For the last 10 months, trips to Brisbane for chemo have been relatively straight forward. We go, we see the Oncologist, we get a green slip, we leave.
Well...
We went.
We saw the Oncologist.
We left.
No green slip.
What does that mean?
The green slip is the 'we need to see you again so we will book an appointment in X weeks'.
Nicola has finished her chemo...
There is no appointment to see her again.
And to be honest, the next person that says to me "Oh, you must be so happy to be at this point!" is going to get smacked in the face with the full wrath of a Mumma who hurts like you couldn't believe!
I posted on a facebook group last week that Nicola was facing her last chemo session and I wasn't quite sure how to feel about it... and so many people told me how relieved I must feel, and how I must be so glad to be getting back to normal...
And all it did was make me feel worse than you could possibly believe.
There is no 'back to normal' for us. There is no sense of relief... there is no happiness, there is no celebration or jubiulation. There is nothing, except an overwhelming feeling of hurt.
We have come so far...
We have so far still to go.
We know this was her last chemo session...
We also know that she is not cured. She is not NED (No Evidence of Disease) and she is not in remission. We know that she WILL relapse. We know that when she does, there is very little we can do...
And all of this was confirmed last week when we saw her oncologist for her last chemo appointment.
"You knew from the beginning that the very best we could do was to buy time. From here on out, that time is going to come at a cost."
Those were the words of her Oncologist.
Words that, from here on out, have been forever slammed into my heart.
It's not that this is anything we didn't already know... just, more that we had it confirmed. There was no ambiguity, no uncertainty, no hesitation... just simple facts.
The chemo has not worked as expected.
The radiation has not worked as expected.
She still has a very large tumor in her pelvis.
She still has stage 4 metastasis in her lungs.
Her pain levels are not going to get better.
Her pain levels will probably get worse.
There is a suspicion she is already starting to show progression of disease.
Second line treatment MAY buy us time, but at a heavy price.
Quality of life will decrease as pain increases and second line treatment will make that worse.
From our perspective, it is simple.
From here on out, we focus on quality of life. We focus on her happiness. We do what we can to ensure that she is happy and comfortable.
We focus on making our memories and making the most of every moment we have left.
The simple fact is... from now on...
Every moment is precious.
