Today, I am celebrating my 34th birthday hooked up to the life saving poison and feeling so incredibly grateful to see another year 🥳 When my diagnosis first changed to stage 4, I truly wasn't sure if I'd be here today and I'm very happy to be living with my eyes and heart and mind wide open and soaking up every single memory.

I've always practiced therapy with the mindset that the universe will keep sending you lessons until you learn what you need to learn, to grow, to change. At each bump in the road on this cancerous journey of fuckery, I've thought

It's like a complicated stupid onion that I want to peel back and make meaning of under any other circumstances than this. I don't want to learn these lessons because I am dying. I want to learn these lessons because I am truly living. And in order to live, I have no other choice but to fully - mind, body, soul - radically accept that this IS my life now (how's that, for ya, Marsha Linehan?!). It's not a phase, it's not temporary. This journey is going to have bumps like this for whatever precious moments I have left.

The recent weeks have felt absolutely overwhelming and challenging. In the month of August, I've had 46 appointments/extracurriculars between myself and our kids. Plus 2 vet appointments for Grizzly 😅 We spend some days literally in the car all day. We are exhausted. There's been a lot of changes to adapt to and roll with. Some I'm still working on the "rolling with" part.... 

I am not able to proceed with radiation on the tumor in my pectoral muscle. There's a few reasons and it's all a little convoluted so I'll try to summarize:

1. This area of my chest was previously radiated by traditional radiation (high dose over 28 days). To radiate this new tumor would mean "re-radiating" that tissue which can cause more harm than good, if insurance would even cover re-radiation.

2. We would not be able to fit it in to the 5 day schedule I was able to do with the lung and kidney tumors. SBRT is a dense dose that's highly concentrated and localized to avoid damaging surrounding tissue. But because we would be re-radiating, she would have to lower the dose and spread it out over 10-14 days. This would cause a couple of days delay in chemo. One of the chemotherapies, Gemzar, can exacerbate radiation side effects and make them worse, so I'd have to be off that chemo even longer than a few days.

3. The Radiation Oncologist actually doesn't think this pectoral tumor is causing the pain in my shoulder and arm. The pain in my chest and ribs is caused from this, but she suspects either there is another tumor in my shoulder OR the pain is from muscle strain. The scans I recently had didn't scan that high up on my body, so we will catch it on the next scan. 

All in all, both my Oncologist and Radiation Oncologist recommended not to proceed for all those reasons and believe that in my next two rounds of chemo (4 total infusions), whatever cancer might be in that general area will shrink and pain will decrease. Then we will scan again. What's another 6 weeks of pain after living this way since June anyway?! I am working with palliative care on pain management resources and support with my anxiety (the medical trauma of all this is really real) in the mean time. I would love and appreciate prayers, good vibes, and help manifesting some relief soon because this shoulder pain continues to have big impacts on several areas of my life. 

I am happy to have tolerated the new chemo and immunotherapy treatments as well as can be expected. This chemo combo is not super common so it's been really hard to try and learn what is normal or to be expected. For example, the Trodelvy Facebook group I was in was specific to stage 4 breast cancer patients and had 3k members in it. There are other groups like this for other cancers with that many members or more. I found *one* Facebook group for GemCarbo and it's for anyone with any stage and only has 400 people in it. I asked a few questions in there and got 2 responses 🙃 

The main side effects is extreme fatigue and brain fog is worsening. I get headaches the day of infusion and then am tired pretty much all the time after that. Going to the grocery store feels like a marathon feat. I taught a two hour parenting course and was absolutely drained after. Adjusting expectations of myself for the first time in my life is really hard work. I've always been someone who moves my own goalposts - it keeps me motivated and I enjoy working toward the next challenge.... which might be why I have ~150K in student loans 🫠😂 Instead of moving the goal posts in my professional life, I'm looking forward to the next adventure I can take with my family. The next bucket list item I can check off. I'm living mindfully as often as I can, while also continuing to look toward the future. 

While these recent weeks have been emotional and challenging, we've also spent a ton of time as a family making memories and chipping away at our new house projects. We celebrated Geno's 6th birthday, my mom's birthday, and mine today! We went to the State Fair, spent a couple days on the boat, and of course dance and drum lessons! We are gearing up to start the new school year next week and settle in to our fall routine. Callie made the dance team she was auditioning for, and Geno will start hockey clinic in a few weeks as well! He also got the Kinder teacher he was hoping for 😊

While it's been hard taking an unexpected leave of absence from work this month, I feel grateful that I did and so freakin blessed to have the support to be able to do so. Being surrounded by therapists when you're going through some shit like this is, like, the best thing ever. It's allowed me to be really really present with my kids and husband, sit with my emotions, find ways to regulate through more unexpected curveballs, evaluate and reevaluate our priorities, and ways to keep moving forward.

Because of how fatigued I am becoming and the pain I'm experiencing, we have added some more chore types of things to our "needs" page. Adam will also be starting the next house project in a few weeks (after we take some time to breathe lol) so reach out to him if you are someone who enjoys demoing walls and such 🤣 Because of my allergies and treatment side effects, we are aiming to get these things done efficiently and as cleanly as possible! 

Asking for help is *very* hard for me so we have been incredibly grateful for the meals, help with child care, and donations recently. It helps me immensely when folks use this site to sign up for help or offer specific things - the chemo brain fog is intense right now and it's hard for me to track a lot right now so I appreciate everything being in one place!

Thank you all so much for the ongoing support 🫶🏼 Now, off to celebrate with Adam and our babies! 🎂

Love, Elizabeth