One Year - 8.24.23

One year. It is hard to believe one year has passed since my stage 4/MBC diagnosis. I'm honestly not sure how I feel about it. I should be ecstatic that I'm here, feel good (for the most part - my medicine makes me tired and sometimes I feel crummy), and have no evidence of active disease - and I am. Yet, I can't help but think it's one more year gone of my more than likely shortened life. I also look back at the last year, and I feel I've wasted it in a sense. Did I find my purpose? No. Did I make an impact? No. But did I survive the worst year of my life? Yes. 

The rug was pulled out from under us, and we managed to stay afloat. Life has pretty much been normal (if you ignore the countless doctor appointments), and I am very thankful for that. Along with countless doctor appointments, there have been countless trips to the coast! It's hard to be sad when you are surrounded by God's beautiful creation. 

I've continuously prayed for God to give me a testimony of healing, a testimony of hope, which is one reason why I'm finally making a "formal" announcement. How can people be inspired by my testimony if I'm not sharing it? When I got off the call with Duke, I had very little hope left of ever being pain free again, much less running. After doing a work challenge with a lot of walking, swimming, cycling, and yoga, I realized I wasn't as stiff as I had been, and I started wondering if exercising in the morning was helping. I decided to try running in the morning and am so happy to say I've started week three of running. My constant ache has gone away. I've had very little stiffness. Do I feel 100%? Absolutely not. I feel old and out of shape. But do I feel like I'm finally turning a corner? Yes! 

Chalk it up to a mix of time, radiation finally helping, and my medicine helping, but I really feel like it's an answered prayer and the blessing of a miracle. I was so tired of having pain every day, no matter what I did or didn't do. I was reminded throughout the day of having cancer when I couldn't stand up straight. Now, when I stand and can straighten up, I'm full of gratitude and have felt the need to share the testimony of healing I've been given. Admittedly, it is a strange place to be. As I'm full of gratitude for healing and my prayer being answered, I see friends who are struggling. Why me? Why not them? I don't have an answer for that. All I can say is hold onto hope, no matter how small the sliver of hope becomes. 

I pray in this second year I'm able to find my purpose, do bigger things, and really enjoy life now that the dust has settled. I want to find the courage to get SCUBA certified and go swim with the sea turtles. I want to plan a trip to see the Northern Lights. I want to get more involved at church and help others. When I write my two-year update, I don't want to say I felt like I wasted a year. I want to say I fully lived!

Please continue to pray for healing. Please pray I'll be an outlier and beat the odds. Please consider a donation to Metavivor!

 

Surgery, unexpected loss, & scans

At the time of my diagnosis, I was immediately switched to medication to put me into menopause. I knew I'd eventually want to have an oophorectomy, but I wanted to wait until things settled down a little bit. I started the process in April, shortly after my Duke visit.

The original recommendation was just BSO, but due to an abnormal pap smear, the recommendation changed to hysterectomy & BSO. Thankfully, the biopsy came back normal, but we decided to proceed with the hysterectomy. I preferred this anyways, as I wanted to be done being worried about GYN cancers. Surgery was scheduled for May, and I was fairly nervous about it. The surgery went smoothly, but it definitely wasn't as easy as I was expecting based on what others had said. I only took one week off work and should have taken an additional week. I'm three months out now, and I feel 100% recovered. I also feel better being in "natural" menopause than I did being in medicinally induced menopause. 

The week after I was cleared to return to full activity, Jason's mom unexpectedly passed away. Due to some people behaving inappropriately, additional stress was created. It's really unfortunate how we weren't able to grieve appropriately due to unnecessary drama. To keep this cancer-focused, I'm not going to get into it, but I was incredibly worried the stress was causing my cancer to spread. I couldn't sleep because I was so worried my next scan would be horrible. It's a horrible place to be - grieving a lost loved one and also wondering if your cancer has spread. 

As I sat and waited for my onc to come in my scan results, I thought I was going to be sick. I was convinced this would be the appointment where I was told I had progression. She came in, told me to get up, and let's go look at my imaging. I lost it and said I knew it was bad. Praise God, it wasn't bad. My scans showed nothing new. I had asked last time to see the imaging, and that's why she wanted me to go look at them. I had kind of seen the lesion on imaging during my bone biopsy, but this was the first time I had really seen it and been able to look at it. The lesion is circled in the pic below. 

May and June were pretty stressful months, and I'm glad they are behind us. Going through surgery, unexpected loss, and then worrying about cancer progression is just flat out hard. 

Duke

Despite having SBRT (radiation) in October 2022, by February 2023, I was still having pain and unable to run. I was referred to Duke for an appointment at their bone metastasis only clinic. They have a procedure called cryoablation that I was hoping to find out more about. Mom and I travelled up there in early April and, despite why were there, had a pretty nice time. The campus is beautiful, and we enjoyed wandering through the gardens and seeing the Duke Chapel. 

On the medical side, I left somewhat disappointed. I met with a nurse practitioner who was going to present my case to their board. A few days after my appointment, she called me to let me know the doctors weren't sure if my pain was from my lesion or my SI joint. They wanted me to get an SI joint injection and physical therapy to help try and determine the pain source. I knew the pain was from the lesion, but in order to pursue cryoablation, I had to have the injection and PT. This really frustrated me because it all takes so much time. I'm stage 4. Time is precious. I don't want to spend it in pain and waiting on appointments I know won't help. 

Needless to say, the injection and PT didn't help, and I ended up having a discussion with the interventional radiologist who would perform the cryoablation. He said while my lesion is an ideal location for the procedure, he wouldn't recommend it unless my lesion grew. I was really upset after the call with him. I was pretty much told you'll just have to get used to the pain, not do something you love, and you'll only get help if you have progression. I cried a lot and was really angry - it was a big emotional hit to me. 

I've prayed daily for God to give me a testimony that will help lead people to Him. I've prayed to be healed. I've prayed for pain relief. I wondered if now was the time to actually be public about what's been going on. If people don't know what's going on, how can I help lead people to God through my testimony?