I guess I'll start off with all the follow-ups from the last blog post. The unbearable pain in my ribs that no one could give me an answer for turned out to be a popped rib due to baby boy's rear end. Being out of place was stressing muscles and poking into organs. Once the chiropractor was able to pop it back in, it felt better and was mostly healed about a week and a half later. However, I am now dealing with bruised ribs on the opposite side because of baby boy's feet. He sure is giving me a run for my money!
And while we're on the subject of baby, it turns out that he DOES have the antigen that my body is trying to fight. Right now we're doing dopplers on his mid cerebral artery in his brain every two weeks to make sure that his blood flow still looks good. If things start to go downhill, it will become more often and intervention may be needed. Currently his numbers look fine, and even though his growth percentile has dropped in the past 4 weeks (from 70th to 35th), it's still normal and not time to panic.
So for the next two weeks, I focus on resting. I'm going to try to fatten this child up while taking pressure off my legs and pelvis. I have my bone biopsy surgery scheduled for June 20. When I hobbled into the oncologists office last week and expressed my concern over all my symptoms and the fact that my pain increased so quickly, he sent me for another set of x-rays immediately. After the previous set had come back "okay," the plan was to get me in for a MRI of pretty much my whole body as that would give us some insight to the symptoms I've been having, like dizziness, weight loss, etc. An MRI without contrast is considered the safest scan for baby. But I found out upon trying to schedule the MRI that it was in fact NOT safe, as I still have tissue expanders in and those have metal I them. NO metal is safe with magnetic resonance imaging. Then the plan became- call the plastic surgeon and either do the surgery for the swap or just remove them so I can have the MRI done. We never got to that point...
When the oncologist got the results of the last x-ray, he decided we'd just skip the MRI for now. We need to start treatment on the bones. He ordered the biopsy so that we have an answer SOON as to what these lesions are. Yes, they are growing, and yes they are consistent with metastases. They cannot just be ignored. Once the pathology comes back from the biopsy, we will know how to proceed. Biopsy will tell us if in fact it is malignant and what type of chemo to use. The reason we're skipping the MRI is because chemo will be systemic- even though we're specifically looking at my femurs and pelvis, it should help any other areas with metastases as well. Because I'll be 27 weeks at the time of biopsy, it is considered "safe" to proceed with chemo in the third trimester. All other scans and treatments can wait until after baby boy makes his arrival.
So that's where I'm at. I know what the next steps will be, I just have to take it one day at a time. If you're interested, a couple of friends of mine (some I've never even met in person!) have put together a fundraiser/support campaign for me. Would you rock a "Team Courtney" shirt? You can find details here: https://www.booster.com/strengthforcourtney?share=2541401403636172 Just as an FYI, the deadline for ordering is the 14th of June.
Thank you all for the continued support and prayers. I cannot wait to put this all behind me.
