Faith, Trust And Pixiedust

Mid-October found me at the Cancer Center for my PET scan once again. I have spent so much time there in the last year, most of the staff know me by name. Some might see it as a bad thing, but I prefer to see it as a good thing. Kind of like visiting old friends and I don’t have to explain the laundry list of issues I have. When I scheduled my appointment this time around, I was smart. I made sure to have the PET scan the day before the appointment that I had already scheduled with my chemo doc. I knew that my heart and my nerves could not handle waiting days to see her to go over the results. This was the best decision ever. The scan went off without a hitch and I had barely 24 hours to wait, and over think what could happen.
 
At the past few chemo doc appointments to go over the PET scan results I had the hubs come with me. Unfortunately, this time he was busy with work and couldn’t get away to come with me. I decided that I would go by myself to the appointment. My thought was if I went alone, I would get better news. The morning of the appointment I also decided to put on a full face of make-up. If I’m wearing make-up I won’t cry, so they will have to give me good news, right?! Then I put on my new tee-shirt that arrived in the mail from a mystery sender that reads, “Fighting cancer, going through chemo and still this sexy” hoping everyone in the office would get a good laugh. Even my ipod got the memo, and played positive, kicking butt songs. I got to the doctor’s office and a little voice said, “What if it isn’t good news?” but I quickly squashed that. There was no way that I’m feeling this good and not getting good new too.
 
I was quickly brought back to a room and the waiting for the doc began. Thankfully she wasn’t running too far off schedule and appeared before I knew it. As the door opened I held my breath. The first thing she said was, “You can tell your husband that for the first time in a long time I won’t make you cry”. I then let out a massive sigh of relief followed by laughter. Oh, my goodness, this must mean the chemo is working! The chemo doc started going over the results, and I will admit that I had her repeat part of it cause I didn’t believe it the first time she said it. The spots on my liver that was found in May are gone, the spot on my adrenal gland that was found in August is gone, and the spots on my spine and hip are showing no signs of active cancer. But wait! There’s more! The tumor on my lung had shrunk a bit, but the potency level of the cancer had reduced by half. I was so happy and in disbelief at the same time. There was one lymph node that was slightly inflamed, but it could be from my arm being swollen from the lymphedema. They will keep their eye on it, but they weren’t concerned.
 
Once the good news sunk in a bit, next steps were discussed. I will continue on Trodelvy, the lovely, magical chemo that has brought me good news, for as long as my body can handle it. The goal, as time goes on, is to increase my “off weeks” from my current 2 weeks on, 1 week off, to 2 weeks on, 2 weeks off and then hopefully 3 weeks off. Before we get to that point, we decided to slightly increase the dose that I am receiving. The first dose that I did was 100% of the manufacturer’s recommendations. As you might remember, it made me super sick. The next dose, and the remainder doses that I have done, have been 70% of what was recommended. I have been feeling great, almost normalish since the reduction. The doc and I agreed to see how I would feel with an increase of 5%, making the dose 75% of the recommended amount. The main goal with the increase is to hopefully reduce the size of the tumor on my lung. If we can get it small enough, we can then hit it with radiation and hopefully make it go away. Once we can get it to where there are no new or active cancer spots we can start adding in more off time. I am all for less time at the Cancer Center and more time living life, so I’m up for trying the dose at 75%. If all goes well, I might even be down for upping it to 80%. The major plus side is I am in such a better place, physically and mentally, than when I first started Trodelvy, that I think I can handle these little increases. The major bonus is I know that we can always go back to 70% and be just fine.
 
Now, I know you all are asking, “What about the spots on your brain?” Well, I don’t know about them just yet. The PET scan is not the best tool for showing the details of what is going on with cancer on the brain, so I have a MRI scheduled for the beginning of November to fill us in. I had been taking steroids to help with the swelling/inflammation of the brain and have been slowly weaning myself off of them the last month. Since I haven’t started having headaches or vision problems, the hope is the multiple micro spots are still micro size. The other hope is that since Trodelvy is one of the handful chemotherapies that can cross over the threshold into the brain, it is working some magic there too. Keep your fingers crossed!