Caroline's Breast Cancer Blog

     It was December 14, 2012 that I took my first step on this unexpected cancer journey.  Sheesh...what a year it's been.  As I look back over the past 12 months, I'm surprised how I feel about them.  It's not all doom and gloom.      Although the peaks and valleys of this year's highs and lows have been extreme, the net amplitude has been much like other years.  No doubt this has been a very challenging year for my family and me, but in looking back, I don't think it's been more difficult than other difficult years I've weathered before.  The years that Wynn's grandmother, my father, and Wynn's mother died were very traumatic times for us.  The grief of those losses lasted for many months and rather than just disappearing, that grief seemed to only be able to slowly fade away as time passed.             When I first learned of the advanced stage of my cancer, I grieved....

...and I am so glad to be here to celebrate! I hope you can join me...do a dance, raise a glass, smoke a joint.  Whatever you would do to celebrate, please do one for me!

     Thanksgiving is a time for most of us, including me, to reflect on our lives and take note of the things that we are so appreciative of...supportive family, wonderful friends, great work colleagues.  This year is no different for me, except I've made note of a new category of items to acknowledge and give thanks for.       I am a true benefactor of medical research, clinical trials, and previous lung cancer patients who bravely participated in research protocols to find new treatments for those coming after them.  When one agrees to be part of a Phase I clinical trial, you become one of a small group to receive a new treatment so researchers can determine proper dosing, coupled  with documentation of all side effects.  In my language, this means they don't know how much to give you, how often, nor what bad things may happen.  Some Phase I trials are terminated prematurely because early on the side effects are recogniz...

          Just got a call from my oncologist's office.  Yesterday's scans show that my bone lesions are about the same, (a good thing), and the lesions in my liver are better...meaning fewer and smaller.  The most relieving news I received today is that there is no evidence of metastatic disease in my brain.  WAAHOO!!  There are lesions in the bones of my neck, but they were there from the beginning.      Today is a good day for me.  Maybe I'll sleep better tonight.       

     It's 4:00 AM and I'm lying awake thinking about my upcoming day.  In several hours I'll be having follow-up CT scans of my chest, abdomen, and pelvis to see what's happening inside me.  Ideally, there will be fewer tumors and the remaining ones will be smaller.  (Ideally, ideally...they'd all be gone, but I know better so I just hope for fewer and smaller.).       Along with CT scans today, I'm having a brain MRI to make sure that the cancer hasn't spread  there.  Although I feel like Xalkori has been working well for me below my neck, it's known that it does not cross the blood brain barrier. I'm told that researchers think that while Xalkori is working, the risk of brain mets is probably reduced, but certainly not zero.        If I haven't mentioned it yet, I'm really, really afraid of getting brain mets. Aside from associated (major) headaches and seizures, I'm so afraid of anything that will mess wi...

     I am a board certified, licensed genetic counselor.  In Illinois, to have a license, you must be nationally board certified. To maintain certification, one must demonstrate, periodically, that one's knowledge is current.  One way this can be done is by obtaining continuing education units, (CEUs), which one gets by attending approved educational conferences in genetics and genetic counseling.  Re-certification takes place every ten years and one must accrue 25 CEUs in the intervening ten years.  I'm up in 2015. The other way to get re-certified is to take the board exam again. [I'd almost rather have cancer.]  Since I promised myself that I would never take the  exam again ,  I have diligently attended annual educational conferences to accrue, at a steady pace, the needed CEUs so that I'd have 25 by 2015.  Going to these meetings is expensive...flights, hotels, conference costs, CEU fees, etc. However, going every year mea...

                       I had a six-month follow-up eye exam today.  The retinal lesions that were present in both my eyes 10-11 months ago are all gone.  Whew!  Good thing...if they'd gotten worse, I would have slowly lost my vision.  I don't know if it's the Xalkori that's keeping the retinal lesions away, or what.  In any case, I'm very relieved.