7 months (or the natural history of breast cancer)

Cancer, chemo, and chocolate chip cookies

I read something interesting this morning.  I was searching for a chart I had seen a while ago and came across an article that included data I hadn't seen before about the "natural history of untreated breast cancer," which, at least in this context, means what happens if you just leave the cancer to do what it does and don't try and stop it.  I guess I don't really need to tell you, but, as it turns out, things don't go well when you do that.

For very obvious reasons, the patients studied for this were diagnosed between 1805 and 1933.  It basically looks at women who had breast cancer before there were treatments for breast cancer.

(On a related note, be aware that the article itself is over 10 years old and a lot has changed in the treatment of metastatic breast cancer in the intervening decade, so I wouldn't actually recommend reading too much into the facts and figures quoted in the rest of the article any more than I would recommend going right now to Blockbusters so you can rent that great new movie Moulin Rouge! on VHS to keep you busy while waiting for book 5 of the Harry Potter series to come out.  Especially because the stats reported on in the article were from a time when Tupac was alive and Friends was a new show on TV.)

But anyway, I had read some time ago that untreated breast cancer patients had a median survival of about 2.5 years from the time the lump was discovered to eventual death.  Turns out it's actually 2.7 years and this article reports some more figures I didn't know before, including that women with untreated grade 3 breast cancer (the faster growing kind that mine is) lived a median of 22 months--that is, half of them died in less time and half of them survived past that point.  Also, not one of the untreated grade 3 patients was alive 5 years later.

So, I am very happy to report that 22 months from finding the lumps, for me, was last February and, I can assure you, I am still alive.  Go science.  Better living--and just plain being alive--through chemistry is at work in my life.

February, you know, was winter, spring, summer, and newly fall crisp days ago.  Also 41 blog posts of varying degrees of stress, hope, resignation, and silver-lining-searching ago (wouldn't you know it, exactly, to the very day, 22 months after my first biopsy that confirmed my stage III grade 3 cancer, I posted this stressed out little post about my impending stage IV diagnosis.  Which, quite frankly, while a difficult and unpleasant time, was still better than being the day I died.)  And, it was also lots of nice, normal, going about life days ago--which is kind of a miracle given what would have been going on (or not going on) had I been born roughly 80 years before I was.

I have more scans coming up next month that will give us a better idea of what's happening now, but at the moment I feel really good.  And happy.  And definitely not 7 months in the grave.  And for that, and every single anything I've done over the past 7 months (including the stupid things like mopping the floors and playing Plants vs. Zombies, and also the fun things like vacation days, birthday parties, and dying parts of my daughter's and her friend's hair blue, because it all works together to make up a life), I need to thank my surgeons, oncologists, and all the people who brought us some really spiffy advancements in chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and hormonal therapy.

What have you done in the past 7 months that you're glad you didn't miss?

Where did August go?

Ok, it's been a while, hasn't it? Like all of August without a single other post.  And my last post a serious downer, too.

As you could probably tell, in the first part of the month I had some real thinking to do about where I am with this cancer stuff and how I'm dealing with it.  Part of the time has also been spent consciously dialing back on how much I'm focusing on cancer for a little while, reading about it a little less, staying off of online boards a little more, and generally trying to make it a smaller part of my life for a while.  

Which didn't, of course, include making oncology a smaller part of my life--I've been going to my medical appointments, taking my pills, getting in my steps, and doing all the things my oncologist tells me to do.  Because oncology is important.  Also because if I think cancer is tiresome when I am doing well...

But, as it turns out, August 2014 has been very good to me. 

In August I passed One Million Steps mark (at least since I started counting steps).  On that day my husband, daughter, and I walked down to our local gourmet cupcake shop and got a few treats to celebrate.  My lemon-drop cupcake was huge, buttery, and delicious (as it should be!).  I also bought a creamsicle cupcake to have the next day.  Because 1,000,000 is a big number.  And it looked delicious.

Also in August, we celebrated my daughter's 15th birthday.  It was a fun, lovely day with most of her siblings (including her sibling-in-law) here and a nice, low-key celebration the way she wanted. When I was first diagnosed with cancer, she was 12 1/2 years old.  Somehow, the 2.5 years between 12 1/2 and 15 seems like a huge leap, much bigger that 8 1/2 to 11 or 5 1/2 to 8.  I feel very privileged to still be here watching her make these continued steps toward adulthood.  

Cake and jello with family make for a happy birthday

In August, we also met up with my brothers, sister-in-law, nephew, and niece for a fun sibling day at the ocean.  It was a great, relaxing day filled with good food and good company.  With life, kids, and many relatives, I realized on that trip how rare it's been for me to have a conversation with my little brother--he's a good kid who's grown into an excellent grown up, and it was nice to have the chance to talk with him (nice to talk with my sister-in-law and brother, too, but that's not quite as rare).  Also, my daughter adored being the older cousin to the adorable little ones.

View from the beach

In August, my step-daughter was given the opportunity for a few days away from the store she manages to help set up a new store in the next town over from us, which meant she was able to stay with us for a few days while that happened!  It was wonderful to spend time with her for nearly a week of days and it seemed like old times when the kids were younger and had weeks at a time in the summer to visit.  We all did a lot of cooking, a lot of me walking/the sisters running, and whole lot of relaxing and just hanging out.

Grilled pizza--still working on technique, but off to a good start

A silly-fun thing from August: my husband and daughter conspired to create a new cover for the "back to school" issue of a Seventeen magazine (you'll recall I posted recently about the impact that had on my teenage years). It had a photo of me looking every inch the 44 year old I am, with headlines like:

"Kate's 7 tips for a happy and successful school year!"

and

"Fitbit: New secret tips for Champs!"

It definitely brought a smile to my face, and I thought it was very sweet that they read my blog and thought to do something fun with it.

Another thing in August, my daughter and I joined my sister- and brother-in-law who share our moderate obsession with "Dancing with the Stars" for an evening out at "Ballroom with a Twist" featuring Maks and Val Chmerkovskiy,  Karina Smirnoff, and Sharna Burgess.  They were really delightful bantering with each other and the audience, and the dancing was superb.  

Them doing that (here)--how can you go wrong?

What else happened in August?  Do you remember when I blogged about my garden and what the morning glories meant to me, especially when I was sick with cancer treatments in 2012?  Finally in August, the dark blue morning glory bloomed along with the light blue ones--those are my favorite, and I was glad to see it.

Another thing in August, with all the walking, all the treatments, all the benefits of the radiation in the spring--more than once I've actually found myself standing there thinking, "Hey, I feel really good!"  Not just ok for having cancer, but really feeling really good.  I don't know how long I'll be able to hold onto that, but right now it's a real treasure to feel that way.

And finally, not quite August, but last night, my moonflower bloomed.  I had mentioned them briefly in a post caption way back in April.  I love them.  I try to grow them every year.  Some years are charmed enough that I get some blooms, some years aren't.  Turns out 2014 is one of those charmed years.  But I guess I already knew that, didn't I?

Finally