The Story of Sisyphus... AKA Caitlin & Cancer

 

     In my 7yrs of being a Cancer patient, I have felt like Sisyphus of Greek Mythology. In short, Sisyphus was forced for eternity to push a giant boulder up a Mountain only to watch it come rolling back down and hit him, forcing him to continue the pushing the boulder - being hit by a boulder for eternity. Lately I have been thinking, I am Sisyphus, but I need a flat top to form on my crappy mountain, because I am tired from pushing this boulder and my body and mind are beaten from being hit from the boulder on its way down. I keep hoping that one day my Boulder would stay on my Mountain for a little bit to give me a breather, a break, and a sense of recovery. This past week was the worst episode I had with my boulder (cancer) and mountain (my life) in a long time. I was losing faith that my mountain would ever build a ledge to give me rest and recovery and strength.

Attempt 1 at Pushing my Boulder up the Mountain: 
     Around week 2 of Pnuemonia, I was given the orders from a Pulmonary Doctor to take Mucinex, which resulted in more coughing, more phlegm, and over time I would get coughing fits and only foamy white spit would come out. The coughing would turn into fits, I couldn't breathe, I would get anxious and I would puke up foamy spit and sometimes bile and sometimes food.
   Last week (6/14), I told my doctor & she suggested to cut out the Mucinex. Despite her recommendations, I was still spitting the foamy white spit and was congested, so back goes the Mucinex. I was told to cut Mucinex down to 1x a day with my Nebulizer 1x day. Unfortunately, the coughing fits resumed, the spitting pukes started and I was not getting any relief. I honestly was sick and tired of Mucinex, Pnemonia, Coughing, Phelgm, Spitting foaming stuff, and hacking coughing puking.
    Every puke fit was due to coughing white foamy spit/phlegm, panic, and more coughing and vomit. There was a clear pattern here Coughing was irritating my stomach and it needed to stop. By this past Monday, these fits were happening once daily. I was nauseated, told my doctor/APN over email & they explained we will address it when I come in for chemotherapy on Wednesday. I was anxious that I would be denied chemotherapy because of these coughing fits, because of the nausea that now has resulted from two weeks of nonstop coughing. I also lost more weight and was anxious about getting that lecture from my doctor. All I wanted to get was my chemotherapy, my first full dose of Navelbine without Pneumonia so my immune system can focus on killing the cancer and no other pathogen.

Attempt 2 at Pushing my Boulder up the Mountain: 
 The day of chemotherapy, I had a coughing-puking fit in the morning, could not eat, was nauseated, and felt like absolute crap. I failed my doctor AGAIN by not gaining weight, because with the coughing and spitting, my food was not settling well. My mom told me my skin was grey. I knew I was dehydrated from not eating, drinking and the coughing fit
  We met with my medical team and explained all of the above. Good news is I was told that they will get control of the cough by giving me cough medication at night.  Bad news was and I was told that the constant coughing has also led to my stomach becoming irritated and I was coughing and spitting up acid. My Acid Reflux went into full speed and the Pepcid I usually take is no longer working. My doctor gave me Nexium, which should stop the coughing fits and spitting up of stomach acid, but will take 1-4 days to work, so I may not feel better for a few days. They gave me a big bag of fluid to address my dehydration, my usual and reliable pre-medication and anti-nausea Aloxi and my full dose of Navelbine. I was advised to take my Zofran & Ativan combo every 6-8hours to ward off nausea, take the cough medication (which has narcotics), and Nexium, avoid dairy, take small sips of water, and be patient with myself when eating.
  We left, I ate a little, we stocked my house up with plain foods & snacks and got me ready to bear down the hatches for probably another day pushing the "boulder" with no resolve.

Attempt 3 at Pushing my Boulder up the Mountain: 
   This is what we call the day after CHEMO. I want to reflect that for me a full dose of Navelbine is NO JOKE. IT IS NO JOKE WHEN YOU ALSO HAVE EXPLOSIVE GERD IN YOUR BELLY. DESPITE taking my medications this is how I spent my last two days.
   I woke up at 4:30a holding the porcelin god and then again some other time that morning. I took my anti-nausea medications and laid down, they kinda worked, but I was mostly nauseated due to the metalic taste in my mouth given to me by chemotherapy. I was semi-functional that day, tired from all the sedating medication, in pain because Navelbine makes the nodes on my clavicle ache at a level 8 out of 10, and nauseated from the pukes & the taste in my mouth. Otherwise I napped, I nibbled, and I felt it was a normal chemo-recovery day minus the strange puke. I kept praying that the cough medication, anti-nausea, or Nexium would save me from puking coughing fits the next day.

