Hospital Stay

Okay, so I am the worst....

....at updating this blog.  I am soooooo sorry!  I have been asked over and over by both friends and family.  So here it is.  I have had news for quite a while, but just haven't felt up to writing about it all.  

I had a PET scan back a couple of weeks ago and it appears that all of the presence of cancer is shrinking.  This is with the hormone treatment I am doing.  Dr. Steffens said it was a free pass.  I get no side effects and it appears to be working.  It doesn't get any better than that!

My ribs started to hurt pretty badly.  Being the idiot I am, I fell down while chasing my parents dog.  He's a runner and I lost my footing.  It was awful.  So, I went in and had an x-ray.  It showed a new lesion.  UGH!  This was less than a week after the good news about the shrinkage.  What a bummer.  So, I went directly for a bone scan.  Dr. Steffens is not convinced that there is new disease, so we are going to use the bone scan as a baseline for future tests.  I will do PET and bone scans together to see what's going on in there.  Sometimes if there is disease in the bone and it is small the PET doesn't pick up on it.  So, as usual it's more wait and see.  I LOVE IT!!!

Tomorrow morning (or this morning) I am going in for surgery.  I will be having a rod put into my femur to fortify it.  This is good for two reasons.  I will be less likely to break that femur.  It is soooo weakened by the tumor and it was kind of inevitable that I would eventually break it, especially if I kept falling all the time.  The procedure will also mean drilling through my femur and it will get SOME of the tumor in the process.  So, other than being painful, it is the best alternative right now.  I think it will be a relatively quick recovery, so that's good!!!  I will have to spend at least one night in the hospital.  It will all depend on my pain management.  Dr. Ward is my orthopedic surgeon and he wants me to walk on that leg on Tuesday, so that should be interesting.  

Now for the fun.  Keep in mind that I have not personally put any of the stickers up, but that are popping up all over the place around here.  If you see any, snap a photo.  I think it would be awesome if they went viral.  There's nothing wrong with everyone representing.  And I have received 2 photos on Facebook of people enjoying themselves while wearing their Tara T-shirts!  I would love to see more.  And speaking of shirts, Gus has some in stock if you want to order.  Just email him at eengstrom@carolina.rr.com and he will get you going.  Let him know also if you need more stickers.  Steve from Contagious Graphics has made some new stickers with the blog address on there.  They're black and pink.  I dig 'em!  He's the best!  So, scroll down for photos of shirts and stickers!  Leave me some comments just to let me know you're reading this.  Or, if you have trouble with that, email me at: ikickcancersass@gmail.com

As always, 

Love and Gratitude,

Tara

Mary Keller with a beautiful rainbow

Sarah Probert representin'

Spotted at Target in Concord

Spotted at Mayflower in Concord

Spotted at Wal-Mart in Kannapolis (thanks for the photo, Gary!)

Spotted at Best Buy in Concord (Thanks for the photo, Gary)