Fast facts (if you don’t have time to read the full post: Today I had an MRI for my spine because my bone scans showed some sketchy round bois hanging out in my vertebrae. I have my results in my chart, but I have not had a chance to talk to my oncologist about them. The results are…. not great. I also have my second round of red devil chemo tomorrow afternoon at 3:15 pm. That will last 2.5 hours.

TO THE LONG VERSION!

Whatever I am about to share with you, please do not Google anything. We are not panicking yet. We are simply bracing for impact. Well, I am bracing for impact and you are observing and probably feel very similarly. We are on a rocket ship headed for disaster! Abort mission! I have chosen to share this with you all now instead of waiting until I learn more because this blog is a reflection of what is happening to me in real time. The emotions and stories shared here are a direct reflection of my lived experience. What happened today is just that and I don’t think waiting 24 hours to learn more makes a difference in how I end up sharing it anyways.

My chart read the following after the MRI on my spine: “A 1.4×1.6cm lesion within the L1 vertebral body that is concerning for metastatic disease. There are other scattered tiny punctate areas of enhancement seen within the lumbar spine that are concerning for metastatic disease.”

You will not Google. I will not Google. Swear to me you will not Google. But what this is saying is that my cancer has spread to my spine. I am hoping… praying to whatever the fuck is in the universe… all the things right now that this is NOT the case. The MRI dude’s interpretation has to be wrong!

What the fuck is fucking happening. Fuck. Fuck. FUCK. F U C K.

It is hard not to feel like I will die now. Here I was today, having a great fucking day, telling myself I can do another round of red devil chemo and survive it and that honestly is the least of my problems now. There could be cancer elsewhere. And it is not like I can cut off my spine the same way I can cut off my boobs and remove my asshole lymph nodes. I need my spine! Why the spine! I mean, I need my boobs too but I have decided that if they have to go, they have to go. But my spine??? It is not like I can get a new fucking spine on eBay.

Cancer is Murphy’s Law: anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. I should have kept this in my back of my fucking mind before I opened my stupid chart this morning. I had too much confidence. Okay, so there is a chance still that it could not be cancer, but it is looking pretty bleak with my results.

I am dying to know (lol morbid pun?) what this means for me if it is indeed cancer that has spread. Will I require a spine biopsy? Can my body even handle that right now? Will this change chemo treatment? Will I need more chemo? Different chemo? Longer chemo? Do I go from “curative” to “palliative”? Will I have cancer forever? Will I die?

I don’t want to die.

Now that we have that emo fucking news out of the way, I wanted to share a happy story that made me cry tears of love and deep appreciation. I realize that was a hard pivot and I am really sorry, but we need to end this on some sort of happy note because I know none of us are going to sleep well this evening with this pending doom news.

A good friend of mine took me out to dinner last night to PROOF in Kennewick. It was a lovely dinner. I have been told multiple times that I should not be eating spicy food, but like I love a good burn and like to ignore rules sometimes. I picked the Nashville fried chicken sandwich (delish!) and some sweet potato tots. No regrets! When it was time to ask our waitress for our check she told us that someone had covered our tab for the evening. Um… what? She goes, “It appears you have some sort of guardian angel. They said they knew you and wanted to make sure you were taken care of for the evening.” Guardian angel. The waitress had no idea how much those words hit my heart. My friend and I look at each and burst into tears. It was an unexpected way to end the evening.

I am generally a pretty observant person, so I was surprised I didn’t see the person who knew me leave. I am guessing I know you too? I wish you would have said hi and I wish I knew who you were so I could thank you and hug you. If you are reading this, your act of generosity really hit hard.

I continue to be so insanely blessed by so many of you. From small acts of kindness like texts and calls to random gifts and cards in the mail and dinners, your kindness does not go unnoticed. I am having a hard time with the language that fully captures how deeply loved I feel right now. Thank you so much for giving me that spark of hope in this insanely hellish moment in my life. I don’t know how I can repay you all for what you’re giving or have given to me.

Today’s song lyric of the day is brought to you by Daniel Powter.

“Cause you had a bad day
You’re taking one down
You sing a sad song just to turn it around
You say you don’t know
You tell me, “don’t lie”
You work at a smile, and you go for a ride
You had a bad day”

– Bad Day, Daniel Powter