Whelp, I was planning to take a break, to regroup, and to re-evaluate a lot of things, but I'm back with a medical update. You might remember my post from January (Updates from the MBC Rollercoaster) about how my tumor markers were rising and the scans showed uptake, but my team was convinced those results … Continue reading And it Continues …
Let me first say that the metaphor of a rollercoaster has some of the same issues as "journey" or other typically positive things, but it has been a good way of explaining the extreme ups and downs of this experience. As I pass 6.5 years of living with Stage IV Metastatic Breast Cancer (MBC) and am … Continue reading Updates from the MBC Rollercoaster
If you haven't already read the first part of this topic, Language, Part I, you should go read that first. It gives the context for this post and some necessary background. In that first post, I talked about the first of two scenarios where the language utilized in responses to a vulnerable post was (or … Continue reading Language, Part II
As if I needed the reminder that I'm not as healthy now as before cancer, a unknown bug landed me in the hospital with sepsis a few weeks ago, the week Hurricane Ian hit Florida to be exact and I've been really sick since then. We are pretty sure that one of the two germ … Continue reading As if I needed the reminder …
When we discovered that the cancer in my body had spread to my liver back in January of this year, we had to make a lot of decisions rather quickly, which always seems to be the case in this experience with Stage IV Metastatic Breast Cancer (MBC). No matter how much we prepare or research … Continue reading Quick Medical Update
"Tumor Heterogeneity" (TH) is a phrase that often comes up in discussions with my medical team and with researchers as we all attempt to understand and anticipate the behavior of the cancer cells. From some of my discussions with other patients on social media, there does seem to be a lot of confusion about this … Continue reading Tumor Heterogeneity
A little while ago, I wrote a post for SurvivingBreastCancer.org about genetic and genomic mutations, exploring some of the information we learned about my original breast tumor in 2017 and highlighting the differences between genetic and genomic testing. You can access that article here. As an aside SBC is a great resource for those newly … Continue reading Mutations become Targets
Tomorrow I will start the IV chemo, Taxotere, along with the oral medication, Xeloda. This combination is designed to work together and gives my medical oncologist some flexibility. While I get the need to get ahead of the cancer cells that were not materially affected by my last line of treatment, the knowledge that I … Continue reading Heading into Chemo
For the first time in quite a few years, the weight of MBC is is a very present threat and we find ourselves bracing for what’s coming. In hindsight, I think I’d already started bracing for the news we got last week. Early last week, I had a PET/CT, which I get roughly quarterly, and … Continue reading Brace, Brace, Brace
As most of you know, I get a quarterly PET/CT imaging test to determine if the cancer cells are behaving themselves. October 11, 2021 was my most recent PET/CT and it wasn't what we'd hoped for and, frankly, only happened in October because I'd advocated for it since I qualified for testing every six (6) … Continue reading Medical Update, October 2021
No Half Measures 