Its long overdue for an update. Sorry for the long tedious post.
Lots has happened but for simplicity I will just copy and paste my wife's Facebook post:
Hey Everyone! This...will be the longest status ever...beware!
Ok, the last couple weeks have been very exhausting but itÂ’s time to pass along some very important information.
Wednesday, July 20th, at my radiation treatment, I was having trouble catching my breath. I was sent to the VA ER to rule out a blood clot in my lung, a broken rib, or possibly a pulmonary embolism. I didn't have any of the above so they gave me a bunch of fluids through my port and some meds and sent me home.
Thursday, July 21st, I met with my Oncologist and he had noticed that the blood work on my liver was elevated and he decided that we would stop the Afinitor (Everolimus/Oral chemo) and retest the blood in a week. I had already developed a fatty liver due to the previous medication combination (Ibrance/Femara), now these medications were either destroying my liver or my cancer was laughing at the drugs and doing whatever it wanted to (I think my cancer was doing the latter.)
Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday (July 22nd - July 25th) I couldn't keep down food, liquids or any of my medicines. My pain, nausea, and vomiting were not being controlled. My Oncologist again told me to go to the VA ER and they did an ultrasound of my liver and found there were lesions/cancer in my liver ("too numerous to count). The doctors and nurses got the pain and nausea under control, so I went home again.
The next day, Tuesday July 26th, I was super sick again. I had probably thrown up around 30+ times and was not able to move at all due to the most recent pain medication combo, Fentanyl patch (pain med) and Zofran (anti-nausea med) which made me feel like I was on a Tilt-A-Whirl. Very dizzy and nauseous. Ben contacted the VA Oncologist again and we had decided that I needed to get admitted to the VA hospital because I was so sick. When they pulled me out of the van (Ben, my mom, and the valet), I was vomiting foam and was felt deathly ill.
During my 10 day hospital stay, they treated me phenomenally. I had such wonderful, beautiful, people caring for me: Doctors, Home Based Primary Care Team, Palliative, Long-term Care, Psychiatry, RN's, LPN's, CNA's, Chaplins, Dietary, Housekeepers, and any other department that so graciously loved and cared for me during my hospital stay at "Hotel 4J". It took a couple of tries and different medication combos to control the pain, nausea, motion sickness, dehydration and severe constipation all sorted out. I literally could not void or go to the bathroom normally due to all the different pain meds I had been on.
While in the hospital, they also did a CT scan of my abdomen, which, I had a terrible reaction to the contrast. The CT folks handled it very well and they were able to see how much more the cancer had advanced.
Cancer has affected over 90% of my liver. One of the larger tumors is dangerously close to a major blood vessel, my inferior vena cava in my abdomen. This large vein carries blood/products away from the lower body. This has created an issue with swollen legs, which I affectionately call my new cankles (no ankles + no calves = cankles) and my now Vienna sausage toes. I also have a swollen abdomen that looks like I am 6 months pregnant because the liver is so angry and making the stomach angry...making me hangry, LOL!
After talking extensively with family, friends, and the experts in Oncology we have decided that further treatments such as chemotherapy, liver transplant, or other combinations of oral chemo/hormone blocking therapies would only make things worse, and hasten my decline. I am choosing quality of life over quantity of life and according to the experts, I would be suffering more to do anything else at this point. My cancer is too aggressive and the cancer is far too advanced to do anything other than comfort measures at this time.
The cancer is officially on my left breast implant/lymph nodes, right lung (4 places), right rib, L3, L4, S1, and Sacrum (vertebrae), posterior mandibular jaw on my trigeminal nerve creating that lovely pain called Atypical Trigeminal Neuralgia (Suicide disease/"worst pain known to mankind").
I was able to complete/graduate with the 10 radiation treatments on the right jaw tumor and the tumors that were on my vertebrae, Wednesday, August 9th. Thank you to all the beautiful Radiation Therapists, Secretaries that helped me through the radiation! I still have the "love burns!"
I am now at home on comfort measures. Lots of pain meds, lots of lovin's, and lots of hugs. Time is short and I will make the most of it with family and friends. I am at peace with these decisions. My soul and my body are tired, but I am so excited, I am going to see you all again and I get to see Jesus! I get to see all my friends and family that have moved on. Most importantly, I will be free of this horrible pain and this cancer. I will be healed and close to God soon, this is why I have peace.
I will try my best to stay in contact with you all. I tire very easily and I have certain food allergies (Gluten, Beans, and any sort of artificial sweeteners, including Stevia Truvia) So if your gift is food, Ben will be trying to coordinate people's love offerings, so that it's spread out more.
In just these past 2 amazing weeks, so many family and friends have touched my heart with their love, gifts and time.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Ben, Aaliyah, Gabriel, Ikey, Daisy, and I love yaÂ’ll so much!
The support, prayers, and love have been super amazing! God has a plan and I am a part of that plan. I am blessed to see recently, how God has been using me to be Contagious Christian.
