Sixteenth, Seventeenth and Eighteenth Week of Treatment - 12/14/24

It’s been a few weeks since I’ve posted and wanted to provide another update. 

I am finally done with chemo!! These last 3 weeks of treatment flew by, but that is also life, it just goes fast and then you find yourself saying whatever it is just flew by.  Just like Christmas is a couple weeks away, then it’s the end of another year.  And 18 weeks of this year have been the hardest days of my life. 

But I made it.  And I am so proud of myself.  18 weeks.  It’s an incredible amount of time to be injected with drugs that are meant to kill.   As I sit here and reflect on the last 18 weeks, I find myself filled with gratitude.  Gratitude for my body to not just handle the last 18 weeks, but to thrive.  Gratitude for the strength, the love, the support, the appreciation for what matters, the determination, the fight, the time with loved ones, new friends, the strong community of Thrivers, the learnings and the deep inner healing.  I tell people, I am not grateful I have cancer, I am not grateful I had chemo, but the rest of it, there’s so much light, that I choose to see and feel that I am grateful for every day. 

I am also so thankful to the incredible care team at M. Health Fairview.  Every one of the nurses goes above and beyond to make me feel comfortable each week.  I ended up making bracelets for each of the nurses in the cancer center and handed them out on my last day of chemo.  It was a way for me to show my gratitude for the work they do day in and day out.  I also want to give a big shout out to my mom.  She has been with me here in person through this entire 18-week journey. Helping me out when I need it, going to many of my appointments and making me feel so supported at home.  Having her around has been a blessing.  I cannot thank her enough and my dad too, who travels out when he can to visit and do the same.  Love my parents. 

It’s truly been a wild ride, and you know what, my body said, “bring it.”  While it hasn’t been an easy ride and will continue to be a difficult journey, I am amazed at the way my body, mind and soul continue to show up.  I am thanking my body for taking care of me and my body is thanking me for taking care of it. 

Ending chemo is a big milestone to celebrate in my stage 4 journey.  While my treatments will never end, chemo does end, and that’s worth so much in my book.  An end to a new beginning, where immunotherapy will continue to keep me alive for a very long time.  The way I wanted to celebrate this milestone was getting together with some friends and family at Pints and Paddle for a night of pickleball (see attached photo).  Playing pickleball with friends brings me so much joy!  Thankful for my mom’s help with getting a cake, balloons and I made some posters again.  I love making those posters, it’s so soothing to create them.  It was such a special night for me. 

As far as the last few weeks and how I have been feeling physically, I’d say these last few weeks have definitely been the hardest, which is understandable, given the chemo builds up cumulatively.  The main side effects that have become more prominent are gut issues, weakness, blurry vision and pain in my fingers.  I don’t know what it was about the last couple weeks, but my stomach has been saying we’ve had enough of this crap!

A couple weeks ago after my 17th week of treatment, I ended up in the emergency room because I was severely dehydrated.  I was having horrible diarrhea and my body started to go downhill fast.  It was about 9pm as we were all going to bed, and I started shaking uncontrollably, felt super weak and my heart rate was dropping really low.  My parents and I jumped in the car and headed straight to urgent care, but when we got there, it was a 2 hour wait.  I couldn’t wait that long, so we proceeded to head back to the house and call an ambulance.  The ambulance took me to the hospital and ran vitals on me which all looked ok.  I ended up getting sick in the hospital room and then finally was given IV fluids.  They also ran blood tests which showed everything was out of whack, but to be expected given how sick I was.  I did a stool sample as well which was negative for all types of food poisoning which was good to hear.  It was around 2am and I was given the ok to head home.  Was still not feeling great, but I didn’t want to spend the night in the hospital.  Ended up going home, rested and started to feel better the next day.  What a night, but I am so thankful for the care I received to feel better!

