Well, things are not going according to my plan. Again.

What's that? I'm not in charge?! Booooo! 

Unfortunately, Trodelvy has been beat out by she-who-shall-not-be-named. My most recent scan has shown a couple of concerning things:

1. The pancreatic tumor has grown.

2. There are two new tumors. That "muscle spasm" in my chest that's been wreaking havoc on my life for 3 months? Surprise..not a muscle spasm. It's a horcrux inside the pectoral muscle. There's also a baby horcrux in the OTHER kidney.

My lung tumor is stable and the original kidney tumor is smaller - the radiation helped both of these, but the results lean to the bad side enough to warrant a change in treatment plan. Overall, I'm very disappointed but not shocked. I've been more fatigued and in more pain for the last two months - in my heart, I knew that spot wasn't a muscle spasm. I think I was living blissfully in denial for a while. 

Unfortunately, there's not many options left in terms of treatment. This cancer is so rare and so aggressive that there just isn't enough research out there. It's completely isolating being in this place. There are a small handful of women *world wide* in this position and each one of us is different.

I will switch over to a combo of 3 things now:

Carboplatin- chemo through the port

Gemzar- chemo through the port 

Keytruda- immunotherapy through the port 

The two chemotherapies are given 2 weeks on, 1 week off (same as Trodelvy was supposed to be). The side effects look and sound very scary but my Oncologist is optimistic that I'll be able to navigate them.

Keytruda is once every 3 weeks. Side effects were bad last time we tried this, however my Oncologist has seen research to show that it works better when there's actual tumors to fight, and that doing it after surgery like we did before, may lead to more side effects because there isn't tumors to attack so it goes everywhere systemically.  

This is going to be rough. I am going to take some time off work to give me more space in my mind, my heart, and my life for this new bump in the road. One of the more common side effects is low blood counts, and we know that is something I've struggled with on all three chemos before, so it's highly likely I will be down and out quite often until we get those kinks worked out in the dosage and schedule. I *just* got into a groove with Trodelvy and finally felt stable enough to schedule things out a little bit. I feel like every time I settle, the rug is ripped out from under me and I fucking HATE that feeling. It's so hard to live life in survival mode. I hate living life in constant pain.

We can, thankfully, do radiation on this horcrux on my chest but my Oncologist needs to see how the chemo affects me alone without radiation side effects to know if it's working or not, so that is still an option, just not for a bit while we work out the chemo.

We discussed clinical trials as well. I'm feeling quite anxious about this whole thing. There's not many times I've felt truly scared - but I feel scared now. I'm going to try and pour into myself as much as I can which is, clearly, not the norm for me. I've tried everything else besides just really being there for ME. It feels like a hail mary at this point.

We have many fun things planned this month, and our kids only have daycare through next week so we will be adding some support options to the calendar on this site. We so appreciate everyone's love and care and will be leaning into that as we embark on the next chapter of this cancerous journey of fuckery.

Love to you all!
Elizabeth