My life now

Does this look like someone with brain cancer?!? I am beyond grateful for my oncology team and the many nurses supporting me. I did not want brain surgery, but I trusteed that they knew me and what is important to me and my treatment. My oncologist got me to United hospital and they have taken good care of me here.  I had a good sized lump removed from the back of my brain. They have worked to wean down my pain meds and remove the drainage tube. I got a shower today and will go home by the end of the week. It feels pretty good for brain surgery!  The pathology came back as the same breast cancer, which was to be expected and I think is good. We plan to treat the tumor bed with focused radiation to kill off anything that couldn't be cut out. Then I'll get a combination of chemo drugs that will protect my brain better this time.  Prayer That there is limited to no side effects of the radiation and new chemo.  Pray for continued recovery from surgery. I’m feeling pretty good and r

Yes, I swam in a triathlon the weekend before I found out I have a brain tumor. It was terrible, but that’s how I roll   I am coming up on three years from my diagnosis and two years from finishing active treatment. All of my PET scans have been good and I’ve been tolerating my maintenance treatment. I was happy to be getting stronger and living life without constantly thinking about cancer. That’s why it was a huge shocker to me and my oncologist that I have a brain tumor large enough that it needs to be removed immediately.  I started having headaches three to four weeks ago. It seemed like a sinus headache, so that’s what I was treating it like. Taking Sudafed, doing the sinus rinse and finally getting amoxicillin. When none of that helped and I realized this was a headache like no other I’ve ever had, I asked my oncologist to schedule a brain MRI for me. My regular PET scans have all been good, but they only scan from the base of the neck to the knees. This MRI is the first time th

First day of School selfie! It’s been a long silence from me here. This has been a hard season of waiting for me. I’m a planner and I like to know what’s coming next. I’ve been waiting to see if the cancer comes back or not, and waiting to hear what treatment plan the doctors recommend. It feels a little like cancer purgatory. I’m sort of out of the woods because the chemo was so effective, and I’m starting to regain my energy because I’m not in active treatment anymore. But I also feel like I can’t move on with life because of the looming threat that the cancer will pop up again, and I was still waiting to see what further treatments my doctors recommended.  After, many doctors appointments this fall I have a plan! My scans have all been good. That’s three PET scans and one breast MRI with no detectable cancer. PRAISE THE LORD!! My doctors and I have decided to continue to treat the cancer aggressively. Cancer seems so trixy and hard to understand. There’s no guarantees for anyone wit

 I’m over two months out from my last full chemo therapy. My hair is growing back and my strength is returning more each day. Some days I get the kids on the bus and go back to bed; some days I’m full of energy and feel like I want to jump back into life again. It’s unpredictable what type of day I’ll have, so I’m trying to keep my to-do list and expectations low. I’m excited for summer, but also a little nervous about having enough energy to manage the kids all day, everyday. I continue to have infusions every three weeks. I get an infusion of targeted immunotherapy (herceptin and perjeta) to try to keep the cancer in remission, and a third drug (zometa) to strengthen my bones. So far it’s working. I had another clean PET scan in May that showed no disease progression.  I also take a pill daily (tamoxifen) to prevent my estrogen from feeding the cancer. I’m so thankful to be done with chemo and have limited side effects at this point. I’d say the worst side effects now are fatigue and

 I’m done with chemo!!! I had my last infusion on March 8th. It was exciting to know that it was my last one, but I didn’t feel much like celebrating at the time because I knew what was ahead of me. For each round of chemo I’ve been pretty much out of commission for a week, and each round has been harder and harder on me as my body has become more depleted. Now, I’m ready to celebrate! This week I’ve been feeling better each day and more energized to get back to normal life. With the snow mostly melted away and the sun shining, I’ve gotten outside more to walk a lap around the neighborhood AND I’m starting a new obsession with roller skating. My body still feels pretty weak and easily fatigued from months of chemo, and roller skating is my fitness plan for getting back into shape. It’s so much fun!  I feel like I’ve been trapped the last several months. All of my focus has been completely on just staying alive and getting through chemo. All of my energy was devoted to managing side eff

 Have you ever heard of the Baader Meinhof illusion? It’s the phenomenon where once you are aware of something it seems like it’s ubiquitous. You’re thinking about buying a blue car, and it starts to seem like the streets are overflowing with blue cars. That's my feeling with cancer lately. I swear every book, movie, tv series, short story, tv commercial, bad joke and even one of my favorite podcasts has cancer in it. It’s like every writer has gotten lazy and there’s a huge cancer switch they pull when the storyline needs a good shot of tragedy. “We need a way to explain why this girl seems so sad and emotionally detached...I got it! Her mom died of cancer when she was little.” Or the reason why the cute female lead in a fluff Christmas movie can’t find love is because she’s too devoted to her job as a pediatric oncologist. I literally watched three cheesy Christmas movies with cancer in them. Being so new and raw in my own reality of cancer, sometimes I can brush it off and laugh