August 2018 scans

Hello everyone :)

My last scans were in August. My doctor was out of town but I still went down there to get the scans. I don't like using different machines because the pictures may be different, the way they position me may be different too. I like the same machines and the same people looking at them every time.   I figured it would be at least a week before I heard answers but the nurse called me the next day and said that they all came back stable ~ which means there was no change. That is what I wanted to hear, since being told that the cancer is gone would have to be some miracle. But hey, you never know, right!? No change is better then growth!

 It’s always a great relief to get my scan results back with decent news. I feel like every time I sit in that office waiting for answers though, a bomb is about to go off.  I have already gone two FULL years without a single change and then BOOM - I had a new growth. I’m always waiting to hear the next bad news... My docs have offered to start spreading my scans out farther apart since I’ve been stable for 17 months but I am only good with going four months between scans right now. It had been every 2 months for a year, my last was 3 months between and now this one is 4 months. 

I am still on my chemo meds and the doctor feels like they are doing their job. I did take a few weeks off when school started for the kids though. Life was crazy and it was hard to keep track of taking all my meds.  (I take 2 pills in the morning,  one mid day (but only every other day, and not near the other meds), at night I take two nausea meds an hour before I take 3 chemo pills plus 2 other pills at that time! PLUS I go in for blood work every Monday. And no one knows how long I will be doing this for.)  I have been taking them consistantly again for the past month though!

The main side effects that I’ve been getting are being tired, sometimes a skin rash and I get a swollen eye and part of my face for about 5 days after taking the meds. (I take them one week, then off the next.) The swelling is annoying but I know the side effects could be much worse then they are.. I just struggle with that fact that as I’m getting back to feeling normal, I need to start taking the pills again. 

I was in and out of a funk for a few months so I decided it was time to get back on an antidepressant. I had been on them for a year and then off them for over a year. All was fine but things had slowly started to change and I knew I better get on top of it before it got too bad...they say when starting an antidepressant, sometimes things can first get worse before better - and did they ever! I was full of anxiety..guilt..dread. From the moment I opened my eyes, until I went to bed at night. I’d also wake in the middle of the night with an anxiety attack. I can’t even explain what it all was like!  I was home as much as possible. I spent a lot of time alone or with my kids.  I did a ton of reading and it said to hang on for 6 weeks, things should start looking up. And they did, I feel a lot better then I was. I can’t say I feel 100% like myself but closer then I had been in a while. We got a new puppy in August and she has been a great distraction for me! I’ve become an obsessive dog mom. Haha! 

I noticed that in 3 of the new shows I started this season, at least one person in each has cancer.  One girl with cancer had said - ‘It’s not that I don’t want to live, I just don’t want to live like this.’    That really hit home for me. THAT is how I feel.  I am very happy to be living my own life. But I wish the circumstances were different - I wish I didn’t need to take these meds. But if I don’t, will the cancer progress?  I wish I didn’t have to worry that the cancer will grow. What will happen if it does? I wish I didn’t question how long I’ll be healthy for. 6 months? 5 years? 40 years? And I really wish I didn’t worry about when I’ll hear bad news again.  It’s a fear that anyone who lives with cancer, or has had cancer, knows.  

But like I’ve said before, I’m grateful to be alive and not relying on anyone else. I know things could be much worse and I am lucky that things have worked out the way that they have for me. I look at life differently now then I did before cancer. I only do things that make me happy and I’ve learned to say no when needed. 

It has been a year since I ended radiation. I look back at memories from a year ago and I am so relieved to be done with all that!  I would say my mouth is as good as it's going to get. I still stay away from spicy food, but I can do carbonation and coffee again. It is much more sensitive then it was though. My mouth even starts to bleed when I brush my teeth. Sometimes it's my gums, the inside of my cheek or the roof of my mouth. 

In December, 5 days before Christmas, I go back for my next scans. Hopefully the answers are the same as they were at the last one and I can have a happy holiday with my family!