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Sign In to Show Your Support2023 was one of the hardest years of my life --- certainly the most challenging physically. I'm thankful to get to see 2024, grateful for the treatments, physicians, family, and friends that have made that possible.
I wrapped up my (hopefully!) last chemotherapy treatment at the end of September. By that point, my body was ravaged by the effects of chemo and my blood counts no longer reaching normal between treatments. My energy levels had dipped so low that my oncologist ordered an echocardiogram before my last treatment to check on my heart functioning. Thankfully, my heart function remained within normal limits despite being decreased by the effects of chemo (one of the most effective chemo meds is known to cause heart damage) and I was able to complete my last round. I continued to get intense headaches from the last of my chemo meds, so my oncologist also ordered an MRI to ensure we were not missing anything in my brain --- thankfully, that too was clear.
At the end of October, I had a posttreatment PET scan. Not only was it clear, but my Deauville score was 1. Deauville scores measure the update of radioactively-labeled glucose, are used to assess treatment response, and range from 1 (no/minimal uptake) to 5 (markedly increased uptake); generally, 4-5 = cancer, 3 = ambiguous, 1-2 = not cancer/no more metabolic activity than most tissue. I was at a 2 on my mid-treatment PET, so getting down to a 1 was great! At my October appointment, my bloodwork was also looking good. I was officially declared to be fully in remission! While there are no guarantees and my chance of recurrence may be as high as 10-20%, my oncologist was pretty confident/hopeful that I will remain in remission and approved me to get my chemo port removed (scheduled for early February).
The last two months has been a slow recovery. Chemo is a gift that keeps on giving and some days the litany of annoying and frustrating aftereffects can be discouraging. The most limiting and persistent symptom is low energy -- though slowly improving, I'm still quickly exhausted by even minimally physical tasks, like folding clothes and even moderate walks. Yet chemo is a gift --- one that has absolutely saved my life.
I have returned to work part time and have slowly worked my way up to 25-30 hours/week. I'm hoping to be able to begin working my new "full-time" at 32-36 hours in the next couple of months. I am incredibly thankful for a job that I can generally do from home on low energy days and take breaks when my energy lags. My managers/supervisors have been amazingly supportive throughout this journey, and we continue to figure out what I'm able to do. I have not yet resumed seeing patients, but I hope to be able to do so early in the new year. My mom has begun going home to Iowa for longer stretches -- up to 2-3 weeks at a time --but continues to help with the girls and assist Mark and me in preventing absolute chaos in our home when she is here.
My delay in this update is reflective of my energy state -- between work and parenting and finding ways to take care of my health in this new normal, I often have little energy remaining.
Instead of a year in review (which would be relatively short beyond my battle with cancer!), here is part of my gratitude list:
In a time that remains full of uncertainty, New Year's resolutions seem a bit foolhardy. Instead, here are my New Year's hopes: That remission will be sustained, my healing complete and 2024 will be a year not only free of illness/cancer but a year of health, balance, and recovery.
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