Final update for Sarah

Sarah passed away this morning at 5:55am, resting comfortably with her sister Janet by her side. Irrepressible smile, indomitable spirit, that is Sarah's legacy. She enthusiastically embraced all that is good in this life, she was the embodiment of joy! She leaves our lives richer, our hearts brighter for having known her. Sarahlight! She taught me to strive to choose love over fear. Thank you, we love you, we miss you Sarah Beck!

Mike.

Mike's Update on Sarah

This is an update written by Mike Maulsby, my hero. The last few weeks have been pretty hard for me and the pain meds and antibiotics cause  me to be spacey and woozy, weepy and nauseated, thus making it really hard for me to focus and stay awake long enough to write an update. (I have nodded  off many times already just writing this one paragraph.) Anyway, here it is.

Since returning home from the hospital where she spent nine days receiving IV antibiotics for the recurring blood infection, Sarah (and thus I) has been totally maxed out. The antibiotic IVs make her sick and fuzzy headed and are to continue for a total of six weeks, three times a day. This is to totally knock-out any hidden areas of the infection that may be causing the recurrence. 

She is experiencing intense pain in her legs and hip area which requires narcotic pain relievers to manage. These meds put a damper on her thought process; she has trouble thinking clearly and tends to nod off occasionally for brief periods. We are nonetheless so grateful that the pain is under control. Deterioration of lower back vertebrae is the suspected cause, putting pressure on the sciatic nerve. It hasn’t yet been definitively determined how much of the disk deterioration is due to cancer spread, but it does appear that there is cancer activity in that area.

Sarah has an unmanageable schedule of appointments and treatments: home antibiotic IVs 3x/day, vitamin C IVs 2-3x/week, IPT treatments in Santa Fe 2x/week, weekly appointments at the Infectious Disease clinic, twice daily coffee enemas, home nebulizer treatments nightly, when possible appointments with her chiropractor, acupuncturist and primary care NP. Add appointments with the oncologist, the oncologist’s assistant, and schedule an X-Ray and MRI somewhere in between, and you get the picture.

Due to the pain meds, Sarah can’t drive. We've been blessed with the help of neighbors and friends to pitch in and help out with transportation. Sarah’s diet has to be especially good now. She doesn't have the time or energy to cook, so we've been ordering out from some of the healthier restaurants nearby and relying on friends and neighbors to help with shopping.

Sarah is experiencing some incontinence issues as well as swelling feet and lower legs. She coughs regularly and experiences occasional nausea and vomiting due to the antibiotics.

Here’s the bottom line with Sarah: irrepressible smile, indomitable spirit. Right?! The most courageous person I know. 

Bumps in the Road

This will be a short update with very little commentary.

I am in the hospital; here since Tuesday night and as of now I do not know how long I will be here. We are still dealing with the same blood infection I mentioned in the last post. We've gotten clean cultures several times and I was back to getting the Vitamin C infusions and had worked back up to 125 grams. But in May the fevers started again and blood cultures were drawn and I was treated with oral Bactrim and got the PICC line removed and a new one placed and got a clean culture again but in no time the fevers came back. Very frustrating!

So, then I say I am willing to do almost anything to treat it, short of going the ER route into the hospital.The infusion center stopped my Vitamin C infusions and recommended the ER route to the hospital for IV antibiotics again. I told them I would be happy to get a consult with their ID (infectious disease) doc on staff and do the IV antibiotics at home if they can set it all up for me. I was even willing to do four infusions daily. In the meantime I was having more coughing and more congestion and had developed new lumps along my jaw line and neck, as well as new sciatica pain in my left butt/thigh (a very new and never seen before symptom and three chiropractic adjustments and one acupuncture treatment didn't touch the pain). 

Time for some new scans; I got a next day appointment with the PA (physician's assistant) at the NM Cancer Center (her first name is Darling, lovely woman) and she ordered a PET/CT scan for last Monday. 