Attempt 4 at Pushing my Boulder up the Mountain: 
  The second day after chemo I call DAY 2 and it is  usually is the day from HELL. My first dose of  FULL Navelbine I was in the ER with Pneumonia, which was another type of hell lol. I honestly had no idea what this day would bring. It brought a big reminder of what CHEMOTHERAPY can do to anyone at anytime of treatment. The chemotherapy took me to a DAY OF HELL. I woke up with the same coughing fits, vomiting like I had the day prior. The anti-nausea medications, cough medicine and Nexium still hadn't kicked in and I started to worry it never would work.
   I spent most of my day on my couch in PJs, watching Netflix, sipping water, staring at a barely eaten box of plain animal crackers and an untouched cup of cheerios on my table. I laid there, my family worried about me and wanted to help, but honestly when someone is chemo-sick the most you can do is stare at them in pain, keep filling their water, and maybe change the channel on the TV for them. I wished that there was something someone could do to help.  There was not anything anyone could do for me. I had to ride the shit wave. A shit wave I have no ridden this badly since 2011. Only time and patience would help me. If someone did come over to help, they could only stare at me or socialized and I  had no energy to talk, host, play games or entertain another human. Honestly that would have made me feel like shit, because I did not have the energy in me to be social and I would feel bad because honestly there is not much people can do in the situation. Yes, I spent 5am - 8pm on my couch, alone, moving to the potty to the couch to the fridge for water to the couch.

       THIS IS WHAT CANCER IS REALLY LIKE. IT DOESN'T GET EASIER ALWAYS AND SOME DAYS IT REALLY SUCKS. 

   In my loneliness, if I could not distract my mind with a nap or Netflix I became scared what would all this pain mean. Would this mean the cancer is taking more of me for colonization, is my body to weak to deal with this cancer, or is the chemo working. I had no answer to these questions. I had to put them aside and let time deal with it. I had to have faith that things will get better tomorrow.

Attempt 5 at Pushing my Boulder up the Mountain: 
    Today is DAY 3, I feel human-ish. I have not coughed today at all, which is a HUGE blessing. I have no phlegmy pukes, which is a even bigger blessing. The Nexium is working! I have mild nausea, but my anti-nausea medication is affective & I am eating. I have a little more energy. I am doing what I can given the energy I do have today (which is not marathon runner energy),  but it is putting away laundry and cleaning up little messes here and there energy, writing my blog, working on my wedding thank you cards, making my bed, showering, and even making myself an easy meal. I will take these small improvements. I will take what improvements I have for today, because yesterday I was a cocoon in a blanket on my couch most of the day. Finally my struggle lightened up a bit.
   Today, the Boulder and I finally got that Ledge on The Mountain to stay put and for me to rest and get a break. How long will this break last? I do not know. No one knows what tomorrow will bring. I had no idea today I would feel better today, I just had faith that hopefully I would feel better and not worse with time.

For today I am slightly more energetic & I ate two small meals. I say thats a WIN in my day. 

Even Superheros Have to Rest

If you know me, like know me know me, I am slightly obsessed with both the DC and Marvel Universe. Now I always loved the stories behind some heroes... not all were blessed with powers, some got them, some worked at them and even some who are "Gods" used their powers for good.

Ok, I am not exactly sure where I am going from here. BUT I always ask for Wonder Woman gear from my parents. I guess I feel like I was her, I was strong as all hell, I always stood up for what I believed in and I always saw myself and other women as equals to men. I also had brown hair and well felt like in my life, especially when dealing with cancer, I was wonder woman. I could stand up against any fight and still come back with the same strength, minor cuts, but I healed fast. (OK now I am getting to my point).

Most women in my world with metastatic disease cannot say that for 3yrs of living with cancer they ran sprints with a Pleural Effusion or could squat 280lbs after having almost every vertebrae in my spine radiated. I was a lucky woman living with Stage 4 Cancer, the disease affected my physical capabilities minimally and I could resume and continue my super strength despite where the disease decided to go, die, or stay.  I also took 0 time off from exercise after my mastectomy, I literally was walking 2-3mi a day 4 days after surgery and was running 3-5mi 3x/week during chemotherapy during my early stage diagnosis. Crap I even have a page in my blog devoted to maintaining fitness while having surgery, chemotherapy and radiation.

