Milestone

For various reasons, I haven’t posted in a long time. Mostly it’s because sometimes, you want to forget about cancer. Who am I fooling? The truth is, you don’t. You don’t because you can’t. And you can’t because it never truly lets you go. It’s like the stain that won’t come out, forever imprinted in your psyche, on your body. You are never quite the same again after the day of diagnosis.

 I’m writing here and now because of a milestone, plus, I have something to share. First, the milestone. Five years ago when I was diagnosed, it seemed impossible this day would come. It’s a significant marker for cancer patients, one each of us yearns to reach. There’s a two year one as well. Let’s be honest, there are a ton of small milestones and goals in between and all along. Get the treatment plan. Get through treatments. Heal. Make it through the next scan. And the next, and so on.

The differences between the two year and the five year markers are this:

• Most cancers that are going to come back, usually will within two years or so
• After five years, one is even less likely to get a recurrence.

That said, most cancer doctors will never say you’re cured. I’ve read that even if the cancer hasn’t returned, it could. That even while you’ve completed treatments, and made it to five years, cancer cells can get left behind and could decide to grow again. This is the stain of cancer on your body, on your mind, and on the minds of those around you.

In the very beginning, through treatments and then post-treatment, most cancer patients (like me) live in increments of time between their scans. Every three months, off I went to get mine, and then waited anxiously for results. If/when they were good, I could go about life with a bit of ease. As the next one came up, my tension and nerves over it would grow. One learns to ride the cancer roller-coaster, gripping and holding on, tight as we can.

Over the five years, there have been good scans and bad. The one for the metastasis to my lung. The one where they thought I had bone cancer. (game changer) The one when lesions were found in my liver, and my diagnosis became incurable cancer. Since treatment for that, I have continued to be checked every three months. Several “stable” scans over the next couple of years got me moved to a stretch of four months. That happened in May of 2021, then a six month stretch was offered in January of this year.

Now comes a bit of an extraordinary news.

I had a scan this past Friday, July 29^th, the first in the new six month cycle.

I will admit to a major case of nerves, because after all, there was that extra three months and cancer does seem to have a mind of its own. I was cautiously optimistic. You can imagine my shock at hearing “there are some new spots.” My oncologist was quick to point out, “I’m not worried. Every July there are new technicians (inexperienced) who come on board to read these, I think you’re fine, but let’s get a liver MRI to be sure. It’s been a while.”

He wasn’t worried but I was, and stunned. His “I think you’re fine,” didn’t even penetrate. My mind did what my mind does, fast-forwarding to where are they, how many, what would my treatment be – Lord, not chemo again. That would make three times, and from the last round, I already have permanent side effects. Three years of stable, stable, stable, and now this? I was handed my check-out papers and out the door I went.

The girl at the front desk took to heart my oncologist’s instructions: “MRI now.” It didn’t matter he also added I come back in six months. He was certainly standing by his “I’m not worried,” but I don’t operate like that. 😬 I was WORRIED.

Three hours later, I was in the clanging/banging/knocking MRI machine for forty minutes. What a great way to spend a Friday afternoon. I was told it would take two to four business days to get a reading. I went home for the weekend to wait.

Duke Medical now has a new process. As soon as a scan is read/interpreted and notes are written up, they are released, to you, the patient, through a handy interface called Duke MyChart. I really like this interface for a variety of reasons – paying bills, passing messages along, etc, worrying over RESULTS. Yes, you get to read them before you’ve even been contacted by your doctor. That’s INTENSE and quite honestly, heart pounding. They have a handy, friendly “patient version” where you can hover your mouse over the medical terms and read the description. There is nothing to manage heart rate skyrocketing, or hyperventilation while one is looking for the statement, “concerning for metastatic disease.”

This is where it gets interesting.

First of all, when you get a scan like this, they discover OTHER things. Those are interesting to read about but, I won’t bore you with my other medical data. What I’m on the hunt for is the liver info. And what do I find? GOLD. The new spots – of which there is a cluster, “while technically indeterminate, these are favored to be benign given homogenous uptake and may be perfusional (related to blood flow) in etiology.” (Heart rate lowers, breathing slows)

And then – even better than GOLD is this: The remainder of the lesions, while indeterminate, are unchanged when compared to 2019 and favored to be benign given stability over time.”