After the scan on Monday I got in to see Dr Andrea DeMeter, the ID doc at the infusion center for a consult. She was very thorough and said we need to go to the hospital and do IV Meropenem and do the necessary testing to find where in my body the Burkholderia Cepecia Complex is hiding. She thought that we've kept the Burky bug (my name for it) at bay enough to get it out of the blood, thus clean blood cultures. But it is a colonizer and can attach to blood vessels, joints, PICC lines, and any foreign devices in the body, and can thus surface again. Dr DeMeter thought my situation was very serious (even though she, like most medical people I've talked to, has not encountered the Burky bug), and that the burky bug could be hiding in my heart valves (endocarditis) and she said she was willing to work to get me a direct admit to the hospital through the ID doctors group that has privileges at Presbyterian Hospital. It was very nice of her to be willing to go the extra mile for me this way.

The last CT scan in March showed shrinkage of some tumors and no growth in others, good news. The scan last Tuesday showed increase in some of the tumors and lymph nodes plus new areas of inflammation. Both cancer and inflammation light up the same on a PET scan so further investigation was necessary to tease out what is what. But the scan didn't show anything to explain the severe pain I've been experiencing in the left butt/thigh. There were several places that were suspicious of bone metastasis  but not definitive.One thing it did show was pneumonia in my right lung. Once I saw that I decided I'd take Dr DeMeter up on her offer to get the direct admit, so the phone calls began. Next thing I knew I was told to show up to the hospital at 6:30 pm.

In hospital I've had IV Meropenem, my PICC line removed, a full body bone scan, two echocardiograms (one transthoracic, and one with an esophageal probe). The echocardiograms showed no infection, Yay! The info on the bone scan I've received is sketchy. One of the ID docs who has seen me once and never returned, and who has zero bedside manner and no communication skills, made an offhand comment that I had bone metasteses and that a bone scan cannot show infection. I've gotten conflicting info from others so I'm not sure of anything now. 

I have a very sweet, kind and polite hospital doc who is from Egypt, very handsome. He gets the info for me from the ID Doc that I refer to as Dr Dull, or Sans Character and passes on what he can but he didn't even know about my pain and that I was on narcotics, so even he is lacking in the communication area. Today and yesterday I heard from him that they have changed their minds about the original plan to keep me here for 4 to 5 days and give me a new PICC and send me home with IV antibiotics home care. Now, I'm being told they want to wait a week or two to place the new PICC. So how I can go home with a regular IV line and get my antibiotics and my Vitamin C infusions and my IPT treatments is a mystery. No ID docs are communicating. I have been told several times that Dr Dull is making rounds but he's not been by to see me for 2 days. WORD!

The pain is still bad and barely managed with a Fentanyl patch, Norco, Ibuprofen, and morphine shots. Standing and walking are better than sitting in the bed. Lying flat is the best. 

The nursing staff here are great and the food is decent. I know enough about my health issues to demand they inform me of what decisions are made and what orders they do. But with the communication so lacking I get a bit frustrated. The narcotics do help the mood though, and take the edge off enough that I can maintain a pretty good mood through the ups and downs of all the mistakes made in a hospital. And I do have a private room, so that makes it tolerable.

Questions to be resolved:
Where is the Burky bug hiding out?
Who will give me a copy of the bone scan? Some policy here says they cannot give me a copy but when I was here a year ago there were docs who took it upon themselves to print out a copy for me in spite of the hospital policy. They were women. 
How can I get my IVs done at home with no PICC?
What if I get re-exposed to the Burky bug while still getting IV Meropenam; will it kill it and I have no need to worry?
What the hell is causing the left side sciatica? All the spine issues on the bone scan do not correlate to the sciatic nerve.

As always, Mike is my hero and is taking good care of me and my needs, coming back and forth with things I need from home and taking care of Wiley and comforting him when he gets anxious without me there, plus working full time. He's the best!

Please do not worry about me. Send me love; I always say my body knows what to do with that! 

Now for a photo of Mike and me at Christmas in Richmond. 

No news is good news, but that doesn't mean it's been an easy time.

