Hi friends. We received the results of my PT scan yesterday, and it’s not good. My liver lesions (tumors) have doubled in size and I have 10 (!!!) new ones. The new ones are all very small, but still…fuck. I also have a few lymph nodes around the liver that are filled up with cancer. So the ibrance chemo is not working. On to chemo #9. I’ll start the new chemo, called CPT 11 (or as Brian refers to it…Captain 11), on Wednesday. It’s an IV chemo and I’ll received it once a week for 3 weeks and then have a week off. The most common side affect is diarrhea, so I have that to look forward to. Imodium will become my best friend. Honestly, I feel like an 80 year old with all of these various symptoms I’ve had to deal with.
Anyway, the bright side is the liver is a very redundant organ. Meaning only a small part of your liver is really needed to function. So despite having lesions throughout my liver, my functionality is totally normal. Looking at my (weekly) blood tests, you’d never know I have cancer in the liver. But the scary thing is you can’t let those tumors grow too big or it WILL start to affect my liver functionality. And that’s when I can get very sick or die. So we’re not going to let that happen.
The key is to find a chemo that actually WORKS for me. That’s been our biggest struggle in the past year because my fucking cancer is very aggressive and SMART and is thumbing it’s nose at these recent chemos we’re throwing at it. Hopefully CPT 11 is going to be the one that kicks ass. It’s mostly used for colon cancer patients, but doctors have seen some recent success with metastatic breast cancer patients, especially when a patient has been resistant to other chemo drugs.
I’m feeling a bit down about all this today and more than anything WEARY. I want a freaking break. I want something to work so we don’t have to worry so much. I feel like the cancer is getting the upper hand and I’m not down with that shit.
But here’s the good news…almost 3 years ago when I was first diagnosed with metastatic cancer my biggest fear was I wouldn’t be able to walk Desmond into his first day of Kindergarten. And in less than 3 weeks I get to do that. We go on vacation next week (Semiahmoo Resort and camping on Whidbey Island) and I’m going to convince Brian to rent a house in Portugal next year and travel around Europe as a family for a few weeks. So there are REALLY good things coming my way. And I have to believe we’re hit the magic bullet and find a chemo that will actually work against this damn disease.
I’ll keep you all updated. Thank you for continuing on this long and tiring journey with me. Lots of love…