aLive @ Stage 4!

I have not been keeping up with this blog lately because I have been super busy with school work (I'm in my last semester, due to graduate in December.  Woot woot!)  The following is a post I made on my personal Facebook page this evening.  I hope to start posting more here when my classes are finally done.   #𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗹𝗕𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗖𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲𝗿𝗔𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 As Pinktober comes to a close this week, I hope that I have given you some more substantial awareness than the fact that breast cancer exists. It's not a pink frilly sorority; it's deadly. 1 out of 8 women will get breast cancer. Of those, 1 in 3 will become metastatic. 97%-99% of people (because men get breast cancer, too) whose cancer is metastatic will die from it. Where did I get my statistics? https://www.metavivor.org/.../metastatic-breast.../... . Remember -- Metastatic=StageIV=Terminal. As my last thought this October, I leave you with this:

"I don't know how you do it". Well, my friends, I'll tell you how I do it. I do it because I have no choice. Driving to and from treatment is completely draining, but I have no one to drive me. Jimmy can't driving anymore due to Parkinson's. One of my sons' work schedule is heavy and erratic. My other son lives four hours away. After seven years, no one else offers anymore. There's this misconception about cancer treatment that it's chemo/surgery/radiation for a few weeks and then it's done. But, us Stage IV patients are patients for life. Medicines have improved and are giving us longer lives, which means longer treatment times. I have treatment every three weeks, CT scans and echocardiograms every three months, and full-body bone scans every six months. This is the so called "new normal" of a stage IV cancer patient. To be quite honest, I would feel bad if someone did offer to drive me. I feel as though I would be wasting their time

This is the sixth Thanksgiving since my metastatic breast cancer diagnosis.  The median life span of a metastatic breast cancer patient is approximately three years.  I am ever so grateful to be here still, and I am well aware of how incredibly lucky I am to have made it this long. Since my diagnosis, not only have I gone through chemo, surgery, and IV treatment every three weeks, I have visited the local emergency room as a patient quite a few times.  I have endured pain, nausea, and a myriad of other side effects.  Our family was forced to move out of our home of twenty-four years to a much smaller house because we needed a smaller mortgage.  Money is still so tight that I visit food pantries and hot meal distributions on a regular basis to help make ends meet.  I have a wonderful friend who brings us dinner the day after treatment day, and regularly brings a bag or two of groceries along with it.   Along with the hardships, some wonderful things have happened. I have reconnected wit

It is currently 10:45am Saturday morning.  I am finally awake enough for an update. Thursday went well enough, normal day at work and then when I got home; bedtime usual time (between 7pm-8pm).  I woke up just before midnight with severe abdominal pain, back pain, vomiting, and diarrhea.  This has happened twice before.  Not waiting it out this time, not waiting to see if it gets better on it's own like the last two times.  I checked into the local ER around 12:30am -- door to door is only about a quarter of a mile.  Long story short, I was there until about 7:30am with my friends Zofran and morphine.  I actually needed to have two doses of each throughout the night, which is a change from before.  Usually one dose of each worked like a charm, and immediately.  Morphine did not work immediately like it did the two previous times.  This is a little concerning because eventually my body will get used to/adjust to the pain meds and I'll need them stronger.  Eventually there won

Background: I saw a therapist after my terminal diagnosis. One thing that she said stuck with me. She told me that I am a wife, a mother, a sister, an aunt, a lover of books, a knitter, a teacher. Picture those and the many other aspects of myself riding on my bus. Right now (at the time of diagnosis and chemo) the cancer was driving the bus. Eventually the cancer will move to the back of the bus. Keep cancer at the back of the bus. I have been trying to do that since. I just realized that I have been living the past six years awaiting imminent death. I've been living with this pall of death hanging over my head since I received my terminal diagnosis. It really helped, what my Interventional Radiologist told me before he did my lung biopsy when I was being diagnosed, that my stage 4 was grouped with stage 4s who had two weeks or so to live, and that there needs to be [more of a breakdown -- can't remember his exact words] within the stages, and that I had many, many y

Below is a research paper I wrote for the English Composition I class I am taking this summer.  I thought you might be interested in reading it.  Don't worry -- it's only 5 1/2 pages!  :) These are the comments my professor gave me --  the only downside is that I used APA instead of MLA.  He's not counting off for that, though.   This is an excellent Research Paper, Tammy. I am pleased with how this turned out. The good news is I am not going to recommend revision because you successfully met the main outcomes of this assignment. Your essay is purposeful and focused. It demonstrates a reason for your research. Metastatic Breast Cancer   Cancer is cancer is cancer, right?    This is the prevailing thought about cancer; but it is not necessarily so.   There are many nuances to cancer.   There are types, subtypes, stages, and receptors.   There are many different treatment options based on these types, subtypes, stages, and receptors.   Strides have been made over the yea

Good morning!  I understand that the "Subscribe by Email" feature will be discontinued.  So, if you rely on emails to receive updates from my blog, soon that will stop.  I am sorry for that; I do not have control over it.  If I can figure out another way to do it, I will.  So, if you want to keep receiving updates without checking the blog page, you can follow my Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/LivingWithStageIVBreastCancer).  I always post a link to a new blog post there immediately upon publishing it here.  Hope to see you there!