I just finished up my 3rd round of insusions with my new chemotherapy, Enhertu. (The pill version was so new, that insurance would only approve the ifusion version. It’s fine. The symptoms are very similar to my old chemo treatments, so today I feel rotten, and I will feel pretty exhausted and icky for the rest of this week, when suddenly I have small moments where I feel okay. Eventually, on the third week, I will feel like a human again, just in time for my next treatment. Such is the roller coaster of treatment cycles 😉. (I am just grateful I am not on a cycle like my older brother – 3 weeks on, only one week off.)

Tomorrow will be my final radiation treatment on the tumors on my spine. It has been a long ten sessions – every weekday afternoon for 11 days (if you include the dry-run). It has made me extra achy and sore, with muscle spasms returning, but thank goodness for that steroid shot back in March! It made such a difference in my pain levels.

This week we will meet with my newest Neurologist (I now have three different Neurologists – all for different things, because you can’t just have one 😂.) He is going to be working with my radiation oncologist to do a special procedure called Gamma Knife on the eight new brain tumors I have. It will be a one day procedure where I am sedated but awake, and they spot treat all of the tumors with a very special targeted radiation, getting all of them taken care of in one go. No more torture mask 😉. Hopefully it will get taken care of by the first week of June.

In a couple weeks, I will have a new series of scans, and we can see how the Enhertu is working. I am certainly praying for success, and that it is eating all of my tumors. Especially that pesky tumor in my lung that started this whole thing. But in the meantime, I and walking with my Savior, holding onto hope, and praying for all the good things and the strength to get through the hard.

And just in case you were curious about it, I was looking through some of my benefits statements from insurance. Wow, can I say how grateful I am for Kevin’s awesome work insurance. Chemotherapy is not cheap. Over $71,000 for one drug and over $9,000 for the second.

And then there was my over $36,000 ER visit in January when the muscle spasms were so bad that I couldn’t speak or breathe. I was only there for three hours, but had all the tests.

Speaking of tests, every time I go in for another few CTs or MRIs, they are not cheap either. My PET scan alone was over $4,000. Crazy! But that is where the gratitude comes back in for Kevin’s insurance coverage. And because we paid out so much so early in the year, by the middle of February, I had met my out of pocket for the entire year. Wow.

So things are tricky, things are crazy, but things are fine. We have a plan, we are moving forward, and I am in the hands of the dream team of amazing doctors. They are helping to answer all the prayers as they do everything possible to make me well and whole again.