Fuck yeah! My blood counts are stable enough to proceed with treatment! Take that, she-who-shall-not-be-named! We are coming for ya 🐍🗡

While they are lower than normal, they're not low enough to delay chemo. It's always a weird feeling to be excited for the life-saving poison, but here I am, riding that wave 🫡 In fact, all my other labs (liver and kidney function, fluid levels, glucose, electrolytes, etc) are in better shape than they were during Trodelvy. And the best news of all?! I don't need the Neulasta auto-injector! Omg this is music to my ears! I am so so so thrilled about not needing that.

So today I will receive just the two chemotherapies, and not the immunotherapy, and then next week I'll have the week off. We will do this for two more rounds (4 more infusions) and then scan again. Hopefully I will get radiation in there somewhere for this pectoral muscle tumor because that B is ✨️painful✨️ and significantly impacting daily life. The weight of my own arm feels like too much, let alone lifting anything. My arm and fingers are regularly going numb, and I have significant pain radiating through my neck, shoulder, and ribs. The chiropractor and massage therapist can only do so much while the tumor is there, pushing back on everything. Sleep is pretty sparse these days because it's a huge struggle to get comfortable, even with the help of medical cannabis and my nighttime meds which cause drowsiness. Ya girl is tired (if you can't tell from those designer bags under my eyes 🥴😂 

The other thing impacting my sleep this week was a shortage of my migraine medication. Unfortunately, I had to miss several doses while we hunted some down. That cold-turkey withdrawal led to anxiety, jittery feelings, insomnia, and body aches. I thought all that was due to low blood counts, but my Oncologist thinks it was probably related to not having that med. Thankfully, we found some so should be on the up & up now.

I'm not planning ahead with too much enthusiasm yet - the medical trauma from this whole process has made me a little skittish about trusting things that much, yet. I'm still going to take things slowly for now and see where the journey takes me over the next few weeks.

I am, though, damned determined as ever not to let the journey impede on our family time and making memories for our kids. We had Geno's birthday party last week, which was so fun, and we were so grateful for the love and support he, and we, received. Next up is my mom's birthday and my birthday - and, of course, the state fair!! The kiddos' summer care program ends this week so we will have lots of time together in the next few weeks and I'm so grateful to not have those nasty Neulasta side effects getting in the way.

Thank you for the outpouring of love and support in the past week. We are so grateful for every message, prayer, donation, meal 🫶🏼

Love, 

Elizabeth