I’m looking forward to having a relaxing weekend as this next week is going to be busy!

Saturday, I get to have another COVID test. Hooray! Those are so much fun!!

Monday is chemo.

“Christy, can you get me to Valley in about 45 minutes?”

“Sure. When do you want me at your house?”

“In about 10 minutes.” (She lives about 7 minutes away.)

That conversation happened at 3:10 this afternoon because of a stat ultrasound Dr. Leung ordered to check on a possible blog clot in my leg. I had 50 minutes to get up to the appointment and Tom and Sage were on their way out the door for another appointment.

I’m glad we went, even though it was a little chaotic getting there.

Yesterday, I noticed my left ankle was swollen and I felt a large vein in my upper left calf. I messaged the Dr. this morning about that and about my breathing, which is getting more difficult already.

Good news – the spots on my kidney appear to be cysts and not cancer at this time. The doctor would not say he’s 100% sure they are not cancer, but that they do not appear to be cancerous at this time. For now, that’s good news, so I’ll take it.

The other news I guess is good in some way. The fluid that keeps building up near my lung does have cancer cells in it. That’s good news because that we don’t have figure out what else is wrong and causing the fluid build up. It’s still just cancer causing problems. Hooray??

No, this is not chicken stock.

Yuck!

How is it possible that this fluid was in a cavity in my body below my right lung? This is what was making it hard to breathe because my lung couldn’t fully expand because the fluid was in the way. The nurse said this is the most fluid she has seen taken from that area. Great….

I passed my 5 year cancerversary last month.

I’ve survived over 5 years with Stage IV Metastatic Breast Cancer.

Only 27 out of 100 women live past 5 years with this disease.

I’m very thankful to be one of them!

I love this new quick chemo! My blood work came back quickly today and the chemo takes between 3-5 minutes to give. I love how quick that is! Today, I also got a bag of fluid as I waited for my labs to come back.

While I was there today, Dr. Leung stopped by. We talked about how my pain is much more under control and how I’m not having to use short acting pain pills during the day as often. He was pleased that I am less bloated. (I am pleased as well, although I think I still have a little bit more to go.)

A lot has happened since I wrote last. My attention span isn’t very long, but I’ll try my best to give you an update.

I came home from the hospital with a pain management plan and a bowel management plan. Ready or not….we were headed back home!

Once we got home, thanks to Amazon and a medical supply store near the hospital, we got a few things to make things possible for me to function at home without Tom having to help me with everything! I am using a cane to keep me steady as I walk. We have a long reach toilet aid tool…quickly moving on…a bed assist rail, a beautiful new toilet seat with handles, a handle in the shower for balance and a grabber/reacher tool so I can pick things up off the floor (or try and pinch the girls).

I feel so old!

Sigh!

I’m very tired, but wanted to post that I got home from the hospital around 6 pm. I will write more when I am more alert.

It’s Friday night and I’ve had a busy day at the hospital. People have been coming in and out all day to check vitals, to get me medicine, to talk about test results, etc.

I had the fluid around my right lung drained today. It was about 1 liter of fluid. We decided to drain it because when we compared yesterday’s CT to the CT that was done a week and a half ago, there was quite a bit more fluid. 

I was having a lot of pain on Tuesday evening and by 3a it became unbearable and my oncologist recommended I go to the ER.  Tom called 911 because I wasn’t able to get out of bed, much less into the car on my own. 

The ambulance arrived and somehow managed to get me out of the house without waking the girls.  Tom let them know what was going on and one of my friends came over super early to be with them when they woke up.  The ER was a pretty slow process, but they did run a number of tests and started an IV to get my pain under control.  The two main concerns were the pain in my back and my difficulty breathing.  The most recent CT scans showed some fluid accumulating around my right lung and hinted at a possible infection.