The Power of Science & Prayer
Today marks day 2 of phase 357 of this cancer journey. I started round 1 of 8 of Xeloda, a low dose chemotherapy that I will be taking for the next 24 weeks. Because I’m crazy, I’ve already counted out the weeks and found my last dose of Xeloda will be October 10- coincidentally we will be in Hawaii celebrating Matt’s Ironman championship race so we’ve decided it will be one hell of a party. My doctors and nurses claim this will be way easier than IV chemo but the jury is still out. Thank you to some amazing friends I have some good products to help curb the side effects so I feel much better today than I did yesterday. Marc thinks it’s just my body adapting to the poison again ☠️☠️.
Marc and I met with my breast surgeon last week to review the pathology report from the tumor, tissue and lymph nodes that were removed during surgery. Malignant tumors are graded in 3 categories on a 1-3 scale. Tumors will have a score of 3-9 which measures severity. This also indicates type of cellular makeup and size of tumor which guides my oncologist and surgeon to come up with my treatment plan. My tumor came back with a score of 9/9. What’s more, the triple negative nature of the cancer makes it even more aggressive and likely to be metastatic.
In a miracle of it all, the cancer remained localized to the breast and did not spread to the lymph nodes. My surgeon told me that she’s seen far smaller grade 9 tumors that were metastatic by the time they found it. I have no doubt that the timing in which I found the lump and the swiftness that my entire care team acted is the reason we were able to catch this cancer before it spread. It feels like a miracle and there have been many moments I’ve asked “why me” to get this lucky. It’s a huge blessing to digest and understand the meaning behind it all. I am so thankful for the constant prayers and support from all of you. I know in my heart we wouldn’t be here without it. I am also in awe of the power and capability of science and the advancements that have been made around cancer research just in the last 10 years. This news has really hit home that cancer is no joke- and we’ve been spending the last 6 months fighting for my life. I didn’t give myself that opportunity to ever let that sink in until now.
So we continue to put one foot in front of the other. I ping pong between sad, angry, thankful, and generally pissed off; but I’m forcing myself to keep taking the pills and keep moving forward. We get this one life and for some reason I’ve been lucky to have a good outcome to date - I will continue to pray that it stays that way because as crazy and confusing and painful as life can be, there is nothing more beautiful.
