A summer of ups and downs

The good part is the ups are really ups and the downs are just crappy life stuff that people decide to make more difficult that it has to be...

Last time we spoke, it was the end of May.  Was still doing Keytruda, getting ready for the end of school, and leaving for are BIG SAFARI in Tanzania with my family and Mom.  (Note:  This post will not give you how the trip was, but I can say, if someone ever says, "Wanna go on Safari?"  GO.  Don't think about, don't question it, just go.  It is life changing in a way that YOU need it most.  Africa meets you where ever you are and fills in a puzzle piece that you never know you needed.  JUST GO.) Twenty eight hours later, we came home, I did my last Keytruda before my scan at the end of the month, and went to Denver to visit Grace and her family, and to have Nolan attend his first Envisions Experience Camp.  One week later, we got home (again) and I started on all my doctor appointments.  Dermatology follow up, Dentist cleaning, Scan, and another operation on my rectum that I had several years ago called Trans Anal Tumor removal - SO MUCH FUN.  I know.....did you read it all twice.  It is exhausting.  In addition, I have been coughing up small, medium, and large "masses" from my lungs.  Now, in old 1800s movies that means you die.  These days it means that you put one in a glass jar and biopsy it.  When this started, Hank was like, "It is probably just junk, but lets see."  Well, it was some junk and some tumor.  So, much so, that it was noticeable in my last scan.  One tumor just gone.  While super efficient and a nice clean break, not so predictable or fun.  They come up after three days of coughing or in one fell swoop with blood all of my hands and tears in my eyes.  One even felt like a ping pong ball go up my left lung.

So, that is the status, but here are the results.  I will, yet again, be around for a while.  I will continue on Keytruda at the same time I will get Cyberknife on one tumor that just needs to be cut out because it is not cooperating with the Keytruda or Coughing methods.  So, more doctor's appointments than usual, but oh well.  My Dentist informed me that I need a crown replaced on one of my front teeth which I put off for a year, and she is done waiting.  My butt docs were happy with their surgery and plan, but that requires follow up also, but they are pretty convinced that my roto rooter job is complete and with the help of six month scopes and Keytruda (no coughing method allowed in this area), I will be "clean as a whistle".  I know, quite the visual, but I just got off Oxy and no I am not living in a tent.

As for me, I will be doing all this and I am fighting with the school district because Nolan's transfer was denied because of "space availability", not to be confused with "capacity" even though they use those terms interchangeably AND they did with me in a meeting OF WHICH there is no appeal process.  So, now we ask for the space availability calculations, but you know when nothing is making sense and you keep asking the question in a different way and you think you are getting closer to an answer, but you realize that it is either just the story they are feeding you, or they are just have a control problem, or if it got out there would be a coup?  This information has to exist.  Why not share?  Hell, my medical records are more available than "space availability" records at the Kent School District......come on boys....what are you afraid of?!?!?!?!  (wink wink)

Happy Friday,

Angela