The Cabbage Patch

KC turns 50

In the whirlwind of events that surrounded my cancer diagnosis, I didn't know how long I would live.  Things were very uncertain.  If anyone has ever googled the prognosis of stage IV metastatic breast cancer, you would know it's not fantastic.  I choose very deliberately not to dwell on it.  Occasionally, I do reflect on what it all means.  This is one of those moments.

Tomorrow, I turn 50.  I am privileged to celebrate my 50th birthday.  Perspective is everything, isn't it?  I would never have had this mindset BC (Before Cancer).  I probably would've been lamenting this getting old business.  Facing one's mortality allows me to dwell on how mindfully I want to live my life.  I choose to live as fully as I can.  I do things I would normally not have done BC.  I said yes to an Italy competition for my daughters.  I said yes to France with Ben.  I said yes to spending so many moments with my children.  I have a trip to take eventually with my son to Europe.  

Living with cancer comes with its challenges as well.  I often wonder if I will be there for my children's weddings.  Oh, I so want to be.  I want to meet my grandchildren.  I don't know how long I have here.  I know that no one does.  I do know that my family is pretty long lived and I would most likely have lived to my 70s.  I'm pretty healthy despite my cancer although the treatments can wear me down.  I have a knot the size of Texas on my hips from the shots I receive monthly.  Despite all of that I am blessed.  I am loved.  

God willing I will see many more birthdays.  

 

Reflections

Today is Halloween but it's also the last day of Breast Cancer Awareness Month.  There's not a lot I can say except I wanted to reflect on my journey.  I'm doing as well as can be physically.  I've always had a very strong immune system and it's really helped keep me healthy except for what's going on inside.  There's an insane battle going on inside.  

I don't look sick.  I actually still have a lot of energy and I can get a lot accomplished.  Except.  Yeah, except I tire more easily.  I am always tired to be honest.  Just completely tired from the time I wake up to the time I go to sleep.  The side effects from all the different medications can be pretty hard.  My brain fog is pretty frustrating and sometimes amusing.  I nap a lot or sometimes just lay in bed.  

Like I mentioned before, the prognosis is not very optimistic, but I have hope for many more years.  I pray for many more years.  I'm not afraid to die.  That's not it.  What I am afraid of is leaving my children.  I want to be around for them.  I want to be 80 years old and see my grandchildren grow up.  I want to see the kind of adults my children become.  I know they'll be such amazing people.  I wonder about the kind of people they marry and the relationships they have together as adults.  I have an amazing list of women to mentor my girls when I'm gone.  I'm so very blessed to have so many awesome and varied women to help them.  

I'm not going anywhere anytime soon.  I pray every day for many more years.  I actually beg for them.  These are my real raw thoughts on the grimness of my prognosis.  I don't very often dwell on them.  I can't.  Life is too precious to worry about it.  I choose to live fully and enjoy life fully.  

The Spanish Steps in Rome.  I miss Italy.

 

Cancer, Social Media, and Miscellaneous Thoughts

So we had a bit of a scare this Tuesday.  Remember when I said I wasn't feeling well?  Well, it all came to a head on Tuesday.  I was out grocery shopping when all of a sudden I started to feel really horrible.  My heart was racing (111 bpm) and I could feel something was not right.  I finished, went home and checked my blood pressure.  It was high.  So, I called the nurse and went off to the ER.  Ugh.  Can I tell you how awful the ER can be?  Especially the military one?  Apparently Tuesdays are busy days.  I waited for over 4 hours to get into a room.  I thought heart, the PA was more worried about my lungs.  Turns out the symptoms I have been having are indicative of blood clots in the lungs.  Who knew?  I didn't.  Anyway, I had to have a CT with contrast on my lungs (yuck).  Turned out my lungs are fine.  My heart is fine.  I have not idea why all of this happened.  

I have several takeaways from this.  One is that there has to be a better way for me to get care when I feel crappy like this than getting sent to the ER.  I don't know if that means I have to move my care off post (military post) to a civilian hospital or not.  Second one is that the PA needed to learn how to run things with a cancer patient.  He never asked my staging and didn't see it in my records.  He saw my lung CT results and thought he needed to break it to me that my cancer had spread.  My girls were with me.  He came in all glum and started to ask questions that made me think things were BAD.  He also needed to ask if my girls needed to leave the room.  I think he thought we were a little nuts when we were relieved that's all he wanted to say.  

