Hospice

It is now official.  I had my first round of chemo on March 8, 2010 and after a crazy last 5 days I'm officially done with cancer treatments as of noon July 16th, 2012.  We have made the decision to stop treatments and start Hospice.  We don't know exactly what things will look like going forward, but I'll keep you posted as that becomes more clear.

To understand what is going on a little, let me give you a bit of a run down of the last week or so...Last Tuesday I was still walking the dog a couple miles with hiking poles and a slow pace, by Friday I was getting really weak in the legs, Saturday I fell down three times (left leg just giving out) and decided I needed a walker, Monday morning I can't really move either leg and the walker is pretty useless to me.  After talking with my oncologist it seems clear the chemo isn't working (simple test - are you better or worse than when you started chemo?  I am most definitely worse).  Even though the chemo is pretty easily tolerated it just doesn't make much sense to continue to put something toxic in me if it isn't doing its job.  I wish I had more options, but there isn't any other treatment that will help me.  I've had all the radiation that I can have.  I can try some other chemo, but the doctors concur that it wouldn't change my prognosis significantly.
This was not an easy decision at all.  There were (and still are) lots of tears flowing around here.  I'm still feeling good other than the whole not being able to walk.  The cancer is just progressing so fast.  Everyday I'm worse than the last and then when I compare where I was when I started chemo vs. where I am now it seems very clear the chemo is not getting ahead of the cancer.  It is now time to forget about fighting cancer and focus on me being comfortable and happy.

We are really drained and trying hard to process something that no one should have to process.


Here's my rant for today.  I'm working at moving from angry to peaceful, but I'm not there yet.  I'll work on a list of loves for next post (there is still a lot of that around, just hard to find it today).

FUCK THIS CANCER

FUCK BRCA2+ MUTATIONS

FUCK THE BLOOD BRAIN BARRIER

FUCK CHEMOS THAT DON'T WORK

FUCK KNOWING HOW YOU'RE GOING TO DIE

FUCK DYING BEFORE YOUR TIME

FUCK NOT BEING ABLE TO GROW OLD WITH THE LOVE OF MY LIFE