What??? I asked the medical team to confirm my interpretation that the cancer did NOT metastasize to my liver. “Is that right?” I asked. “Did I interpret this right?” Of course they can’t/won’t say. What they said was as ambiguous as some of the readings of a scan where you get phrases like “not definitely seen,” or, “not definitively seen,” etc. They said, “There’s no way to tell, but the scan looks very good!”

Which makes me want to scream. I understand why they are cautious. They are in a practice that deals with a lot of death, a lot of uncertainty, and without a doubt, every single patient is uniquely different. Were those spots cancer at one time? 🤷🏻‍♀️ What I do know, at least from what I’ve read is this, lesions that are malignant don’t become benign.

Should I be doing the happy dance – you bet. But . . .

Another reason why it seems one can never fully escape from a cancer diagnosis has to do with something else I recently read. Cancer can hide. Cancer can be in your body in undetectable cells called micrometastases, or in the stem cells of the cancer. There you are, (like me) believing you are at the “no evidence of disease” (NED) stage, and further more, a metastasis may not have occurred AT ALL, which (IMO) is a game changer too as to my survivability. Right??? Yet, it can lurk like an alligator in a Florida swamp. Even if with chemotherapy, which targets and kills cancer cells that are in certain stages of division, it may not kill all cancer cells because that depends on what the cells are doing. I.e. if the cancer cells are not at the right division stage for that chemo drug, or not dividing at all, the drugs won’t kill them.

However. This is why many people get more than one chemo drug, and it’s why the doses are staggered out over several weeks. Like my last treatment which involved some pretty rough drugs like Cisplatin for 2 months, then switched they switched me to Carboplatin due to side effects, and I had Fluorouracil 5 throughout. Honestly? If those didn’t kill me, they SHOULD have killed the cancer cells!

Regardless of all the above, I feel so optimistic. I don’t have to go to Duke Raleigh Hospital for a scan until January, 2023.

By then, I will be entering into my sixth year, post diagnosis. Unbelievable.

“Well, it’s all right, we’re going to the end of the line.” 😉

Oh, August

As this month came with all of its anniversaries, I thought, oh, August, what will you have for me this year?

In the summer of 2019, my mother and I were fighting for our lives. In this picture below, she’s in hospice, her battle almost over. The date of this photograph is August 10th.

I was with her every day, and some were harder than others. On the day she passed, I remember standing outside her room and staring back at the window, knowing her body was still in there, yet she wasn’t. I pretended I was waiting on her to walk out of that place, tell me it had been a terrible mistake.

I went home, and took pictures of the moon that night.

Today, August 18th, marks the one year anniversary of her passing. August 26th, she would have been 84. ❤ 

One of my favorite pictures of her. Taken in August (of course) 2015.

Other “anniversaries” this month . . . in August of 2012 we lost our beloved little Yorkies, “the girls,” Bella and Kiwi. Bella, on August 2nd, and then Kiwi, on August 23rd.

It was August, 2nd 2017 I received my official cancer diagnosis, and began a rigorous treatment plan of chemotherapy and radiation that lasted into late October.

Oh yes. We’re very happy! Final chemo, October, 2017

They’re still there, helping people fight. The final radiation treatment, 30 in all.

Best card ever from my warrior sister, Keilah Goff.

                                                                          **************************************

Yesterday, August 17th, I was back at Duke Raleigh Hospital for my three month check-in. These have been ongoing since my diagnosis because the monster, a.k.a. as cancer, keeps wanting to rear its ugly little head up in new places, like my lung in 2018, and then my liver in 2019. When I started back on chemotherapy last summer for the liver metastasis, my final treatment was on August 23rd, the day after we had the service for Mom.

Since then, I’ve had three clear scans, November 2019, (PET) February 2020, (PET) and May of 2020, (CT). Clear scans in this case doesn’t mean there are no lesions, or nodules. Btw, everyone has these, unbeknownst to most of you unless tests are done and they’re  found, but it’s also important to note, most are benign.

I haven’t posted about the previous scans because cancer is tricky, and the results of tests are often a lot like riding the Tilt-a-Whirl, slinging you one way, good news! then the other, bad news! The results of a scan and what is said by the radiologists sometimes leave a bit up to interpretation depending on word choices. Things like “less conspicuous” and “less discernible,” or “not well seen,” can make you sit back and question, are they there or not? What does that even mean?