This past winter & spring, I forgot that despite having Cancer and being referred to as having WONDER WOMAN STRENGTH, I may not always bounce back like Wonder Woman.  I expected to have this same recovery after my Craniotomy last winter, because I WAS WONDER WOMAN. I believed I was unstoppable. The problem with that thinking is I expected to jump right back into what I was doing before my skull was cracked open. I forgot that despite having good physical fitness through all of my cancer journey that I still had to dial back and start from the lowest or slowest point up.

A Craniotomy is a big deal and honestly the fact that I have 100% of my faculties back after that surgery is a blessing in itself. But my thoughts can be over critical and stinky and down right mean to my own self. The truth was I finally was not able to bounce back. I felt like the person I was, that Wonder Woman was fading away. The truth was that I was fatigued, I had to walk slow, I was unable to multitask, and I felt defeated, broken, no longer a superhero. Cancer was going to beat me. I know you do not want to hear me say that, but it is how I felt. Also, I had radiation to my head for the first time, which is seriously a drain on energy. Then lets add my first IV chemotherapy in almost 6yrs, which btw is a whole other level of exhaustion versus oral chemotherapies or anti-hormonals, which I had been taking for 5.5yrs. Lets top that all of with an infection in my Craniotomy wound 6 weeks later, which only made me feel more and more defeated.

After my Craniotomy, I had hope that I would be side-lined for maybe 4 weeks and get slowly back on the gym horse. Even after the second head surgery, I did not want to give up, so I literally waited the two weeks my doctors asked to workout. I walked the malls with Kyle, I set up my road bike inside, and I started doing Yoga again. I did this for about 3 weeks until the Tegaderm Tape keeping the IV in my port for my 3x/day antibiotic infusions kept melting off. I was frustrated and just really stopped doing anything but the walking as it did not make me sweat or ruin the seal around my port IV.

This is where the negative thinking crept right back in. I was slowly fading away from my hope that I could be WONDER WOMAN again. I got sad, I lost a bunch of weight and a lot of it was muscle I had built over the years. So now, I literally am 25lbs lighter than I was a year ago. I lost this weight in about 3 weeks mostly I am assuming it was due to the inability to workout, the cancer getting emotionally and physically draining, a lack of appetite due to the chemo, lack of exercise, and just my sad, stinky, hopeless thinking. I guess I got thin for my wedding without trying, but I had to get my dress taken in three times within 30days of my wedding (THAT IS NOT HEALTHY). No level of emotional distress, physical health decline, or stress should have led to that quick of a weight loss, but it happened. In the cancer world they call this, Cancer Cachexia, which is the loss of appetite due to cancer tumors release destructive proteins which tell cells to produce an inflammatory reaction which can cause a loss of appetite. These proteins can also cause muscle atrophy and can be the cause of altered taste changes,  among many other problems. 

I was broken, I was no longer Wonder Woman, but Olive Oil. Honestly my negative self-talk and view of this weight loss is enough to deal with. BUT People have been on my case about what I eat, how much I weigh, etc. Honestly, I know people care and mean well, but it has only made me more scared, more self-critical about the weight loss in general, and more hopeless that I won't ever get my fit, Wonder Woman body back. This is why it has become a problem that I saw myself as Wonder Woman. I hold myself to THAT standard of perfection constantly and honestly, I am not a person made from Zeus, I am human, I can break and sometimes I have to accept that I am also living with a terminal illness. I never accepted my disease for what it REALLY IS.

BTW NOSY PEOPLE WHO I NOW WANT TO STOP OBSESSING ABOUT MY WEIGHT - I HAVE BEEN EATING AND CANNOT GAIN MUCH WEIGHT BACK. I HAD PNEUMONIA AND 0 APPETITE WHICH IS NORMAL, BUT HONESTLY IF I AM THIN BUT HEALTHY WITH GOOD COLORING PLEASE JUST GET OFF OF ME ABOUT THIS. IT MAKES ME FEEL LIKE UTTER PILES OF DOG SHIT. I will exercise but I will do what I can, when I can and what I want to do. I eat and I honestly do not care if I am skinny now. If you care, but my doctor doesn't care as long as I am 120 (which I have been for 1mo), then maybe you need to ask yourself why it bothers you so much?

Here comes that moment when I made my own Mental Choice to accept and be and not hold myself to any standard... I made that choice in April.