Today was a very hard day, quite the ordeal. I was sick, emotional, mean and cranky. And Mike was with me the whole way, smoothing, soothing, focusing, and centering. What a guy! I love you, Mike! 

I've been crashed since January with no energy to post a blog entry, hence folks are wondering what's been happening with me. My last postings were so upbeat and positive; I was waiting for the same energy to return before I posted again. But I've found that that energy doesn't stay  here long enough for me to get focused enough to write, so I'm posting anyway, upbeat or not.

I had great energy through December and traveled back to Richmond for a week at Christmas with Mike. We stayed with  my sister Janet's family (Janet Beck Thoroman and Jim, Carrie and Anna Thoroman) and then with Jean and Tom Washburn (my stepmother and her husband). I had phenomenal energy the whole time and kept up a steady pace of visiting with family and reconnecting with old friends. It was the best trip I've had in a very long time. 

Then after a few days home I crashed and have not recovered since. I'm accustomed to overdoing it at Christmas and then being low in January and gradually regaining my strength, but this was worse. Then I started spiking fevers. (the fevers were kinda fun at first because my body has not been able to make a fever for years; I've always had very low temperatures.) The blood cultures showed a bacterial infection. My IPT doc said it was something she'd seen several times before in patients with PICC lines and it was not serious and we could address it gently. The conventional medical folks at the infusion center where I get my Vitamin C infusions were all in a panic and said I was septic and demanded I go to the ER, get admitted to the hospital and get on high dose IV antibiotics. When I refused their orders, I was dismissed. (I'm such a bad patient.)

So from the beginning of February I was without my three times a week 125 grams of Vitamin C infusions. And I had a blood infection, probably in my PICC line. And I was weak and lethargic. Chronic fatigue syndrome revisited. And I started a new chemo drug combo with my IPT. The last CT scan had shown the tumors and lymph nodes were stable. We'd done the genetic testing to determine what chemo drugs were best suited for my cancer and so we changed drugs to get better results. 

The new drugs were hard on me, especially one. My blood counts decreased gradually and I got weaker and weaker and I was still having fevers. We tried several natural treatments for the bacterial infection but the cultures kept coming back positive. So we did oral antibiotics, still positive blood culture. Then a course of mild IV antibiotics, still positive culture. In the meantime, I'm feeling really lousy from the chemo drugs (IPT only uses a fraction of the standard chemo dose and most people tolerate it well but I am a sensitive weenie with long history of chronic fatigue syndrome and an already weak immune system so I'm not like most people.)

After 9 treatments with the new chemo drugs we got a CT scan that showed definite shrinkage. But by then I was so weak I begged to stop the harshest one so we switched to another one that had shown high sensitivity to my cancer on the genetic test. By then I was doing home infusions of a more powerful antibiotic to wipe out the blood infection. And yes, all this made me feel even more weak and drained. But I could have felt worse...My IPT doc had been giving me high nutrient infusions with lots of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, amino acids and lots more good stuff to boost me and keep me strong and to balance out the harshness of  the chemo and the antibiotics. She works hard to figure out what is going on with me and tries to tailor the treatments to address my weaknesses. I'm quite the complicated case for her and she sticks right with me through it all, never giving up and always problem solving and seeing what works and what doesn't work. Like iron infusions, Yay! they helped alot.

So presently, I finally got back into the infusion center on April 19th after getting a negative blood culture. I'm getting 50 grams of Vitamin C three times a week and working back up to the high dose gradually. The newest chemo drug has turned out to be harder on me than the last one and I've lost some hair, I've gotten very very sensitive to chemicals, and I react to just about everything in the environment. I'm wearing a mask a lot when I am around people or outside because I get sick from synthetic fragrances, exhaust fumes, and now I think I've developed hay fever. I've been sick for a week with what I thought was a cold but it may just be seasonal allergies. All I know is I've been running a low grade fever at times, I'm runny and stuffy, I'm sleeping all day, and I feel like shit. 

