I apologize for having been absent for so long.
It’s been a personally challenging four months.
And that’s especially true of these past three.
As is commonly done, I’ll summarize the bad news, first, saving the good news for last.
These past three months have seriously challenged my mind, body and spirit. As oral chemo keeps me immunosuppressed, I experienced a painful sinus infection that lasted four weeks and was in need of strong antibiotics and two weeks of prednisone before the infection was licked. That challenge was followed with immediacy by the emergence of shingles, and though the rash has healed, the nerve pain continues to persist, over these past seven weeks. Not constantly, anymore, but nerve pain, which emerges at least two to three times daily, continues to pack a wallop. As to my experience with on-going lethargy, I have to thank the heightened dosage of gabapentin that’s been prescribed in hopes of decreasing my nerve pain, throughout the day.
After three difficult months of cocooning, we're just beginning to meet with friends for dinner, again, on the patios of our favorite restaurants being that I remain so prone to either catching (or the emergence of) contagious infections.
And now, onto the good news:
My last blood test concerning the identification of cancer cells traveling through my bloodstream was down from 43 in October—34 in December—22 in February and 12 in April. What does this tell us? The oral chemo is working to kill cancer cells in hopes that new tumors will not have time to develop until the cancer cells traveling through my bloodstream become transformative, thus outsmarting the chemo. “What then?” I asked my oncologist. “Then, we try another chemo, all the while, remaining hopeful that, miraculously, given time, chemists will find a cure …
Though I hope to write again soon, I’m still far from well, and as lethargy stuffs my head with fuzziness, sharing my thoughts with clarity does not yet feel anywhere near to natural … in fact, composing today’s post was actually a mental stretch for me …
🙋🏻♀️Annie
