It's been a while since I've updated, and that's been because of a GOOD thing -- Mom's status has been stable ever since we got the hip debacle taken care of. The scans would show no progression, so we would just continue on the current path with chemo + immunotherapy every other week, followed by scans every so often. Around Thanksgiving, we had an iffy scan and we were unsure what it showed - it was either progression in her lung, or an infection. They prescribed medication to help with what we hoped was just an infection in her lung, and we continued with treatment as normal.
That seemed to do the trick and we continued on like usual. All was well, but we decided to switch from the Cancer Treatment Center in ATL to the UNC Cancer Hospital in Chapel Hill this past January -- mainly for convenience purposes, and also because she switches to medicare in June and CTCA can no longer help with travel expenses at that point, so we knew a change was inevitable. She has a great doctor at UNC who is really well versed in Triple Negative Breast Cancer, so we feel lucky to be treated there, and it's slightly easier travel wise. Or it was.
Over the last month or so, I started noticing little things with Mom. Mainly memory issues and noticing her coordination and balance seemed off. Nothing major but it was just different, so I made a comment to the NP when we were there for her treatment. They ordered a brain MRI right away, and a couple days later, we got the results back and they were what we feared -- her cancer has spread to her brain.
I know that sounds so scary, and honestly it is. BUT mom is doing really well, considering. They decided to halt chemo + immunotherapy for now, and she's currently undergoing whole brain radiation, and they'll start chemo + immunotherapy back towards the end of the month. They also prescribed a steroid to reduce the swelling in her brain, so that should help with some of the symptoms. They also prescribed her some meds that help Alzheimer's patients, and they hope that helps with the issues she's having with short-term memory.
In addition to that, they have a new technique with whole brain radiation where they can skip over the hippocampus, which plays a major role with memory. So hopefully all of these things combined will help preserve her short-term memory that she's been struggling with lately. The big takeaway is that the cancer is getting smarter (progressing in her brain, but no signs of progression in her body according to her most recent CTs in January), and it's getting more aggressive.
All in all, we are doing okay -- they don't want her driving for now, but she is hoping that's temporary. But obviously, that makes things a tad harder since she's in Wilmington and everything is in Chapel Hill, but it's nothing we can't handle. If we can just convince mom it's not that big of a deal when we come down to get her or take her back. 😉 Plus, she can come and stay with me whenever she wants, and she does that too! The kids love it. #silverlining 💞
