HELLO WORLD!!

 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 effects, and I couldn’t even think about the future or make plans to do anything past  “right now.” With chemo behind me, I feel like I’m waking up again to say “hello world, I’m happy to be here!” I’m making to-do lists and checking things off, I’m signing my kids up for summer sports, I’m planning what house projects to tackle next and I’m anxious to see all my friends again. I’m a planner, so it feels so good to have fun things to plan again. I know I need to be patient. My body is still weak from chemo, and my digestive system still hasn’t recovered. But each little step back to normal is exciting because it felt like chemo was never going to end. 

What’s next for treatment? I’m sort of on a wait and see plan. Since my PET scan in January was clean, I’m now in remission. They won’t consider me cured or cancer free because of my stage four diagnosis, but basically they can’t see any cancer with imaging. It’s likely that I still have trace amounts of cancer that are undetectable by PET scan. To keep these itty bitty microscopic little cancer jerks in check I’ll be on an elixir of cancer killing drugs and I’ll have regular PET scans to make sure the drugs are doing their job. I’ll get an infusion of perjeta and herceptin every three weeks. I’ve already been getting both of these with my chemotherapy. They are considered targeted/antibody therapy. They work by targeting the receptors on the cancer cells and leaving my regular cells alone. The side effects from these two drugs should be significantly less than the full blown chemo. I may still experience fatigue and diarrhea, but at least my hair should start growing back. I’ll be adding zometa to those infusions on a three month cycle. Chemo can be damaging to normal bone growth and I had cancer show up in my tailbone, so zometa will help to rebuild and strengthen my bones again. Hopefully, this will just cause a few aches and pains after the initial infusion. Lastly, I’ll take a daily dose of tamoxifen. My cancer tested strongly positive for estrogen receptors which means it is fed by the estrogen in my body. Tamoxifen works by blocking estrogen receptors to starve the cancer and keep it from growing. The fun side effects for me is early menopause; hot flashes, mood swings and all! 

Honestly, life with stage four cancer feels daunting when I give myself time to think about it. I’ll be sticking to this drug and PET scan routine to keep me alive for the foreseeable future. It will be a constant reminder that I have cancer and it could rear its ugly head at any moment. Herceptin is the wonder drug for us cancer girls with HER2 positive cancer, but it will probably stop effectively managing my cancer at some point. Thankfully, there are a handful of other antibody therapy drugs that I could switch to when that happens. But I do worry about what happens if I run through all the drugs available and my cancer won’t be contained. I also wonder how my day to day life will be affected by the side effects of all these drugs. There are just no answers for me. Everyone responds differently, and I won’t know until I’m in it. Cancer has been a huge lesson in patience and living in the moment. I’m on the wait and see plan. My worrying about it today won’t change the result. It will only steal joy from this day and this moment. 

The wait and see plan also applies to whether I’ll have surgery or radiation. I’ll be meeting again with the Mayo doctors in the fall. By then I’ll have had two more PET scans which will give us a better idea of how well my maintenance regimen is working. We’ll be able to make a more informed decision about whether surgery and radiation are necessary. I’m very happy with this plan. I’m envisioning this summer as the summer of fun. I want to live it up enjoying my family and friends and rollerskating. I’ll leave the hard treatment decisions for later and work on getting my body stronger and healthier. 

How to pray!

Praise that I am done and out of the woods with chemo. Pray that I continue to recover and feel stronger each day. 

Pray for my first “maintenance” infusion. Pray that it would go well and my side effects from my whole elixir of drugs would be minimal. 

Pray for family bonding and rest. I feel like I’ve been absent from our family during chemo. The kids miss me and Steve had been shouldering a lot. Pray that we would find ways to connect and enjoy each other again. 

Pray for continued remission. Pray that I can go a long, long, long, long time with many, many, many clean scans.