Back to today, it was an ordeal. I'm tired of feeling tired. I was doing fine on just the Vitamin C infusions and they were strengthening me. The IPT was tolerable until I got the blood infection and the Vitamin C infusions were stopped. The infection and lack of Vitamin C had nothing to do with the IPT; it was just bad timing and a combination of weird circumstances. Today I was mad and upset and frustrated with all of it. I was ready to quit IPT. It makes no sense to me to continue to weaken my body just to kill cancer cells. A strong body, fortified with what it needs and detoxed of what it doesn't need will stop making cancer, as I see it. Feeling lousy, weak, sickly, mad and frustrated doesn't help to stop cancer; it all probably adds to it. 

So, today we agreed to cut back to once weekly IPT treatments without the latest harsh chemo drug. It was on board for 8 treatments which is a standard IPT course. We are going to wait a month or so to get another CT scan (don't need the radiation too often, ya know). And the tumor marker blood tests are showing decrease so that is good. The IPT treatments are working, we know that.

I'm tired of focusing on cancer. I talk about it too much lately. There was a time I wouldn't say the word, hah! Now it seems to be in every conversation. Sometimes it comes in handy and I've learned to play the cancer card when appropriate, like when we went to Virginia, it helped to make that happen.
But I do not think about dying, never have. I don't think that is what this is about. This cancer journey for me is about learning to listen to my own knowing  and staying centered in that knowing. The rest of it is just information to be considered and kept or thrown out. 

It's also about love and feeling the care and compassion of those around me and being astounded daily at the power of love to meet the challenges of this crazy cancer bump in the road. The power of love to push through and around and up and down and over that bump in the road. And it's just a bump. 

All that said, here are a few fun pix of me at age 16 back in Richmond, Va taken by my old friend John Moser. He gave them to me when we were there at Christmas and they make me smile every time I look at them. Enjoy!

And thanks for all the love! Back at ya!

Good News!

It's been awhile since I posted an update; I've been so busy with Vitamin C IV therapies three times a week and IPT treatments in Santa Fe twice weekly. This treating cancer is a full time job! 

As of yesterday I've had 10 IPT treatments. After the 8th treatment I had a follow up CT scan. 

I had finally gotten in to see my oncologist, Annette, on the 29th of November. She surprised Mike and me by being totally on board with my IPT treatments. She wasn't familiar with IPT but was curious and wanted to know more so I gave her an information sheet as well as the Vitamin C protocol we are following. She even inquired about how I do my Coffee Enemas. She thought they were for constipation and I explained they were a necessary detox to remove the toxins released by the cancer cells dying off. She scheduled the follow up CT scan based on Hennie's recommendation  and added in a scan of my abdomen to rule out spread and to ensure my insurance would pay for one so soon after the last one. She was not as hopeful about seeing much change in the scan but did set a goal of "no progression" which I readily agreed with her that it would be lovely to see no progression.

I think Annette was glad that I was doing more than just the Vitamin C IVs because the last CT scan had shown spread. She is a good person and very compassionate and supportive and she was glad that I am feeling so good. I'm glad she is on my team. She did upgrade my status to stage four. Okay,  sounds dire but I just see it as more information. I figure a person could feel as good as I do or could be taking their last breath and both be considered stage four, so it doesn't mean a lot to me. Just another thing to go beyond. 

So the next CT scan was on December 12th and I got the results on the 13th. There was very little change but a small degree of shrinkage. Hennie was really expecting major shrinkage so she was a little disappointed but glad to see no spread. She had been hoping to cut back my treatments to once weekly but we will continue for now at twice weekly. I saw Annette Monday and she was very pleased to see no progression and urged me on to keep on doing what I'm doing. 

Hennie wants me to do a genetic chemo sensitivity test to determine what the best chemo drugs will be for me. We'll draw the blood for that tomorrow and send it off. For now we are staying the course with the chemo drugs originally prescribed by Annette. I had NAET treatments to balance me to the insulin and the chemo drugs so I assumed they were working fine but I'm open to finding a better fit if there is one. 

