Long overdue update

The last year and a half has had really great things as well as challenges. Survivorship is always a challenge because just because treatment ends doesn't mean life gets back to what you once considered normal. Your body can take a really long time to recover and may never get back to where it was. I have long term changes in my body from the cancer and treatment that aren't fixable and some that may or may not be fixable.

I still spend a good portion of the year anxious but that increases every 3 months for a period of about 4 weeks before and after bloodwork and scans and it's hard to look forward more than a year or two to make long-term plans. I still think about potential jobs and think, what would happen if my next scan or bloodwork showed that my cancer came back, how would that affect everyone else? I don't want to go back to teaching because I can't imagine working with a group of kids for months and then having to leave them and have them switch to a new teacher mid-year because I have to restart chemo or have surgery or both! And I still see my primary care doctor and pulmonologist each 2+ times per year and have 10+ appointments per year for follow-ups for the cancer between bloodwork and scans and actually seeing the doctor. It is always on my mind and impacts every decision I make. AND I'm incredibly lucky to be able to write this post and to be able to tell you how survivorship is hard because I AM SURVIVING.

Health-wise, I'm actually doing really well. As of December, I've had no sign of recurrence since my last update. In March, that will be 2 years from the lung surgery and 3 years from the all clear of the original tumor. I can't begin to tell you how huge that is and what a big milestone that is with Stage IV cancer. It's amazing and wonderful and I'm so incredibly grateful to be here. 

Recovery has been a long road and I'm closer to my new normal goal but I don't know that I will ever get back to where I was pre-cancer. And that's really ok! The summer of 2024 through to early 2025, I had a really bad time with my asthma control. I don't know for sure, but I believe that between the lung tumor, chemo, and lung surgery, it just got aggravated and worse and I'm not sure it will ever get back to where it was.

I'm way more under control now but I take more medication for it, and I avoid things that I enjoy because I enjoy breathing more. :) I spend more time inside in the summer (heat and humidity are huge triggers for me) in air conditioning and garden less. I avoid dogs (and I LOVE dogs!) more as well as floral perfumes (I can handle food scents like citrus, vanilla, cinnamon, etc.). My asthma isn't allergic asthma so allergy pills actually don't do anything to help with asthma control. 

The asthma was bad enough that I almost never subbed (I substitute teach sometimes) and when I did it was for a teacher that just worked with small groups because I didn't have the lung capacity to address a large classroom for an entire day without my asthma flaring. Even with the small groups, by second half of the day, I was using my rescue inhaler. I still struggle during longer days so I only sub half days. 

I was walking a few days a week this past Fall (2025) which is huge for me because I enjoy walking and also because it is helping me get more physically fit and stay active. When the cold hit, I kept walking but when the snow and ice hit, I stopped because I wanted to avoid a fall. After radiation and treatment, I developed pelvic insufficiency fractures and they have remained and are just chronic now and I'm just keeping that in mind. I've had some big wins though. Initially I still struggled to walk more than 15-20 minutes and I was walking so slow but by late fall, I was up to 25-30 minutes at a really good speed. Some days I was down to an 18.5 minute mile. Pre-cancer I could easily walk for 1-2 hours and my natural walking pace was around 3.6-3.7 mph (around 17 minutes per mile). 

I'm getting a little less anxious each time I get my scans and bloodwork done. I don't freak out as much waiting for the results or check the Roswell website hourly for days on end waiting for my results. I still have a pause and get really anxious as I open the results. 

I had a colonoscopy over the summer and they found 3 polyps but all were small and benign and removed during the procedure. I've had 3 CT's since May of 2024 (08/24, 03/25, 09/25) and 2 MRI's (12/24 and 12/25) and all were blissfully clear. My bloodwork has remained clear. My CEA levels remain low and ever since my lung tumor was removed, my Signatera (ctDNA) results have remained negative. Negative is good because it means they didn't find any circulating tumor DNA in my blood sample. Prior to my lung surgery, I did have a positive Signatera result but all tests (every 3 months) since have been negative. 

Between my appointments and kid appointments and illnesses, it's been hard to figure out what to do for work because I can't be very consistent or reliable unless it's flexible. I've been subbing from time to time and tutoring online and I'm working on a few other things to see what pans out but it's a struggle because there are just so many appointments between myself and the kids. I'll figure it out. 

This Christmas break, I cleaned my bathrooms, did a huge cleaning of my kitchen that meant 3.5 hours just at the sink (washing the sink and water bottles and my freezer ice maker and my countertop ice maker) on top of the rest of the counters, etc. Then I baked 3 different types of cookies over a few days. They all took a lot out of me and I was exhausted but it was pretty amazing to feel exhausted after doing all that because it meant I COULD do all of that within a week without huge crashes and even just that I had the endurance to put in hours on my feet like that. It's been a really long time. I haven't baked cookies since about a year before I found out that I had cancer. During treatment it was really just related to the treatment but post-treatment, it's been a combination of the asthma and just overall my body getting more active and recovering.

I went from discovering I have cancer in July 2022 to 8 months of treatment followed by 2 months of neuropathy where it was hard to walk and then breaking my right ankle before the neuropathy had even gone away completely and not being able to do much at all. Then literally less than 2 weeks after I was cleared from ortho, they found the lung metastasis on my ct scan and that started another 8 months of treatment between chemo and surgery. Prior to my lung surgery, my asthma was acting up and continued to act up through to the summer when it blew up and I spent all that summer pretty much stuck in my house just trying to breathe while taking a LOT of prednisone on top of 2 other controllers, my rescue inhaler, mucinex daily and so on and it stayed aggravated through February/March. I had a short window with it mostly under control and then the summer hit and I couldn't spend any length of time out of air conditioning and definitely not physical exercise outside and compounding triggers.

So, exercising is exhausting and I have to take it slowly and it's painfully slow progress and hard to stay motivated especially with my ADHD but I'm trying and it's helping. And I can do it. I can even spend 15 to 20 minutes on my elliptical and it feels amazing that I've come this far and I'm really happy with my progress and I'm continuing to work on it. 

My intentions for 2026 are:

1. Work on improving my sleep hygiene with a more consistent sleep schedule and earlier bedtime and less screens before bed. I'm failing on all 3 right now but I have another 11 3/4 months to keep working on it.

2. Decrease my sugar and decrease other foods that consistently increase inflammation and/or trigger reflux. This will limit some of my vegetables and proteins but I only want to decrease them, not eliminate them and I will have to increase other veggies. 

3. Stay active and keep pushing myself to keep improving. 

Hopefully working on all 3 will also help improve my asthma! It's not going to be perfect and I'm not going to do everything every day but I am going to stay mindful of my intentions and try to work on something small every day even if it's just hopping on my elliptical for 5 minutes or swapping ice cream for an apple or going to bed before midnight. I'll pat myself on the back for all the small wins because they will add up. 

Long story short, I'm doing great and always working towards doing better! I have a ways to go but as far as they can see, I'm still clear of cancer and working hard to keep recovering. 

Thanks all for reading my posts and following my journey!