The Last Six Months in Review

I know that I have been lazy Maisy when it comes to the blog. I have always tried to skim over the wails and woes of having cancer, but I guess that’s not quite fair. This one will be a little more realistic: so let me catch you up on my dance with the medical folks.

In August, I had a stroke. Not the fancy kind that makes you unable to speak or walk, but the one that controls language. That’s a pretty big stab at somebody who writes and talks. Funny, but when you have one, you don’t even know it. In your mind, you are speaking clearly, and the folks who can’t respond to your gobbly gook want to rush you to the hospital. It took some arm twisting, but I got there and stayed there for 4 days with a crazy number of neurological tests. And I had to see all kinds of doctors afterwards for a green light to return to chemo. It took me about 6 weeks to get back to normal, to actually be able to write a sentence that makes sense. Trust me: those blogs would have been hysterical. But I am grateful.

And then, I returned to chemo, the hard kind of Cisplatin and Gemzar. And yes, I got neuropathy, which feels like dead feet most days. But I made it through to the end of the course, which took me most of year 2022.

My amazing gyno oncologist, suggested a quick “chemo vacation” to get me ready for the January liquid cure, a new chemo. And that entailed two weeks of radiation. That’s an interesting little experience with lying on a table in the nude, while lasers are pointed at your specific tumor. Yeah, that. Sometimes, you have to laugh.

And I was all ready to go with the Christmas holidays when I got the most excruciating back pain. I donned a few RX pain killers and muddled through the festive days of celebration. But by the day after Christmas, I was in the emergency room, waiting with so many others for my turn to make it into the inner sanctum of exam rooms. I got a pain killer shot and a four-day ticket to the hospital, where a CT scan determined I had pleural effusion. Don’t get it: it hurts like crazy. They tried in radiology to remove the fluid with a thin tube, but that didn’t work, so a thoracic surgeon was called in to review the case. I was sent home for 5 days and then off to the hospital for lung surgery. Whoa, that hurt like the dickens… still does, but at least it relieved that miserable pain. Word to the wise: don’t get sick during the holidays. Everything is deferred so that these folks can celebrate. Can’t blame them.

Two weeks after surgery, I showed up for a PET scan. My veins, I have discovered are riddled with scar tissue from all of the many courses of chemo. I learned that in pre op, when they used the port after a needle injection had me screaming bloody murder. And yes, normally, I am a compliant patient, but I do have limits. The scan report came to me two days later at my gyno’s office, and it is pretty bad. I have ovarian cancer all through the right lung, which was only confirmed by a biopsy taken during surgery. EEK! I hadn’t prepared myself for that big punch in the stomach, but it is where I currently am. And yes, the big pre sacral tumor is still there, growing in the past year. So I am back in chemo, the one I have done twice before. Not sure if it will work again, but you know me, I am always hopeful. They say that bald is the newest “hip” way to wear your hair. I’ll be in style, for sure.

Thanks to all of you for the kind words and thoughtful prayers. I have been fighting this disease for over five years, a real victory for someone with advanced stage IV cancer. We know that sometimes we are weak and sometimes we are strong. I am trying my best.

Love to you all.