Why did I decide to 1. not let my negative self talk affect me and 2. not let other people's criticism of how I look affect me... a comic. Yep another comic. I started to read the new Thor comics, where Jane (Thor's human ex) becomes Thor but also has Metastatic Breast Cancer. Here is a human, she is sick, but when she can she fights and is strong. This comic excerpt explains how I ACTUALLY HAVE BEEN LIVING SINCE 2010. And honest to god, it has helped me over come my shame for being skinny and my shame of being sick with CANCER and looking sick and ultimately that fear of never being a strong, indestructible fitness god (or whatever I thought I was). I have learned to accept that some days I need to rest, because my STRENGTH I am using all of that to take in treatment and stay alive. Some days I can be the MIGHTY old Caitlin who appears strong and is unstoppable and never needs rest. Of late, I have accepted that after that Craniotomy I have needed more days to recover and fight the Cancer within to stay alive, so I can have more days where I am Mighty Caitlin. 

. 

So the reality is I am no superhero. I am not indestructible. I am not impervious to pain, sadness, set backs, or illnesses beyond my cancer. The reality is I am a strong person, but physically my strength is being used in other ways - to recover from this pneumonia, to fight this dumb cancer, and to accept that yoga & walking are perfectly OK forms of exercise on the days I feel capable of exercising.

The last 7 months have been tiring. A craniotomy 2x is no joke. Chemotherapy IV is no joke especially when you progressed through two different Chemotherapies in 7mo. Radiation 2x to my head was not easy. HONESTLY, most people still would not even think of gardening when recovering from pneumonia. BUT I did that because I wanted to. It tired me out. You know why??? Because I am sick. I have been sick since 2010, but it was easy to hide when my treatments were not needed to be dripped into me via a port or when I had hair and not a wig.

This is where I think my mind hurt me... I was in denial about how serious Stage 4 cancer can be. I see this in some newbies in my support group & honestly I hope they never wake up in an ICU accepting that they are sicker than they thought. I hope this blog helps all my Stage 4 sisters and even early stage sisters realize that we are sick. If we are sick, it is ok to rest, it is ok to have set backs, and it is ok to look sick.

Today's lesson is that I never accepted that I was sick and I think that was the problem. I held myself to be WONDER WOMAN. I felt if I could still do the normal, look normal, then I wasn't sick. This kept me hopeful, but in serious denial about how bad things could get for me. It did not hit me until Nov 14, 2016 waking up in NYC in an ICU that I WAS SICK WITH CANCER AND THIS WAS REAL AND SERIOUS. I can say I have lived with cancer since 2010, but the last 7mo I have finally been forced to accept, deal, and cope with what that really means.

In therapy I have learned that COPING means that: 
1. Resting is not weakness.
2. Disability is not the end, but a beginning to find something new & something that makes me happy.
3. My hair is replaceable, my life is not.
4. I will never have to worry about dieting ever... I am embracing the thin.
5. Every day is a blessing and despite how bad a day could seem, there can be 1-2 good things in that bad day. I have to force myself to find this sometimes.
6. WE CANNOT PLAN BEYOND TODAY. Planning for tomorrow is never guaranteed.
7. We CAN plan for tomorrow to have something to look forward to, but also be willing to accept that cancer or illness may get in the way of those plans.
8. Start to place less value or mental concern on things like - money, what others think, and my internal desire to be the perfect cancer patient.

trust me these are all wavering lessons and I fall out of practicing them here & there. I am not perfect. No one but Wonder Woman can be her, but damn we can look to her as hope. I am a human and some days I am unstoppable and others I am just trying to get better and not let the cancer take over me. 

Pneumonia? Seriously, how I recovered from a beating from bad luck...

The past 10 days have been days of pretty crappy news, which has become harder and harder to swallow. Naturally I am a person who gives hope, has hope, and keeps looking for the answer. I actually had faith that Halaven was that answer. This chemo worked fast according to my lab work and I was holding onto the one rise in tumor markers to be a fluke. The biggest answer to the question if did Halaven stop working within a matter of two cycles....was the CT scan I had last Tuesday. So lets go over the crappy CT scan first.