Basically, I decided to wait until I was one year post chemo treatment to do any sort of update because the longer things go with no change, the better. Yesterday’s scan shows “stability,” meaning the liver lesions seen have been there, and are unchanged. In the words of the radiologist to Dr. Smith, my oncologist, “their stability is definitely reassuring.” Are they cancer? We don’t know. The key word is “stability” because to the best of what I can gather no change means they could simply be benign.

Imagine. Some good news in August. Here I am looking a little tired, (typical writer appearance) but hey! Look! My hair came back. (!!!)

The capacity of the human will, the strength of a human body is never fully realized, until it is tested. 

I Wish

“They” say time heals all wounds. One can readily admit to the physical side of this. What takes longer is the emotional toll of watching one of the most important people in your life die from an aggressive cancer while locked in a similar battle of your own.

Then, they are gone, and there is the relief in knowing there is no more suffering, while harboring the conflicting emotion of wanting them here. Time goes on. Those mixed up emotions are accumulated, and held tight, sometimes locked down, imprisoned. Coveted. Pulled out. Put away again. It is cyclic. No one knows when the pattern will break, become less regimented, less invasive. Everyone is different.

I haven’t written out here since August. Thinking back to that month and what was going on, I can only shake my head. The head shaking – it’s partly wonderment at how we got through it, and partly denial, the “I still can’t believe any of this happened,” way of thinking.

I’ve spent a lot of time these past months dwelling on 2019. From my mother’s, “I’m having trouble swallowing, it feels like a lump in my throat,” to everything that happened after. I have one word for it. Surreal.

It seemed before I knew it, I was having my final moment’s with her, she was taking that one final breath, I was speaking final words to her. They were, of course, “I love you. I love you so much.”

So many endings this year. After she passed, I spent weeks at her house, packing up her belongings. It was hard, yet cathartic, in a strange way. I was with her, felt closer to her among her things. Before I would move an item, I’d have the thought, she put this here, she folded this towel, she put this dish away, she used this soap, she, she, she . . .

I told a friend, “I feel like I’m packing up her life.”

We sold the house. No longer can I go and play Scrabble with her, drink coffee. Talk. Laugh. (and yes, work my fanny off ’cause mom always had a list. Any of you reading this who knew her, knew she liked things a “certain” way.)

I wish she was here to give me a list. I wish she was here so I could call her. I wish she was here so I could hear her laugh – in real time – because yes, I can still hear her in my mind. I wish.

She was sick in this picture – but still wanted to . . . well. You know. Beat the pants off me.

The pastor at Hospice House asked me when we first arrived if I had any regrets. At that time, I said “No.” Now that I’ve done all this thinking, I will change that to “yes.” I regret she had cancer. I regret she couldn’t fight it. I regret the treatments didn’t work. I regret knowing how badly she wanted to live, yet how badly she wanted to die. I regret she suffered in her final weeks. I regret denying her the ability to talk to me honestly about her fears, her awareness of what was happening to her. THIS ONE most of all.

I thought I was protecting her by not discussing the whys and whats of this decision she’d made. I thought by not talking about that gigantic, overwhelming, trumpeting ELEPHANT in the room, she would continue to hope, to believe. I wanted her to think she was going to be okay, and she would drift off into her permanent sleep believing that.

I know now this is not how she thought. My mother was secretive about certain things. Maybe (most likely) she thought she was protecting me. So we did this dance of denial with one another. I’m not dying. You’re not dying.

What I don’t regret, could never regret. Being with her, every single step of the way.

 

How I remember her. Vibrant. Well. Happy.

I know the tone of the post may seem heavy, laden with sadness, awash with forlorn sentiments, but it’s really about reflection. The year is almost over. And while all may not be bright, we are filled with hope 2020 will be kinder, gentler, in every way possible.

This was one of her favorite songs. Like Elvis’s mother, Mom loved roses, and grew them in her yard. Sleep peacefully among your angels, Mom.

Love,

Me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yglzDizF2aU

 

LIGHT

For some time now, I’ve not lifted my head to see what’s around me, to notice much other than what needed to be done. I don’t need to tell any of you the past few weeks (months) have been hard, filled with sadness, and worry.

