Tara's Blog - New Spot?

Yep. Unfortunately, there's a new nodule on the left side of my chest, right next to my sternum, that showed up on the PET scan. I can feel it myself; it's about the size of a golfball. I spent the last week and a half crying, screaming, staying up till 6am in pain, praying to God and asking why the heck he's doing this to me. Honestly, I was so angry for a couple days I could barely crack a smile.

But, I've been doing chemotherapy all week, and my doctors and nurses have been nothing but the best to me. As so many of you know, it's difficult to have a setback when you believe you're doing so well. For me, one bad thing can ruin a million good things. This new lump crushed me. It took a while, but after seeing my radiologist yesterday, my mood has finally turned around. He told me that we'll be starting radiation again on the left side, as well as an advanced form of radiation called brachytherapy to kill the remaining active parts of the main tumor. THIS IS GOOD. He knows it is, and now I know it too. We're making progress. Although it's scary, this is just the next step. Here are some really great things that have come out of the past couple weeks:

• The whole tumor is less than 15% active.
• The intensity of the main tumor decreased from 10.1 to 4.2.
• The intensity of the nodule under my armpit decreased from 11.3 to 2.7.
• THE CANCER IS STILL DYINGGGGGGGGGG

That being said, I've done my crying. I've done my screaming. Before worrying about the new lump, I was feeling so good that I was working out for about an hour a day. In fact, I'm actually starting to see the muscle tone come back in my legs. Once this week of chemo is over, I'm just going to get right back into that and live as if I never even had that new lump. Cause what else can you do? Sit? Cry? Whine?

Next week, it'll be an off week for chemo, and I'll be starting radiation as well as the brachytherapy. Hopefully this is the last big thing to do before major surgery!