Overall, I'm feeling really good and amazed at how much I am able to do. I usually have Mike or my friend Leela drive me to Santa Fe but I've driven myself twice in the last couple weeks and I've done fine. If someone had told me two months ago that I'd be driving to Santa Fe alone I wouldn't have believed them. That's how bad the chronic fatigue was. Now I am rising early in the morning, that's EARLY like 5:30 am! My old rising time was usually 9 or later. My thinking is clear and my energy downright perky more days than not. 

The IPT treatments are still stressful but we've gotten the routine working pretty well. I don't slump very low with the insulin and I get back up pretty quickly by drinking a very high protein drink and eating fruit and protein bars. And Hennie gives me a dextrose shot to bring the glucose back up and then lots of good IV shots to counter the toxicity of the chemo drugs, like prednizone for inflammation and an anti-nausea med, as well as lots of good nutrients, vitamins, amino acids, and minerals in the IV bag that drips in afterward. And because the chemo has heavy metals in it we are doing an IV chelation bag once a week to get that out of my system. I'm tolerating it much better than when I first started. I'm not having much nausea afterward as long as I eat yogurt all afternoon when I get home and keep something in my tummy. The mistake the first time was not eating even though I felt nauseous. It feels counter-intuitive to eat when your stomach is turning over at the thought of food! 

And since I've lost some weight I need to really keep on top of the eating so I don't lose any more. I think I'll easily address the eating issue next week. We are flying to Virginia to spend Christmas with my family in Richmond. I will be getting a break from treatments, and nausea, and will get to indulge in lots of good food. Hennie says it will be good to take a break and it shouldn't hurt my progress. (and she's doing treatments on New Year's Day so I can get back in the routine as soon as I return.) And since I won't be getting the Vitamin C infusions I will be taking liposomal Vitamin C which is a form of Vitamin C encased in lipids so it isn't broken down in the gut and it gets into the cells like IV Vitamin C. There is a very smart fellow here in Albuquerque, Christopher Hall, that makes it and he's shipped it to Richmond for me. So I'll be able to relax and indulge and get my high dose Vitamin C all at the same time. 

As for the broken bones, I've been healing well and getting stronger and more flexible and able to walk a bit more normally. I still use the cane for dog-walking but I'm OK without it usually. There is still a ways to go but the pain is minimal, and considering where I was a few months ago, I'd say I've made a splendid recovery. 

Here's me just out of the hospital in June with my sister Janet. 

Note the casts and braces on the leg and the wrist. I was pretty unfunctional and dependent then. After that experience I'm much more able to appreciate the independence and vitality that I'm experiencing now. 

It all serves. 

And as always, I am grateful for my partner and hero, Mike Maulsby, who supports and loves me unconditionally. He's the best dance partner I can imagine in this life adventure. He has met every challenge head on and continues to inspire and amaze me daily. 

Here are some links to information that I've mentioned -

IPT -  Insulin potentiation therapy (IPT) refers to the use of insulin along with lower doses of chemotherapy to treat cancer.

IVC protocol - Riordin clinic IV C protocol - this is not the exact protocol we are following but it is based on the work of this doctor. We are following the protocol used by Jeanne Drisko at Kansas University.

Dr Hennie - Dr Hendrieka Fitzpatrick, Integrated Health Medical Center, Santa Fe, NM

NAET - Nambudripad's Allergy Elimination Techniques

Liposomal Vitamin C - AHC Liposomes

Coffee Enema info - Coffee Enema

Dr Annette Fontaine - New Mexico Cancer Center

IPT Report

Yesterday was a wild adventure. We got to the oncologist's office on time  and waited and waited and waited. Seems she was running behind because of some computer problems. After over an hour and a half of waiting and waiting we cancelled the appointment and rescheduled for the 29th. Nobody apologized to us for the inconvenience. AAARRRGGGH!

Then we had to rush home and then head up to Santa Fe. Hennie was also running late so we waited and waited but were served tea and treated very graciously. Hennie is wonderful. I love her. She is a bit scattered and distracted but very smart and attentive and compassionate and did  I say smart? The IPT procedure was intense and having my glucose drop and feeling hypoglycemic was pretty uncomfortable and then the chemo drugs felt yucky. I’m so glad I’m not having regular chemo; the tiny amount yesterday was enough to make me pretty sickly.

