Nevertheless, She Persisted - Run for the Cure 2017

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I'll never forget when I was 24 and I found a lump in my right breast. 

It was the moment that would change my life forever. 

When they asked me to come in for the results on November 18th 2014, my birthday, I didn't change the appointment.

I didn't want to enjoy my day having the results looming over my head. 

My doctor asked me to come in alone and she said some of the most shocking words you can ever hear. 

"Sam, it came back as cancer."

The next thing I remember is my family being rushed in, as I was told I would have to endure chemotherapy, surgery, and radiation. 

I was going to lose my long blonde hair.

 I was going to have to take a leave from my promising career. 

Through the tears, I heard my doctor say - if you do this - if you push through this year - you're going to be okay. 

Trade one year of your life for many happy ones ahead of you. 

I quickly learned I was stronger then I thought, and by Christmas 2014 I had no hair. 

By February, I had completed three treatments and my outlook was insanely positive. 

I started a blog, gained media attention, and with this large following behind me - supportive friends, friends of friends, now husband and family - I never felt alone. 

Sometimes, with my illness, I felt lonely - but not alone. 

They urged my mom for detection as a precaution.

 She underwent mammograms,  ultrasounds, and biopsies and as we sat in the room waiting for her results we all couldn't help feeling - this is all a little too familiar.

My mom was diagnosed 3 months after me with Stage 1 breast cancer.

 Our genes weren't positive so this was random.

 I have always been close with my mom and it felt wrong that we would go through surgery and radiation together - but I also felt as if someone understood me.

 What we were going through together. 

I saved my moms life - this was the way it was supposed to be. 

During summer 2015, I was one body part short, with shorter hair but I felt stronger then I ever have. 

We both rang the bell and celebrations included cake and one direction tickets. 

I was going to go back to work; life.

 And even though I felt conflicted - how do you move forward, when you have gone through so much, and everyone else has stayed the same - I was excited. 

I was high on life. 

In January 2016, I found a small lump in my right armpit. I had learned my lesson and went to the oncologist right away, where they biopsied it just to be safe. I did further tests and I heard the words a second time: the biopsy came back as cancer. It has spread to your lungs and bones and brain.

I'm 26 and have Stage IV breast cancer. 

When cancer progresses to Stage IV, there is no cure.

I remember thinking - I traded a year of my life for better ones ahead. How can this be? 

I will be on treatment the rest of your life - and when the treatments stop - so will I.

I tried to maintain a positive frame of mind but I knew about Stage IV and I was afraid.

 My life is incremental - I live between 3 month scans.

The average life expectancy of someone with Stage IV is 24 months. I have been living 18. 

It took me a long time to figure out how I would make this a positive speech. 

This stage is normally for Survivors - how can I kick off the run and still be true to Stage IV - which isn't always pink, and ribbons and glitter. 

I am living proof that you can have quality of life when you are are diagnosed as Stage IV. With help from amazing oncologists, therapists, and phychologists I can stand here today and tell you I am living my best life.

Every day I wake up feeling good I celebrate - I see friends, eat good food (more like 30 lbs of good food!), I see movies, walk and get a coffee with my husband, adopt the perfect dog named Maverick. I snuggle my best friends baby's and swim, and am overjoyed with this time I have to develop my relationships with friends and family, to take a step back and realize what my purpose is, what am I here for, what am I to accomplish in this life?

Last summer I was very ill and decided to get married. I can't have children, chemo and basic morals have taken that from me. Still, I push forward. I want more time. I beg and plead - more time. More time. More books, music, movies, discoveries. I want more of this beautiful life. 

We are all gathered here today because we have been touched by cancer. We have lost loved ones, we care for those whom have to go through treatments or we are survivors - or thrivers - ourselves. 

I am asking today, not for a cure, but for time. More research, more treatments available to me, means more time to my husband, my best friends and family. It means seeing my nephew walk for the first time and watching my sister go down the aisle. 

More time.

 I'm not asking for a cure, I am asking all of those who have been

Touched by cancer - early or late Stage -

to give to Stage IV and grant us more time.

Thank you to everyone who joined our team, spread word about MBC, donated their precious time and made Metastatic Breast Cancer Ottawa one of the Top 10 teams in the region,  with over $13 000 donated to MBC. I am so grateful to my husband, family and best friends, Thank you to everyone who watched and shared my speech, It was a crazy September, but I wouldn't change a thing.

xx

Sam

My Year With a Hot-Ass Whiskey Voice

(Because what better way to start a post then with a smiley muddy dog?) 

I thought I would post a little update since it's been awhile. 

I am very grateful to still be feeling good - some fatigue but mainly feeling like myself. When I say myself, I wonder what I'm referring to - because I definitely don't feel like my old self, but I don't feel terrible  either so I guess this is my new normal. I see a lot of other posts in the support groups I'm a part of, and so many aren't able to lead active lives so  every day I wake up feeling good I remind myself of how grateful I should be. 

I've been on chemo now for about a year and a half. It's the anniversary of the discovery of my brain mets, and I'm happy to report this summer is shaping up to be much more promising then last. 

Back in January, I lost my voice. It slowly faded out until it turned into a 'hot-ass whiskey voice' (as it was referred to by an author at Writersfest). After about 3 weeks it still hadn't come back, and I started to get concerned. Not to mention, it was the hockey playoffs and the Leafs were playing which meant it was very hard to hear me speak whenever we went to a bar. I like to chat so being mute is very annoying and people usually ask "WHAT??" once or twice and then they usually just nod and pretend they heard me. I'm not sure how many times I have been asked "Oh no! Are you sick?" or told "You should take lemon and honey in hot water!"/"I know this Chinese herb man that will concoct you a batch of death that will make your voice come back immediately"/"visualize your vocal chords healing and they will come back to you!!!!!" (Okay, that last one I only got once). 