Many years ago, Blaine and I visited the Linville Caverns in the North Carolina mountains. It was beautiful. There were lights installed on the walls, showing us stalactites, stalagmites, and sparkling clear water with fish. There were ropes to guide us along to see all of these internal wonders of Mother Earth. Then, with a brief warning, the guide turned out the lights, plunging us into instant darkness. I couldn’t see Blaine beside me. I couldn’t make out one solitary object. I put my hand directly in front of my face. Blackness. The guide flipped the light back on, and the interior was once again illuminated.

Linville Caverns, NC Photo

Since my mother’s diagnosis and all that has transpired, there have been days when it was like being back in that cave with the lights out. I needed something to brighten my spirits, I needed a light switch flipped back on to show me how to move forward, how to get from Point A to Point B, and then to whatever point after that. Some way of feeling more myself, more lighthearted, more enlightened, the sense of waking up to a bright, sunny day after weeks of dreary rain.

I haven’t done an update on myself since June 17th, which was the day I began the first chemo treatment for this latest cancer diagnosis. Since that update, I’ve had three (hellish) months/rounds of chemo, through June/July and August. I was wearing my chemo pump when I gave my mother’s eulogy. That really felt like the darkest of dark days.

The final round, August 19th. Do you see determination? You betcha.

After the pump was unhooked August 23rd, I tried to not think about the CT scan for August 28th. When my oncologist called while I was still driving home, yep, I broke the law and answered my phone. I figured, get it over with, good or bad, you’ll figure it out.

I held my breathe, and he said,”Everything looks good. This is a good, clean scan.”

Whoosh. I resumed breathing and didn’t have a wreck. The new liver spots? Gone. The existing lung spots? Stable, no change since 2017. (they think these are scar tissue at this point) And even that pesky pelvic fracture that caused much anxiety in January and April has shown improvement and further healing.

This was the light I needed. I’m so grateful. ❤

 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. John 1:5

Back to the Frontline

I’ve hesitated giving everyone an update, but I know many of you are perhaps wondering what’s going on.

Here is some GREAT news! Mom left the hospital on May 8th, went into a physical rehabilitation center, left that on May 28th, and has been at home recuperating to the best of her ability. She FINISHED her radiation treatments this past Friday, June 14th, and now she is through, the next step for her will be an endoscopy – probably within the next month – to see how they worked. The hope is, obviously, the cancer is gone, or at least shrunk small enough she can be monitored.

I wish I’d taken a picture of her beautiful baldness, but I have yet to do that. She might appreciate that I haven’t – yet. 😉

As her chapter closes, mine begins – again. The hope for a “simple ablation” isn’t possible. Strangely, because of just how small those little spots are, they can’t do a biopsy, and they’re not operable, per the liver specialist. He lobbed it back to the bone doctor, and I, instead of waiting on them, went to see my medical oncologist, Dr. Smith. He’s been treating me for the past two years, and I trust him.

That conversation went something like this:

“Well, as you know, there are two spots, and they’re too small to operate on, and too small to biopsy. So, we don’t know what they are.”

“Right. We could wait and see.”

“We could, we could.”

“If we did that, how risky is it?”

“Well, there could be more we don’t know about.”

“Oh. And I guess it could metastasize, or they could grow quicker.”

“It could. Your cancer markers aren’t high, so I don’t expect they would grow too quick, but it could change.”

“What do you think they are?”

“I think they’re cancer.”

Decision made.

Today at 10:00 a.m. I will be at Duke Raleigh Hospital to start chemotherapy again. It will be a visit with my old friend, Fluorouracil (also known as 5 FU – interpret THAT acronym as you wish), and a new drug, Cisplatin. I will have this old friend again too:

Remember “pump’kin?” Called that because last time I was getting infused Sept/Oct timeframe.

This will happen – again:

Goodbye, lovely THICKER hair.

My taste will change, my sense of smell – I remember this vividly. My coffee, I LOVE my coffee, and it has become a new habit for me to swing by McDonald’s for a cup on my way to visit Mom. I’ve been SO tired from everything going on, it was the pick me up I needed. But, last time? Ick. I wasn’t able to drink it for a couple months.

Buh bye, Joe. I will see you in a few months.

I don’t know what all else might occur since I’m not familiar with Cisplatin, but some of the common side effects are, of course, low blood counts, etc.

My hope is this; I won’t feel as miserable because I’m not having radiation at the same time. I read somewhere in my many visits to Dr. Google that radiation intensifies the effects of chemo.

This go around there might be 4-6 treatments instead of 2, like in 2017. Dr. Smith said we’ll do 2, then do another liver MRI and see how they “spots” are responding.

