January 4. 2022

Hi, y’all –

I thought I would drop in to give everyone a quick update on a couple of things.  As I have said before, one of the things that cancer will teach you is that you have no control over anything and that there’s always something else that you don’t expect coming down the road.  So what is new you ask?  Well, let me share because I know you all are dying to find out.  (Not so much I’m sure).

So, for the past 4 weeks I have had fluid on my right ear and each week I have my oncologist PA look into my ear and see how it’s doing.  For 3 weeks it was clear and not infected (good) and we just kept watching it, well this past week (Thursday) they checked it and said that the fluid is starting to look “cloudy”.  As I’m sure you can imagine, “cloudy” is not good. So with us going into a long holiday weekend I was offered a prescription of antibiotics to 1) start taking or 2) just hold onto and start taking if my ear had any pain at all.  So what did I decide to do?   Of course, pick up the antibiotics and start taking the pills because a month of fluid on my ear was, well enough and frankly, very annoying.  

So on Friday, I started taking my antibiotics and by Saturday I felt my right eye starting to have some symptoms that seemed a lot like my Uveitis which seemed like it was getting ready to flare up and have an episode.  Now many of you have not heard of Uveitis and hopefully, you never have to deal with it.  I, however, have been lucky enough to have this many, many times in my life and it’s not fun.  The best way that I know how to describe it is that it’s like lupus but consolidated in your eye.  It’s where your body sends out white blood cells to your eye as if your eye is hurt, but it’s not, so the white blood cells start attacking a healthy eye.  If left untreated the white blood cells will actually turn the fluid part of your eye to gel and it can result in blindness.  (Good times, right?). Here is a link that will explain what it is better than I have – it can be found here.

The way to treat this is with steroid drops and since my uveitis has always been so wonderfully rare and hard to treat that I have to do drops every 30 minutes for the first few days and then once an hour for another week or so and then slowly taper off to every 2 hours for a week, 3 hours for the week, etc.  I’m sure you get the picture.  Often when this flares I am on drops and being seen by my eye doctor at least once or twice a week for months until it’s gone.  

So this morning I was in the eye doctor and sure enough – ding, ding ding – you have uveitis and it’s a tough one this time.  Lots of white blood cells floating around the eye which means we have to hit it hard and hit it fast before it gets out of control. My eye doctor has been amazing at managing this over the past 11+ years and I love her for that.  I’ve been doing well for a long time and haven’t had an episode since 2017.  Did you hear that in 2017!!!  5 years – that may be the longest that I’ve gone without an episode since being diagnosed with this fun stuff almost 20 years ago.

Anyhoo – I am not surprised.  My body is SO immune compromised right now that it doesn’t know what to fight.  Should it fight ear infections, cancer or uveitis?  It’s just going crazy trying to figure out what to do.  Go body – Go!  I must say, I have been thanking my body, this wonderful body, for all it’s doing for me.  It has so much going on and it’s still kicking ass and taking names!  Go body – Go!  You rock!

I will continue with the antibiotics to clear up the potential ear infection or “cloudy” fluid in my ear (which is still bugging me because I can’t hear) and the eye drops every 30 minutes to continue fighting my uveitis and I will continue to praise the Taxol for doing what it’s supposed to be doing to fight cancer.  All of this is just a bump in the road.  As I am reminded often God is the only one in control because it certainly it’s me. 

Tomorrow is hump day.  Hard to believe we are already in the middle of the week.  I hope y’all are all having a wonderful week back to reality after the holidays.  Please continue to be safe – there are many who are coming down with the new COVID variant, the flu, and a lovely GI virus that’s out there.  Be safe!!

Xo,

Tracy