I feel like it would be inappropriate yet satisfying to just respond with "Nah, it's cancer", but I haven't reached that low yet. 

After a long wait, I was sent to wait for an ENT (Ears, Nose, Throat specialist) and it was about 3 months waiting time. I felt like I was the only one who seemed concerned or felt like this was a little odd, but no one was pushing the appointment so I just kept on navigating my new life as a mute. I thought I may have damaged my throat somehow from throwing up so often, but I wasn't sure. 

I finally saw an ENT in April, where he put a camera through my nose and down my throat (it was terrible). I gagged on the doctor multiple times before he was successful and was able to easily see that my left vocal chord was no longer working. 

His speculation was that it may be from my brain radiation - whenever you treat the brain, there's no telling what you can affect. There didn't appear to be any lesions or tumours near my lungs on my last scan that would be causing something like this, so this seemed like a reasonable explanation.  

From there, I was sent for a catscan of my throat. I'm not sure why this wasn't done earlier - *eyeroll* - but with those results we found the culprit. 

Jeff can explain it better then I do, but basically there are new tumours on my lungs that are growing/blocking/damaging my vocal chords. I guess they were too small to see on any earlier scans but are now visible. 

The cancer was growing and spreading which unfortunately meant that my treatment had failed and my time with Herceptin was over after only one short year. Onto the next one. 

I have since been put onto Kadcyla (or TDM1), which is a drug that was approved only a few years ago but has seen great results with hormone positive breast cancer. There have been inconclusive studies that show that this type of chemotherapy can also cross the blood brain barrier. I am most anxious about progression in my brain, so I was happy to have this as my new alternative. 

As for my throat? We were hopeful the new chemo may speed up the process and the tumours in my lungs may shrink and give me my voice back. It doesn't seem like that's happening (I've had 3 sessions), so I am going to go ahead with a procedure where they insert a needle through your throat and into the vocal chord, giving it a Botox-like treatment. It will plump it up and strengthen it and hopefully my voice will come back. If not there are options for surgery, but that's down the road. 

While the Herceptin was failing, I wasn't sure what was happening in my brain. I've been feeling good so I had been hopeful. My last scan three months ago showed one new spec - too small to be determined as to what it could be. I had another MRI just a few weeks ago, and it showed that while all previously treated lesions were either smaller, stable or completely gone, I actually had 2 new spots and the spec on the last scan had grown. 

So, here we go for round 2 of SRS (stereotactic radio surgery), or brain radiation in plain terms. They seem to think I can get by without steroids which is a major win for me. I'll be at the General hospital tomorrow getting blasted (I like sour cream glaze timbits, if you're around). I can't decide if I should bring Devil Wears Prada or Country Strong. I'm thinking of asking my technician to take a picture of me when I'm all strapped in so stay tuned for that. 

As for life updates? I like to keep busy when I'm feeling good and I had such a doozie last summer that I am hoping to make up for it! 

Jeff and I went to Field Trip music festival in Toronto, went on our honeymoon (finally!) in Mexico, helped our friends move into a new house, went to a few Jays games and had some quality pool time. Jeff's grandparents had their 60th wedding anniversary, I attended a baby shower, planned a baby shower, and now my bestie is expecting my new nephew any day now! (#babywatch2017)

You're Welcome. 

I miss my old life sometimes so much that my chest physically hurts and it feels like someone has punched me in the stomach. I feel like I look around constantly wishing I was someone else (more like, I wish this wasn't happening to me). She's probably on her way to work, look at that cute family, I remember when I used to be able to do yoga.

When this happens, I try and remind myself of how great it has been to be free of a schedule and being able to say YES when my nephew asks me to go to his elementary school presentation, YES to a week of sleepovers at my besties new house, YES to impromptu ice cream dates with friends and time spent with family. YES to sleeping in, YES to reading until 3AM, YES to doing whatever I want, whenever I want. This time is so special to me, and I know one day when I may not be feeling the best I will look back on it and smile. 

It's funny because I think some people wait too long to get excited about life and all the opportunities we've been given - I'm constantly overwhelmed yet excited by all the things I want to learn and do - and I bargain regularly, begging; please God, give me more time. I need more time. 

Anyways - for today, that's all I have to say! I promise you a picture of me in a scary radiation face mask in my next update, and until then - wish me luck!! 

xx 

The Missing Piece

 

Today it dawned on me that I have spent so much time forcing myself to accept my life with stage IV cancer that I started to convince myself that this was the end. 

I have spent so much time exploring my mortality, coming to terms with what it means to die, understanding and deciding my thoughts on afterlife. 

I became fixated on the idea that I am terminally ill, that "I have cancer". 

I scoff at those that pray for hope, insisting they're prolonging their pain, not coming to terms with their reality.  Today I saw a girl with cancer say "It is all going to be okay". For some reason, it stuck with me. I think it's the next piece of my puzzle. To come to terms with a harsh reality, make peace with it, and then say "I can still live.." 

I am letting the beauty back in. I am allowing hope, ever-so-slowly, to become part of my life. I am praying for more then days-weeks-months. 

Acceptance. Peace. 

Hope. 

xx