Life As I Know It

September 21, 2019 Hello family and friends -  I hope you are all doing well and ready for football Sunday. I can't lose with today's game! :)  In case you were curious, I'm doing well with respect to the medication. I'm still taking the same: Ibrance and Anastrazole (both daily oral) and Lupron and Zometa (monthly injection & infusion). I'm experiencing very few side effects. The hormone medication makes me a bit stiff and achy (and I have a lot of hot flashes). I get tired more easily and occasionally have some GI challenges. Other than that, things are pretty much "normal". I'm not losing hair. As some of you know, when my blood work is done they run a test  called CA 27-29 as a potential proxy for metastatic breast cancer (MBC). The lower the number the better. My number continues to drop which is what it is supposed to do! We don't know for sure, but it's encouraging. (I started at 122 and have dropped to 72; ideally we'd like it t...

September 1, 2020 Happy September everyone! I'm sad it's September just because I love summer so much! It's still hot here during the day (mid 90s this weekend) but cooling down a lot at night (upper 50s). I'm feeling good physically. Mentally doing ok as well. Some days are harder than others. I have "moments" that I try to acknowledge and then let pass. I am starting to have hot flashes -  yay! That means less estrogen for the cancer to feed off of. They are not bad right now - under a minute and happen day and night randomly. Because I feel pretty good, I have a hard time not doing too much. My goal is to not be an overachiever (I may need help with that.) Ann was here this past week! Glen went fly fishing in southern Colorado. We had a grand week and she was super helpful. She brought a bunch of recipes for food and drink that were a smashing success! I now know where to find Matcha (crushed green tea leaves) and have a yummy drink to make with it....

Good morning - It's gray and overcast here but it's deceiving since it's supposed to be ~90 by noon! Yesterday was the annual Peach Festival in Lafayette. Glen and I did a peach run in the morning and then went back to wander in the afternoon. Evelyn had a volleyball scrimmage all morning and Maddy headed out in the afternoon for a sleepover birthday party.  Things here are fine. Nothing much substantial to share but I thought I'd write anyway. Largely I feel fine physically. The thing is, I felt fine before the diagnosis and so the only thing that's changed is the knowledge that something is horribly wrong in my body. My right ribs/hip are a little achy which I was told is normal when the cancer is in the bone. It's maddening overall (for all of us I'm sure) that mentally and outwardly physically I'm fine but all this mess inside is happening. I do light stretches (yoga) each day and have been walking a lot - around 4 miles a d...