Well, hello. I see that I've managed to skip all of February (you'll understand why, later) and we're well into March. February was pretty rough. February was effed up. Whatever with February, because now it's over, but I will try to sum it up in slightly-distanced bullet points:
- I decided to try for the trial, but my body did not comply. It grew larger (I absolutely looked pregnant, which is darkly comic for a 56-year-old woman with zero baby-making apparatus), more uncomfortable, and the scan I'd had for the trial showed fluid collecting in my abdomen
- The fact of the fluid disqualified me from said trial, because the drug being studied was know to have worse side effects in the presence of fluid
- The fact of the fluid was also bad news because, well, fluid collecting on your abdomen is never good news, not for any cancer
- While this came as a huge blow, it was also not incredibly surprising, given that I hadn't had any treatment at all since the previous December, but do not let me minimize the blow here. IT SUCKED.
- I realized that when I'd first been diagnosed and was scouring the interwebs even tho I knew I shouldn't, I came up with this idea that fluid on the abdomen = death knell. I made an imaginary mental line that once cross, could only mean DOOM AHEAD. I'd been living with it since 2019, and now I'd crossed it.
- This mental challenge has been hardest of all to live with. Let me say here: the fluid is not necessarily a death knell. I mean it's not GOOD, it's really not, but neither is it the End Times.
- I began weekly chemo (taxol) on Feb 17, and each Wednesday prior, I had the fluid drained, a process that sounds hard and painful, but which isn't either, if you have good doctors (ahem).
- That first Wednesday, they drained 3.8 liters from my abdomen. I KNOW! but can I tell you, the fucking relief of that day? The joy at craving coffee again? The delight at an empty stomach? Amazing, really.
- The 2nd Wednesday, there was only 2 liters, a hopeful sign that the chemo had already started doing its job -- although, according to my scientist husband and some stuff I don't understand about gradients, that could also be because the fluid had only a week to gather. It would be the next Wednesday that we would know for sure if something was working.
- So the next Wednesday, there was less than 1 liter of fluid to be drained. so YES the chemo has started working to kill off fluid-causing cancer cells (confirmed by oncologist).
SO HERE WE ARE. Here i am, and i am relieved and grateful. I try not to be too over-the-top-happy with this stuff, because as you've witnessed, it can change on a dime, and there you are left with another emotional extreme to mop up. That gets exhausting.
Obviously we hope the chemo will continue to work in my body for as long as possible. But one thing I am trying to come to terms with is this: the chemo is not considered a "curative" measure. Meaning, it will hopefully reduce some of the tumor and keep things stable, but it cannot (barring those cancer miracles that occasionally happen to someone's somebody) cure the cancer.
The cancer isn't considered curable at this point. From a Western medicine viewpoint. From the viewpoint of good doctors in good hospitals at a major cancer center in the United States. I don't know why I just started writing in these weird, staccato phrases. But you get the picture... or maybe you already had it.
On the other hand -- and I seriously have to make it a point to look at the other hand, in order to keep my spirit up, lots of really interesting things are happening in cancer research, some that may even apply to me and my cancer. The drug from the trial I didn't get into, for example, is in Phase 3 trials, and should it prove effective by the year's end or sooner, it will become FDA-approved, and available to me and other OC patients.
And that's just one trial. There's really so many happening (clinicaltrials.gov, high up in my browser history). My hope at the moment is in science. and in my body doing the best it can with the help of some poison. This weekly taxol keeps some women stable for up to 2 years. May that be the case with me, because I'd really like to get back to some travelling if possible. Or at least get to a lounge chair anywhere on a warm beach before the end of April.
Next post I'll tell you all about this massive pile of poems that keeps piling up before me, and my sense of urgency yet seeming inability to wrangle it into a shape of some kind. A far less dramatic (and gross) kind of post. Coming at you in sooner than another 6 weeks, promise.
