Today marks cycle 8 of my every-three-week chemo schedule. I’m tolerating it pretty well, I’m happy to say. The antiemetics work wonders, and I just plan for about a week of being super wiped out, so it is manageable. Oh, did I mention that I had an allergic reaction to the carboplatin during my fourth infusion? Thankfully it was caught and reversed quickly, so no big deal. But it does mean that I cannot have carboplatin again. I was only scheduled to have 4 rounds of it anyway this time, but it is a little scary knowing that it is out of the arsenal now. Also, fluid has slowly been building ..read more

As someone who has been living with the specter of death breathing down my neck for over 6 years, existing with an uncertain future, it occurs to me that the coping skills I have honed could be helpful to my dear readers. As I said to my husband in the early days of the pandemic, “it seems that the rest of the world is learning what our life feels like.” Those of us with metastatic cancer know full well the fear of not knowing what next week will look like, how uncertain the future is. We know the terror of seeing people in your community getting sicker and dying, wondering if you will be ne ..read more

I had scans following two cycles of chemo and it seems that the medicine is working its magic. The cancer has been knocked back in my lungs and my heart, the new stuff that showed up in my abdomen in July is gone, and sclerotic bone mets have appeared, which indicates that they were hiding out but are now dying. (I guess I also had some broken ribs?!? Who knew.) Much to my surprise, even my brain MRI showed improvement, with mets and edema showing reduction. Whew! Cancer is a thief that steals by inches and by miles. Sometimes stealing pennies, sometimes pearls. For the past few months it’s ..read more

It’s about time I update this little blog. I’m doing decently, much better than I was when I wrote the last post. The increase in steroids has proven to be incredibly helpful, making it much easier for me to function. My balance is still a mess, but I no longer feel motion sickness when I move my head (that was pretty awful). I’m embracing all the fun steroid side effects (hello again, puffy face), because I feel so much better thanks to these not-so-fun meds. Currently, the main issue is my balance. I’m fine when I’m seated, but I feel wobbly as soon as I stand up. If I’m holding onto somet ..read more

A lot happened last week. In a nutshell, I’m out of my clinical trial, and I spent 4 days in the hospital dealing with malignant fluid around my heart.  I had been doing my monthly clinical trial visits virtually since March, but as things have been getting more worrisome (increasing shortness of breath) my Wizard wanted to do a full evaluation in person. So, I went from extremely careful pandemic behavior to getting on an airplane. I’m very glad I went. I had a full battery of testing, and discovered that I had fluid around my heart (pericardial effusion). My doctor was going to admit ..read more

Things are not great in CancerLand. My rising tumor markers and MRI changes have confirmed that the spot in my cerebellum has grown back and is starting to cause symptoms. The great/terrible/ironic thing is that I’m not facing widespread cancer progression; the only spot causing troubles is the same bugger in the cerebellum that we tried to remove back in October. My sense of equilibrium is off, and I was having headaches and nausea until we increased my steroids earlier this week. Now, some of the imbalance is likely caused by my trial drug - it is a frequently reported side effect - but ce ..read more

Today marks 7 years of (knowingly) living with metastatic lung cancer. 7 years since I was told I had 8 months left. It also marks 78 days in lockdown because of Covid-19. Why don’t I count the cancer life in days? If I did it would be 2,557. That’s a lot of days. Things are bumpy on this roller coaster. My latest scans showed likely progression in both the brain and lungs, so we are mulling over next steps. I’ve never been good at predicting the course of events - I never would have imagined, 1 (or 7) years ago what today would be like. So, I hope to see you all back here when I write “e ..read more

As someone who has been living with the specter of death breathing down my neck for over 6 years, existing with an uncertain future, it occurs to me that the coping skills I have honed could be helpful to my dear readers. As I said to my husband in the early days of the pandemic, “it seems that the rest of the world is learning what our life feels like.” Those of us with metastatic cancer know full well the fear of not knowing what next week will look like, how uncertain the future is. We know the terror of seeing people in your community getting sicker and dying, wondering if you will be ne ..read more

Clearly this cancer likes to keep me on my toes. You may recall that I finally got some good news on my April brain scan, the first good news in a year or more. My May scan focused on my heart and bones. The heart looks just fine (yay!) but a spot appeared in my left shoulder blade. Just when you think you can breathe easy for a bit. It is a spot that was seen back in 2013, but that we thought was dead for all these years. I guess it wasn’t, or it is some sort of zombie cancer that is rearing its ugly head. And I thought the pains in my shoulder were a pulled muscle from all my travel and ..read more

The MRI was definitively stable, even slightly improved. Most of the spots have either gotten a little bit smaller (by about 1 mm - but I’ll take it!) and/or become less bright on the scan. I’m calling it “stable plus.” I was very pleasantly surprised by these results! Now I am only traveling to Colorado once a month. And that will feel like a breeze ..read more