This CT Scan did not show great news for my lungs. Halaven had failed me. It tricked me and pushed me down and honestly it was pretty hard to look at the bruises it left on my ego, grab my bag of hope, and just keep moving. There were spots in my pleura and lung region that have not grown in a year, but had doubled in size. New tiny nodes popped up around my lungs and chest wall. My liver showed shrinking in 1 spot and 2 stable spots. Bad news is my Peritoneum - the fatty lining in my abdomen, which is literally my stomachs "pleura," seems to still have cancer in it, which was on my CT scan in March 2017. Literally, I put this area of new disease in the "lets forget it because its scary and I do not want  to think about it" part of my brain. I have 3 tumors in this fatty lining (how they are not growing out of me like heads in my stomach is beyond my understanding, because my stomach has 0 fat on the outside).  The tumor that scares me the most is the one floating above my liver which is 6.7cm. I had cancer in this region in 2015, Lucitanib (trial drug) kept it stable and Xeloda blasted the crap away. The tumors in this region need to go as they run the risk of creating fluid in my abdomen, which can be pretty dangerous in the cancer world. I pray to my Higher Power and Angels and just ask for them to find something to kill these nasty tumors.

Good news from the scan??? Liver is stable. Bones have been stable 1 year. I hold onto hope that my brain continues to kill the annoying brain tumors with radiation and cannabis oils.

After 3 quick rounds of Halaven, where my hair has gotten patchy with a thin mullet (under my wig), my cancer has figured a way around Halaven pretty fast. I guess this Halaven did kill some things, but we aren't sure why the markers dropped and then rose. I think no one will ever have that answer, so we have to move on.

What is the next Step? The next step is Navelbine,  another drip chemo used for breast cancer, lung cancer, and mesothelioma. My doctor feels that it would be a good match as it does a number on cancer in the lungs and my cancer also somehow has the mesothelin protein attached to in the pleura & we are assuming that the Peritoneum will also be targeted because it is known to also carry that protein. On to Navelbine! Plan is to do 2 weeks on, 1 off. Same cycle pattern, new drug.

My doctor and I also discussed two other chemotherapy options and also are resending my lung pleura out to foundation medicine and to the hospital for specific testing for Androgen Receptors, Keytruda, and something else that I clearly forgot. I will ask her next week.  We also discussed some good trials for me that I have matched up with due to the genetic nature of my illness or my current treatment need. So according to Cornell, I have many options left. Catch for the trials is that my MRI in July needs to be stable or shrinking. I could go on and on as to why trials want a 4 week stable brain MRI, but its a rule to cover their own asses and also not put brain mets people at risk. Honestly I do not care, I would welcome a good Brain Scan again.

THAT IS EVERYTHING ON THE CANCER FRONT. NOW FOR MY FIRST FEVER SINCE 1998.

I think I can handle one beat down a week with medical issues without cracking slightly. Somehow I caught Pneumonia. I began having small dry coughs the Saturday after coming home from my vacation to Florida. The coughs got worse - I assumed the cancer was clogging my breathing passages,  I was tired - I assumed I was lazy, and I was sore - I assumed it was from power yoga daily for the last month. I also discussed these symptoms with my doctor and she said it could be the lung met progression or my allergies, as I never have coughed from lung mets ever even when I lived with 1.5L of a pleural effusion at the base of my Left Lung for 2yrs.

So I got my first Navelbine on May 23 along with my monthly Xgeva. Side effects of both - FLU-LIKE SYMPTOMS. My gut somehow said that this so was not chemotherapy side-effects - 1. they hit me like a 18 wheeler on Wednesday when no matter what IV chemo I have gotten, my bad days are always TH and/or F. Wednesday I ran morning errands and barely pulled myself out of Whole Foods. I do believe I laid on the couch all day and was testing my temperature often, but my temperature would get to 99 then drop. I still was not convinced it was the chemotherapy, yet a part of me kept hoping it was the CHEMO-FLU.

Last Thursday (1 week ago), I woke up with a hacking cough with phlegm, felt warm, could barely get myself to the couch and had Kyle take the car to the train because for the second day in a row I had 0 energy or appetite. BOTH of these things were freaking me out. I cancelled a luncheon with my now ex-coworkers because I had no ride and I also was feeling pretty sick. I am blessed that my Step-Sister to be came and brought me lunch after her doctor and spent time with me. I felt super warm, so we started to test my temperature, which at 3pm rose to 102.4. Yes I had a fever. To make a long, boring story short, I ended up at the local ER and was diagnosed with Pneumonia.

I felt horrible. I was losing my usually perfect blood Oxygen by the hour, coughing, and I felt like a slug when I would walk anywhere... walking to the bathroom in the ER and in my hospital room was a task in itself & I did not want to eat anything. I never ended up at Cornell and was treated by the Oncologists at RMC I see 2x a year for medical Cannabis scripts and a physical. I was there from Thursday Night until Sunday Afternoon.  I actually had great care at Riverview with the Oncologists, Infectious Disease Team and Nurses. I was discharged on 7 days of Levaquin.

