Wednesday, October 6, 2021

The Big Surprise

In November it will be 14 years since my diagnosis with colon cancer. That was discovered at Stage 1, so I had surgery which removed all of the cancer and some lymph nodes to be sure. Follow up labs and scans continued to prove everything was good...until this year.

I began having rather severe stomach pain this spring, and in May I was quite surprised by the reason for the pain. I went to the emergency room and had a CT scan. Doctors felt I was probably having a bleeding ulcer, so I was not feeling well, but I wasn't overly concerned as I waited to see what it showed. So it was a horrible surprise when the doctor came in, and with tears in his eyes, reported that it appeared that there was a growth on my pancreas and some suspicious spots on my liver. My head turned quickly to Bill, who looked very grave and was unable to tell me this was a bad dream.

It has since been confirmed by a PET scan that what was showing on the scan was indeed pancreatic cancer, and it has spread to my liver. So I now have the status of a Stage 4 cancer patient. Ugh...I've been having chemo since June, and I've done pretty well with it, except for the first treatment, which put me in the hospital with severe dehydration and extremely low blood pressure.

My latest CT scan showed that the tumors have shrunk with the chemo, so we are keeping on with that regimen for now. At such time as it may not be working, we will try something else. In the meantime I am trying to be positive and eat lots of fruits and veggies and get exercise each day. I want to live, and I'm going to do everything I can to make that happen.

Of course, one of the major things I do in my quest for healing is to pray. I am on many prayer lists, which is wonderful, and I also pray each day for God to grant me the privilege of being one of the very few who survive this deadly cancer. I also thank God for giving me anothe day. 

Thankfully my sweet Bill is retired and can take me to treatments and help me with things around the house. He does most of the cooking now and much of the housework and is just my all around "go to guy." We are also able to take off and have adventures that would not have been possible if he were still working. Honestly, except for this dreaded disease hanging over us, I am enjoying this period of our lives quite a bit. I enjoy being with my husband all the time.

I will close now, but will try to keep up this blog in better fashion. Chemo tomorrow! Let's kill those cancer cells and start living without so much cancer in my body!

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