I’m back to that Lady Macbeth saying, “Out, damned spot.”

So, this is what has been going on. I really appreciate all of the support, prayers, thoughts, and essentially all the good vibes from everyone! I have SO much to look forward to, and while I navigate this latest setback, I’m focused on getting through it, and passed it!

If I’m able, I’ll post updates, when I can! Thank you all for reading along, and supporting me!

Not too long ago . . . a rainbow came down from the heavens.

My Own Version of “It”

The beat of this drum has become somewhat tiresome, if I’m being truthful. Tiresome in that I don’t want the only thing I ever talk about is “it.” (reminds me of that fantastic book by Stephen King, read oh so many years ago.)

“It” is an appropriate name for the burden that is cancer. It’s one thing to deal with my own health, but we have Mom added into the mix now. This makes for dual roles – battling my own health issues, while trying to be caregiver to her. The complexities of this simply mean – I’m tired.

People ask, “How are you?”

I say, “I’m good, tired, but good.”

And you know what keeps me sane? Feeling good? Book events! I forget about “it.” I’m in the moment, I’m having fun, I’m laughing, discussing my books, discussing other books. Life seems normal.

Hooked On Books Book Club, Southport NC

Yesterday I was talking to a writer friend, and said battling my own cancer is like playing whack-a-mole. She didn’t know what that was. *You know who you are! It has truly become just like this arcade game – wherever it “pops” up, my doctors kill it. That’s the hope, anyway.

I had the liver MRI on Saturday. Sometimes you just know – it’s a feeling and it’s a bit of knowledge. 50-60% of people with this type of cancer see it metastasize to their livers. Those odds are pretty high, so it came as no surprise, really, when my oncologist called me yesterday at 8:00 a.m. and said, “There are two spots, relatively small, but they’re there.”

1.2 cm and 1.4 cm., each is about the size of a pea and they’re close together. Knowing those small details about them is helpful in an oddly, non-useful way. They are there, hidden away, causing me no pain, no sense of them at all. Like I’ve said before, cancer is sneaky. This is why so many people are late stage by the time they’re diagnosed.

What is tentatively planned, a possible needle biopsy, and then a simple ablation, a technique some of you may have heard of with regard to heart trouble, where they go in and burn the connections within the heart to get it back in rhythm. It’s similar with this for the tumors in my liver, but the expectation is to kill them off.

Changes are constant in fighting cancer, and while the recurrences are certainly disheartening, and may appear to offer a poor prognosis, there are still many options available to keep me filled with hope that there will always be an answer to the problems that seem to keep – ha – popping up.

John Hiatt’s CD, The Eclipse Sessions is a favorite I listen to while traveling to book events, or while running errands. Well, that, and Radney Foster’s, For You To See The Stars.

I chose this one for today, because the lyrics really fit. “Get up, get knocked down again, I ask for five, and you give me ten.”

Updates

It’s been a tough couple of weeks. First off, as of right now, my mother is in the hospital. After her 4th chemo treatment last Thursday, (out of 6) she went straight downhill and never recovered like she’d done before. She’d become unable to get up on her own, etc. Very weak, shaky, dizzy, you name it. (She’s also finished 18 of 28 radiation treatments.)

Monday when we went in for her radiation, and she was still feeling so bad, I went across the hall to her medical oncologist offices – where she gets her chemo – and told them they might want to assess her. They drew blood and her counts were so low, they decided to give her transfusions before her next chemo. That was scheduled for yesterday, May 1. However, they only gave her one bag because during the transfusion, she had shortness of breath.

So, she was admitted to the hospital for observation, fluids, blood, tests, and all the other “fun” stuff that happens in that place.

I would also like to add that getting INTO a hospital is as hard as breaking OUT of jail. It was likely more complicated/difficult because this hospital had no beds. Fresh out. That meant we had to go to the Emergency Room, and we ALL know how those trips go. Hours. Hours. Hours. We arrived at 3:00 and got into a room at 9:30. I think. It’s all a blur.

Waiting, waiting, waiting in the Emergency Room area.

She is being treated for neutropenia. She will need more blood. They are doing other tests. Her heart rate was pretty elevated last night – while she was just lying there. (between 110s and 130s – fluctuating) The nurse said it could be dehydration, but they’d given her fluids when she started the transfusion at the chemo clinic – so, I don’t know.

