Daina Fights Cancer

One year!! 💜💜💜💜

I had my one year full scan. No new growths! No changes since my previous scans except some that have since also shrunk. Thank you Jesus! My husband and I got away on our first cruise in Fenruary before the world went crazy. We needed that! It happened to coincide with my one year anniversary of my last chemo treatment. After my scans in the later part of last year showed some images of inflammation in my upper lobes of my lungs it was decided by the pulmonolpgist to severely up my sterioids and step down off them to try and clear the inflimation. My lungs have cleared to where I no longer having breathing problems but the scarring will likely never be gone now. I was done with steroids by the cruise but had picked up an extra 40 pounds in the process. After 4 months of only kind of watching what I was eating I have further committed and have lost over 5 pounds in the last couple weeks. Hoping that trend continues! When I had my scan in March they noticed some signs of fatty liver. I am hoping it is simply because of the extra weight I packed on but as a precaution I am going to see a gastrointestinal doctor on the 21st. Then I am having my port removed on the 23rd! It seems so final to me. I am extremely nervous about it. While others in my life, like my children, are very excited for it to be removed. I think they will feel more like I'm okay once I am not carrying that around anymore. I will have my next scan the 1st week of 2021. Praying I can stay the course, drop the pounds and keep moving in a healthy positive forward direction. I pray you're all able to find some peace in this crazy world we are living in right now. There are plenty of positive things still in this world, they're just harder to see with all the noise going on around us. Be thankful in your joy and in your challenges. God Bless You!

Sorry for the delay. Busy week! I saw the pulmonologist Monday. He sees improvement in my scan in my lungs. Thats great, but I still can't walk around without getting short of breath. But hey, I will take improvement and at least I know it wont get worse. I will bw on the steroids theough February as I taper off them. Hopefully my ouffy face abd some weight tapers with it.....lol 🙄 I saw my oncologiat Tuesday. None of the masses in my chest have grown so I will take that as good news and keep moving forward. I will have another scan in March of my neck, chest, abdomen, and pelvis. Praying thats clear! My cardiologist says I look good from a heart stand point. I see him again in March too. So I popped up with a rash last Monday and decided to ask my oncologist about it Tuesday as it was seeming to spread. Oh joy, shingles. That's fun for my last week of Live racing at work. Glad I was blessed to not be worst case. Been on anti virals and haven't had to use my pain meds yet. So praying I don't have the pain afterwards I keep hearing about. So the plan for now is to enjoy today. Be thankful for ALL my blessings small and big. Enjoy my babies and my family and friends. Happy New Year! God bless!!💜💜💜

And just like that it was a year ago before starting treatments. I remember my husband was surprised I shared the picture of after my port placement. To be honest before my own I had no idea what one looked like or how it worked. So maybe there is someone else viewing my posts that doesn't know either. And I even learned I got an extra incision compared to others who had it placed on their left side. So it is interesting to learn of other's experiences. With that being said if you know someone recently diagnosed, or is close to someone recently diagnosed please share with them I am open to whatever questions someone may have. I felt like it helped to be able to ask someone questions even though they didn't have the same cancer and treatment I was going to have.

I have another test for my dizziness on Tuesday so hopefully that will give me some answers. I see the ENT again the day before Thanksgiving for results. Thank God I'm on my last week of Prednisone. Weight gain, acne, mood changes, I'm done! Hopefully it is easier going out of my system than it was going in.

Here just being Thankful and looking forward!

Update......lengthy, but a lot of info

I had my next CT on September 23rd to check on my progress and make sure nothing is growing. Well I had new areas of inflammation in my lungs that weren't on previous scans. To the follow up appointment I also came with other things we hadn't found the answers to yet. I have been getting dizzy and losing my balance for months. It happens multiple times a day now. I have pain in different areas of my chest, none of which is near my heart. I have been short on breath for months. I also have my heart race out of no where like my adrenaline is pumping overtime for no reason at all. All these things I kept chalking up to something else, I'm old, fat, out of shape, or maybe still recovering from treatment or how about a Full Time, Working, Busy Mom running kids everywhere. Well enter more tests. I had another heart echo. I have a leaky valve but that is apparently quite common. Beaides that the echo was fine. I had another pulmonary test. That was also within normal range. While there was a tiny improvement that I could feel between testing with the albuterol and without it was not vast improvements. My Oncologist felt it was also time to see a Cardiologist. I will need a on going relationship with one going forward anyway. He said I looked great cardio wise. He offered to let me do a month long monitor for my heart to try and catch my heart racing. I decided to wait on that for now and try and make note of what I'm doing when my heart starts racing. So for now my heart is good. I had a PET Scan to get a better look at everything going on in my lungs. I have a few different areas of inflammation in my lungs that are in the same places I have the chest pains. I also have reason for my shortness of breath now. My oncologist started me on 2 weeks of Prednisone. Then comes the Pulmonologist appointment. I am now on Prednisone for 4 weeks at double the dose the Oncologist began. If we caught it in time and it is still inflammation from my radiation then the Prednisone should clear it. If it isn't then it is scar tissue that won't be going away. Praying for inflammation! I don't get to see the ENT to get my balance issues hopefully taken care of until the 31st. My Oncologist is saying it is Vertigo and we should be able to get it taken care of. Even in all this what seems chaos I am thankful it is all things I can get through. Adjustments I can make. The crazy person I feel this Prednisone is making me is only for a short period of time. I'm praying we caught the inflammation in time. I have reason for my shortness of breath and chest pains now. Which makes me feel better. I'm hoping the dizziness is easily explained as well. Sorry for the lengthy update but I wanted to know more before putting vague assumptions on here. So agree with me in prayer that God has this. I am going to continue to improve and move forward and that all can be cleared up. Enjoying my time with my family.