Hello my friends,

It has been awhile since I’ve posted, so I’ll do my best to catch you up.

As far as I can tell I am having minimal to no side effects from the Keytruda. I would say the first infusion left me feeling quite fatigued, but I had good energy Labor Day weekend after my second infusion on the 31st. After the Labor Day festivities (more about that later) I was completely wiped out, but I really can’t blame Keytruda for that!! I can only hope, pray and visualize that the immunotherapy is doing what it is designed to do on the inside. But, really I feel pretty good.

The pain continues to be buffered when it does raise it’s ugly head and to actually pop up less often. I’m now going with a theory that the pain that comes through to my chest is GERD or acid reflux. Why or how it starts (every time) in my back and moves into my chest no one has been able to explain, but we are now treating me and the pain as if I have acid reflux. When Dr. Kaplan said to take Zantac to try out this theory, Mike said, “Oh good! Now we can go to a buffet and you can eat whatever you want!” Yikes, I don’t think so. I have to admit if I have a pulled muscle or two (as my pain doctor was thinking) or acid reflux (as my oncologist now thinks) and I had an MRI, a bone scan and an endoscopy, then got addicted to and went through withdrawals from opioids to search out and treat the 2 most common afflictions in our society…well…that just feels ridiculous! My PT says they were taught not to look for the zebra…but I guess if you have stage 4 cancer they have to rule out the zebra…whatever! I have responded to the Gabepentin for nerve pain (all pain travels on nerves???) and I am responding to the Zantac along with some supplements that Dr. Standish recommended to go along with the GERD theory. My pain is, like I said, less often and less intense. I am also, for the most part, most days, trying to eat and drink like someone trying to avoid GERD symptoms. So, hopefully, in time it will go away completely. I’m a little embarrassed to think that all along it’s been a back ache and acid reflux…but there you have it! I still don’t understand the connection in spite of my vast amount of googling! Oh well, the body is a complex machine, to say the least!

Today is the first day of school for Seattle and I have to say I have no doubt that my decision was the right one. Dr. Standish gave me some advice that I am trying to heed. She says I’m likely to be looking for something to fill that void and that I should take time to heal, heal, heal and then open myself to the possibilities and see what happens. But, first, I need to heal. So, that is what I am doing. This month I have a PT and a massage therapy session each week. In addition I have a reflexology appointment this week. Starting yesterday I increased the time and distance in my morning walk with Wilson. Tricia is kicking it up for me in PT and I start back to pilates next week. So, I am deep into self help and healing and feeling pretty good about it. 

I did have a teacher nightmare, however, my subconscious clearly hasn't gotten the memo about me not returning to work: 

I was on a field trip and I couldn’t remember my password to open my phone to find a map for the bus driver. I could not remember how many kids I had in my class or any of their names! I was going to a park with the kids where there had been coyote sightings and I had to make sure I left with the same number of kids I came with and every time I tried to count them I got a different number! A classic August nightmare! I am thinking of you all my teacher friends and hoping that you are having a great day with your students! And especially to Lisa, Missa, Beth and James: I hope you love my little cuties! And, do let me know how they are doing!

I’m thinking of you all today!

Many of you regular readers know I have a sweet nephew, Jamie, who posts regularly on my blog. I’ve bugged him for years to bring his family to visit from Boulder. Finally, they flew up here to spend Labor Day weekend with us. On Thursday morning, the day after Keytruda, I picked them up from the airport: Jamie and Abbe along with Gaby (10), Annable (8), and Joshua who had just turned 4 last weekend. He greeted everyone he met by holding up 4 fingers and saying, “I’m four!” We had a fabulous time. On Thursday we went down to Alki and to Whales Tail park. On Friday I sent them downtown by water taxi. They had lunch at the Space  Needle and then went to the Aquarium. On Saturday we went to low tide at Constellation Park and saw an octopus!! Then we went to the Locks (two of my favorite Seattle activities). And on Sunday they went to the zoo. Of course that was followed by our biggest pizza party ever to celebrate Maggie’s 25th birthday. We really had a wonderful time and I tried to pace myself as best as possible! On Monday I crashed! Mike took them to the airport and we both just hung out the rest of the day. We did make an afternoon walk at Alki, but other than that we were both pretty spent. So, thank you Jamie! Thank you for coming and sharing your dear family! I love them all!!

So, that brings us up to date. Two more weeks until number 3 infusion of Jimmy Carter’s famous immunotherapy drug. I’m not sure if the good doctor will want to scan after infusion 3 or infusion 4. I’ll let you know.

In the meantime, happy back to school, everyone!

Lots of love,

Janet

Gaby, Joshua, Annable with June

It was alive, moving...about the size of a dinner plate!

A quick stop in Fremont for these three.

June IS a part of our family!