pain, pain, pain

I've been a little out of it these days.  Last weekend this pain started in my left side.  It reminded me of times when my right side would be in pain because of tumors.  I've been battling it all week, trying not to overtake my pain medication so in case this doesn't end, I don't run out.  It's been an amazingly hard week, and I would say I've never been in so much pain before, but that would be a lie.  I can remember times when I would be in so much pain I literally couldn't move.  This pain, although excruciating, isn't as bad as it could be.  There's a heaviness, stretchiness, stiffness, pulling, in my left side.  I'm hoping it's just that I did too much last weekend, and my body just isn't what it used to be.  I have had many issues there and maybe it's all come together.

Or it could be this tumor we found on my ultrasound this week.  No knowledge if it is benign or cancerous but possibly it could be sitting on a nerve or something.  I don't know.  I just pray it goes away, real soon.  My house is a wreck, worse then normal, and I had gotten it looking good.  I haven't been able to use my left arm all week and I'm left handed.  I hate being a whiny baby but life is just different when you are in so much pain you can't think straight.  So, that's my week.  Well part of it.

Like I said, I had testing this week.  Ultrasounds, CT Scans, and I was supposed to have a PET scan, which is a big part of watching my progress or no progress of my treatment. 

My previous post I told you about how my diabetes has gone out of control.  I have been put on medication for it but it hasn't gotten low enough.  Up until this point in my diabetes life, it wasn't high enough to take medication.  Suddenly it sky rocketed and so I've been on the medication trying to get it level.  Prepping for the PET Scan includes eating a high protein meal the night before with no carbs.  I followed the diet, and in the morning my sugar was 210.  High but low for what it had been.  So you would think that five hours later with no eating or drinking except water, it would be lower.  My sugar was 259.  The PET Scan uses glucose to indicate metabolic activity and uses that to explore the possibility of metastasis.  With the high sugar, it just won't work.  Normally the CT Scans are taken at the same time.  Because of my high allergy to the Iodine Contrast used in the CT Scans to highlight the cancer, my scans aren't the best quality.  So who knows if we will be able to find out anything about my cancer.  But if we do, it happens this Tuesday. 

If my cancer has continued to grow while on this chemo I have been on, then we head back to Houston for further analysis on my treatment plan.  So things have been off lately.  I've been off lately.  I just pray everything is okay and I won't have to change chemo's.  I'm tolerating this one better than I have others.  It's just a waiting game for us right now.

That's it for now folks!

xo
Shannon

 

Just the truth

Okayyyyyy, so I wrote this a while back, to be exact it was October 27th.  I had no idea I didn't post it so here is some old news:

Hi! I want to start out with how much I love all of you for caring enough about us to view my blogs. I have had some very rough times and your kind words and beautiful outpouring of support mean the world to me. I also want to begin with how much I trust and believe in God's healing powers. I have been shown it over and over again. Years ago, the night before my double masectomy, the womens ministry at my church laid hands on my left breast. I had just found out I had tumors in my left arm lymphnodes and the doctors were looking for tumors to be in my left breast figuring it was another primary cancer (if you can't follow the cancer lingo just ask lol). I had such a feeling of power, the knowledge that there would be no cancer in my left breast. Well, low and behold, the test my left breast for tumors and find none. I call that a God intervention. He let me know he was here with me. There have been times when I didn't think I was going to make it another day. I have been in so much pain at different times. Allergic reactions, seizure, bone and muscle and bone marrow pain for days, weeks, months, at a time. I was in the ER one time and was severely dehydrated. The nurses and doctors couldn't get an IV into any veins. My arms that I let them try just because I had to, sometimes it's easier there and sometimes I don't want them to put and IV in my foot. Well, thank you lymphodema, in the foot or medi port it is! Well to finish my ER story, they tried my arms, hands, feet, neck, and finally had to opt for a central line. This consist of, not only a needle being stuck in your top middle part of your thigh, but a needle almost the size of an epirdural. Maybe it's bigger, I don't know. I just know it was huge. The whole process=2 hours. My sister/friend, Toni, was with me. She was there holding my hand and I could tell by the look on her face, scared to death for me. To finish this story, I wanted to say, at every different situation where I felt like it was my last second on this earth I would pray. I would be in non stop prayer. I would pray for His arms to embrace me and give me comfort. I would actually feel His arms around me. Almost as if He was holding me. I would sink into His arms and be at peace. Calm. Now don't get me wrong, I was scared. I was so scared of leaving my daughter but at the same time I would understand that if something happened to me she would be taken care of. In Jesus's arms I would wake each time. Now try and tell me there is no God.

