Friday, April 5, 2013

Down the Badger Hole

Ok...so I don't have any images of a rabbit hole.  Yesterday, I experienced a first....my blood counts were too low to get my second dose of Halaven in the second cycle.  I was stunned.  This had never happened before.

All sorts of odd feelings came rushing in....Will the cancer grow since I won't get any chemo until my oncologist sees me on April 17 and figures out a reduced dosage?  What does this mean for my overall survival?  Will a reduced dosage work? After all, the reduced dosage of Xeloda was only marginally better for my body and wasn't enough to control the cancer.

On top of it all, I obtained a copy of my last PET scan.....and the results were more dire than my oncologist had led me to believe.  All of this is downright scary.  However, I am trying to take a deep breath.  Since my first blood test indicated that the Halaven was working better than the oncologist anticipated, perhaps a reduced dosage will do as well.  Perhaps the fact that I got one cycle and one dose in will mean that I will have a residual effect while I am waiting to get the reduced dosage.

Other questions are in my head....can someone with extensive bone mets like I have manage to get to a level of stability or even better yet No Evidence of Disease again? Or am I fooling myself.  And in the mean time, what can I do to improve my health so that I am doing everything I can to make it work?  Hopefully, I will be able to start walking again...although I am very slow and the neuropathy (from previous drugs as well as Halaven) make my walking pretty dicey...it's like I have dropped feet.

I do know that I cannot be mired in the "what ifs."  However, I do recognize that I am having a period where it seems daunting indeed....That's one of the tough things about this disease.  It is in some ways unpredictable....but it does have one predictable thing....it can't be cured.  I will once again work to wrap my head around this....and not let the Cancer steal away my good days.....

3 comments:

  1. Perhaps, a rabbit hole would have taken you to wonderland where anything is possible. With cancer I have found there is not easy predication to what can or cannot happen or when it will or will not.

    There was a time I believe in miracles, the kind we conjure up in our heads and it comes true then I discovered, God always has his own way with things and miracles are give out according to what we fully desire for ourselves; it is how we ask and what we really want. Oh, may be I am living in my own rabbit hole; perhaps you are my neighbor in your badger hole; where ever we are, whatever hole we find ourselves in; there is light at the end of our tunnels or holes because neither a badge or rabbit have but one entry or exit.

    I rather delight myself into thinking if I crawl far enough away from what I am hiding from in my little rabbit hole I will eventually see light at the other end. Will the other end be better than where I crawled in? I guess that is for me to discover and for you keep crawling and see what is at the other end. Surely if you stay put, you will have no other result than what you have at this moment, if you crawl out the other side, it has to be different and with cancer, a different result is just what we need sometimes.

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    1. Hugs, Nadine. I admit, sometimes I look at this as a big adventure....I remember wondering "what will I look like without hair?" Well...I know that one in spades now! But there's always anticipating and I always look on it positively, or wondering how I will react.

      I do believe in miracles...heck I dang well better as I consider myself a miracle already....it has been 19 years since diagnosis, 15 years since my original stage IV diagnosis...and except for the bald head, dripping eyes (excess tear production from Halaven), numb feet and hands and the occasional twinge, I wouldn't think that I HAD cancer....which is sort of odd when you think about it...especially when you consider all the places I have mets now. I often have to remind myself that I can't commit to things too far in the future because I don't know in what condition I will be. :)

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  2. Hi Lisa,
    Sorry I haven't visited in a while. Just wanted to let you know I'm thinking of you and hope things have improved since this post. Hugs!

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