Hello,

I'm almost done with my medical appoints for this week, just a PT visit with a stop down at the clinic to get my bone booster injection, and likely another stop at the lab to get a type and cross for my blood transfusion that will likely happen on Friday. Luckily all of the to-dos are in the same West Health building, so its very convenient! 

I'll start with the bad news and end on some positive notes. 

I had a PET scan yesterday, and saw Dr. Ali to get the results today. The results were what I expected, but not what I hoped for. I'm really hoping this is a Mercury in Retrograde trick that will turn around on 4/25. One can hope, right?

As expected, my cancer has grown and spread to some new places. All of the places its going, the tumors are very small. Apparently chemo kills off as many cells as it can, however, the ones that are left tend to move elsewhere or mutate into something else. Apparently my cancer is very smart. This is a time where I would prefer to have something very dumb living in my body.

So the plan is to stop the chemo pills, and on 4/29 I will start a new chemo infusion drug which is apparently very well tolerated, and it doesn't come with all of the pre-meds that make me feel like crap. It only takes 1 hour for the transfusion, and I would get it once every 4 weeks, so once a month. I don't want to get my hopes up, but it sounds like it may give me a better quality of life. Its supposed to be nicer to my blood count, and generally they said people feel fine the day after the transfusion. So I'm hopeful for less fatigue, and less blood transfusions, and hopefully this will be a good drug to attack my very smart cancer cells. 

The PET scan does not look at the brain, so no update there. I will have a brain MRI in the next couple weeks to see how the radiation performed. 

I like the freedom of the chemo pills, but the fatigue the first week of the pills is pretty intense, and the pills have been horrible to all of my blood counts. 

Because I'm very transparent, I will be honest in saying this is the first time I've felt like my life expectancy will be shorter than my hopeful self has been fighting for. My doctor didn't say that, but I'm reading between the lines. My cancer is aggressive, and I either need a miracle or a cure. I hate that I have this thought in my head now. As I have been focusing on the warriors around me who have been fighting this for 20+ years. So I'm not giving up hope, I just have more fears than I did yesterday. 

One piece of good news, my white blood counts and platelets went up over the past week!  So at least one thing is rebounding! My hemoglobin is at 8, slightly down from last week. She's going to let me have a blood transfusion since I am so out of breath. I also sent in paper work to get a handicap sign for my car. This is not my ideal situation, but when I visit clinics some times I have to park 4 or 5 rows back, and I am so winded by the time I get to the office I can't even talk. Ugh. I imagine this could also come in handy if I'm ever brave enough to visit a Costco on a Saturday. 

She's also going to have me meet with a lung doctor to learn about a procedure that would help stop fluid from pooling near my lung. Its a procedure that would include overnight hospital stay until things look all clear. So I'll get their opinion on if they think its needed or not. 

On to the GREAT news!

Last time I mentioned we created a Race for the Cure team for the May 11th event. In about 48 hours we have raised almost $5K! (we are $75 short). We have also had multiple families join our team to raise funds and walk with us during the event. Thanks to all of you who have donated! I'm hoping this will help lead to a cure for me and all of the other women fighting this battle! If you are interested in donating here is the link: http://www.info-komen.org/goto/Lisa_Kummer

Other great news...I have a girls weekend planned to San Diego next Thursday. And with this new plan, I will hopefully still be able to go as long as my hemoglobin stays in a good place! 

I'm going to skip my gratitude list for today, because my brain is still processing all of the news from above, and as Ben reminded me, its ok to have down days and not be Miss Positive all the time. But you all know what I'm grateful for anyway! Its likely the same list from my last post :)

I know many of you want to help, and the best way is to donate blood or donate to help find a cure for this beast! I recently learned that one of my dear coworkers has been giving blood every two weeks now!  Love you Jodi! 💜 All the cancer patients in Canada thank you! 

Thanks for reading, and for all of the support! 💜

#IWillSurvive