This is my fight song
Take back my life song
Prove I'm alright song
My power's turned on
Starting right now I'll be strong
I'll play my fight song
And I don't really care if nobody else believes
'Cause I've still got a lot of fight left in me.

Rachel Platten, American Singer, Songwriter and Author.

Hi Friends! 

Things have been going pretty well lately. I am still in N.E.D. (no evidence of disease) according to the last scan I had two months ago. I am also still taking the supplements the Naturopathic Oncologist prescribed for me. She ordered some bloodwork, the results came back looking positive. I'm also still doing to the Mistletoe. We went up from 10 mg doses to 20 mg because I was not getting much of a skin reaction from the 10 mg doses and we were not seeing much of a positive change in my white blood cell count. The next scan will be done at the end of October. I will also have bloodwork from both doctors done again as well as one visit with each doctor to discuss results. Keeping my fingers crossed! 

How am I feeling?

To be honest, kind of sad lately. I have alopecia, which means my hair is not growing back very well. This makes me feel less than my normal self. I had beautiful hair when it was long. I'm hoping to see a Stanford dermatologist who specializes in hair and scalp therapy. I'm not sure there is anything he can do about it because my medicines are causing the alopecia...specifically Verzenio (which is the big hitter in the Cancer treatment). I did insist that my doctor put me on the lowest possible dose of Verzenio since there is not sign of the cancer right now. That decision at least lowers the toxicity level in my body a bit.  I think my hair is starting to re-grow a little bit more on the top of my scalp because of the lower dose of this medication. It's still really thin though! 

I'm still a but more tired and feeling just more fragile in general than before my diagnosis two years ago. My feet are really sensitive and I just don't feel as strong as I used to. However, I remind myself everyday that I have the choice to either dwell on the negative or focus on what is going well. 

So here is what IS going well:

I am taking horseback riding lessons and loving it! The trotting  gait is challenging for me, but I'm starting to get it down. I never knew how much balance and core strength was needed to ride a horse. LOL! 

I also went back to rock wall climbing which is also keeping me in shape. I go to the rock wall gym two or three times a month now.  It's a fun social activity too. It's nice to meet and talk with other gym members belay climbers who need a belayer. 

I tried windsurfing for the first time in my life. That was amazing! I stayed on the board pretty well and rode it to the shoreline. I was pretty proud of myself for that physical, but I was store for a week after that. LOL!

I'm working Monday through Friday. This helps me feel like life is as normal. I forget about my illness when I'm planning and teaching. The teaching has been challenging due to the lack of preparation time I have in my schedule and the COVID protocols, which put my classes outside with specialized PPE for musicians. That has been quite a juggle! I also can't lift a lot of heavy equipment, so I have learned to ask for help and delegate the physical jobs to students and other staff members who can do that more easily than I can. 

Got my 3rd COVID booster shot two weeks ago. Feeling pretty good working in the public school system right now. Having  had three COVID vaccinations really helps my anxiety around this. So far we have had five students who tested positive for COVID. This is five out of over 600 students in two months though. That is still a pretty small number of cases if we look at it that way. I hope we can get it down to zero cases soon though!

Just got some new fish for our fish tank: Platys. I'm enjoying watching them swim around so peacefully without a care in the world right now. 

That's all I have to report for now. Stay safe everyone and happy Fall!