My run with Cancer

 It has been an exhausting few days, but well worth it.   It appears that Princess Margaret Hospital was granted 1 slot for the next group in this trial, and I was a match!  Everything lined up in such a way that it struck me as such an answer to prayer.  I had prayed for healing, obviously, but specifically for God to use me to demonstrate new ground breaking treatments for cancer (I prayed for this even before I knew my file was going to PMH). My doctor's referral and the new spot opening in the trial lined up perfectly.  I met with the team at PMH on Monday, got the 25PAGE consent form and was on my way.  This consent form is intense.  My best description is that it reads like a CNN comercial. Ian and I read through it and I spoke with the team yesterday... I'm in!!   I will be rceiving Dostarlimab and an additional experimental drug whose purpose is to enhance the effectiveness of the Dostarlimab.  It will be a lot of driving ba...

  I have been meaning to write an update for quite a while… but I guess as things get harder to talk about, they also get harder to write about.  We had a fantastic trip to the UK last summer. It was everything I could have hoped for and more. Having never been overseas, the history that struck you at every turn was amazing. We had a wonderful time with great friends and made fabulous memories.  As suspected, when I returned, it was established that my treatment had failed and I was time to change course to a non-chemo treatment called Panatumumab (try saying that 10 times fast). I had been on this in 2018 and it brought about horrible skin side effects. I had been told that they had better premeds now and that they should be able to control it better. Unfortunately that didn’t pan out.  Within a week of my first infusion the skin on my face felt like it was on fire and I broke out in pustules. Shortly thereafter I felt flulike symptoms and had constant skin pain ov...

 Heading into our doctor's appointment the day before I was to start immunotherapy, Ian said to me "I don't even know what to hope for".  Which was exactly what I had been thinking.  I had gotten quite accustomed to the idea of no more chemo and its nasty side effects, but at the same time, I would like to hear favorable CT scan results.  The drawback to good CT scan results would be that a change in treatment (to immunotherapy) wouldn't be warranted.  Therein lying the dilemma.   As it turns out, I was able to get the best of both worlds.  The CT scan showed minimal growth (1-2mm in some but not all of the "spots") which my doctor said he considered still as "stable disease".  The positive that Ian and I hadn't considered was a break from chemo.  My doctor suggested that I take a chemo break until after my trip, meaning I would go from July 11th until Aug 29th without any treatment.  The longest chemo break I've had since May 2020....

I've been thinking a lot about dates recently… July 7th being the day I was originally diagnosed with breast cancer, 12 years ago.  I am also coming up on 5 years since my stage 4 colon cancer diagnosis… which is significant.  If you google 5 year survival rates, they aren’t pretty.  I therefore do not google. Continuing on the milestone theme, Ian informed me last week that my most recent chemo infusion was my 65th lifetime chemo.  In a way it blows my mind... but for the most part, it has become such the norm that I forget what life without this 2 week rhythm is like.   In terms of medical updates, things have been stable up until now for the most part.  Scans have intermittently shown marginal increases in size (marginal not measurable… which is a distinction I have learned to be key).  There has subsequently been no need for change in treatment from an efficacy perspective, although I’ve been starting to develop neuropathy which means my time ...

 Things are going well! I actually felt way better on the day of chemo this time.. no nausea!  That did kick in on day 2 but no worse than usual.  I have been able to manage fine.  It's more of a queasy stomach and taste aversion that true nausea. The cold sensitivity felt a little more intense than I remember, but that too is fading.  It's really wild... I mistakenly washed my hands with cold water while still in the chemo suite... and it felt like the water was electrified... as though I got jolted with electricity.   I had also remembered water being difficult to drink, but I haven't noticed that either this go-around... so I'm thankful for that. Thanks to everyone who reached out to me after the last post.  Even if I didn't respond... your words of support were truly a blessing.  Thank you Till next time! Shannon

 I typically haven't been updating this very much because things have been status quo for over 18 months.  We fine tuned the chemo side effects... I was truly living life and cancer really became more of a chronic condition.   At the beginning of the pandemic I remember praying "please let me outlive this thing so I can travel with my kids".  As time has gone on, that seemed more and more possible.  I had a great trip with some of my closest friends in October and was also able to take the kids away for a fun filled week in the Dominican just a couple weeks ago.  We had a fantastic time together.   I knew I was coming back to a CT scan and chemo within days and as usual, we had some scanxiety but that has become so routine that even that wasn't too bad.  We landed on Thursday (Nov 18), had a CT the next day (on Friday) and was to see my oncologist followed by chemo on the Monday. This was the first time I was able to see my oncologi...

 I realized I was overdue for an update but hadn't realized how long it's actually been! I think the main reason I haven't been online is that everything has been status quo for the most part.  We fine tuned the meds that help with chemo side effects to the point where I am functional almost the whole cycle.  I go to bed early the first few days but there is very little nausea and I'm sleeping better... really it has become my new normal.  I even started describing my cancer as a chronic condition.  I mean I'm not actively dying right now... so I am living with stable cancer. That being said... I was going to post this in June but then was afraid of jinxing myself.  My doctor let me know that it looked like my tumor markers were starting to trend upwards just as I was coming due for another set of scans.  I had to wait 2 weeks for those scan results which was tough... but the news was good!  No change in findings from last set of scans... disease ...