Retrograde

May used to be one of my favorite months. It symbolized the start of summer coming, the end of school, three months of “freedom”. As an adult the 3 months of “freedom” no longer applies, but it still is a sign of warmer weather coming. May is also my youngest sister’s birthday month, making it a good excuse to drink margaritas and eat Mexican food during the month. Heck! The Stanley Cup playoffs are in May. Anytime I get to watch the Sharks, or hockey in general, is a good time for me.
 
The last few years May has decided to become a month I don’t look forward to. 2022 was the year I found the lump in my breast and first heard that it is probably cancer. 2023 brought the new tumor on my lung and the spots on my spine. And just like the gift that keeps on giving 2024 brought the tumor on my lung growing, instead of shrinking like it had done for the past 8 months.
 
This was not the news that I was expecting. The plus side is that is the only negative from my round of routine tests. The Brain MRI came back with the larger spots either staying stable or shrinking and some of the much smaller spots disappearing. Yippee! The PET Scan did show that the tumor on my lung grew, but everything else stayed stable. Whew! I only have the bandwidth to deal with one issue at a time.
 
The growth of the tumor on my lung completely shocked me. I have been feeling so good. I rocked it all through Italy. I came home and the next day did a video doc appointment and went for a blood draw appointment. I then did chemo the next day. I would have known if the pesty tumor had grown, but I didn’t. I can’t say that I felt any different at all. Then again, when they first found the tumor, I had just gotten back from walking all over Nashville, and had no clue there was a new resident on my lung. Deep down I know that my good lung is working overtime to make up for the bad one, but I keep thinking that I should know something is going on.
 
This has been a bitter pill to swallow. I knew that this would eventually happen, but I just wasn’t prepared for it to start now. I figured that I would have some clue that my health was declining. In all honesty if the results came back saying I needed to do radiation on my brain, but everything else was ok, I wouldn’t have been surprised. There was one spot that was borderline being large enough last time for radiation. The fact that it has shrunk this time around was good news I wasn’t expecting.
 
With the tumor growth came treatment plan discussions. For the last 7 months or so I have been only doing about 70% of the suggested chemo dose. When they tried to do a higher dose in the past It made me unbearably sick and tired. To have a decent treatment/life balance the 70% dose was selected as it would only make me a little tired and slightly nauseous, and only last 2 – 3 days. My newish chemo doc wants to increase the dose to see if that will prompt the tumor to start to shrink again. I agreed to give it a try, hoping my quality of life doesn’t go downhill. She also wanted to investigate different clinical trials available.  I knew this step was coming, I just didn’t think it would be so soon. There are other approved chemotherapies out there, but the thought is to exhaust the chemo I’m on first and then try a clinical trial and then try an approved chemo. This will hopefully give me the chance to excel on a trial when I get to it, but to have conventional chemotherapy as a backup plan.
 
I few days after I met with the chemo doc, I met with my radiation doc. I had only expected to talk about the MRI results with her in detail, but I had hoped if we had time she would show me the PET Scan results, just so I could see the pictures to go with the results. It was my lucky day. We super briefly talked about the spots on my brain, and then shifted gears to the PET Scan and the tumor on my lung. She reassured my that while yes, the tumor did grow, the volume of the tumor was smaller than when we first found it last year and the volume is still smaller than it was in December. She had me on her list to bring up to tumor board about possibly doing radiation on the tumor on my lung to help slow down the growth. The big stickler is how long of a break would I need from chemo to make it worthwhile? The next question is would the rest of the team agree this is the best thing to do? At this point I’m willing to try anything.
 
These last few weeks have been rough on me. The not knowing, the not having a real plan set really pushes my anxiety over the edge. I know that my posts that are more sunshine and rainbows are more appealing to people, but right now I’m feeling a bit more like a thunderstorm. I promise you to always be honest about how I’m feeling. Right now, I’m scared. I’m trying my best to keep my chin up and think positively, but it is freaking hard right now. So if you see me around and I’m not my perky self, please give me some grace. I’m doing my best.