I also want to be a little more honest. I am just going to acknowledge it. For all to see. For all to understand. I am putting this out here for all of you to know:
It is not fair. It is not fair. It is not fair. I would not wish this on my worst enemy and the thought that if I could choose someone to have cancer besides me, it would be me everytime. There is no way anyone I have ever met deserves this.
I get mad. Then I realize I don't even know who to be mad at.
I want to run. Disappear. Live on a beach. Meet the man of my dreams, who then moves us to a house on the beach. One thing always stops this dream. Cancer. There is no running. Every where I go it stays with me. Shannon, queen of running, cannot run from this.
The thought of having another surgery makes me sick to my stomach. Yet I know it is necessary. Bye bye ovaries...
The news today that one of my tumors has grown through me for a loop.
I cried about my cancer for the first time in over six months today.
Right now I am having a hard time coming to grips that chemo may be started again. I will return to Houston in two months and if it has grown anymore chemo starts again.
I still haven't written my first book.
Or my second book.
I need a publisher.
Bradley Cooper needs to realize that we are meant to be, soon.
Bradley Cooper, I really lost all respect for you when you started dating J-Lo. What are you thinking?
I need everyone to bring me their funny movies so when I am layed up after surgery I can laugh.
Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck make the cutest little people.
Right now I have to return a phone call to my gynocologist to schedule surgery, my physical therapist to schedule therapy, my therapist to schedule a session, Walgreens MedMart to schedule a medicine delivery of my Tykerb, the maintenance drug that has worked for so long until now. I need to call Madisyn's doctor for a medicine refill, make an appointment for the eye doctor, the TMJ doctor, my local oncologist(well I have to find out if I scheduled an appointment or not..I forget and can't find an appointment card-this happens all the time)
I have an amazing kid, she makes me smile.
She also makes me crazy sometimes ;-)
I have the greatest group of friends a girl can ask for.
While on chemo I am a cranky, tired, bald and on lots of meds that make me out there. Just love me, understand me, help me, be with me, hang with me, invite me places even if you know I will probably say no because I'm sick.
Offer to clean i.e. wash dishes, sweep, mop, vacuum, dust, laundry (thanks mom!), help with my bill organizing, help with Madisyn as much as you can.
I love Twilight, Vampire Diaries, The Crow, Glee, The Secret Circle, Pretty Little Liars, Psych, James Dean, art, peace signs, the store Hot Topic, Dexter, The Game of Thorns, American Horror Story, Parks and Recreation, Up All Night, Raising Hope, and so much more.
I hate the Disney Channel.
I love Teen Nick.
I quote songs.
I write songs.
You will probably never hear them.
I quote movies.
I like to be in movies. Hollywood, here I am!
I am way to sarcastic at times. But I mean well.
I will never, have never phone stalked anyone.
Now, facebook stalked, that's a different story.
I love my parents and my family even though I don't show it.
Right now I just WANT to be depressed. Let me. I will bounce back, I need a grieving period.
I really do think Edward is too old for Bella.
Breaking Dawn is crazy.
I do think the reason for all the cancer around here has some Erin Brokovich story that just hasn't been discovered yet.
You will never find handi-capped parking at the oncologist's office, Crowne Plaza, Walmart, the Superdome during the Saints game, the psychiatrist office, the heart doctor, the neurologist office, and Barnes&Nobles (????).
My Bella is never coming home and I have to get over it.
I am sorry for anything I may have ever said or done to hurt you.
If my doctor writes me a prescription to not be around any kids but my own, listen. I did not talk her into it, she indepently wrote it because of my blood cell counts and the possibility of getting infections I could be hospitalized or worse killed from a virus when it is just a nuisance to your system and your system kills it.
.
I am spontaneous and wild yet an introvert at the same time.
I just want someone who loves me for both of my sides. Someone who can be wild and silly with me but at the same time respects when I need to be alone.

I try and I try to stay positive and turn to the promises of My God. I am human though. Jesus gave His life for me so that I may be forgiven of my sins.
Truth is I get scared.
Truth is I ignore cancer so it won't get me down. Truth is it doesn't matter what I think when my body tells me I'm sick it is hard to ignore.
I really do want to work. But a job working around all my doctors appointments and surgeries will be almost impossible to find much less keep.
I get overwhelmed by the phone calls, doctor's appointments, motherhood, doctor's bills, and really just life in general. I wish I could say I am living the life I am intended but I am not so sure I am.
I feel as though something big is in store for me. I don't know what or how or why, but I feel as though God has chosen me for something and I am steadily working towards His goal.
God know my heart. God knows my pain. God knows my heartache. God knows my strength.

I have shared enough lol. Maybe more next time.

