Chemo break!

 Sorry it’s been so long.... just been cruising along.  My biggest issue lately has been recurring styes/infections of my eyelid. They have been frustrating and painful... but we’re working on it.

Haven’t been running as much because the weather is not enticing and I hate the treadmill (aka dreadmill).  So I’ve started more strength and HIIT training in hopes that I can get back to running more once the sun is out. I’ll run in cold... but I draw the line at ice. 

Saw my doctor a couple weeks ago and with good CT scan results, I negotiated a break for Christmas.  I am writing to you from the chemo suite (Dec 9th) and I won’t be back here until January 6th 2021. Woohoo!!!  So excited.  I’m really looking forward to the extra recovery time and having good energy for the holidays.  The kids are looking forward to baking and decorating cookies over the break and we are all Christmas’d up in terms of decorations.  We’re going to do it up!  Hopefully with the break from the steroids I will be able to limit the Christmas weight gain.  I swear... I look at carbs and I gain weight.  You’d think stage 4 GI cancer... you’d lose weight... but nooooo.  I’ve been able to maintain my weight for the most part but it would be nice to not have to work so hard at it.

In other news, I found a great online support group with some incredible ladies in similar situations.  It was so nice to be able to share experiences, cry and laugh.  And in true Caitlyn form, she video bombed that call too!!!

I hope you are able to find many moments of joy in this very different Christmas.  I am looking forward to a slower, more relaxed Christmas, at home with the kiddos.

Merry Christmas everyone!!!


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sad few months... and I'm apparently "doing a thing" Again!

Image
I have struggled with writing something here for months. At the end of 2024 I wasn't sure what to write because I was in a period of uncertainty. The clinical trial had been hugely successful, reversing years of growth.  In late 2024 my scans started to show signs of treatment failure. As I said to my oncologist “I’ve seen this film before… and I didn’t like the ending”. There were signs of growth but nothing definitive; nothing that qualified as treatment progression. In November they asked me if I had developed a cough (not something you want your oncologist to ask). Apparently there was a tumour that was growing next to my right bronchus and they were concerned. We decided to try going up in dose to see if it would help and rescan in January.  For some reason this spurred me to do what I said I would never do… sign up for a full marathon 🤦‍♀️. Looking back… I signed up on January 1st (maybe I was still under the influence?)  Soon after, January hit my family like a ru...
Read more

8 years and still kickin’

Image
  It’s been a hard year so far… but I’m still incredibly grateful for it! I realize now as I look back on my last entry that I felt I had so much to update on and it was all so emotionally charged, that all I could do was word vomit it all out as fast as possible.  Walking beside my dad while he had to come to terms with his diagnosis was like reliving my experience again in fast forward. He struggled with a lot of guilt, blaming himself for his diagnosis. He said to us many times how sorry he was. We (my mother and siblings) continued to tell him that he had nothing to be sorry for!  This was not his fault. I was incredulous at how he was feeling…. Until I flipped the roles and realized that I have been harbouring so much guilt for putting my kids through this stress and making them deal with mortality so young.  In my dad’s final days, while he was unresponsive and we were administering morphine through a pump when he’d seem to be uncomfortable or agitated, my hear...
Read more

Living in the light

Image
 Ian has been on my case to update this blog… so here I am. I preface this with… it’s all good news. I’ve just had my third set of CT scans since the end of January… 3 scans each showing continued treatment response (or as I have coined it… shrinkage). I can’t bring myself to read my scan reports but Ian seems to have no problem. It’s a new beast to have them at my fingertips. It’s not something that my native hospital in Kitchener does… “My Chart” is not a thing. I have never been able to see test results at the same time as my doctors. I know that freedom of information is important… but raw information without context can be dangerous in my opinion. When you don’t have the educated interpretation of what this means for you, I feel like it causes undue anxiety and stress. But I digress… because as Ian said… when the report says “this spot went from 13mm to 8mm” that can only mean good things. I am now almost 5 months into this trial and it has reversed almost 4 years of growth. ...
Read more