Social media...I've been off for a bit and it's interesting.  I read more. My phone battery lasts all day.  LOL.  Anyway, here's my takeaway from my absence from social media.  I miss my friends.  I miss seeing what everyone's up to.  Homeschool mom life can be lonely.  And, without the constant ballet I don't see adult friends often.  BUT!  I've enjoyed being off social media and plan to come back soon.  When?  Probably in October.  I'll change my habits a bit.  I will try to not be on it so often.  And, I'm going to be very intentional about what I post.  I'm in the midst of a wonderful study through Take Up and Read.  It's made me examine the role of social media in my life and how I use it.  I don't always use it for the greater good which is to always glorify God.  I don't mean go out there and evangelize all the time but I do mean to act with kindness and charity.  To not be petty.  For instance, (I'm going to expose myself), I would post stories on my Instagram at various times of the day and check to see if certain people looked at it.  Then, I'd get all riled up that they did.  I was trying to catch them in the act of looking to see what I was doing.  Why?  I had removed them as followers because they were no longer friends either in real life or on other social media.  But once I noticed them checking my stories which required them to go straight to my profile, I kept working to "catch them in the act".  For what purpose?  So, I'm going to post for myself and only for myself.  I'm going to make sure my social media is a place of positivity my word for now and through 2020.  I am human, y'all.  There have been a lot of people in the past year who have hurt me and I have lashed out.  Forgive me.  

I'm a bit discombobulated today.  It's been a long week.  I was so out of it this morning that I walked out for spin class in my workout leggings but forgot to change out of my pajama top.  I didn't even notice until I got in the van.  Y'all, my younger two girls didn't even ask me why I still had my pajama top on.  I guess I'm just that out of it that they think it's normal.  I'm babysitting my younger nieces tomorrow into Saturday.  I'm looking forward to it.  They're super adorable.  I'm still working to expunge all the toxins from the CT and the PET scan.  I'm tired.  

It's time to start thinking about Christmas gifts and cards.  Sigh.  How did it get to be this late in the year?  

 

Saturday Summary II

Cancer Summary:

This Wednesday I have a PET scan.  I'm super tired and just not feeling well.  I haven't been in months but this past week has been particularly brutal.  Prayers would be appreciated.  

Travel Summary:

I LOVE to travel.  We still have one more road trip ahead of us as a family.  I'm headed to Port Aransas sometime in October with my online/IRL (in real life) homeschool friends.  Then 2020!  In March, Ben and I are headed to France.  He was supposed to go with his cousins John but then John's wife is going so I'm going.  We are turning this into our honeymoon/25th anniversary trip (we will celebrate 25 in October).  Four days in Normandy and 3.5 days in Paris.  

General Summary:

Not much else is going on here.  We are keeping busy with school, appointments and church.  I hope y'all are having a good week.  

Saturday Summary

School summary:

The girls are off and running with school. Michaela is in her freshman year of college at the local community college.  She will transfer (hopefully) to Texas A&M next year into the Dance Science program in the Kinesiology Department.  Her goal is to become a physical therapist specializing in dancers and athletes.  Emma is a junior in high school.  She is taking a dual credit math class and is doing well.  Jordan is a freshman in high school.  I don't know how this much time has passed and I only have 2 students left in our homeschool.  All told, this is my 16th year of homeschooling.

This was taken in Boston before we headed to the Museum of Fine Arts.

Ballet Summary:

Jordan continues to take classes.  The drive isn't too arduous even though I do get tired.  The three of them also take private lessons with a former Ballet Magnificat dancer.  She was Michaela's leader in her dance in the spring show when she was 4.  It's a nice close to the circle and I love it.  

Jordan at Boston Ballet Summer Intensive.

Cancer Summary:

I had a followup appointment this week.  I have periods where I see my oncologist every 3 weeks.  I won't see her again until after my next PET scan which will be sometime next month.  My treatment regimen stays the same with Lupron and Faslodex injections, Zometa infusion, and Kisqali orally.  For the past six months or so, I've had pain in my heel.  I hadn't wanted to deal with it, but I finally asked my oncologist about it and whether she thought it was medication related.  She didn't think so.  She suggested I get in with a podiatrist so I called and made an appointment with my primary care physician.  It turns out I have calcification of my Achilles tendon.  It hurts almost all the time when I first stand up and walk.  It doesn't always hurt a lot when I am walking but I also think I've compensated without knowing it.  I'm on some more meds (yay) to help with pain and discomfort and to decrease the inflammation.  I have an appointment with a podiatrist in a week and the doctor put in a referral for physical therapy.  

This is one of the best cakes I've ever tasted.  It's a gluten free one from a bakery called Flour Bakery in the Boston area.

Final Summary:

It's been an interesting week being off social media.  I feel disconnected from all my friends and it's a bit lonely but I've read a lot and am feeling peace.  I'm by no means completely at peace, but am getting there.  I needed to disconnect.  I've prayed quite a bit for y'all.  I miss hearing about what's going on in your lives.  Drop me a line via Facebook messenger or my email which is [email protected].  My love to y'all.  Have a great rest of the weekend.

