Cleared for Clinical Trial!

Yesterday, I spent the majority of the day at the cancer center. I had been getting my routine monthly check-ups at their off-campus location, so this was the first time I've had to do the big cancer center thing in quite a while. Back to where I had chemo. Back to where people with all kinds of cancer diagnoses fill the public spaces, many in wheelchairs, some on oxygen. Back to where I, strangely, look like the healthiest one in the room. It made the news of my cancer progression seem even more real and serious than before. 

But I got all my tests knocked out and even got to see the results of my bone scan before I left that afternoon. The results of my earlier CT scan were hard for me to decipher, but a bone scan is pretty straightforward. There are new areas of cancer in the left side of my L5 vertebrae and the left femoral neck, which explains the low back/hip pain I've been having since our trip to West Virginia. There are some issues with my costochondral junctions, where my ribs connect to the cartilage that holds them to my breast bone. At the beginning of 2020, I had some significant pain from these, although at the time they couldn't find the cause. They're not hurting anymore, though. I don't know why, but I'll take it. I also have some new rib involvement, which thankfully hasn't been causing pain, and of course the earlier metastases in the T3 and T4 are still there.

In my appointment with my oncologist, we calculated when the Ibrance will be out of my system (tomorrow!) and determined that I would start the clinical trial as soon as the lab results got back from California. Last night they must have gotten what they needed because they scheduled me to start the clinical trial on Friday! I'll go in for labs at 12:15, then I'll head to the infusion center at 1:15 for the rest of the fun. I'll take whichever med I'm randomized to get (fingers still crossed for elacestrant, the trial drug!), wait around for a couple of hours, do more blood work and an EKG, and head home. 

I'm excited to get going and in awe of how God worked out all the moving pieces so that I can start my new drug the very first day I'm eligible to do so. It's just one more reminder that my life and times are in His hands and the God who cares for the sparrows cares even more about me.