The Road Set Before Me

Written by Dawn. Hello friends & family,  Treatment yesterday was uneventful so we're thankful for that again. It is painful but rather quick (5 minutes for the immunotherapy and seconds for my chemo) but there is prep time, waiting for pre-meds to work and pre & post vitals. At treatment, the infusion machine was not working so my nurse had to do the infusion by hand, slowly pushing the infusion into me over a period of 5 minutes. For ME it was more comfortable than with the machine, but apparently it is tense work for the nurses, putting pressure on their hands, so I suspect those machines will be repaired asap, or I hope so for the nurses. Manually giving the infusions is also more time-consuming for the nurses, but on the upside we get to chat with them during that time!  Mentally I had a bit of a difficult day on Monday. My treatments have been much easier this time around (although I'm cautious to say that!), and yet the side-effects have been more subtle and I f...

Written by Alyssa. Today Mom had her blood work done and an appointment with her Hematologist/Oncologist, Dr A. The results he was looking at were the ones we shared a couple weeks ago where the graphs showed incredibly positive results to treatments. The doctor was impressed with her response to the last two rounds of treatments and said that it is very important now that they “stay the course” to allow the treatments to continue to do their job.  Mom has noticed that while the treatments have been difficult they haven’t left her feeling as terrible as they did when she went through treatment in 2021/2022. She discussed this with Dr. A, and he stated that because she is healthier now that is likely why she is feeling this way. He also said this is one of the advantages of starting treatment before negative symptoms have begun to appear since it eliminates some of the risks from secondary issues arising.  The beautiful view while walking to the hospital. The doctor also sent M...

Written by Alyssa. Life is full of simple moments that bring joy to our lives. I was contemplating this a bit today. The weekend was a good one with Mom resting a lot on Saturday which helped her to make it to church on Sunday morning. (another thing to be thankful for!) On Monday our family got together to celebrate Thanksgiving together. As is Moms Thanksgiving tradition, she insisted we take some family photos while we were all together. Mom felt up to walking to our neighborhood park and we got some really nice photos together before heading back home. (again, a simple moment that led us to gratitude!)  We had our Thanksgiving meal at our house since this allows Mom to leave and rest for a bit if she feels like she needs it and she can join the rest of us again once she’s feeling better. This worked out well because at one point Mom began to feel nauseated and she did leave to rest for a bit before rejoining us. Often times Mom’s weeks follow a cycle of Monday being “normal”, n...

The view of the CN Tower from the hospital today. With Thanksgiving rapidly approaching, it has me thinking about what I am thankful for. Mom has always been a big fan of showing gratitude in the big and the small things of life (I remember this less fondly as a teenager), and as the years have gone by this is a habit that I have picked up on.  When I was in high school, my mom and I read a chapter of the book One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp together every morning before I started my classes. Ann's book focuses on her finding joy in the little things of life, and writing them down to track all the gifts that she has been given from God.   It was a great experience and one that we both loved doing together. Each of us had a journal to track all our “gifts” - gifts from God that we are thankful for.  After mom’s stroke in 2021, she experienced some times of frustration and doubt, which led me to pull out our journals again. Today, we are still filling them out, and I hav...

  Written by Alyssa Ups and downs. Some weeks have positive things to tell, and other weeks have less positive things to tell. This week we have a bit of both. The less positive is that Mom has had more moments of her blood pressure dipping, which can be scary and means she has to be very careful to not move too quickly so as to allow her body time to adjust. This is especially important when she is getting up quickly from sitting. It’s not uncommon for Mom to get up to greet someone at the door and have to immediately go to sit down on the nearby stairs because of her blood pressure dipping. Another thing is that she has developed a cough which was sort of puzzling to us because she wasn’t feeling sick (thankfully!). After her appointment with her oncologist on Monday, Dr. A told her that he believes her cough is a side effect of one of her medications. While that isn’t awesome to hear, we are thankful to have an answer to that. Her lower blood pressure is believed to be caused by...