A sigh a some relief

It has been a stressful 2 months since my last update especially in the last two weeks. I did not want to update until I had all the facts straight, so here it goes.

I had a MUGA scan at the beginning of the month along with a CT scan and my normal blood work that they check. MUGA scan was 67%, which was up from last time, blood work was all in normal range,but the CT scan showed one spot on the liver measuring 10 mm. I was very upset when I was told this, although it was not confirmed by the CT scan that this was a cancer spot, it was a spot that was suspicious and needed to be looked at better, so I had an ultrasound the next week. That did not prove anything either, but my oncologist thought that it was nothing to worry about, but given my history I should do a PET scan, so last Friday I had that done. Monday morning I received a call from the nurse that before my appointment with the doctor on Tuesday, I needed to have my left ovary looked at again. If you recall I had that show up last CT scan as a cyst, but this time it lit up on the PET scan, but the liver did not. So the rollercoaster ride continues. I had an ultrasound on the ovaries and uterus. This did not prove if it is a cancer tumor on the ovary or a hemorrhaging cyst. Whatever it is ,it has grown since April by 2 cm. So the oncologist has recommended that I have the ovaries removed soon and since we are at it, we might as well get rid of the uterus. There is a good side to this decision and a bad. The good, hopefully no more of that darn estrogen in my body, as this is what has fed my cancer and I will have more treatment options available to me. There are a lot more hormonal chemotherapy drugs out there for post menopausal women then pre menopausal and a couple of these drugs work very well with Herceptin. So my chances of long term survival will go up, yeah. Now the bad, I will officially be a 50 year old in a 29 year old body, oh well if it saves my life its all worth. So next Friday the 31st I have an appointment with my ob/gyn doctor the same one who I saw when I was pregnant with the boys and he will be the one who will do the hysterectomy. But in the meantime we are looking forward to our planned vacation to Branson, MO with Bryan's family the 2nd week in August. We can't wait.

In regards to the spot that they saw on the liver, the conclusion is that it was a scar from where they did the liver biopsy, since it was in the same exact location where that was taken place at. Like I told the nurse when she said that the liver did not light up, you can have your ovaries removed, but not your liver. I continue to get my Herceptin infusions every 3 weeks and I will have a another CT scan in September as a precautionary scan to make sure everything is still good.

As many of you already know, my dad passed away at the end of May, due to pneumonia and an infection in his colon. It was hard, although I had 16 years to prepare myself for it as he was in a motorcycle accident and has been in a nursing home since then. He had a brain injury, but he knew what was going on all that time. Before he died I told him that he did not have to fight anymore, but at the same time I was thinking that his strength has taught me to fight for my life no matter what the battle may be, as we all have a fight in our life, some are easier then others, but everyone is fighting for something or against something in their life. Which leads me to my next stressful event, my mom had surgery on her colon. She is a 22 year colon cancer survivor, but due to her surgeries she gets adhesions built up in her intestines and had a blockage occur. So after 3.5 hours of surgery last Friday they removed the blockage in her small intestine and she is on the mend now which I am grateful for and so is the rest of our family.

I hope that these next two months bring good news and I remain cancer free. I will update after my appointment with the ob/gyn doctor. I hope everyone is enjoying the summer, can't believe it will soon be August. We went camping in June and I posted a family picture of us. We all had fun and these are the moments in my life that I am so grateful to have.