hello and here is the requisite "last day of the year" post. but let's catch up before i bid a big, fat SO FUCKING LONG!
the week after my scan results, i started on a maintenance drug called Avastin. once again, i caution you not to google it, as it is a scary drug, and not everything you read will happen. Avastin blocks a protein called VEGF (vascular endothelial growth factor). normal cells make VEGF, but some cancer cells make too much. so blocking it can prevent the growth of new blood vessels, including both normal ones and the ones that feed tumors.
chemotherapy attacks cancer cells. avastin blocks the blood supply that feeds tumors, which can stop the tumor from growing. its purpose is not to eradicate (although i guess it sometimes can do that) but to stabilize. it's a very successful drug that way, it most often does its job, but i have learned not to rely on what happens with "most people."
and i'm not going to dwell on the fact that it wasn't added to my last round of chemotherapy (it is often combined with chemo) because one of its side effects can be bowel perforation (!!), and the doctor felt my small spots of new cancer were too close to my intestine to risk it then. i guess now, the risk needs to be taken. i won't dwell on that fact but i will tell you that i until very recently, i was walking through each day in super-high fear mode, afraid to take the drug but afraid not to.
but i did take it, a week after my less-then-stellar scan results, i returned to the cancer center and received the 1/2-hr infusion. the plan is to get 4 of these infusions (3 weeks apart) and then get another scan. i guess this drug makes your CA-125 unreliable, so really the only way to tell if you're doing OK on it (aside from being in pain) is by a scan. OMG WITH THE SCANS. the idea that a person's future lies in an image (albeit a very precise technical one) is just too much. AND THE WAITING FOR THE SCANS. AND THE SITTING IN THE DOCTOR'S OFFICE WAITING TO HEAR THE RESULTS OF THE SCANS.
cancer patients of all kinds know this feeling. this is what they tell you to meditate for. if someone you know can radiate calm through this kind of agony, i would like to meet them. i will swear to their form of meditation forever and ever.
anyway, so far, so ok. a few side effects, like a raspy throat, mild headache. very tolerable (unless you perforate your bowel i guess? ) (unless you have a stroke?) at least for me, at least so far. this stuff is cumulative, so the future remains uncertain. 2 things they monitor when you are taking avastin is your blood pressure, which can get really high but then you will get pills for that, and your kidneys, because it can produce too much protein in your urine. my next dose is just after the new year, so i don't know what it's doing just now, if anything.
same as with everything concerning ovarian cancer, something could happen or nothing could happen. whatever happens could be super-serious or it could be absolutely nothing. everything is a giant question mark, and so much depends -- as i've come to understand -- on luck.
these days i am trying to be hopeful, which is hard, i can't lie -- it's not my normal state, even with antidepressants and anxiety meds. i want to be, i really do. i want to believe things can still be okay somehow, that we'll find the thing that works for me and i'll get to remission again and stay there (thank you for the hopeful story, stacey and gill!).
i used to think the universe would eventually balance stuff out -- as in, if you'd had a hard time for a while, eventually the tides would turn. ebb and flow of life. etc. a while ago, i stopped believing it because it was too hurtful. but today i'm willing to give it another go. 2019 was full of cancer diagnoses, surgeries, and chemo. 2020 was full of deaths, a pandemic, more cancer and more chemo. if you are a functioning person reading this, no doubt you've had your own difficulties this year. so please join me in telling 2021:
HEY, DO BETTER. we will not hold grudges (for very long).
