Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!
First post of 2014, although it will comprise of looking back over the last year. I can't believe how fast this year has gone, this time last year I was waiting for a scan to see how much tumour progression I had so they could decide when I was going to have to switch from Iressa to IV chemo. I made it to another 6 months before I did so.

2013 saw us living in limbo as I no longer had stable disease, we didn't have the freedom as we did in 2012 as we didn't know from week to week how well I was going to be or what the next scan would say, or when even my treatment would change but....... I made it through another year so no matter what, it was worth it.

In March I was asked by Roy Castle if I would like to have my photo taken for an exhibition by the photographer Rankin called 'Alive in the face of death'. I jumped at the chance and said yes, what an opportunity. Here I am with my Mum & Dad at the exhibition in Liverpool next to my picture!

Our first garden 'party' of the year was themed 'Happy Day's' we decorated our outdoor garden 'bar' as the 'Diner' and all our guests were asked (as always) to dress the part.

I had also been nominated for the Roy Castle Ambassadors award for my awareness and fund raising and what I have been doing to help others, and as you know I won!

At the begining of June I had to start on the IV chemo (Cisplatin/pemetrexed) here I am having my first infusion.
I did suffer a bit after this one and ended up in hospital because of the chemo induced migranes. Afer that I was no longer able to have the strong anti sickness drugs so you can imagine what happened.

A couple of weeks later we had the first charity event of the year, our second lung cancer sponsored walk over Cannock Chase. We raised around £4,000 in total and had about 100 people walking all wearing lung cancer awareness T shirts.

At the end of June my lovely daughter Tanya got enganged to Stuart so we now have a wedding to plan and look forward to.

The next event was after my second chemo. As I had thrown myself into my 'handicraft' hobbies it made sense for it to be a charity craft fair. With this the 'Contemporary Crat Carnival' was born. I roped in fellow crafters that I had met at craft fairs to help out and we had our first charity craft fair in July.
By now the steroids had started to take their toll and my weight was going up!

I still had 2 more chemo's to do. I did at this point have 3mm reduction in tumour size, not much but my oncologist said this was positive. The chemo was starting to take it's toll on me and it was taking longer each time to get over it. After 4 cycles and lot's more steroids I no longer looked like me :(

Next scan after treatment finished showed no further change so I was classed as being 'stable'. I opted not to have the maintenance as i meant sticking with the steroids and my oncologist said the difference may only be a month or so before I got progression again. I wanted to look and feel normal again for however ling that may be. Now this bit was over we decided to go on holiday and went back to Mexico (my sister and brother in law were going so we thought we would join them). It was a lovely and much needed holiday!

2 weeks after we got back from Mexico we had the second charity craft fair - the Christmas one, another great event. A coulple of weeks after that though I started coughing again, I had an urgent scan and just as I thought the tumour was growing again, not only was it growing the scan ow showed 3 tumours and more lymph node involvement. The IV chemo hadn't worked. My oncologist had said that there was a promising trial that was currently recruiting. It is for immumotherapy (PD1 & PDL1) there have been similar trials at various stages going on for the last couple of years and so far the results are looking promising.

My old biopsy was sent to San Francisco for testing but was too old so I had another one just before Christmas.

For Christmas we had the whole family round for dinner again, a lovely day was had by all. We did have some fun with the photo booth! This is my daugher and my neice.

The day after boxing day I got the biospy results back and I tested postive for the PD1 antibody. I will be starting the trial on 20th January!

2013 has been a rollercoaster. I have been over a couple of the bumps and am still going. Some of the friends I have met along this journey have not been so lucky and their journey has ended. There is not one day go's by when I don't think of all the brave soles I have gotten to know over the last couple of years. I have also made lot's of new friends this year who have joined me on this journey whether they be sufferers or their relatives, I will continue to support them all in anyway I can. So here's to 2014....may it be a great year for all of us. I for one will continue to be happy everyday, life is for living and while I'm alive I don't intend to waste one single day X