New Diagnosis, new life

Its been pretty much one month since I had gotten the results of the CT scan.

I am now a metastatic breast cancer patient.

The cancer has spread to my spine and my liver.

My back pain all along was due to tumours surrounding the spinal cord and pinching off nerves that shot down to my hips.

The liver part came as a total shock to me though. I had felt uncomfortable pressure when I would be holding my son up against my stomach but I figured it was.... my stomach and something simple. Not related to my liver.

Apparently my liver had become so enlarged that it would push on my stomach too.

So, my oncologist gave me the bad news, set me up for chemo two days after and thats where it all began.

I am now on Gemcitabine and Cisplatin.

So far it has really been doing me wonders. I have gone for one and a half rounds (I go for chemo two Fridays in a row which is one round, then I have a week off and then back for the next round)

I am waiting on a drug that is apparently a breakthrough in triple negative breast cancer treatment. Iniparib. I should be getting it sometime soon and am very much looking forward to it.

It stops the cancer cells from repairing their DNA by about 50%.

I have not looked too much into the drugs themselves as I have learned from the last time I had chemo, sometimes too much information is.......not good. I worry too much.

My blood work has been coming back soo good after the first day of chemo. My LDH levels have dropped from 2,111 (that was right before chemo they were that high) down to 608 after the first go at chemo. Then, just before I started the second round of chemo, they were down to 240. 200 being normal. WOW. To me, that is pretty amazing.

(LDH- lactate dehydrogenase- can indicate damaged cells and tissue like in cancer)

Some of my liver function tests are now normal too. Those tumours are going down, one by one.

Another thing that was happening to me for quite some time which was a symptom of bone cancer that I had no clue, were night sweats. I would wake up soaked.
I honestly though it was because we had a new pillow top mattress, I always sleep in warm clothes and we had a heavy duvet. Apparently that was not the case.

Lately though, I have only woken up soaking wet one night out of about 15. That is a good sign too as far as I know. It was getting pretty frequent and grose.

Lately I have been moving around a lot better. I walk a little faster and can just move better.

The tumours in my back must be shrinking, however, my bone is getting pretty weak since the tumours were filling up space and I guess eating away at my bone. I need to go for bone strengtening meds soon. That and I am going to take a short break from chemo to do radiation on my spine.

I am not sure what else to say for right now. I just now have gotten it out and will probably update much more often, if I am up for it, once a week or as I find things out.

I have such an AMAZING oncologist in Vancouver, Dr. Gelmon. I honestly don't know what I would do with out her. She is kind, caring and compassionate. Even before my latest diagnosis, I really felt that she was golden. She goes the extra mile.
Here I thought that I am considered terminal so no one is going to give too hoots about me.

Nope, far from it.

I want to fight this. I am fighting this. I have heard of many young women who had their cancer spread much more than mine and this is up to 15 yrs later for some of them. Well, thats amazing and with all the new drugs out there, why can't I have a running shot of beating this or kicking it back?

I have seriously been on the short end of the stick for stats. First off with the retinoblastoma. Then this cancer. 1 in 3000 women find the breast cancer while pregnant. Well, that was me.

Then, I was told that I am at a greater than 70% chance that my breast cancer did not spread and well, it did. So, now its time for me to be the small percent that get through this.

I pray every day and night for God's blessing on the treatments and so far I have been blessed.

I was told by another oncologist one month ago to go home and get my affairs in order. HA.

Havent done it yet and don't intend to for a long time.