An Unfortunate Trend

Tumor markers bumped to 36 this week. They were down to 27, then crept up to 29, now a 7 point jump. One more increase and it is an official trend.

Sad that my life hangs in the balance of these tiny little numbers.

I am still technically in the normal zone (normal is 40), but I am tumor marker normal with visible tumors ( we alllll know I am not mentally normal). šŸ˜‰

I haven’t been feeling well lately, so this wasn’t a total shock to me, sadly. I have had bouts of nausea, being really fatigued and overall just blah. I was having a rough go on our recent camping trip, which is almost funny because I have had easier times while on chemo. Go figure.

The decision was to hold off on anything until I get home from Europe. We will then pull markers and decide if we need to scan or what to do next.

My ONJ opened back up and was infected last week, so I am back on the daily antibiotics. The antibiotics keep me from being able to do a immunotherapy study (not great to mix antibiotics and studies that impact your immune system). Right now we plan on doing another surgery in October to try to fix my mouth back up. I have the choice between a minor surgery again, or a larger one where we remove parts of the inside of my jaw on both sides of my mouth. This would remove the high risk areas and possibly allow me to take Xgeva with lower risk.

The cruise company called me about upgrading our room this week (which was super exciting, because it was a MAJORĀ upgrade for not a lot more – the amenities it comes with pays for itself). I then found out this teensy little detail that Mike’s passport needed to be at least 6 months away from expiration in order to get a visa into Turkey (I hadn’t known we needed a visa for Turkey, not sure how I screwed that one up… chemo brain anyone?). His passport expires a few weeks after we were coming home, since it wasn’t expired we really didn’t think twice about it before now (obviously I am an international travel newbie).

We shipped it off yesterday to a company that noted aĀ 24-48 hour turnaround on the new passport. After several calls from me today I discovered that this is business days and does not include the day they receive it. If everything goes well, they say, Mike will have his new passport the day before we leave. If something goes wrong… well. I don’t know what to do… hopefully it will be as simple as paying to move our plane tickets back a day or two. It was $4,000+ to add the options that made our trip cancelable/refundable – so I hadn’t kicked out that money (so crazy that they charge that much). Cross your fingers it makes it here in time! I need a vacation, our bags will be packed.

Our new suitcases!

Our new suitcases! We are CLASSY.

 

Author: Mandi

Share This Post On