Progress Report 3-4

First an update; I had a scan last week and the results are pretty good. It showed in my doctor's words; "a DRAMATIC DECREASE" in activity which means the chemo is working.

It has been about 7 weeks since what I can now call my rapid descent into hell and probably what could qualify as the worst 2 weeks in my life. What still puzzles me is how fast could I have gone from being seemingly well to being practically incapacitated (and of course the fall did not help). When I asked my doctor he shrugged his shoulders telling me this is cancer, don’t try to understand it. It is a devious, unpredictable disease that does what it wants to do. From my perspective it felt like my body was possessed by a demon who was taking pleasure in torturing me, punishing me for my boldness and my gloating about how good I had been feeling. Well the demon underestimated me because even in my most weakened state I stared him in the eye and made it clear that I was not going to buckle. I have an unwavering faith and an army of loved ones that carried me and lifted me up many times before and they were coming through to do it again. They came in droves to feed my body and soul sending me love and support from near and far. Sensing my defiance, in its rage the demon incinerated its self turning into a puff of smoke as I began to regain my health. He left some ashes though that may take some time to clean and I have to be vigilant about any remaining hot amber that can reignite. As of now I am totally off the hard core pain killers and feel almost as normal as pre-crisis. I would say about 90%. I will call it 100% when I can resume all my physical activities and play a round of golf. My blood work is still under par but as my doctor says, never mind the numbers, how you feel is what matters. The numbers will catch up. It appears so far that the treatment is working. I had a scan on Thursday which confirmed that prognosis. Margaret (physician assistant) called me back on Friday to tell me the good news. It is always comforting to hear her voice on the phone because if it was bad news Randy would have called. I am not sure why doctors never call with good news. I don’t have many details only that the tumors are showing a decrease in activity. I will find out more on Monday when I talk to my doctor and read the report. But for now it appears that we will continue with the same program. The chemo is working despite the fact that I have not been able to receive the second drug Avastin which the insurance company is still denying. The plan is to shrink things down as much as possible and then find a way to stop it from growing back and that is what we were hoping Avastin would do. But Randy tells me that I have a lot of other options and there are a bunch of new drugs coming out at the new year that are very promising. They target the cancer without affecting the healthy cells which I think is the wave of the future. So all I have to do is hang in there, only I want to do this feeling as well and as healthy as I can be and right now I know I am well on my way.
One thing I learned throughout this journey is no matter how bad things get I have to remember to take off the blinders and look for the silver lining. I assure you that during those tough weeks it was hard to see what good could come out of this, but I can tell you now that I received a very special gift that I may have never received if this did not happen. I had my husband by my side for an unprecedented amount of time. Close to eight weeks. He used up all his vacation time and any other legitimate day off he could get to be with me in Cincinnati. He juggled his work and conference calls with his nursing duties; and here I have to stop and take a minute to thank his Lifescan team and colleagues for their support and help that allowed him to do that. For that I am eternally grateful. He successfully nursed me back to health and did not leave my side until he made sure I could stand back on my feet. If this was a test of “for better or for worth” he certainly passed with flying colors. I know that the amount of stress he was under exceeded anything I had been going through. All I had to do was lie in bed, take pain killers and sleep. He had to worry about keeping the rest of our world turning. It may not have been the ideal situation for us to be together and it certainly was so far off of any dreams we have of what retirement may look like but I believe that the message here is if we made it through this than we could make it through anything. What a gift.
Much love
nevine