Thankful-ish

Prayer warriors, I need you today.  I’m feeling discouraged and worn out with this fight, and it’s only been 6 months.  I know we are supposed to be thankful this weekend, but I’m not really feeling it.  So, in an effort to fool myself into thankfulness, I’m going to try and share all of the good things that have happened since my last post in June.  (But still pray, cuz I’m just so tired.)

In June, I had a salpingo-oophorectomy, which is the fancy way of saying I had my tubes and ovaries removed.  It was, hands down, the best hospital/surgical experience to date.  My surgeon was great, (it helped that we are friends), and I discovered that two of my friends were nurses on the surgery floor!  The surgery went relatively well, and recovery was good.  The best part, though, was the effect it had on my tumor marker.  (This is a number that tells you whether or not there is cancer in your body.  Lower is obviously better.)  I started about about 220.  It took 2 months to get the ball rolling, and in that time, it went up to about 350.  After the estrogen factory was shut down, it dropped 100 points, which was great!  Clearly, the cancer is very much so in need of estrogen.  (I’m thinking I should have done this long ago.  Alas!)

A few days after the surgery, I started taking my meds.  The major side effects are exhaustion and joint pain.  If you saw me walk right when I got out of bed, you’d think I was an octogenarian, what with all of the hobbling.  The exhaustion is pretty epic.  It’s pretty much on par with having a newborn . . . . you are tired with no real way of catching up.  But, I deal with these side effects because a) they could be SO much worse and b) the meds are doing their job (unlike the Tamoxifen that I took for 2.5 years).  How do I know it’s working?  Because of the PET scan that I had in September.  At that point, I had been taking the meds for 3 cycles (3 months), but was having a return of back pain.  The scan showed that some of the bulbs on my Christmas tree had burned out.  (Happy dance!)  The oncologist walked into my appointment and said, “This is the best possible news in this situation.”

Basically, all of the spots in my lymph nodes had cleared up.  I still have cancer in my spine, but there is less of it.  Sooo, that’s great!  I’m currently seeing the oncologist every two months instead of every month.  I’ll see him this week, and if there’s any news there, I’ll share.  I’ve been having lots of aches and pains that are new.  I’m banking on that being bone that is healing and not bone that is being broken down.  But, it is admittedly hard to not stress out!

Anyway, so that’s the news from cancerland.  I’m doing my darndest to live my best life:  working at a great job, getting my master’s of music education with licensure, spending time with the kiddos, reading, and watching TV with hubs.  Some days, though, it’s gets to be too much:  the aches and pains, the news of another mets sisters passing away, the exhaustion.  Those are the days when I should come back and read my PET scan report, because it all seems to be good.  And for that, I am thankful and I praise the Lord!