idea what day I was on but was totally diving in for the win. Obviously attempting one of those highly touted fasting diets would be a huge fail for me.

After getting my scan and stuffing my face, my brother and I spent the night at a nearby casino, since I needed to be in Spokane the next morning yet again. Michael came out ahead and I was wayyyy behind that evening, against better judgement I went out early the next morning to get coffee (ya right, that’s just what I tell myself) but to see if I could at least leave feeling like a winner.  And did I ever! Made up my Wednesday night losses and grabbed an extra $200.  I grabbed that cash and ran, woke brother up (who needs to wear his Cpap) and headed out for an amazing breakfast, but most importantly met with my oncologist and heard the test results. As hoped, the PET scan came back clean.  Just a reminder this looks at the neck down, so the brain will be in a week, and I can start a new round of scanxiety. I love that my doctors want to give me results the following day. After seeing that this was the 6th PET scan (maybe 7th) with no evidence of cancer, my oncologist determined that we will try doing Abraxene (my chemo drug) once ever 6 weeks rather than every 3 weeks. I wish this meant that I only had to go to Spokane once every 6 weeks, but alas, I still have to get immunotherapy (Keytruda for those that are interested in drug names) every 3rd week, as that is what they feel is keeping the brain in check as well as the cancer in my body. So this past week, after meeting with my oncologist to get those scan results, I headed into the infusion room darn near skipping. Let me tell you, not having that Abraxene made a huge difference in how I felt great compared to when I do take it.  No night time tingling of my feet, no absolute exhaustion where I can’t stay away on the ride home and am in bed within an hour of coming home. I was still a big groggy the next day and I’ve said it before, but so appreciate the ability to telework on those post-treatment days. Once again, a great appointment. I am still very tempted to contact that initial doctor and say in my best Monty Python voice “I’m not dead yet”. I do know my general practitioner was going to call him and chew him out, but part of the oddly superstitious part of myself doesn’t want to jinx my good health. So maybe when I reach 2 years I will message him.

Although my biggest focus these past few days has been my PET scan, I also had to focus on my pets.  Labor day weekend I spent focusing all about apples. Applesauce, apple pie filling, apple picking and at the end of the long weekend having a group of friends over for apple cider pressing.  I am so grateful for my amazing friends/co-workers who showed up, because by that time my body was pooped from canning all day the day before and picking apples and pears for a couple days. In addition, my awesome hubby, brother in law and cousin showed up from elk camp (no elk yet) and helped out (alot!). So 6 gallons later, over 200 lbs of apple mash to share with my neighbor’s pigs, we finished up.  However, my invite included spouses, kids and friendly dogs. And my dog loves playing with other dogs, to the extent that she doesn’t have any self preservation going through her excitable lab brain as she chases, gets chased, wrestles, plays tug of war, fetches balls, etc. By the end of the gathering I noticed my dog was lame in her rear leg. Ugh! Looking at her foot you could tell somehow she had snagged her toenail, ripped it halfway out then got it twisted. She has had more injuries to her feet then my last 3 dogs combined!! So Monday morning, first thing, I call the vet to see if they can get her in. Fortunately I have a great vet and they told me although they were busy with surgeries all day, if I brought her in they would put her on standby.  I drove my poor little broken pet the hour to the nearest and best vet where they took pity on her, got her checked in and told me they would call me, but it might be an hour, might be 4 hours. This leaves me contemplating, do I drive home only to have them call me and I have to turn around or do I stay in town and work from my tablet. Option b won, and I first found myself a nice little restaurant to enjoy a 2 hour breakfast, while working, and then relocated to the library to finish off my morning of work.  Fortunately at noon they called to say she was ready to come home. Xena had on a cute little pink wrapping and I was given some pills to give her over the next 10 days and we were headed home. Now mind you, I sometimes wonder if my pets get purposely sick or injured for the sole reason that they will get pills stuffed in hot dogs, and they are willing to sacrifice their body for those darn hot dogs, if only my pets could talk.

Xena wasn’t the only critter in my household to have an exciting week though.  On Friday my friends brought over their 2 dogs for me to babysit while they headed out of town on a house hunting trip (and couldn’t leave the dogs in their house since it was being shown). Xena loves other dogs so it was nice for her to have friends to hang with, although I wouldn’t let her play too hard. However, Frank (the cat) was locked outside as I had the mudroom door closed to keep the dogs out of the main part of the house (didn’t want them accidentally eating one of Brent’s mounts). Frank didn’t realize there were strange dogs here and went about entering the mudroom only to discover new dogs. I can only imagine he yelled out “stranger danger” and took off running, which caused the younger dog to participate in this fun new game of chase (the old dog just plopped on his bed).  Frank escaped unharmed and recused himself to a tree. But for 2 nights and almost 3 days I saw no sign of Frank. Mind you, without him being able to get in the house via the mudroom he can’t access his food, aside from what he catches. So today I put food out for him outside, behind the house under our lean to. After a few hours I went to see if he had touched the food and while looking along the back of the house and up in the tree he climbed I glance down to see Frank at my feet following me around.  So exciting times for all of my furred love ones, but we all managed to escape this past week fairly unscathed (aside from Xena and her poor nail, which is all fixed now at least).

Brent left for elk camp at the beginning of the month and I’m not sure I’m doing a great job caring for the homestead, but so far, no death or too much destruction. Unfortunately, they aren’t having any success up at camp.  Still early I guess, they have 20 more days of hunting so fingers crossed that one of the 6 guys comes down with an elk (preferably more than one of them).

Thanks for continuing to read my blog, apologies this was lengthy, but without Brent to hear me rattle on, you all get that honor.