This time last year I was on a cruise to  Alaska with 8 members of my family that included my mom and my sister.  Alaska was one of the handful of things that was on my bucket list and I was so grateful to be able to go. The pain in my hip had started about 3 months prior to the trip and I wouldn’t find out what was wrong for another 2 months but I didn’t let that stop me taking the trip of a lifetime.

I was in severe pain.  I’d been to my GP numerous times and he’d put me on nerve blockers because x-rays didn’t show anything wrong.  He’d tried to get me in for an MRI but they declined his request.  I didn’t have a cane yet either.

Walking the ship was a real chore.  Trying to balance against the flow of the ship and not bump into other passengers took a lot out of me.  Going upstairs every morning for coffee was a huge accomplishment.  I know I was grumpy and I tried not to be but it was hard.  I even went to an acupuncturist on the ship.  That helped for an hour or 2.

I remember a few things really well, still.  The bear excursion.  Loved seeing the bears up close and not caged.  The bald eagles being smaller than the ones we have here.  My sister teasing the restaurant help, this was always entertaining :).  Yelling at my aunt when she went to push me to get me to step backward, and feeling bad about it afterward.  I knew I’d fall if she did and that would have been very bad.  Having to push my mom in her wheelchair for a very long time back to the ship.  I thought I was going to pass out from the pain when we finally got there.  The towel animals!  We didn’t have any for a couple of days, I asked the room attendant about it and we got 2 or 3 every day after.

I wouldn’t trade one moment of this trip and the memories for anything.

It used to be when I had a scratch, either from the cat or just my own clumsiness, it would go away in a few days.  Bruises were never a big deal.  Rarely did they go all purple and show up really ugly.  They seemed to be really pale and again they’d be gone in a few days.  Boy have things changed.

I have a cat scratch on my toe from 2 weeks ago and you can still see it.  They bruised me on the 3rd when they took blood and the bruise is only now starting to fade.  And it was ugly.  All purple and green.  That’s almost 10 days.  This kind of change in my system kinda freaks me out and is a big reminder that I’m on some heavy duty drugs and my body isn’t the same one I had 2 years ago.  I’m definitely more careful doing things than I used to be and try to avoid cat scratches when possible.

I know that my neutrophils control infections and thankfully I haven’t had any but do they also control the speed of healing?  I’ll have to ask the oncologist next month.

So my blood work wasn’t ready for my oncology appointment.  He is keeping everything the same anyway for now. I’ll see him in 8 weeks again.  Oh!  And no CT scan this visit.

Interestingly tho, we talked about my numbers from last visit.  My neutrophils are still way low which is expected with Ibrance but my tumor markers were also up to 80 from their usual mid-60’s.  They were also the readings from when I missed a week of Ibrance.  Now I know what will happen if I stop taking it all together.  Kind of scary weird when you think about it, how well it’s working and how it’s going to be when it stops working.