I have finally decided to humbly accept that title that people keep trying to give me. After the week that I have had, I realize that I am so freaking STRONG. I honestly have no idea how I get up and keep on doing what I'm doing every day. My only conclusion is I am a WARRIOR, along with God's grace and love, I am able to wake up every day, positive and happy. It has been a massive emotional and physical roller coaster this week.
A week ago today I was supposed to head up to my friend's house after work so that we could leave for a long weekend to Nashville Friday morning. Instead I woke up to my Auggie running into walls because he could not open his eyes. If you know how much that dog means to me, you will also know the freak out session I had. Thankfully the vet had a cancellation at 4:00 and so we went to the vet and my buddy had possibly been stung by bees or allergies. Got him some meds and eye drops and decided I would stay home that night and head to STL the next morning.
I woke up the next morning and headed to STL to meet up with the girls. Made it to STL and on the road we went to check off another one of my bucket list items. This trip was twofold for me, to keep my crazy mind off of the upcoming scan on that Monday and to celebrate Kim's daughter at her bachelorette party. We had a small snafu and had to backtrack our way (ironically) to Nashville, IL to get the keys to the apartment we would be staying in for the weekend. For those that know me well know I cannot stand car rides. I am an airplane chick all the way! So that detour was a fun surprise haha! Six hours later we finally made it to our apartment and was ready to start our fun weekend in Nashville! We went to some of the most iconic honky tonks and heard some amazing bands. The people watching was epic LOL! We hung out with the 14 youngins for a little bit at a distillery, then we headed down to Broadway Street to check out the bands again. We found out that Nashville is now the bachelor/bachelorette party capital of the US and there were groups EVERYWHERE with very long lines into all of the bars. Craziness! Luckily we got to Tootsies early enough on Saturday to get a seat and hung out there for about 6 hours singing and dancing. Guess who had zero voice on Sunday? Yep that was me. Oh yeah and we walked about 15,000 steps each day too. This lazy ass was all the way straight up worn out upon arriving home Sunday, but mission accomplished, I did not think about the impending scan at all for 3 days! Here's the tricky part about Nashville.... EVERYONE is drinking..... ALL the time. I normally can control the narrative and excuse myself when uncomfortable in a drinking setting. This weekend was a huge challenge for me. BUT I did not drink! I am so proud of myself! Warrior!
Monday morning.... up and at em for my 7:45 scan and doctor's appointment. My tumor markers continue to rise, so I was already thinking things were not going to be good. Into the tube I went and the scan began. Afterwards down the hall to see the oncologist. He stepped into the room and holy moly he said everything still looks good! He does still believe that the cancer is waking up and growing, but it is still not showing up on the scans, so he said to stay on my chemo pills and let's scan in another two months. I can honestly say that living life two months at a time is hard, but ya'll keep those prayers coming, they work!! I am hoping my rising numbers are just a fluke. But I am also a realist and know it could show up again at any time and those rising numbers mean something. But I will continue to stay positive and pray! My doc did throw a curve ball at me and said the Mayo doc had wanted an MRI of my brain, but he really didn't elaborate why. This kind of freaked me out..... So we scheduled the MRI at Boone Hospital on Wednesday afternoon. I went home and pretty much slept the whole day trying to recover from all of the mental and physical activities of the prior days. Feeling me on this roller coaster week yet?
I headed over to Boone Hospital for my MRI on Wednesday, nervous as hell, all kinds of things going through my mind. Why was this ordered out of the blue. Did the Mayo doctors see something on the CT that MCA didn't. In the tube again.... this is the lovely machine that sounds like they are jack hammering on your brain. An hour later out of the tube and off to wait for the results the next day. Ugh, what a long 24 hours!! The next day my nurse calls and THANK YOU JESUS... it was clean and clear and no abnormalities! Oh yeah and I do have a brain.... haha! Sometimes these days the way I forget things I was beginning to wonder LOL!
We rounded out the roller coaster week with a Mother's Day 5k in Moberly that benefits cancer patients in the area. I was blessed to be able to walk the 5k and spend the day with my sister and her family, my mom, a lifelong best friend, and the best present, my son and some of my "adopted" soccer sons as well! What a gift! I have also been blessed enough to have been a recipient of the generosity of this organization and it helped so much with deductibles and out of pocket medical expenses. I was very grateful and will always support this awesome organization.
I am coming upon my ONE YEAR of my bonus months June 1st! I feel so lucky and so blessed as the majority of pancan patients do not make it to this amazing milestone in their journey. I am positive it wouldn't be possible without all of the prayers, support and most of all my amazing positive attitude! Please keep praying for me as I will have my monthly blood check on the 31st and then my next scan will be on June 28th. But for now I'm trying to live every moment to the fullest and it's been amazing!
As always, thank you to all of my prayer warriors! Please continue to do so as I am positive it is working in my favor! Life is short, go do something amazing this weekend!