Bottom line, she’s where she needs to be, as many who were around her, and saw her, thought she was not doing well at all. It was apparent something wasn’t right. Hopefully she will feel much better when she’s able to leave. We will then have to resume the treatments, but I’m hopeful they will provide her with a medication to help keep her blood counts from bottoming out again, and I’m sure they will.

As to my own situation, most of you don’t know this past January we had a “bone cancer” scare. I sustained a fx in my pelvic area in September 2018 while running. Because of radiation, everything is different – check out osteoradionecrosis if you’re into reading medical documentation and seeing cool radiology pics.

When I went in for my PET scan in January, I told them they’d see this injury. They did. That became, we don’t know if it was caused by cancer or radiation. Off to the sarcoma clinic I was sent. The doctor there looked at the x-rays and said, “I’m not worried and here’s why.” (Talk about relieved.) Some of what he talked about how to do with that long word above. Some of it was about the fact I was no longer in pain. It was excruciating to walk when it happened, but after about 8 weeks, it got better. The main point, no pain at night which is what bone cancer is known for.

He said, “I’ll see you in three months.

I had the follow up PET scan on April 19th and went back April 23rd for the results. There is good news/bad news. It started off as bad news/bad news, and by now, any improvement in a result – well, I’ll take what I can get. Initially, he said, “Remember when I said I wasn’t worried? Well, now I am, and here’s why.” He said the fx hadn’t healed any more. He said the uptake on the glucose tracer was slightly more elevated – therefore, what he’d avoided in January was now back on the table – a bone biopsy.

What can you do? Not much. But then, there was a new issue. A new spot on the liver. Uptake on the tracer as well. There has been no liver involvement at all, up to this point. It’s truly like what’s next??? BUT – the tiniest sliver of good came when I was called by the sarcoma clinic and told the bone biopsy scheduled for May 3rd was postponed until they get back results of the liver MRI – yet to be done. I think this is because there is still the feeling that whatever happened with that fx may truly be a radiation thing. From what I’ve read, bone cancer is very painful – it would keep me up at night, plus it’s in an odd area, evidently.

Did you see this picture. (I deleted it when I realized it hit my author page, not my personal page on Facebook. I’m trying to keep those two things separate.) The look on my face says it all.

Those doggone blue bloomers they give you for xrays – fashionista! NOT.

That’s where things are. Liver MRI on May 11th – next Saturday. This is why I’ve been low key on social media. So much going on, yet, it’s often when I listen to music I find my way to a better, calmer peace of mind.

There is something about this particular song, a favorite for sure. And, even while it’s not relative to anything going on, I think what entrances me most- aside from the melody – is the message of enduring love.

Warrior Mother

I think I’ve said this before, and if I haven’t, I’ll say it now.

Cancer sure is sneaky.

Before I was diagnosed, I was sick for years and didn’t know it until a couple of persistent symptoms cropped up. One I ignored for some time because it mimicked another common health problem. One I didn’t because, OMG, LUMP! Right? What I thought was an enlarged “lymph node,” turned out to be a tumor, metastasized from the original. Because of that, I presented as a Stage IIIB right off the bat, and went on to the illustrious Stage IV.

Sneaky. Without a doubt.

February 19th was another day of reckoning.

That’s when my mother and I received the news of her own cancer diagnosis at age eighty-two.

It began simply enough. Some pain when swallowing that seemed to come out of nowhere in early January. She already had an appointment set up with her regular doctor for January 30th.

She said, “I’ll tell him about the pain then, if I even still have it. I probably just need my esophagus stretched. You know, so and so, and so and so have had theirs done.”

I thought, well, okay, maybe that’s it. I also thought her symptoms mimicked my husband’s. He has acid reflux, but, as long as he takes Nexium, he’s fine, otherwise swallowing dense food, like meat, potatoes bread, i.e., it’s the same as what she’d been having.

So, I bought her some of the over the counter stuff, and after a few days, she thought it might be working. Then, it wasn’t. By then, she wasn’t too far from her appointment, so she managed by finding things that were easier to eat. Finally, I took her to the doctor appointment, and she told him what was going on. Two days later, she was getting x-rays – which showed nothing. From there, he referred her to a gastroenterologist who ordered an endoscopy for February 19th.

The day of that procedure Mom was in good spirits, ready to get everything over with. It was all done pretty quick. The doctor walked into the recovery room while she was eating ice chips and I was dithering around on my phone.