Update on Me, Cancer Won't Slow Me Down

I thought I would write down everything about what I go through.  Talk about my treatment plan as of right now.  Today.  

Every 28 days, I receive a Faslodex injection which entails 2 shots on each side of my big muscle, my glutes.  The needle is quite long and it takes an inordinate amount of time to push the medicine in.  The needle is a big-ish gauge.  Side effects?  I have nerve damage in both legs from the shot.  I am unsure if it's from the needle of the medication itself.  I take gabapentin to alleviate the nerve pain from it.  It hinders my short term memory quite a bit.  Sometimes I forget the questions that people ask me or what the topic of conversation is.  

Also every 28 days, I receive a Lupron injection which keeps me in menopause, and an infusion of Zometa to help strengthen my bones.  I don't have a lot of side effects except for maybe whatever being in menopause brings which is orneriness and difficulty sleeping.

I am also on a daily "chemo" pill.  I put that in quotes because it's not the chemical chemo that most people know.  I actually don't know.  I do know it's considered chemo.  It's a 3 weeks on, 1 week off cycle.  As I write this, I'm in the off week.  The off week is nice because I don't have the bone crushing fatigue I can have sometime in the 3rd week.  Last week we were off doing touristy things with Ben's cousin and it was my 3rd week.  I'm paying for it a bit with sores in my mouth due to my body being so tired.  Besides fatigue, I get nauseous sometimes and often my neutrophil count drops below 1000.  My hair has fallen out a bit but when you have hair for 3 people, it's not a big deal.  My platelets have been low at times too and I'm a bit anemic.  

I had a PET scan before I left on our road trip.  I haven't heard the results yet.  I don't think I need to know right now.  It is what it is.  I won't be changing my treatment anyway while I'm here so I'm not anxious to find out.  Speaking of the road trip, I was concerned about getting my Faslodex injection while in Boston.  I've got things in motion and my angel at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute got things rolling and I have an appointment on Monday.  I am well on my way to getting my injection if a few days late.

Now, to chronicle my physical ailments.  I have bone pain where the cancer has metastasized.  It doesn't mean the cancer is active but I do have pain in spots on my ribs.  I'm lucky that my spine doesn't hurt much.  There are times it does but it's not often.  Mostly I hurt from the side effects from the medications I'm on.  My hands and feet hurt on a daily basis, almost like arthritis.  My feet are the worst though because if I've been sitting (like driving a long time), and get up, my right foot hurts a lot. It's a sharp pain in my achilles area.  I know when I get back I'll have to get it checked out.  It's almost debilitating.  Almost.

I'm writing this all here not to have y'all feel sorry for me.  Please don't (I'll take your prayers though). I'm living my best life, y'all.  I'm super active and haven't really slowed down.  We're on vacation (Ben and Arthur just left after a 10 day visit) and living as much as we can at the beach.  I'm at peace with everything and am making some wonderful memories.  I got to hug and see Ben's great aunts who are in their 90s.  They are so full of life.  We've spent so much time with family and it's all been wonderful.

 

 

Summer Fun

First the not so great stuff...cancer.

After all was said and done, I've been diagnosed with Stage 4 Breast Cancer.  The treatment is not as harsh as chemotherapy but man, I wish I were going through that instead.  It would mean a better prognosis and a chance for a cure.  Now?  It's hope for containment and remission.  I'm on endocrine therapy which means I've been put into forced menopause.  A doctor friend likened it to menopause on steroids.  Emma has remarked several times that I need to get my filter back.  Apparently, this treatment has removed it from me.  I've decided to live life as fully as I can.  I want my children to have memories of me doing things with them and not this stupid illness that I have.  I've also resolved to take photos so they'll have them to look back on as well.

Next, ballet.

The spring ballet was beautiful.  They danced a revised Coppelia in the first act then Chopiniana and a more contemporary ballet piece, Suite Rest, in the second act.

 

 

 

This summer, we were headed to New York for Michaela to attend ABT New York and Emma to attend Gelsey Kirkland Academy for their summer intensives.  I had to cancel those plans and was able to transfer them to ABT Austin.  It's not what we wanted and I still feel horrible for Michaela missing out on her opportunity at the more prestigious location.  At the time we were facing months of chemo and a mastectomy.  However, things have worked out.  The girls thoroughly enjoyed their summer intensive in Austin and we were home.  I'm still itching to travel as I'm not used to staying home for the summer.

School starts up again soon and our ballet year will as well.  I hope to be more diligent about posting here.  I want there to be more of a record of our lives.  It's become even more important.