A couple of people have asked me for a medical update so I figured I’d post here…since this is now the go to place for the latest news about me.
My last CT scan was on May 8th and was good news. The tumors are shrinking again, very slowly but they are shrinking. The CT scan prior to the May one showed that the tumors were increasing in size but that was due to me being off of the full chemo for a few months prior to that. I was off of the full chemo treatment due to the main chemo med causing me chest pains…so they temporarily discontinued it until I could have some cardiac testing done. Once that was done, they started me on cardiac meds which stopped the chest pains and we restarted the full treatment. Luckily, it started shrinking the tumors again. The May CT scan also surprisingly showed my enlarged spleen has also shrunk down a little bit for the first time. I assume this is good news.
Now for the bad part…over the last week or two, my abdominal pain has come back. It started in Florida but this week it has gotten really bad again. Sometimes the pain is to the point where I can’t walk, get off the couch, etc. Friday night was so bad that I actually considered going to the ER over it. The pain meds I’m on help a little, but not fully. When I met with the doctors on Tuesday, we had a lengthy discussion about my pain and came up with a new plan with a new med. It’s more of a long lasting pain medication but it takes a 3-4 days to fully kick in. I’m on day four now and the pain is a little better, but it’s still on the worse end of things. I’m hoping by tomorrow, it’ll be working like it should. If this plan doesn’t work, then there’s a few more options to try but unfortunately they are starting to run out of options for me in terms of pain management. It sucks because I’m obviously down for the count on the chemo weeks but now I’m also not able to do much on my non-chemo weeks. Let’s hope the doctors can come up with some sort of plan to keep my pain levels low so I can go back to doing the things I love.
As for me, I’m hanging in there emotionally. Can’t beat yourself up for something out of your control. I’m grateful for friends and family who are always there for me. I especially am thankful for Kyley…she’s always by my side through all of this and unfortunately is the one that sees me hurting the most day to day. She’s the strongest person I know.
The only thing I really need right now is donations. I hate asking this. It pains me to ask this. I’m a person who is always giving to the community and people and honestly feel ashamed to ask for help (even though people tell me I shouldn’t be). With the uncertainty of when I will return back to work full time and all of the bills coming in still, it’s going to be pretty tough for me here on out. Please consider donating if you can.
Here’s a link to PayPal, Venmo, or CashApp to donate: https://linktr.ee/tuckerm
or simply go to Shell Lake State Bank and you can make a donation there.
Thanks to Ben and Kate Juza for setting all of this up for me and spearheading the fundraising for me. I can’t thank them, Kyley, and everyone else in my life enough for everything everyone has done, and continues to do for me. Words cannot express the emotions I feel in my heart from everyone and all I can say is THANK YOU for making my life with cancer just a little bit easier.