I am still not a 100% sure what made me sick, but I think it had something to do with getting chemo and then going all out at this Indian food restaurant haha.  I laugh because I was so excited to take my dad to this Indian restaurant that had become one of my favorite places to eat.  I was so hungry and proceeded to order WAY too much food for all of us to share.  You know you ordered too much food when the cook has to come out of the kitchen and ask you if you ordered correctly.  I did, or I thought I did – we ended up with food on our table to feed a family of 8! But there’s that saying that your eyes are bigger than your stomach, and I thought we needed all the food we (or should I say “I” ordered for my parents and I 😊).  Anyways, my stomach said nope, not tonight.  Which is really sad because now I can’t eat back at that place for a long time, I am just scarred.  And we can laugh about it now, of course.  Was quite an eventful night!

My stomach since then has not been the same and I go back and forth with bouts of constipation and diarrhea. I did get a food sensitivity test done recently and apparently, I am highly sensitive to all dairy, gluten, eggs, ginger, garlic and moderately sensitive to a few other food items I’ve been eating a lot of – black beans, almonds, peas, green beans, cashews, pistachios.  I imagine that chemo has drastically changed my gut and now I can’t eat the same things I used to be able to.  I’ve been eating incredibly healthy and already limited with what I can eat, now this just makes it even more so, unfortunately.  I am hoping that my gut can return to a healthy level after chemo, I have high hopes for this as I move forward. 

Other side effects are blurry vision, especially at night, as I need to squint to sometimes watch tv and pain in my fingers from neuropathy that the chemo can cause.  I have a hard time opening bags with my thumbs.  You don’t realize how much you use your thumbs until you start to have pain in them!  Again, I am hopeful these are all temporary and start to go away.  But even though I have side effects, I am so grateful to be alive, and I would do it over and over again to continue to live. 

On the bright side, my white blood cells have all been looking stellar!  My body is doing wonders and I actually believe I have a super immune system.  I mentioned last time that something may have been wrong with my immune system or chronic inflammation, however, I recently did this test for about 120 blood biomarkers with this company called “Function Health.”  According to Function Health, my biological age is actually 4.8 years younger than my calendar age. I don’t know whether I should be happy or sad at that to be honest!  Sure I am younger, but I have a stage 4 cancer, which means I had cancer at a younger age than my actual age.  Anyways, not stewing on it, but it was interesting to see.  Other than that, the tests provided much insight for me.  Out of the 120 biomarkers, only 20 were out of range.  To summarize, it actually seems like I have a really strong immune system, am getting all necessary nutrients, my heart is working great, my metabolic markers are strong and I don’t have chronic inflammation.  That is not to say that maybe things might have looked different months ago before I started radically changing my diet, but in this moment, it was a relief to see.  The markers that were off were mostly on autoimmunity, liver enzymes (which correlates to my slightly elevated enzymes), and slightly higher LDL cholesterol (although this doesn’t concern me too much).  I did look into the autoimmunity ones, and while it says suggestive of an autoimmune disorder, based on all the other tests, I don’t think it’s a cause for concern.  The tests showed high antibodies, and I believe that is just my body saying, hey, we’ve got this, we have such a strong immune system and are creating antibodies to kill the cancer.  It is also true that Herceptin and Perjeta engage the immune system to attack HER2 cancer cells, so I believe that is what is happening.  All this points to good news that my body is responding in a way that will make treatment more effective. 

In addition to the treatment engaging my immune system, I also believe that meditation also helps a ton.  When we sit in meditation, we are telling our bodies to slow down, and go into a parasympathetic state of relaxation.  I’ve read that this can also increase your immune system, elevating T-cells in your body to attack foreign invaders.  Ultimately meditation can help heal the body.  I have to believe that my Opening the Heart course and daily meditation practices are instrumental in my healing.  I also believe that continuing this, even after the class is over, is going to keep me responding to treatment, keep me healthy and keep me alive.  Our bodies listen to us, and it is what we believe and tell our bodies that will impact it in many ways.