As always, with love,

Shannon

Finally

Well, as most of you know, I had a couple trips to Houston this month. They pricked and proded me, scanned me all over, and took enough blood to fill a vampire's daily thirst. In the end though, VICTORY! Yay! First of all everything came back as not having grown, which is great. There was one tumor that had increased metabolic activity, which isn't good, but the tumor itself hadn't grown. So, in a sense, its still considered victorious.

I have finally stopped chemo! Hip Hip HOORAY! I am staying on the daily drug Tykerb, which only targets the cancer cells and not the good cells. Thank GAWD! I'm telling you I probably would have lost my mind if I had to stay on chemo any longer. I am worn out and fed up. Call me self-fish but I want to start living again. I want to have energy. I want to have hair. I want to make plans and be able to follow through. I don't want to be sick anymore!!! The past year or so (at this point my memory is shot) have taken toll on my body and energy levels. I am super happy because after only a week off of chemo, I have slightly more energy then I have in awhile. Not a huge amount, but enough to get a couple loads of laundry done and a load of dishes. Then, until Madisyn got home from school, I slept. But like I said, it is more then I've done in awhile.

Madisyn's birthday was August 23rd. I still haven't had her "birthday party". Every year I have a "mini" birthday party with just a couple kids she picks, then since we have such a big family I have the "real" birthday party with family and friends. Well it is now September 15th and I still have no idea when I am going to get around to having the energy and momentum to have and plan the party this year. Normally it is something I look forward to, and absolutely love planning but this year, I'd rather sleep.

My neurologist and I are doing "a test". The overwhelming urge to sleep may be being caused by my seizure meds but we are waiting till I am off of chemo for awhile to make the judgement to change seizure meds or not. If it goes away then I stay on the seizure meds and credit chemo, if it stays around then, its being caused by the seizure meds. Right now there is no way to tell which medicine is causing it.

Some good news, is I convinced my surgeon to do the surgery to remove all my tumors. For those of you who didn't know, my surgeon in Houston was completely against the surgery and was not planning on performing the surgery. She thought that since it keeps coming back the risks outweighed the benefits in the end. Well, I begged and pleaded and even gave her a puppy dog face which she couldn't refuse. So, the outcome is, surgery....the week of October 17th...another birthday surgery. To make me smile, the surgeon promised me chocolate cake after surgery..she knows me so well. :D

So for now, that is everything. My brain has shut off and refuses to think anymore...so until next time...

Shannon

The end of 2009

It has been a long time since i have blogged. My previous blogsites: caringbridge.org/visit/shannonbridges, carepages.com/carepages/shannonsfight

Lately I have been looking back over the past year. The end of the year is always a time to reflect on the past and look forward to the future. There is the wonder, the hope, the promise of better to come. The new year, another chance to make everything right.

When I think back on my past year, the year starting January 1, 2009, it feels like yesterday. In January I was finishing up three months of chemo that had started in November. In October of 2009 I had surgery to remove the remaining tumors that had resisted the clinical trial I participated in for nine months of 2008. Two tumors in my neck had responded to the point of not being visible anymore. The other 12+ tumors were still hanging around, fighting away all the medicine I was on. I spent the bulk of 2008 traveling back and forth to Houston, Texas to receive treatment in a clinical trial that was promising to kick my cancer's ass since Herceptin had failed the first time. After months of non-response, we scheduled surgery. In surgery the plan was to remove the remaining black blobs on my ultrasound. In the midst of Hurricane Gustav that rattled Baton Rouge and Houston, I was battling cancer, my fourth recurrance-or to use an easier term, metastatic breast cancer. Every time the cancer has gone away, been taken out, killed off by the poisens running through my body, or been nuked by radiation, every time, it had returned. This surgery was to be a new beginning for me. A chance to walk forward and never turn around to remember the past......again. Surgery number thirteen.....or wait twelve...wait, we don't include biopsies in this number do we? Whatever number it was, I was ready. Then came Hurricane Gustav. Surgery cancelled. Crap. A couple weeks later there I was, finally, the wait would be worth it.

Post op, November 2008. Ultrasound......Oops...tumors escaped from surgery. These little jerks managed to escape the surgeon's grasp. Two little black blobs sat there starring me in the face. What happened? How? With a don't dwell, move forward attitude we started treatment...again. I was put on two drugs, one called Taxol and Herceptin. I had been on Herceptin before for years and it was just a new way of approaching the Herceptin therapy in hopes that this time it would work. Treatment every week. Around this time I decide to go vegetarian.

