After I was
diagnosed, it took several months to adjust to all of the change. I remember
the day I was told that I hadn’t caught the cancer in time, I was devastated.
In fact, I think the first words out of my mouth were “oh shit I’m going to die…” At
the checkout desk, I was waiting for the receptionist to make an appointment
for an MRI scan on my head. One of the bone tumors was on my skull, so they had
to make sure I didn’t have disease in my brain. I saw a magazine titled,
“Living with Cancer” and all I could think was, “I don’t want to live with cancer!” I just wanted to run away.
Today, I still have moments when I just want to pull the
covers over my head, take a Xanax and forget my troubles for awhile. But most
of the time, I would definitely say that I’m living with cancer. I've felt like I was dying a few times, but I never said it out loud. I guess I was too scared to even think it, much less say it or write it down. Sometimes I fantasize
that the doctor will come in to the exam room one day with a baffled look on
his face and say, “I just don’t get it, but there is no evidence of metastatic
disease…” I believe this can and will happen if it’s part of God’s perfect
plan. Only He can give me total healing, but that may not be part of His
perfect plan. I just have to keep praying, and never give up.
I got my scan results on Wednesday (1/23). The news wasn’t
great, but it wasn’t terrible either. Good news first: organs are still clear
and healthy. Not so great news: my bone mets are the same and I have a teeny
tiny new met in my lumbar spine. The doc thinks that it has probably been there
all along, but maybe the scan didn’t see it last time. I don’t have any new
pain, which is great. Since the new met is so tiny, the doc is going to keep me
on the same chemo for now. So no break yet. The scan also showed bone loss in
my right hip! So I have to be careful because I’m at a higher risk for
fractures. I sure don’t want to break my right hip after everything my left hip
has been through. To add icing to the cake, when I got to the chemo room, I
found out the blood work showed that my platelets were too low to have chemo. I’ve never had to skip a treatment so it was scary to hear that after all
this time.
While I am thankful that once again, my organs are healthy, I
am pretty disappointed and scared that my bones just don’t want to get better. All
of the mets are in my spine/lumbar area, so what if I’m walking along and my
back breaks or I end up paralyzed?? It also scares me that I’m still struggling
to get my left leg in shape while the possibility of my right hip breaking looms
over my head. So I just have to take things one day at a time, sometimes one
hour at a time. I’m going to keep exercising, but not too hard. I’m going to
keep eating healthy and drinking lots, so my body can stay strong. Nobody seems
to know what I can do to bring my platelets up on my own. I asked two nurses
and there really isn’t any dietary thing I can do, although my husband took me
out for a big steak Wednesday night to “build my blood.” I Googled it, thinking
that the internet would have an answer for me. The only answer I found was “don’t
do anything to make yourself bleed…” Really? That should be common sense LOL. I
have no plans to go play in broken glass or use my husband’s table saw haha.
So I go back on Tuesday 1/29 for more blood work. If it’s
all good, then I can have my treatment. I still feel very blessed and lucky to
be here and I’m glad that I have a common cancer with a lot of treatment
options. Some cancer patients only have one or two treatment options. Once
those are used up, if the tumors don’t shrink, there isn’t much the docs can
do. Every time I see my doctor, he emphasizes that I have lots of options. It
always gives me comfort. I’ve joked with him several times that I would jump in
a microwave if he thought it would shrink my tumors LOL.
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