Possible Progression

Please forgive me for not updating the blog for about 2 1/2 years.  The short version is that I squeezed four years of college into two years, got my Bachelor's Degree, and went from Instructional Assistant (teacher's aide) to Special Education Teacher.  Huge move, I've been super busy teaching US History to high schoolers, and managing a case load (so far of about 8 students on average per year).  I write/update their IEP's, monitor their progress, and help them as needed.  It's amazing.  

During the time I have been absent from my blog, I have been stable in the medical sense.  I have received treatment every three weeks, and had scans every three months.  All as been well until now.


Possible Progression

I had an appointment with my oncologist yesterday.  Actually I am between oncologists at the moment; I've been seeing a Nurse Practitioner, who is amazing.  During our appointment yesterday, an oncologist joined us. 

We are concerned with a nodule that has grown. We're going to start with a "liquid biopsy" which is bloodwork. Guardant is the company. This will tell us if it is cancerous. If it is, we'll do a regular biopsy to see if the receptors have changed (this goes to treatment options). Also, they are having a pulmonologist at Georgetown look at the scans to weigh in. If it is cancerous, there are tons of things we can try -- Enhertu (targeted therapy) or maybe a CDK 5/6 inhibitor, such as Ibrance or Kisquali. Being on my first line treatment for 10 years, things look very promising for future treatment options. I'll know more next week when the Guardant test comes back.

My anxiety is through the roof right now, but I'm keeping busy at work and at home.  My boys are being their wonderful selves; they are great guys to lean on.



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