Pink October

 October rolled around and once again I tried to share my story as awareness and education of my Breast Cancer journey.  If you followed along my FB updates, you got to read a Cliffs notes version of the last 9 years. 

Really condensed. 

And how ironic that in the month of awareness I find out I have progression of my metastatic lesions. Namely to my lumbar spine (L1 most markedly) ribs and right pelvis/femur area. 

My Oncologist recommended Radiation to the L1 lesion to zap it away hopefully and for pain control. So today I met with my new Radiation Oncologist. 

I knew the day would come that I would need an MRI on some body part because of this damn cancer. I just figured it would be my brain and not my lumbar spine. Ahem. 

I’ve had an MRI before; brain, knee and breast. And seriously did not enjoy any of them. But apparently I’m a glutton for punishment because I chose to do SMART treatments on my spine rather than conventional radiation therapy. 

SMART stands for 

Steriotactic

MRI guided

Adaptive 

RadioTherapy 

This means I will be doing targeted radiation to my spinal lesion under MRI guidance. And this is a clinical trial. The MRI guidance is to see if they can deliver targeted, precise doses to the tumor without hitting, or sparing, as much of my spinal cord as possible. Each session will last about an hour (yay!) and I will have 5 of these treatments. 

I really, really like my Radiation Oncologist Dr Badiyan.  I’m sure I made quite the impression when I told him I was claustrophobic and hated MRI but in the name of science and education and helping someone else down the line and preserving my spinal cord I would suck it up and choose the SMART Clinical Trial. I also told him my breast MRI required an Ativan and Moscow Mule to get through and he assured me they could hook me up with the Ativan, but I need my own bartender for the Mules. That was after he almost fell off his stool laughing. 

I have to get an MRI of my spine with contrast first and that is happening Sunday-yes, in 4 days!  So I’m meditating and preparing for that already. 

I’m not sure when the actual treatment will start, but I’m guessing next week sometime.  And we have to go down to the BIG Barnes Jewish Campus for that. 

That’s what we know so far.  

Send me your prayers for calm and patience and to get through all of these MRIs. Oh, and that we can find the good ginger beer we need for my Mules….