The long anticipated CT scan results are in (as of Tuesday, sorry). As I discussed in my previous post I was feeling a bit of anxiety surrounding this scan. Considering that each winter since 2012 I have been told that I have cancer (or cancer, again) I could not stop myself from thinking that perhaps I had fallen into the depths of a bad health curse. This curse surfaces every November and plagues every winter. This is a piss poor attitude to go into a doctor’s appointment with because it is based on something as imaginary as unicorns. My circumstances are different, I’m under different treatment, and everything leading up to the CT has showed positive trends.

My CT scan results showed that even with the dose reduction, the tumors have reduced in size by a total of 27% since we have started the trial.

Cue celebration:

Recap:

CT scan #1- August: 5%

CT scan #2- September: 18%

CT scan #3- November: 27% 

I am 3% away from what is considered a partial response. Dr. Birrer said that he was pretty confident that by my next visit in January, we would hit a major milestone. He also said that at some point it will taper off likely around 50%. The impression that I got is that (although we can hope!) I should not set my expectation for 100% shrinkage. BUT for now let’s keep celebrating every victory.

SO, that’s good.

This past week was all over the place. Last weekend Cory and I took a trip to Portland, Maine. It was absolutely beautiful.

 

On Saturday we spent the day taking a walk along the bike path, going to a mead tasting, annnnnnnd watching tv in the hotel as I violently vomited for 8 hours. Yep not all roses. Little did I know that this was the beginning of a virus. We had just waited an hour to get into a restaurant called Duck Fat (holy-overindulgence Batman).

We ordered our food and sadly I only had 3 fries and 2 bites of soup before I agreed we had to pack up our food to go and head back to the hotel. I was in so much pain that I thought I was having another bowel obstruction but it was just my guts twisting and turning as I vomited every ounce of anything that was in my system at the time. Per usual Cory was a champ and took care of me. I had forgotten to pack pj’s so he even surprised me with fun jammies when he went out to get himself some dinner.

The next day I woke up and felt much better so our Portland adventure lived on! We walked all around old Portland and went into some very interesting and adorable shops. We stumbled upon a fence where people have attached locks with their initials or names. Very similar to what can be found in other cities and parts of the world. It just so happened that I carry around a lock in my purse for the gym so I had one on hand! We awkwardly hijacked a sharpie from a Starbucks barista across the street and initialed the lock to add to the fence. Next time I should get an engraved one that says: “I came, I puked, I conquered”.

After a full day of wandering around historic Portland we couldn’t leave without doing two things:

1.) Eating a lobster roll

2.) Checking out the lighthouse:

Despite getting really, alarmingly, sick…it was a solid weekend get-away. We didn’t make it to any of the breweries but perhaps next time.

So after feeling generally well on Sunday (minus some stomach discomfort later that night) one can imagine my surprise when I woke up on Monday with a 102.6 temperature. I was so delirious that I couldn’t even drive myself to the walk-in clinic (let alone walk in a straight line). Thank you to Tom Tom Blythe for picking me up and Katie for arranging it! After 3 hours of testing and waiting they were able to rule out the flu, mono, and strep. They chalked it up to “some sort of virus” and sent me home with the recommendation of Motrin or Tylenol. My poor parents canceled their plans, drove up 2 1/2 hours to pick me up from the walk-in and take care of me. When we got home to my apartment, they cooked for me, did my dishes, and made sure I was okay. What good sports! They even came back the next day and took me to Boston for my doctor’s appointment. THANK-YOU Mom and Dad! I really needed them there so it was nice to have the support as well as share the good news from MGH in person.

I am bouncing back quickly from the virus and feel just fine now! Thank goodness.

On a final note, I would like to congratulate my homegirl Jaclyn Munson on her acceptance to law school!

May you give hundreds of side-eye looks of death to your peers on the road to a JD!

Cheers.