Christmas Eve and Christmas were beautiful, happy days.

05 Jan Christmas Eve and Christmas were beautiful, happy days.

  The boys had a blast and Santa actually did come (Luca was semi- convinced he was getting coal, right up until the last minute).  It was so good to be surrounded by family and to be pampered as the celebrations whirled around me bundled up in my chair.

Post Christmas has been a bit of a challenge.  To keep the story from getting too long, I am currently not getting any chemo.  Focus has instead switched to managing my breathing issues, widespread/diffuse edema and pain.  Friday I had about 1 litre of fluid drained from my right lung.  It has made a huge difference in my ability to breathe while at rest.  I am still struggling to breathe while up and around (though I am up and around VERY little) which is due to the diffuse edema that still present in both lungs (can’t mechanically drain this type of fluid, but I’ve been on diuretics to see if I can, in layman’s terms, pee it off”).  Gary thinks it would be a very unlikely that the cause of this diffuse lung edema is lung metastases, which is fab, but another potential cause is congestive heart failure.

Tomorrow morning I get another Echo (my last was December 11th and I passed it with flying colors) to see if my heart function could have dramatically changed since then and now be the root of my current probs.  I don’t think so, I mean I’ve been on several drugs that potentially cause heart failure, but my breathing issues preceded (though not to this extent) the December 11th test.  We’ll see soon enough I suppose.

I hope we get these issues settled soon because I have some serious movie butt going on from all the sitting.  I am READY to be up and PARTICIPATING in my life, in the lives of the boys and Joe and the dogs.  I’m certainly not opposed to a little down time now and again, but I prefer to earn it!

Please send us some good vibes and prayers for some fixes and a return to a good quality of life.  Thanks!  Jen