In addition to Function Health and food sensitivity tests, I also had an environmental toxins test done recently.  All these tests I plan to over with the integrative medicine doctor next Tuesday, but the environment test was the most concerning.  There were about 40 environmental toxins tested and 9 of them showed extremely high levels in my body including BPA, Triclosan, pesticides, herbicides and phthalates.  My levels were off the charts for BPA and Triclosan.  It’s interesting because I have made so many changes these last few months in terms of reducing plastic use and using only clean products/ingredients.  But these days, plastic is in everything, and who knows if we all just have high levels of toxins in our bodies all the time because of the madness of all the products we consume on a daily basis.  That being said, I am also not sure if chemo increases levels for any of these toxins in the body, I would have to think it does, and so will want to retest in another 6 months or so.  It would be nice to know what the average ranges are for each of these markers, and something I will have to ask the doctor when I meet with her next week.  As for now, I plan to continue detoxing with the right food and sweating out toxins with exercise or my infrared sauna. 

So I’ve been inundated with a lot of information these last few weeks rolling in and well, it’s what I wanted.  I wanted answers, or at least to see what state my body is in today so I can make the best changes moving forward.  I do believe that more information certainly helps in my situation, and well I also think any information that is given can’t be worse than what I am already going through! There is also a part of me that wishes I took a more proactive stance with my health, to take more preventative measures, but saying that now isn’t going to change anything.  I can only move forward from here.  I share all this too, because I hope that I inspire others to take care of their health, self-advocate and be proactive when it comes to taking care of our bodies.  Because the healthcare system we have today is more reactive, and sometimes reactive is too late.  To me, it’s time worth spent, because we only have one body, we only have one life. 

While there’s been a lot of focus on my health these last few weeks, we’ve also done some fun things (not that taking care of my health isn’t fun 😊).  It’s been a while since Thanksgiving, but my parents and I had a nice day together.  My mom and I cooked a healthy meal for the three of us and Obie got to enjoy a yummy bully stick as we all feasted together.  I also did a wreath painting with my mom and best friend which turned out well (see attached photo)! Maybe we should do some painting part time 😉.  Other things we have been up to include going to the gym together, watching shows, puzzling, going to the dog park and weekly bingo.  The other night, a regular at the restaurant paid for our dinner, it was so nice! I am not sure who it was, but it goes to show there are good people in this world.  The other day I also went out to Can Can Wonderland with my good friend, Steve, and we played arcade games and mini golf.  A little friendly competition really lifted my spirits and I had some good laughs!  Also on Thursday Dec. 12th, the Canadian Pacific Holiday Train came through Golden Vally, MN, and we faced the freezing temps to see it.  It had to be single degree temps outside, but we bundled up and watched the show, which was cool because they were playing right in the train, and it sounded like a legit concert.  The CPKC train goes through many states and helps raise money and donations for local food shelters.  It’s a nice event for a good cause!  Also, since chemo has come to an end, I’ll be kicking it into high gear with my exercise routine.  Recently I started doing burpees after my workouts at the gym.  Today I ended up doing 30 burpees and my goal is 100! I know I can do it. 

Next week is a big week for me, I have a lot of fun events coming up such as another puzzle competition, a Christmas party with other MBC Thrivers and the Trans-Siberian Orchestra with my mom.  Next week I also have my PET scan and meet back with Dr. Lassi on Wed. to go over the results.  That and understanding the results from the Integrative medicine doctor.  I am sure there will be a lot to share in my next post!  I will give an update from my PET scan once I receive the results.

To end this week, I want to share that I continue to feel the love from everyone.  I know that my healing cannot happen without the love and support from each and every one of you.  While it’s been my mind, body and soul doing wonders for me, I want you to know to know that love and connection fuels that fire.  Support for me brings peace, joy, love, connection.  The people in our lives and by our sides, is really, what matters most. 

Love, Stacy