Hello All!
***Warning: In light of negative responses I’ve seen in an online cancer support group I’m in, if you’re an atheist/agnostic/any other person who gets severely offended by posts about God, I would suggest you exit my post now because I am about to go there. You’ve been warned!!!***
Oh and this will be long. LOL!
So anyway, last week I finished my second month of Tecentriq-Abraxane and OMG!!! I’m just going to go ahead and call Immunotherapy a miracle treatment sent by God Himself!!! Our God works in mysterious ways. He does. He hears and answers prayers, even the ones we don’t speak.
It was some years ago when one of the doctors at my job started talking about Immunotherapy being the wave of the future. I thought, “Huh,” and then put it in the back of my mind, not a clue what he was talking about. Then, when this cancer came back a second time, this lady I met in an offline cancer support group started telling me about this lady who was in an immunotherapy clinical trial whose cancer was completely wiped out. Other people in the clinical trial died because it was a difficult treatment to administer as each person’s administration level would differ as it’s based on your own immune system. I’m no fool though. I don’t need to be knocked over the head too many before I realize that God is trying to tell me something. I mean, why am I randomly hearing about Immunotherapy two times.
I asked my oncologist about Immunotherapy and she said some along the lines of “you’re not there yet.” Huh? Fast forward a bit as I already mentioned previously that Ibrance started to fail and I finally got a chance to try Immunotherapy because miraculously I became eligible for it. It’s only for triple negative for now, which it turns out I became eligible for because I’m only 10% ER+ which is seen as triple negative. And then Immunotherapy got a rush approval in April 2019. That was all nothing but God. Period.
So here we are today, having finished my second month. What am I seeing? So far:
1. No side effects. I’ll give it one or two more months before confidently saying my hair hasn’t fallen out. It’s still here but still.
2. The tumor in my neck, which was the size of one of those large marbles or rubber balls you can hold in your hand has practically flattened out.
3. There was this sore on said tumor from number 2 on the surface of my skin, which I’m guessing was the beginning sign cancer mets to the skin, is gone now. The skin above the tumor is smooth.
4. Sores on my left boob, original location of first cancer tumor and where cancer returned, clearing up. They actually fell off. These were definitely skin mets. My oncologist confirmed that when the cancer first returned.
5. For this one, I had to finally admit that what I was feeling in my left boob was a mass and not hardening of my breast implant following radiation (I was in denial about that). I used to be able to feel the hardened edge of something there and now I just feel the sponginess of the breast implant.
I haven’t had any further diagnostic tests as I just did them in October (I believe I was told they’re done every 5 months) but I know my oncologist wanted to wait a few months anyway before reviewing the treatment just to see what this new treatment regimen was going to do. Physical changes that you can feel are what you notice first anyway. Diagnostic tests take you deeper. I know some people get scanxiety but, right now, I’m looking forward to more diagnostic tests to see what’s going on with my metastases, especially my liver since they noticed six new spots along with a cyst two scans ago though no confirmed liver mets.
I really feel like the cure for many stages of cancer will come from our bodies. After all, many cancers are just our own cells that have gone rogue and cancer uses the fact that it comes from our body to survive because it knows how to hide by turning off our immune system. The point of Immunotherapy, in my treatment anyway, is to make the immune system recognize cancer where ever it is so it can destroy it. I may be aging myself but I feel like a game of Centipede or Space Invaders is going on in my body right now. LMBO!
Perhaps my coworker, the doctor, was right about Immunotherapy being the wave of the future. I’m just happy to leave it all in God’s very capable hands as I know that it will all work out for my good.
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