He said, “Well, I know what’s wrong.”

I glanced up, and before I could ask him any questions, he said, “It’s a large mass growing into her esophagus. Cancer.”

Oh, how everything instantly changes when you hear that word. Every single thing about the way you think, the way you feel, the way you live from that moment on is altered. You know it, but none of it is solidified yet. The reality of it is still melding with you, and while you’re trying to cope with the word, physiologically your body reacts on its own. You were warm, and now you’re cold. You could breath and now you can’t. Your heart beats too quick, and tears fall, but neither of you notice any of these things.

Shocked, we could only listen to his next words carefully.

“We will wait on the biopsy, but I’ve seen plenty of these, and it doesn’t look good.”

What a sad ride home that was.

The next steps were to get a stent placed into her esophagus so she could eat. The gastro doctor was about to go out of the country for three weeks, so, on February 22nd, three days after the endoscopy, that was done. What followed was a rough, rough two weeks. The pain was intense as her body adjusted to this foreign tube stuck right into the middle of her esophagus and the tumor – which the doctor said looked pretty “angry.”

Somewhere between that, and the following weeks came a CT scan, a PET scan, meeting her oncologist, her mapping/planning with radiation oncology and the planning with her medical oncologist.

The surreal part of this? Her radiation oncologist is the same one I had, the same nurses – you remember these gals, right? I called them my angels back then and they haven’t lost those wings.

They’re still there, helping people fight.

Her battle begins tomorrow, April 4th at 10:00 o’clock a.m. when the ladies above will guide her through the treatments with expertise, care, and compassion, just like they did me. Directly after, she will walk across the hall to the medical oncology offices, where she will begin her chemotherapy at 10:45 .am.

She is receiving her chemo differently, and by that I mean once a week for six to seven weeks. I had the “pump”kin for a week at a time, twice. Remember it?

The “pump”kin. Ten days of hell, dosed out five days at a time.

She will have twenty-eight rounds of radiation.

Her attitude?

“I’m going to kick this thing of the way so I can keep going, so I can live! I’m going to fight like hell.”

Taken Monday at her house where she beat me twice in Scrabble.

Meet my warrior mother.

Battle Scarred

We’re called warriors. That word and others like fighting, survivor, and journey, are used to describe this experience and never before did I fully grasp it until that day in 2017.

We are battle scarred. In my case, I’ve been tattooed, four permanent little bluish dots which pinpointed where the radiation machine would target. That’s another word to add to the repertoire – target. Like throwing darts, we wanted those beams to hit the bullseye and kill the cancer. Kill it, not me.

I have scars from the radiation burns, from lung surgery, and now I have this one from the skin cancer recently removed. In the grand scheme of things, this was easy-peasy.

“Oh, this little ole basal cell skin cancer? That’s nothing,” I declared to the dermatologist as he stitched up my leg. (I tell you though, skin cancer is nothing to fool with. What I had was literally about this size –> O, if that. That turned into taking out that chunk of my leg like what you see below and eleven stitches.)

That “dip” will go away – eventually. Hopefully before shorts season!

The longer you talk cancer, experience cancer, deal with cancer, the more you realize you are in a war zone, albeit self-contained. There are the inner scars too. These are memory scars, the ones formed over PET scans with outcomes we don’t want, the idea it could resurrect it’s ugly little presence any old doggone time it wants. Our future is at stake until we pass the magic time of two years and five years. At five years cancer free, none of us have any more chance of getting it again than the rest of the population who’ve never had it.

I do my best to ignore it. I’ve gotten pretty good at it too, as these pictures show.

Attended the Women’s National Book Association Bibliofeast

Honored a cherished friend . . .

Accepted this award at the SELA/SCLA Annual Yearly Conference

Thanksgiving at our house with family

Decorated the tree . . .

Somebody doesn’t like their reindeer horns  . . .

You get the idea! 

I have concluded I am proud of my battle scars. I am glad I have them. The fight is over for now. I am completely cancer free – again. I will get through PET scans, and continue to look forward, never backward. 

The hair has come in nicely btw.

I continue to . . .  dream.

Running With Lung Cancer

How’s that for a title?

Those of you who live in my neighborhood, yes, that certainly has been me you’ve seen jogging along the streets recently. You might have thought, but, wait. Didn’t I hear she now has . . . lung cancer? 

