Hi friends. Bad news this week I’m afraid. My scans came back with the awful news that my cancer has spread to my liver. I also have two enlarged lymph nodes (with cancer) and my pleural effusion (fluid in lung lining) was also back. The only good news is the spots on my liver (8 total) are very small (the biggest being 1.4 cm) so it’s not affecting my liver functionality at all.
This cancer is just an aggressive son of a bitch. All of this new activity has just happened in the last 2 months – WHILE I’ve been on chemo. So it’s time to blast it with the big gun chemo. My oncologist has really been trying to preserve my quality of life, but no more. Starting on Wednesday I’ll go on two different chemos. Cytoxin – which I was taking in oral format in the past and Taxotere. The two combined can cause the following side effects: hair loss, low red cell count, low white cell count, nausea, strong muscle aches, diarrhea, extreme fatigue. Taxotere can also cause swelling in hands, feet or abdomen, so I’ll take steroids for the 3 days around treatment to help counter that effect. They’ll also administer an anti-nausea and fluids during treatment.
My treatment will be every 21 days – so that’s good that I won’t have to have treatment every week. It sounds like it will wipe me out for most of the 3 weeks, but I’m hoping for a few days of relief between treatments. We shall see.
Obviously Brian and I are reeling from this and really scared. My biggest fear is what happens when I go off this treatment (which will be when I can’t tolerate it anyone). Will the cancer just come rushing back as bad? Or to a new place? But I’m trying hard to just focus on each day and not project too much into the future.
I know many of you may want to help out and I so appreciate it. As we get a better idea of how this treatment goes I’ll post on FB (or here) if there are certain things I need. Right now I’m just hunkering down and getting some rest before the fight to come. Send me good luck! xo