October 14, 2024

 Hey everybody!

Long time no speak. We can all thank Milton for that. But, all things considered, no complaints. I have been writing this post in my head for days, so I apologize in advance if it's all over the place. I'll try to keep it together. 

STORM RECAP-

Where do I begin? My sister, Shanté has a bit (and by bit, I mean more than an excessive amount) of hurricane anxiety. Another thing about my sister is she takes very, very good care of me. She shares everything with me. So, she even shared her hurricane anxiety, which I promptly shared with Brandon. We stocked the house, got enough gas to make it to my mom's house, charged our devices, and waited for Milton. He was a loud one. We lost a bit of our fence which we should be able to fix. Our power flickered a few times, but we kept it the whole time. And we lost our wi-fi until Sunday. I am so grateful for minimal issues because we saw so many people with severe damage, I won't complain for a few days without wi-fi. 

TREATMENT UPDATE-

I literally had to look back on what I was even talking about the last time I posted. It's been too long! Chemotherapy starts today! As I type, I am in my chemotherapy suite- okay it's a cubicle but if everything (especially healing) starts in your mind then baby it's a suite! Mondays are a lighter workday for Brandon so we are hoping his job will allow this to be his once-a-week work-from-home day. That way I can take Bryson to school, come to treatment, pick Bryson up, and then head home and Brandon can stay home and take care of Braydon while working. That's my plan anyway. We shall see!

Today is treatment one of sixteen. That's light work. Easy work. I can do this!

No update on the BRCA gene yet. When I spoke to the nurse last week, she said it usually takes fourteen business days and they will reach out to me when they get the results. In other words, stop calling here, lady. Got it!

My bloodwork and echo from last Thursday were indeed canceled. The good news is that the bloodwork I scheduled needed to be done with the chemo treatment so if I had done it then, I would have still had to redo it today. Lesson learned. I rescheduled the echo for tomorrow. My mom is here and she will stay with the kiddos while I do that test. 

My PET scan from Friday was not canceled. If you've had a PET scan before you can skip ahead. But if you haven't let's talk about it. My best friend Kendra, cousin Elijah, and sister Trisha, all told me to ask for a PET scan to determine the initial cancer site (before I had taken the MRI, we weren't sure of this) and to make sure it hadn't spread anywhere else. A PET scan basically looks from my head to my thighs for possible cancer locations. I scheduled the appointment and since Brandon's job still didn't have power, he was able to stay with the kiddos. So, I go. I am not nervous or concerned at all. I get there and wait almost an hour to be called back (hurry up and wait). Then, the nurse struggled to find my vein to put the IV in (as usual, she said she was not allowed to access my port for the IV). Once that's done, she explains that I have to get the radioactive material injected and wait an hour for it to travel throughout my body. Then, I can do the scan. Cool, no problem. She brings the vial in this huge metal container gets it into the IV. I wait and as soon as it is time to enter the machine, I start to get into my head about what the scan is going to show. Mind you, it's 6:00 p.m. on a Friday so I know I am not going to get any results, so I have the whole weekend to stew. And break out the crock pot folks, because I was stewing (and googling) all weekend. 

I'll save you the wait time and tell you that just a bit ago, my radiation oncologist called me and told me she reviewed the results. The mass in my right breast that they found on the MRI didn't even show. That thing must be small, but scary right? She said there were some areas of concern in the left breast and left underarm but comparing that to the notes from the MRI she said she believes those are all breast feeding related. The only new information and potentially scary information is that there is a nodule on my right lung. She says it may be asthma-related because the area around it seems to have some inflammation like it would if I was having respiratory issues and if you read my post about the placement of my port I did have a weird reaction after that procedure. Regardless, she said it's small and since I am doing such aggressive chemotherapy she feels if it is cancerous, the chemo that I am already taking will handle it. We will re-check after I finish chemo in five months. 

I am home now but wanted to finish this up tonight. Overall, treatment today was fine. I found out I can take one person with me. Any takers??? Who wants to visit my suite? People were in there ordering snacks and everything! My sister packed me a healthy and delicious lunch just in case so I didn't get anything. I told y'all she takes very good care of me. But I even had a recliner with seat heat AND massage. Honestly, I may be sleeping during my upcoming treatments, sleep is hard to come by. 

I had the kindest nurse today, Stephanie. She answered all of my questions, gave me great advice, and put me at ease. And through it all, I was fine. Felt no pain. No reactions. God is good. After, I went and got a smoothie with added protein, picked up my grocery order, picked up Bryson, and headed home. On the way home I got crazy sleepy. Not sure if it was directly correlated (see weekend of stewing above) or just because I didn't sleep well all weekend, but I came home and knocked out until I had to work. When I woke up, I had some stomach upset- felt really nauseous. My family once again took great care of me- peppermint tea, ginger soda, and I took one of the pills they prescribed me for nausea. I planned to hold out if it wasn't too bad. But it got bad. Now, I am feeling okay. Thank God. I think in the future I will just take one when I'm getting home to hopefully get ahead of that feeling. 

Before I left chemotherapy today, they placed a little device on my arm. This will actually give me a shot tomorrow afternoon. The purpose of the medicine is to boost my red and white blood cell counts tomorrow since they are basically decimating them today. I am grateful that I don't have to go back in for the shot. Modern medicine, what a gift!

To anyone still reading, thank you. I know it's been a long one. Thank you for all of the texts and kind gestures/offers. I am not an overly emotional person, but every single text makes me tear up, I feel so, so fortunate that you are stopping your day to think of me and check on me. Each text and call has come in at the perfect time. Seriously, I appreciate you all so very much. 

Love you. Talk soon.  💛