That would be right too.

I asked my oncologist about running weeks ago, and his answer was “Yes, you can run!”  That made me really happy. So, that’s what I’ve been doing. I figure if I’m in as good a shape as I can be – considering – I will recover faster after surgery.

Which is what I’m here to talk about, recovering from the surgery I mentioned in my last post. I went to see a thoracic surgeon yesterday.

By the way, in case you missed that Instagram post I did on Monday, here’s the picture I sent out.

Talk about timing. These two pieces of mail arrived together. This actually made me giggle but maybe I have a weird sense of humor.  (French Sojourn, you can see I took your advice – thank you)

Back to the surgery visit. It was really enlightening and what I hoped and prayed for will happen. The doctor is David White, and while I was having a pulmonary test, the nurse said, “If I had to have any sort of surgery on my lungs, Dr. White is who I would want. He’s the best and I’ve worked all over the place.”

I love it when nurses volunteer tidbits like that. Either way, even after meeting him I was still curious so I Googled his name. Here’s a short video taken about three years ago where he introduces himself:

I really like him. Like my oncologist, he was thoughtful and caring.  It showed in how he talked, explained things, and the time he and his PA took.

We started off by comparing our fitness watches. Ha! We had very similar looking running watches – same color – black/lime green.  Then we looked at the PET scans I’ve had. He can’t be 100% sure of what type of cancer it is until they biopsy it. At this time however, because of the characteristics (round), he believes it’s actually a recurrent cancer and that the original cancer metastasized to the lung. My oncologist has said this would be a highly “unusual pattern.” (I’ve always joked how I can’t ever just have a common cold. If you knew my entire medical history, you’d understand what I mean.)

Dr. White said, “I bet when we look at the PET from January, we’ll see it.”

He flipped to that scan and scrolled through, but, we didn’t see anything.

He said, “Huh, that’s interesting.”

At any rate given the placement, back of the lower left lobe, (he placed his hand on my back midway to indicate about where it is, whereas all along I’ve been thinking it’s up front) he still thinks it’s recurrent. He also talked about the shape – round – and said other lung cancers tend to not be that shape, meaning the shape points to recurrent.

He scrolled through the scan and showed me other “spots.” I’d not heard about other “spots.” I honestly can’t recall how many there were, but I’d say 2-3. His PA said, “these are so small we wouldn’t be able to find them (during surgery), but we need to watch them, and see if they grow.” The watching will come from PET scans.

For the surgery it will be laparoscopic (so relieved), and he will do a “wedge resection.”  This will mean cutting out the nodule, and some of the good tissue. He said they literally cut it like a wedge. I like pictures, so I went out and found one. Like this, but in that lower part of the lung.

There will be a tube in my chest for about a day – and that will be removed before I leave. This is the best surgery for maintaining most of the lung tissue. Regardless, your body has to adjust to less lung capacity, but this is the optimum for keeping the most of the lung.

He said I shouldn’t have to stay more than a night, maybe two depending on how things go with the chest tube and its removal. At home, recovery beyond that is about ten to fourteen days. He said one of the hardest things is getting over the anesthesia, and the pain. Still, all this was right in line with what I’d been hoping for – minimal hospital stay, and a pretty quick recovery.

He then said, “Once I’m in there, if I find out it’s actually a primary cancer, that will mean a larger incision (still laparoscopic) and a lobectomy, where we would remove the lower lobe entirely.” It means a longer hospital stay – maybe an extra day, and a few more days tacked onto recovery.

So, that’s the deal. The surgery is September 24th. This was the date I was hoping for because of the SIBA Tradeshow in Florida, and the Stanly County Library Annual Friends of the Library meeting where they’ve sent out 250 invitations.

Not having it ASAP doesn’t mean increased risks. It was sort of funny because when I asked about that, and I was prepared to start emailing people to say, “I’m real sorry, but I won’t be able to make it,” he said, “No. It doesn’t make a difference. If it grows, it will only make it easier to find.”

It still sounds encouraging and hopeful despite hearing about the other spots. We’ll just have to keep the faith they won’t grow, and hope from this point on I’ll get clean scans.

As always, I find myself listening to certain songs, and the lyrics to Seals and Crofts’ We May Never Pass This Way Again, are fitting.

“Cast away our fears, and all the years, will come and go, and take us up, always up. . .”

 

Peace and love,

Donna