Welcome back to your irregularly scheduled program. We were able to get through a chemo treatment (yay!) so now there is 2 under her belt with this new regimen. Also they were able to do immunotherapy treatment.

After chemo there was quite a lot of pain for many days (almost a full week), but it finally seems to be subsiding now.

We met with a radiation oncologist a week ago, and they want to start radiation on her back right away. It’s one of her largest pain points, although her stomach and legs have been quite painful lately too. We are meeting with them next week to get setup for a week of radiation very soon (they will do a treatment every day for 5 days straight ant then that is it). I’m sure we will find out more information about that come this wednesday when we meet with them.

We saw her cardiologist this week, and it was a little sad as it’s probably the last time we’ll meet with him. He said that everything looks good and to just reach out if we need anything.

She got her left side fluid drained at the hospital this week and we continue to drain the right side at home every few days.

Today we start our week of vacation, so we are looking forward to doing a quick trip to Wisconsin Dells and to Lake Geneva. With Rebecca not being able to walk very much we’ll be trying out using a wheelchair at most places so that should be interesting. We took it for a spin yesterday at Three Oaks and it went well (picture)

Quality of life seems to have changed quite a bit in the last month. Rebecca spends the whole day and night on a chair. I sleep on the couch next to her at night. She’s on pain pills pretty much all day. Walking continues to be harder and more painful as she gets weaker and the disease progresses. Pain and pain management mean it’s hard to concentrate and that also means lots of naps throughout the day. We are hopeful now that we are in this chemo regiment and with the upcoming radiation planned that we may be in for some more days where she can say “this has been a good day”. But the trajectory is hard to ignore and it weighs heavy even on the most positive and hopeful thoughts.

I’m thankful that it is summer, that the girls are home with us, and that we get this next week to hang even more than usual. Prayers for things to go ok with our short travels, for rebecca sleeping in a bed (at the hotels) to be able to be made comfortable, for wheelchairing to work with what we’d like to do on vacation, for us to be able to be flexible if things don’t go as planned, for us to have some more good memories cemented, and for rebecca to have as many more times as possible where she can lift out of her ailments and pain and have some joyful moments.

Updates sometime later this week, probably with some fabulous photos of the vacationing Suarezes.

Love you all.