Done with the ice and a much needed short mental health break

TL; DR: Last weekly treatment is done (no more ice!), treatment delayed by a day, but all ok. Taking this coming week off to mentally recharge (very excited). 4 more chemo/immunotherapy treatments left; 1st surgery likely late Nov/early Dec. Continued thanks and gratefulness to you all for everything!

My 12th and last weekly treatment is done! I’m very excited to be done with this…mostly excited about no more ice/cryotherapy. Although, I have to say, it seems to have worked so I am very grateful for it and while I didn’t love it, it wasn’t that bad.

I had a bit of a snafu with treatment this week. My neutrophil # was just barely on the wrong side Wednesday morning (0.9 vs. 1.0) and so I had an injection Wednesday afternoon and had to do a stat lab Thursday morning. LabCorp didn’t do it as stat though and the bloodwork didn’t process in time for me to get treatment on Thursday which was really annoying. I did get treatment Friday morning though so it was all ok in the end, just frustrated my schedule is all a bit off now.

Late last weekend I decided that I really needed a break in things for my mental health. I was diagnosed in early March and it somewhat feels like all I have done since then is fight cancer and go to work. Both important things, but I need a break, and I was pretty sure Mike could use one too. So, I reached out to my doctor last Monday to find out if we could delay the start of the 2nd round of chemo for a week. She agreed we could with no issue. So, I’m taking this coming week off work and cancer. (Well mostly, as it happens my doctor is on vacation next week so I have to have the appointment I would have had with her next week this week…but it should be “off” for most of the week.)

Mike is taking some time off work too. My goal for this coming week is to relax, do fun things (while still avoiding crowds sadly since I’m still immunocompromised), and not think about either thing as much as I can. There will be some things I am sure, but I’ve been trying to get a bunch of things done today so that I can just relax next week. I am very much looking forward to it! (Mike is too!)

This week I learned some more about timing of surgery. My surgeon let me know that surgery should happen 4-6 weeks after my final immunotherapy/chemotherapy treatment. This is because, particularly for my type of cancer, if you don’t remove the tumor somewhat quickly there is a chance it will “re-start” and grow some more. Apparently this was something she saw recently so I’m particularly keen for her not to see it again in me. 🙂 This means I’ll have my first surgery likely sometime end of November or very early in December. (I’ll talk more in a future post about why there are multiple surgeries expected and what types of surgery I am planning on.)

I’m excited to have only 4 immunotherapy/chemotherapy treatments left…that’s exciting even if they’ll likely be a bit harder than the last bit. It’s quite nice to be in single digits <5 for numbers of treatments left.

Thank you all for your continued messages of encouragement, love, support, prayers, checkins, meals, rides, and everything else you are all doing for us. We are so grateful for your company on this long road!

(FYI, I expect my next post might not be until after 8/18…)

The now “standard” note at the end of posts for website navigation help:

Thank you for taking time to keep up with us and see how we’re doing as well as all the help!  Because, I think like me, much of the world does nearly everything on their phones…I’m adding this note to the end of posts to make website navigation easier if you are on a phone.  If you’d like to read other journal entries, please click here (oldest post is at the bottom of the page).  There’s also a “hamburger” menu in the top right of the webpage that can help you navigate between the journal, ways to help page, stay in touch, and welcome pages.   Please know that reading this page and thinking of us is help!   Thank you for your support in all forms! If you have any issues, please email [email protected].