Why did I not get transferred to Cornell, we asked, but its a long story because an On Call Fellow at Cornell did not want to do his job & neither did the ER doctor that evening. The discharge nurse and hospitalist doctor well they were pretty bad and did not write a great discharge plan, which ended up in the lap of my Oncology Team at Cornell. I asked for a damn Nebulizer, but the discharge nurse clearly does not like to do his job (yes that is you Gabriel at RMC) and said that he would take 20min to write the discharge plan for me. It is totally believable I interned at JSUMC and their paperwork if handwritten can be long. But the discharge plan was done half assed and could have been done by Trump (who has no medical training).

And the final medical news over the last two weeks is .... 
1. I got Navelbine this week with Pneumonia. My APN and the covering doctor, Dr. Moore (adore her btw and she knows my local oncology team at RMC) chose to give me a 1/2 dose and I will get the other half dose next week. I did not want to leave without Chemo...I seriously believe my cancer went on the run when I had to take a 4 week break off of chemotherapy & went back on the same medications, which my body already figured out how to beat it down.

2. My blood Oxygen still was stinky on Tuesday (92 at rest, 84 after walking, BUT I can bring up my blood oxygen on my own, which is a sign of strong lungs), so my APN (thank god for her) ordered my Nebulizer for me & it will be here TOMORROW. My breathing is so much better now, but honestly my allergies suck in humidity and the Nebulizer will strengthen and open my lungs, which will be good for recovery from Pneumonia and Cancer in my lungs. Hopefully we can get my blood oxygen back to 98-100% like its always been despite cancer.

Me in the hospital on my Nebulizer! Of course there were many jokes following this video... gotta keep the humor alive people. 

3. I am getting re-referred back to my Pulmonary Surgery Team to watch my lungs. My oncology team was quite shocked that they graduated me in March when my lungs were clear of all but 1 pleural tumor given my history of having primary lung/pleural mets at Stage 4 Diagnosis. I go back to the Pulmonary Surgeons next Wednesday who will keep a good eye on my little sacs of air.

4. Oddly enough we tested my tumor markers right after my first Navelbine drip. Both markers dropped close to 150-200 points. No one knows why...we cannot draw the conclusion if it was Navelbine or Halaven still working, but my scans look bad, so we can r/o Halaven as still working.

5. The big catch to all of this is that we have no clue when I got pneumonia. The assumption is on my flight back from Florida because I had symptoms the next day and did not end up spreading it to my friend and her entire family. BUT I was on Levaquin for 5 days for a UTI/Minor Kidney Infection in Early April & once I finished those antibiotics my tumor markers dropped. This goes to the next question and problem to be resolved. Now I wonder did I have walking pneumonia for a while and had no idea. We will never know, but I am being treated for it now.

6. Also we have no clue and neither do the radiologists if they were missing Pneumonia on my scans in March and May at Cornell, so my APN put an order in for them to review my CT from RMC and also re-review my scans for possible signs of pneumonia as some of the lymph nodes and nodules in my lungs could be cancer or pneumonia.

7. Dr. Moore also wanted me on Levaquin longer, so I am on it until next Tuesday night. RIGHT before I get the rest of my Navelbine. We also are not testing my tumor markers until the second round of Navelbine due to the risk of them being skewed from the lung inflammation caused by pneumonia.


and that is it... seriously... all I have been doing is sitting on my couch and walking little bits in my house because that is all I can handle. My appetite is slowly roaring back, fever has been gone, but the fatigue and night sweats are still a PIA. This will pass. I will get back to yoga. I will get outside soon to do my deck garden. I will have energy to paint our home soon.  I will get to the beach and pool soon. This is just a crappy illness that I always said everyone got.

After the past 19yrs despite what illnesses were thrown at me - I have been forced to be bed bound due to a fever and due to a common illness. Yet Cancer has never kept me down too long. If that does not show you the type of person I am, then remember this I will keep kicking and screaming until my end of days & I hope everyone I know does too. I hope we find a way to reduce my cancer. I hope we find an immunotherapy or targeted drug that works long enough for me. I hope more money goes into research to keep me kicking and screaming and fighting until the day Cancer becomes a chronic disease and is no longer labeled as Terminal.