My run with Cancer

 Things have been going well since my last post. We had good scan results at the end of April; stable disease. I am continuing to manage the chemo well.  I had been getting more nausea but my doctor suggested an additional medication that has worked wonders the past 2 cycles and it is helping with sleep so win-win! May 13th was the 1 year anniversary of starting "palliative chemo" and was also the day I received my second dose of the Moderna vaccine.  Those 2 events coinciding have really struck me and it has taken me a little while to digest.  I remember saying to my sister, at the beginning of the pandemic, that I felt like I was in a race with covid.  There are places I want to go and things I want to do with Ian and the kids and I feel like I've spent the past year biding my time for that.  Yes, having all this "extra time" with the kids feels like it should be a gift.... but it hasn't been all sunshine and rainbows.  As we all know, trying to navi...

 I know it's been a while since I've posted.  I suppose I just haven't had much to say!  Everything has become quite routine and steady.  Scans have continued to show stable disease and tumour markers have been stable.  I am managing side effects well (still have some nausea for a few days... but not horrible). I marked my 30th lifetime chemo treatment on February 3rd, 2021.  My incredible husband organized cards and gifts from friends and family to mark the day.  It was quite something.  It's actually kind of mind blowing to me when I think about it.  The chemo suite has become my most familiar place when it comes to healthcare.  I'm there more than anywhere else over the past year; every 2 weeks.  Many of the staff are the same since I started going in late 2017.   Kids are managing with school and the pandemic reasonably well.  We have managed through one period of isolation due to a positive case in a class, but a...

For those who have met me in my “adult life” in my current home town of Kitchener/Waterloo... you probably have no idea that I lost probably 3 years of my youth to depression and anxiety. I stumbled through my last couple years of high school; missing weeks or months at a time. I can still to this day, despite everything I’ve gone through up until today, say that those were the darkest days of my life. Many people think that The Big C is the worst possible thing you can face in life. But the thing about Cancer... you have a choice about how you are going to handle it, how you’re going to frame it, how you’re going to manage the things you can control. When you are in the depths of a mood disorder, you have no control over your emotional response or even your cognition around your emotions. You can feel utterly alone regardless how many people are trying to support you. The other facet of mental health that doesn’t get talked about nearly enough is the toll it takes on those around the ...

 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!  Hop...

 Hi everyone, Just a quick update.  Had another routine set of scans come back this week that continue to show either stable disease, or shrinking lesions.  This is the best news we can continue to get... so we're happy!  We have a reprieve from scans now until late January as long as my bloodwork is stable.  I've been coming around after my struggles with the immune boosting shots.  I haven't been running the past few weeks... more due to the weather and lack of early daylight than anything.  My sister has gotten me hooked on these strength training/HIIT classes online... so I've still been able to workout which continues to make me feel better (even when I don't want to).  I hadn't realized how much strength I'd lost, only running over the summer.  It has been eye opening.  I've gone a month or 2 without significant weight training before but never lost strength like this...  I couldn't even do a full range of motion push-up anymo...

Since we've been hearing all about the miracles of dex... I thought I'd share a bit of my experience with the cocktail of drugs I am on.   I think people have the pre-conceived idea of what chemo is like from what we see most in the media.  Bald, pale and generally sick-looking people drum up more money... I get it.  But what many people don’t realize is that cancer care is constantly evolving and there are a multitude of different chemotherapy regimes today. For instance for the genetic make-up of my specific colon cancer there are 2 different protocols and 2 different immunotherapies.  Each of which come with different side effects.   I actually found some interesting info on the makeup of Irinotecan (one of the harsher drugs I’m taking).  The active ingredient list reads like a health food store ingredient list.  Given how YouTube medicine likes to vilify evidence based treatment in favour of botanical and food based “treatment”... this li...

I know I'm bad for not updating this more often... but I figure if I'm attached to an IV for 3 hours... I have no excuse not to use some of that time to type... so here we are.  I have been really struggling with fatigue over the past 6 weeks and my ability to run took a nose dive.  All of a sudden I couldn't get through 5 km even at a really slow pace; a 30 min walk landed me on the couch for the day, unable to drive safely to pick up the kids from school.  I finally realized that it seemed to line up with the shots I was taking for my white blood cells.  I had fatigue, muscle soreness and really sore hips.  I kept attributing it to running... but apparently kicking your bone marrow into high gear is exhausting.  Sooo... our plan is to adjust some chemo dosing to avoid the need for the Neupogen shots and see how that goes.  Knowing that it was a side effect and not that I was inherently deteriorating that fast was a huge relief. I'm also sitting here ...