Time Makes Money Look Cheap

This last week has delivered one heck of a gut punch. I had a meeting with a Cancer Specialist at Stanford to see if they might have a clinical trial I could try that isn’t being offered at UCSF. The interesting thing is that most metastatic Breast Cancer trials do not include people with metastatic cancer Brain, so finding a trial I can participate in is a bit harder to do. The good news is that they have one trial that is just for patients with metastatic Brain cancer. Yippee! The doctor is going to send all my info over to the team in charge of the trial, and hopefully I meet all the requirements to participate. If I am able to participate, I will have to switch over my care to Stanford during that time. I will miss my “friends” at UCSF, but I’m sure they will still have a hand in my care.

Now for the gut punch… the doctor decided to share with me what he thought my prognosis is. After reading my history, and with my sometimes short positive responses to previous chemotherapies he feels that I have months to a year to live. WTH?!?! No one has given me dates like that before. I know that I don’t have a ton of time left, but I was sure hoping for more than that. Thankfully this was just a video appointment, and our time was almost over. He wants to stay in touch, just in case more trials pop up and I told him that is fine.

Once the call ended, I broke down. How was I going to tell my hubs, my mom, my sisters and friends??? “Hey, I talked to a doc at Stanford and there is a trial, but he only thinks I’m gonna live for a few more months, maybe a year.” Well, it kind of went that way. There was no graceful to say it. Hubs and mom got the news first. I decided to delay telling anyone else until after I met with my normal Chemo Doc, to see what she says. I was seeing her in two days so it wasn’t a long wait.
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I was silly for thinking two days wasn’t a long wait. I could barely sleep at night but could nap like a queen. My concentration went out the window. Thankfully I didn’t have any big projects that needed my attention at work. Finally, the day of my appointment arrived. The first thing out of my mouth to my doc was “He thinks I only have months to a year left to live”. She seemed a bit surprised. My blurting it out probably didn’t help. She doesn’t agree completely. Months can be subjective. With the additional chemos that are still available to me, granted there are only two after this one I just started, we have a very good chance to make it to the year mark, if not years. We also have the clinical trial to add in and we can always go back and try different variations of past chemos.

Whew! After that we went over a few routine things, mainly asking how my last treatment went and if I had any questions about the next one. They only question I had for her was if I could start planning my next vacation, and she said yes! I don’t have a ton of extra time on my hands, so go travel while you can. Now where to go? The Caribbean is sounding really nice right now.

I know that I should be focusing on being thankful and grateful this time of year, but I’m not sure that is going to be my main focus right now. I need a bit of a reset. Sometime to figure out how to get back to the old me that has no issues with kicking ass and taking names. I need to find some focus, find something that will bring me a bit of joy. I need to find a little extra love this holiday season and maybe have a little extra fun doing things I wouldn’t normally do.

I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving doing whatever it is that brings you joy!