A bump in the road....

Wow, things can change quickly with cancer. Last Friday, I e-mailed Dr. Winer in Boston because I had increased pain in my lower back as well as troubling increased fatigue. He told me, Friday that he wanted to see me Monday (yesterday) and do another bone scan and CT scan. Whew. So I flew up on Sunday at 5:30 a.m. and came back last night at 10:30 p.m. Exhausting even for those who are in the best of health let alone painkiller using me.

Anyway, the short of it is that the cancer has spread within my bones. I don't have the full report back but it appears that this mess is all over the L3 vertebrae and other parts of my spine as well as my ribs (no surprise to me). The scary part is that I can tell Dr. Winer was surprised by this turn of events only 2 months after having my ovaries removed and 2 weeks after starting Femara. He's not ready to get rid of the Femara but is not terribly optimistic that it's going to work. I definitely need to start radiation to my spine to eliminate some of the lower back pain and prevent neurological problems from happening down the road. I'm probably looking at chemo at some point but he's not all that optimistic that that will help either because what I had less than 2 years ago apparently failed. Although Dr. Winer was upbeat and told me that he was not yet ready to give up on me, I was floored with the realization that some day he may not have any options for me. Dr. W. told me that my cancer has not behaved in a predictable fashion, which limits viable treatment options. This is scary stuff. So I sat there in the doctor's office, crying, with my suitcase, all by myself for the first time because this appointment was so last minute. Not a high point in my cancer journey. I'm far from giving up either but this is just so soon in my metastatic cancer journey to hear bad news.

Fortunately, I have too much to do to dwell on this for very long. I'm going to keep my head up, focus on the day to day options, and set up my 10-20 radiation treatments ASAP. Hopefully that will help. In the meantime, I'll keep putting one foot in front of the other just like everyone else. Take care friends and family!