So there I am, January 1, 2009, most probably nauseas, vomiting, constipation, diarrea, and speaking backwards. Yes thats what I said, my speech is retarded. Brain scans show nothing so it is just the side effects of the medicine. At some point I decide on more of a vegan form of diet. In February I had to return to Houston for a restaging. We got to do a million tests to see how the chemo is working, and then decide on therapy. Outcome was growth in tumors. Found a new one that they thought was probably not new, just a whole lot bigger and visable now....ok...whatever. So, we changed our treatment plan. This time to Taxol and a drug called Carboplatin, but this time i only had to go every three weeks. Yay! There is something positive! I speak with the Alternative therapy doctor there, learn some more about wheat grass and stuff, only to then find out that I can't have soy. My cancer is estrogen receptor postive...translation: estrogen makes my cancer grow....outcome of this appointment: no more soy....results of this outcome: no more vegan. There was also a major sick time in which I found out I was getting worse side effects and stuff because I wasn't getting enough nutrients with the vegan diet. You've got to work for your nutrients in that diet anyways, and to switch to that kind of diet while going through cancer treatment was probably stupid anyways. I would have to take major supplements if I wanted to try it again, so needless to say I haven't gone that route again yet.

So, there I was vegetarian.....wait no..vegan...crap....forget that...vegetarian...dangit....whatever my body will allow me to eat without making me vomit.

Through all these years of treatment, surgeries, radiation, and everything else under the sun being but into my body I was living with my parents. Not that bad of a setup. At first me and Madisyn had to share a room and a bed. Then they let us have our own rooms. Woo-Hoo! But seriously, I was a twenty something mother living with...her parents. The help was awesome. Mom would do my laundry, and eventually I let her do it without telling her she didn't need to do it...I learned to just accept the help. If I was sick mom would get her up and off to school. Good thing because by the time I started the chemo in November I would let her do it alot. Now, of course, that did not go over to well. There was alot of fighting about Madisyn, alot of fighting about the house, and alot of fighting about, well everything.

I am not sure if everyone gets a time in their lives where they get to find out who their friends are and how many friends they actually do have. I have been so lucky as to have been shown that over and over and over again. In February of 2009, I learned again. Through the magic of blogs through, facebook, myspace, caringbridge.org, and carepages.com and emails through all of my accounts, a couple of my friends accounts two of my friends found a place, raised the money to pay six months in advance in rent, and got me and Madisyn a place of our own. We hadn't lived on our own since February of 2006 when we moved home after I left my husband. With donations from people from freecycle.com, different stuff from different people, and my friend's used furniture store that closed, my place was furnished. No, maybe it didn't all match, but it was all ours. April 1, 2009 our place was ours. Right after we moved in I got to go back to Houston for another restaging. This time....better news....no change...yes, that is good news...this means no growth...so I stay on Carboplatin and Taxol.

In June of 2009 I return to Houston. Because of the side effects that I started having...numbness in hands and feet, potentially could be wide spread and permanet, we change chemo and schedule surgery. I start on Gemzar and Herceptin. Yes, somehow I get put on Herceptin again. I don't know why we decided to do that. I think it was because we just needed something for me to be on before surgery....but seriously I don't remember. We schedule for August of 2009. I return to Houston in July for some more tests. No change in tumors, but I get diagnosed with Stage 1 heart failure. Great. Lets add cardiology to my regular doctor appointment list.

When I return for my pre op appointments I get the go ahead from cardiology, and every other doctor possible. Finally I go and get my ultrasound. As always I make them check anything that I don't like in my chest. Yay! The lump that bothers me is not cancerous! Woo-Hoo! Oh crap, they want to check something they find will looking at my noncancerous lump. Embedded in my chest and growing into my right reconstructed breast is.....yes...cancer....again. In one of my new boobs. What???

Ok, so, yes this happens. I new it was a possibility, and I knew the very little percentage it was that actually had this happen...so yes....you are right....I should have seen this one coming. Only me. That has been my motto with this cancer journey. If there is the slight possiblility just know that with me, it is a large possibility.

What does this new tumor mean to me? No surgery. Cancelled. "Does not respond to surgical intervention."

Now what? They speak to me about a stem cell transplant. Ok, how much....$200,000....paid up front....HA! My $800 in disability will not cover that, sorry! So we switch to a drug called Xeloda and Tykerb. Both are oral drugs....Yippeeeeee! I start off with 13 pills of chemo a day for one week, then just the five Tykerb for one week, repeat. Bad bad side effects. Worse chemo ever. October of 2009 I have my first (and only at this point) seizure. Weird experience to say the least. I finally find a doctor I like and get on the right medicine in December. On November I return to Houston for restaging.....................................CANCER RESPONDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The wait has definately been worth it to hear those words. They lower my dose to only seven Xeloda a day and four Tykerb one week, then a week of only four Tykerb, then repeat.

That brings us to now. Days before Christmas. Reflecting. Where did my year go? Gone to cancer, once again. Here's to 2010.