November of last year I had a bone scan and knew, because I saw the scan as it was happening, that the cancer was back and had spread.  I wasn’t officially told until the end of November.  If I go by statistics, I’m 1 year (from diagnosis) of the median survival of 2 to 3 years.  Only about 22% make it to 5 years.  The average time that the Ibrance and Letrozole combination will work is 22-24 months and I’m half way through that.  Personally I’d much rather be “average” than an “underachiever”.  If I make it longer I won’t be disappointed!  It all still seems so surreal.

This past year has sucked.  I’m emotionally drained.  On top of having MBC I made the very difficult choice to go on disability, Among other things, I’ve had major car issues.  Twice.  Financial issues up the wazoo, and I have to find a new place to live in (hopefully) the next few months before they tear my current building down to make room for new apartments. For the first time in my life I wish I wasn’t single.  It would be nice to have someone else worry about all the crap so I could just worry about the cancer.
I found out that treatment options for me are really difficult and would require too much road time if I move back home to be with my family so I will stay here for now.

People often tell me that I’m handling this so well!  My only comeback is that I wasn’t given a choice.  Don’t get me wrong, I have really bad days where I can’t control the panic attacks and am totally freaked out about this thing growing in me and when will it take over my body?  When will it affect my brain?  Will my bones break?… among other thoughts, but I’m still functioning on my own so far.

Next month is Christmas and I’ve never been a big fan of it but I will “suck it up buttercup” and damn well enjoy it because I don’t know how long I will be here and it’s important to my family.

My oncologist just confirmed what my GP said.  No movement in my tumors.  Lung spots are still just spots.  I’m still “stable”, holding steady.  He wasn’t concerned that I’d missed a week of the Ibrance.

I went to the company xmas party last night and I’m glad I did.  I got to see people I haven’t seen in a while and laughed a lot and the food was good.

I’m paying for it today. I hurt. My lower back and left hip are sure letting me know they aren’t better. I didn’t sleep well either. My back would give me a sharp jab of pain so I’d roll over then my hip would start. Good thing I’m not going anywhere for the next couple of days. I’m still glad I went.

I get a message last night at 5 pm from my GP’s office.  They wanna see me about my lab results.  I tried calling them back but kept getting their voicemail.  I was stressed for the rest of the night.  What’s wrong with my lab results?  Has my cancer progressed?  Did they find something else wrong? Needless to say, I didn’t sleep well and was up at 3am.

Soon as they were open this morning I was calling them.  The receptionist wouldn’t tell me anything of course but that it was about my lab results.  Crap.  I booked an appointment for 1:50 pm today and had my friend leave work early to take me in.

I get in there, they take my weight, height, blood pressure and he asks me a bunch of questions about my cancer treatment, is it palliative (oncologist listed it as “treatment for palliative care”), who’s paying for the drugs, what’s the treatment plan? How am I managing?  Is it painful? Did I have any other health issues?  No thanks, I think METS is plenty.  Seems they just wanted to get an update on my medical history.  Really?  How does that relate to my labs?  He couldn’t answer that.  I was pissed off!

I did find out about my labs and CT.  White blood count is really low, part of the reason for the fatigue he says.  Tumor markers are up from 60 last month to 65.  No significant growth in my tumor nodules in my left pelvis, right scapula and L2 vertebrae.  I’m still holding steady for now according to him.

 

I’m supposed to have an appointment with my oncologist today but I’ve re-booked it for next week.  Been having issues with my car.  The battery won’t hold a charge and I can’t get it fixed until Saturday so…no way to get to my appointment.  It should be ok.  I know that sometimes they make you wait 2 weeks between Ibrance cycles so this little upset shouldn’t interfere with my treatment.

It started when I woke up yesterday.  That anxious unsettling feeling.  When I went to get groceries, my car wouldn’t start.  Turns out my battery was dead.  Luckily my friend took me shopping and looked after my car.  (Thank you!)  I wasn’t going to deal with it, I didn’t want to chance hearing anymore bad news, I thought that might be why I was feeling weird but no-o-o.

Woke up this morning feeling the same way and it dawned on me that my oncology appointment is next Tuesday.  And I have to go for bloodwork tomorrow instead of Monday because they’ll be closed.

The days leading up to my appointments are always riddled with anxiety.  I can’t sleep properly, I’m never hungry and I can’t stay focussed on any one thing for any length of time. I want to hear good news when I see him but I also want to brace myself for any bad news.  I’ll know my scan results then too. Back and forth, good-bad-good-bad.

You know when your hand or foot goes to sleep and when it wakes up it tingles and the tingles make you want to shake it?  My left foot has started doing that again.  I say “again” because before I had radiation my foot would swell up when I was on my feet too much and when I would lay down to nap or sleep it would tingle.  It isn’t really strong and it wasn’t then, but I do have the urge to move it around or shake it. It’s annoying as hell.  I don’t know that a reason was ever found for it but I thought, once I knew I had METS in my left pelvis, that it was pressing on a nerve.

I don’t know what it means that it’s back.  I know I’ve been on my feet more this week because I’ve had the energy to do more purging of my apartment and that may be what has agravated it, but it is unsettling.  My next oncology appointment isn’t until the 13th where I find out about my last CT scan.  Maybe that will shed some light on it.

One of the horrible things about MBC is knowing that it isn’t if it progresses, it’s when will it progress.  Every new little twitch and ache and pain makes me apprehensive.