Nearing the end of the trail…

No, really, just the end of the active treatment phase. I’m beginning to be able to see the forest for the trees.

Today was 19 of 30 total treatments. Incredible that each treatment lasts less than five minutes. Looking back, it’s been a long arduous road from the initial diagnosis, through five months of chemotherapy, then surgery with all the attendant discomforts of that, and finally, the home stretch with radiation therapy.

Each phase brought its own set of issues and demands, stressors that affect my immune system and my emotional state. Each brought challenging questions and decision points that needed to be addressed in a timely fashion.

And here we are.

Just over two weeks to completion, and then there will be more to address. It does sometimes seem impossible, that it will never end, that it never happened! Next up are decisions about continuing suppressive therapy; for sure an aromatase inhibitor which has it’s own set of issues, and now consideration of Abemaciclib, which a recent study showed has real promise to decrease recurrence rates for people with residual tumor burden level III (yup, that’s me, with a 1/4 chance of recurrence), at least in the first two years of use. the side effects are daunting.

I’ll probably take it anyway as I can always change my mind.

The real question is: what will I do then?