She gave me glucose and a bunch of vitamins and amino acids and other nutrients in the IV to make me feel better, as I ate my long awaited lunch (I'd been fasting since 7 am.) It all helped but I've not  regained my perky self from yesterday prior to the IPT.  I was sleepy all the way home and crashed early last night. Then I was nauseous in

the night and woke up several times feeling worse until I finally vomited. I was better after that but woke up this morning still kinda nauseous. I didn't feel like eating anything today until about 11:30 and later I had some lunch when my appetite came back.

Earlier this morning I went to the Pres Infusion Center to get my Vit C IV. I was all comfy and situated in a hospital bed with my IV and my laptop and my food and  beverages. It's kinda pleasant though very different from Edie's office. The nicest part is that they have heated blankies and I love me a hot blankie! I had several nurses to help me and wait on me and  that's nice. I had the curtains on either side closed so I had a  bit of privacy, though I did see everyone coming and going.

My IPT treatments starting next week are in the mornings so I'm  hoping they will go more smoothly. And the more we do it the more  Hennie will get to know how to work with me and adjust the dosing. She impressed me with  her accessibility; she gave me her cell phone number and told me to  call her anytime if I'm having any weird symptoms or have any

 questions. Did I say I really really like her? ;-)

Anyway, I'm glad I had the few days of feeling so good because it makes this bearable. And I am so thankful for Mike. He took such good care of me yesterday. This whole adventure has certainly brought us much closer.

It's Just Information!

It's been five months since what I like to call "the dog park calamity" and it's been quite a while since I've written an update. And since some folks don't read my Facebook postings and some don't get the photos in my email updates, I've decided to start a blog. This is my first posting. 

Last week I saw my orthopedic surgeon for the last time. He did x-rays and said my ankle bones are 100% healed and I'm doing great. I'd been discharged from physical therapy three weeks earlier and was feeling much stronger. I had been only using the cane when walking the dog and I was finding it easier to walk and was having less pain and swelling.

He said it's still going to take some time to get back to normal but that the degree of function I achieve will be up to me and how much I push myself and how determined I am to get better. He said some folks in my situation would just accept the limited range of motion and weakness and pain as something to just live with but he said knowing me he expected me to continue to improve. I think he really gets me even though he's only seen me a few times. I gave him a hug and left for my next appointment. 

That day I had four appointments before noon. If someone had told me a month ago that I'd be feeling good enough to go from a visit with my orthopedic doc to a PICC line dressing change to a blood draw to an IV infusion I would have thought they were joking. Reality is that I am feeling better than I have in years. My energy just keeps getting better, my head is clear, virtually no brain fog and very little fatigue. I keep saying that if this is what having cancer feels like then okey dokey.

When I was told that there was a tumor in my lung my first thought was oh yeah, that's what my body does. I was not alarmed or panicked or upset. It was just information. But the docs around me in the hospital seemed to be in a panic and in a rush to do something about it. They wanted to line up testing, scans, biopsies, follow up appointments with oncologists. All I wanted was to get my broken bones healed.(I was recovering from surgery to fix the breaks in my ankle and wrist and I had casts and braces and was learning to walk with a walker.)  I just wanted to do my physical therapy and get out of pain. I spent a total of sixteen days in the hospital and rehab and didn't think much about the cancer because it didn't seem like anything to be upset about. 

I've never been upset about it. When the oncologist said it was early stage and that chemo and radiation could catch it and prevent the spread, my thought was how do they know this is new and that I've not been dealing with this for awhile? How do they know that it wasn't bigger before and more widespread and now it is less so? 

After I had the procedure to get the biopsy of the lymph node and the surgeon said he was very sorry to give me the upsetting news that the node was positive for cancer, I said I'm not upset, it's just information. He looked at me funny; I don't think he was used to folks receiving cancer news like that. 

