A New Direction

I know, I know – I owe you all an update. I am so far behind in writing. I keep planning to write, but by the time that I sit down to draft something, I'm exhausted. Therefore, tonight I have promised myself that if I just write a quick update and post it, that I will plan to write a more extensive update at another time. I just need to get something out now.

In a nutshell – I’ve been dealing with tumor growth in my nether regions. The growth has made it difficult for me to stand for more than a couple of minutes and even harder for me to walk without pain. Tomorrow I will be going in for a CT scan to confirm that there is tumor growth, but there really is no doubt in anyone’s mind that this is what we will see. Furthermore, a couple of weeks ago, I went down to Stanford to get botox in my bladder to see if it would help with my incontinence. Unfortunately, although it had an 80% chance it would work, it appears that I’m in the unlucky 20%. While we were putting in the botox, the urologist looked at me to make sure that I saw what he was seeing on the screen. There was a tumor that was growing into my bladder.

With this information, Dr. Fisher is planning to have me go off of my wonderful study and reenter the chemo world. I will likely receive 2 drugs with some tough side effects. One drug will cause my face (and potentially other parts of my body) to break out in a horrible rash. The second drug is one that will go after my hair – so I’ll be restarting my fun with penguin cold caps. I have a very tough time ahead. The only plus to all of this is that they strongly believe that this chemo will shrink my tumors. Perhaps with this shrinkage, I’ll be able to walk comfortably again and may even get more than an hour of uninterrupted sleep at a time.

Because the chemo is a treatment that I can get anywhere (it’s not associated with a study), I have asked Dr. Fisher to work with UC Davis Medical Center to give me my chemo. At least I won’t be driving for hours every two weeks down to Stanford for treatment.

Hopefully, after a couple of months, I’ll be able to join another immunotherapy study and I’ll have some normalcy in my life once again.

Last weekend my family traveled down to LA to celebrate my nephew Leo’s bar mitzvah. It was a phenomenal experience. Leo was amazing and being surrounded by my relatives, many who I haven’t seen for a long time, was so nourishing. It reminded me that this is why I’m fighting so hard. So I can celebrate wonderful accomplishments with my family and friends. Next year the girls will celebrate their b’not mitzvah (a bat mitzvah for 2 girls). Cancer doesn't stand a chance against my desire to be there to celebrate with them!