August 8, 2025

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Before I go into the plastic surgeon appt for today, let me fall back to the oncologist appt from Wednesday.

We got home from the 3 hour drive back from VCU, barely getting in the door after saying hello our 7 labs that apparently thought we'd been gone for MONTHS, not just overnight. I got my stuff put in the house and no sooner do things settle enough for me to think about going pee, my phone rings. It's VCU. I answer and walk out to the garage where Nathan was with the dogs. I put my call on speaker phone and we walk back just inside the door so we could hear the call. It's my VCU oncologist. She's calling with results from my MRI....... I had gotten the written results while we were on our way home and was pretty certain I knew what the terminology said, but I knew I had to wait to get the call from the doctor to ensure I was reading the information correctly. The MRI detected no cancer! The Rotter's nodes that were in question previously were also showing nothing! Can I get an AMEN?!?!?!

She goes on to explain my options at this point... basically the same thing she told me in the office... continue the current regimen, take out the Neulasta, modify the dosages, etc.. the choice was mine. I did ask her recommendation and she said she did not see the need for the Neulasta with getting the Keytruda already. Noted. I asked her point blank what she thought I should do. She told me we can stop treatment and move to surgery and IF there's any residual disease, that can be treated with chemo afterwards. Ok, let's do that. With how I reacted to the "Red Devil" cocktail, I'm really afraid to try it again, even with a smaller dose, even with the Tylenol and Claritin.... That was literally the worst I've ever felt in my entire life. I wouldn't wish that pain on my worst enemy.

She reiterated that she's putting my case in front of the tumor board there Tuesday and would call with the outcome. She also gave me a way to bring this information up to my local oncologist with regards to discontinuing treatment at this time. That ought to be a fun conversation.

Needless to say, there were more tears of joy. What an emotional week. 



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