After meeting with my oncologist and refusing the offer for chemo and radiation, I started high dose Vitamin C IVs with my nurse practitioner, Edie.  We followed an established protocol and gradually worked up to 125 grams per infusion. That's GRAMS! At first I felt wiped out by the IVs and had headaches and fatigue for a day or so. Edie suggested I try Epsom salts baths to help sweat out the toxins. That helped a lot. I had also been doing coffee enemas about once or twice a week since starting the IVs and I increased them to almost daily. Then I was able to easily tolerate the IVs and I started feeling more and more energized and clear. A few weeks ago we added an IV of phosphatidyl choline once a week and that made me feel even better. After 5+ years of chronic fatigue syndrome and trying many many things to feel better, I've finally found something that is doing the trick. 

I've been getting two to three Vitamin C IVs a week for eight weeks now. My skin has improved, my pain has lessened, my ankle is getting very strong and my chronic back pain is almost nonexistent. So feeling this good after feeling so bad for so long it is really hard to believe that this body is dying of cancer. I think it is managing cancer very well. All that said, I had a follow up CT scan scheduled for last week and in anticipation of that report and the possibility that it might show something other than tumor shrinkage, Mike encouraged me to come up with a back up plan. He had been researching alternative cancer treatments on the web and found IPT. It's Insulin Potentiated Therapy - 
IPT description and  Another IPT description    

We found a local alternative MD in Santa Fe who does IPT and went to see her last week, the afternoon after I had the CT scan in the morning. We liked her and she was confident in the treatment and reported she'd had a  lot of success with it. And she looked at me and said that I am in much better shape than most of her cancer patients when they seek her out. I'm healthier and not weakened by chemo and radiation treatments. We agreed to follow up with her after getting the results of the CT scan.

I had requested the CT scan report to be sent to Edie, my nurse practitioner, so I received a copy on Monday, several days before my appointment with my oncologist tomorrow. The report was not what I was hoping for, the tumor in the right lung had grown and there was increased activity in the lymph nodes and a new tiny nodule in the left lung. 

Hmmm...should I be upset? Panic? Nope, not me. It's just more information and can be interpreted different ways. One way is what I had read about Vitamin C IV treatment for cancer where the tumor may grow first before it shrinks, a part of the natural healing process where things get worse before they get better, or the biopsy punctured the lymph node and released cancer cells which caused a spread. (This explanation makes a lot of sense to me because the surgeon said the lymph node he encountered was very hard and he had to chip away at it to get a sample for biopsy.) Anyway, as my friend Leela said, just another bump in the road. And I'm used to bumps and lumps; my body has always made them. 

So, tomorrow, Thursday, I go to see my oncologist in the morning to talk about the results of the CT scan. I assume she will meet me with doom and gloom as before and may even up my stage from Stage 3A to a 3B or a 4. More information. Then in the afternoon I have an appointment for my first IPT in Santa Fe. I'm scheduled for twice weekly treatments for eight weeks then more testing then stay the course or taper down. I'm fine with that. It is chemo but it's very low dose, a tenth of what I would receive if I were doing conventional chemo, and it will be followed by a nutrient IV to make me feel good. No complaints about that! Mike is taking me so we will both learn and watch and he'll be driving in case I don't feel well after. If all goes well and I'm not wiped out by the treatment I plan to drive myself to future treatments. 

OK, enough of the cancer stuff... Here are some photos of Mike and me and Wiley on a walk in the foothills of the Sandias on Saturday October 20th. We were still having unseasonably warm weather, hence the summer attire. 

Mike and Wiley at the beginning of the trek

Wiley and I managed to get up on a boulder

Nope, we didn't see any rattlesnakes

Me and my cane. 

Note the colorful PICC line cover on my arm. My friend Raya sent me lots of colorful socks to cut up to make PICC covers so I wouldn't have to always wear boring white ones. 

I was still wearing an ace bandage on my ankle here. 

Mike and Wiley at the end of the footbridge.

Taking a little break. 

I'm only using the cane these days to walk Wiley, otherwise I am doing OK without it.