Trick or treat

Certainly not a treat, so is this a trick? I wish it were so simple! Despite my bone scan indicating the cancer was stable, my MRI shows a new loonie sized tumor at L2 (the lumbar spine, roughly where your ribs end). Now, for the 5th time in my life, I am preparing for a week of radiation treatments. This time I have to travel to Sudbury, 3 hours from my home, and stay Sunday through Friday. Six days I will be away from my family, and while it will be nice to sleep through the night (fingers crossed my insomnia allows me that luxury), and care for just me, I am going to miss them terribly.

This new tumor in my spine comes just a couple months after treating the tumor that grew in my eye. Developing new tumors while on treatment is never a good sign and the nurse in me can't help but feel like this is the beginning of the end. I shouldn't be surprised, I guess, it is after all a year and a half into a 3 year diagnosis. But when I think about how quickly this past year and a half went by I'm devastated at the thought that that could be all I have left. This is certainly no treat!

Tonight I will take my kids trick or treating for Hallowe'en, knowing it may be one of the last, hoping it's not.

The plan once I finish this next course of radiation, will be to change my chemo therapy in hopes that it will slow new tumor growth. With a terminal cancer diagnosis that's the best you hope for, slowed growth, because there's no chance of stopping it all together, there is no cure. I hope I will get more then a year and a half with my family, but I know this is not a battle I can "win", and that has me wishing this was all just a bad trick.

Pumpkin with a big smile
"Girl Pumpkin"

Ellie dressed as a black cat
MEOW

Aiden dressed as a purple butterfly
You're my butterfly, baby

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Moments Shared

Image
  This week my daughter lost her first 2 teeth. She was thrilled that the tooth fairy would come, I was thrilled that I could be her toothfairy. Parents are always proud when their children have a first anything, as they should be. But when you know you will likely miss out on most of those firsts it means even more to witness them. In 2018 I was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer metastasized to the bone, I was told it was terminal and that I had 3-5 years. With a newborn and a 2 yr old I was devastated at the thought of them growing up without me. The thought of all the things I would miss out on broke my heart, and still does. But, I got to be the toothfairy twice this week. I got to hear the excitement in her voice, see the joy in her eyes. It's these moments shared that I cherish.
Read more

Good body

Image
Self love selfie I had a revelation today, I've seen this "every body is a good body" thing, and it's had me thinking about body image. For my daughter's  sake (and my son) I point out how amazing bodies are, like that mine grew two babies. But if I'm being honest I've had a lot of trouble feeling many positive things towards my body. Let's face it, this body isn't scoring high on functionality, it's not as thin or beautiful as it once was, 40 lbs later and a bunch more scars, this menopausal vessel is not what I pictured for myself at the "ripe old age" of 32! But today I realized despite all that, that my body is keeping me alive through stage 4 metastatic breast cancer, allowing me more time with my loved ones, so I think maybe it is a good body. On top of that, even with the many bone tumors, I still healed successfully from a second hip surgery.  You see that? Even the bodies that kill you prematurely are good bodies. We
Read more

A nightmares dream

Image
We are back home now after 6 days in the big city of Toronto. When we left we thought we were just going for 3 days and we talked about how nice it would be to have some time to ourselves. We joked about what a dream it would be to sleep through the night, eat a meal uninterrupted, and perhaps the simplest joy, just to be able to talk to each other.  We had a good chuckle at the irony of our "dream" getaway, since the pretense was a tumor growing in my left eye. My husband and I have learned to find some humor in our nightmare situation. After meeting the oncologist at Princess Margaret Hospital and learning that he would start radiation right away I felt relieved that treatments wouldn't be delayed any further but I also felt guilty leaving my kids (3 & 1) for 6 days, the longest we've ever left them. Thank goodness for moms/ nanas! Six days away from the kids was admittedly a very nice break, sleep being my favourite  part.  We got to live the dream, even if it
Read more