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Julia’s Story
Site created on February 3, 2019
Well, no one starts a CaringBridge site to share good news, right? Right.
Last week (2/1/19), I was diagnosed with stage four breast cancer. I earned the highest rating because the cancer has spread to my lymph system and to my bones. I never thought being a moderately high achiever would come back to bite me this hard. Ah well.
The good news is that I have an excellent care team. They are knowledgeable (most importantly), warm, approachable, funny, and honest. They have answered every single one of my questions and shown me every image I asked to see. What else? So far, every test, image, scan, and biopsy haven't unearthed any more surprises waiting in the wings. Let's knock on wood it stays this way. More good news? I start chemotherapy tomorrow, just ten days after the first biopsy came back. I'll be getting transfusions of Taxol (for now) every Tuesday and meeting with the oncologist every Friday. This routine will run for an indeterminate period of time, though I think it's safe to say it will be many months of the new schedule. As you can expect, my current off-the-hook social calendar will have to take a back seat for a while until this health hiccup can be resolved. And you thought I was a borderline recluse before...!
What else do you need to know? As you might expect, Ben and I prefer support and encouragement in place of sympathy and sorrow. I know. Big surprise. We may be stubborn, but we aren't too proud, and we will absolutely let you know when and how we could use some help. I promise.
What can you expect from this site? Not much. Think back to the last time you received a "thank you" note from me in a socially acceptable timeframe. Right. You can't. As it is, I can barely keep up with the important letters, emails, and texts, so you can imagine the bare-bones effort that is going to go into this webpage. However, the beauty of this site is that we can pass along important information to all interested parties in one, fell swoop. If anything changes, for good or for bad, we will let you know here. Otherwise, we won't write anything and you won't panic because you'll know it just means nothing has changed.
