The last few months have been busy. Lots of traveling in-between medical appointments and tests.
All the gallbladder testing and imaging did not turn out as expected, which in this case, is good news. There are no plans to remove it. It appears to be working just fine. Unfortunately, not much else has changed, so my GI doc (Dr. D) has put plan B into place. I’ll get into that in a bit.
Last month, I spent a few days in N. Carolina to take part in an advocacy project for METAvivor called The Serenity Project. It has two parts – an interview and an artistic part. The ‘artistic’ involved being in and underwater which was challenging. I sure no one wanted me to drown, but there were some times I was wondering….I’m JOKING. The entire project includes 10 Metastatic patients in all and will be debuted in December at the largest breast cancer conferences of the year, The San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium (SABCS).
In addition to the “work” of the project, there were some fun things that had been planned, like yoga on horseback – yes, I did yoga on a horse. I also learned how to groom a horse too! Having never been on a horse before or even around them, I was excited to do this. Of course, the horse I ended up with was ‘hangry’ and wanted to do nothing but graze. She finally calmed down after she ate a bit of grass.
Shortly after coming home, I was back on the road to NYC. It was time for my 6 month PET/CT scan and check-up with my Oncologist. More good news, scan still showed no new evidence of disease.
Once my appointment wrapped up, hubs and I were back on the road to take a much-needed break in Florida. There is nothing better than morning walks on the beach, feeling the sand in your toes and finding shells along the way. If there is something better, I don’t want to know about it.
Now, for the ‘other’ or that Plan B I mentioned earlier.
The main issues are that I can’t stop losing weight and I have significant pain every time I eat. I must have another ultrasound of my abdomen and an upper GI with barium (yum). Dr. D also put me back on Omeprazole to make sure it’s not GERD, something my Oncologist at Sloan brought up mainly because I’ve had that issue before.
If all of that is negative, exploratory surgery is next. In anticipation of that happening, I have a consultation with a surgeon. If it were up to me, I would skip the tests, jump right to surgery and get to the bottom of this crap.
Then he hit me with this….sigh…I have about 10lbs wiggle room but that’s about it. If I continue to lose weight and get to or below that 10lbs, we will have to have conversations about a feeding tube or a PICC line for nutrition. (Link included to explain what all that is). That’s a hard pass. Nope. No thanks.
So that’s what’s happening and where things stand.
As for where my travels are taking me next, I’ll just leave this here…..