Catch Up Over the Past Few Weeks

We have had a few things happen over the last few weeks but I was waiting for my medical appointment today before I started my post.

First things first….Rich and I celebrated our 35th wedding anniversary on August 17th. That is a long time. Although many of our close friends have been celebrating similar anniversaries, we know there are many who called it quits years ago. We have been through some thrilling adventures and some rock bottom lows. Throughout that rollercoaster ride, there has been a common thread of love and respect for each other. Do we drive each other crazy sometimes? Oh yes. But at the end of the day, I can’t think of a better person to be my ride or die friend and confidant. We drove about 45 minutes south of here and stayed in a lodge on Swan Lake. No TV. No phone service. No internet. We kayaked and got a solid night’s sleep before heading back to our home.

Cyndi and Rich Messina – newlyweds 17 Aug 91 in Alexandria, VA

35 years later, kayaking on Swan Lake

We joked about the fact that when we were first married, our plan was to retire in Alaska. Rich would fly me in his bush plane in and out of the remote towns for me to be a midwife there. Instead, we are in Montana, where Rich drives be to medical calls as an EMT. Step down? Maybe. But I wouldn’t have it any other way!

We did some exploring to Spotted Bear this summer as well. This is a lot of back country driving. It was a beautiful day though!

I also had a very good friend come and stay a few days with us. Kathy and I were diagnosed with cancer about a week apart. We were already good friends from our Church in Ralston, Nebraska…then we were fighting together…losing our hair together…and then growing it back together. She now lives in Virginia Beach but was traveling through Montana on her way to see her girls in Washington state. She stopped in and stayed a couple of days. We showed her around the area and Glacier National Park and got her a huckleberry ice cream cone (if you know, you know!). We sat on the front porch in our rocking chairs and talked for hours about EVERYTHING. It was good for my soul.

Another photo that I happened to catch this summer on my front porch that I absolutely love….

And the last photo is the double rainbow over our volunteer fire department at training one night this summer…

Okay…now for the health update. As most of you know, I carry around a pretty large tumor load. One of the tumors in my pelvis (not the biggest one), decided to stop behaving after 6 years of being stable. I talked to my local oncologist and asked to be scanned at three months rather than 6…which was in Feb of this year. Still growing. Not real fast, but enough to warrant action. I contacted my sarcoma specialist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. We flew there within a few weeks to figure out my options. Surgery was going to be very intensive, and I would not come out of surgery to recover to the active person I am now. That was out. We talked to the radiologist, and she believed they could target my tumor. The problem was I had a trip planned and paid for to Africa in June. It was the end of April at this point. The radiologist felt I was healthy enough to handle having 3 weeks of high intensity radiation (15 days of treatment) vs the regular radiation for 5 weeks. That would give me time to recover before leaving for Africa. Honestly, you don’t want to get sick overseas…so I was willing to do it. I was given 3 pages of side effects to look for with some being very unpleasant. I was so very blessed that I really only felt bloated in my pelvis and was a little more tired than usual. I think I managed 2 naps during those 3 weeks. (I am not a napper.) Anyhow, no major side effects and I went to Africa and had a great time communing with the elephants and rhinos…with a few giraffes, hippos, and lions thrown in there as well. I had my scans repeated about 10 days ago. I had to wait a few months after radiation because there is an automatic response of swelling of the tissue that is being radiated – whether it is tumor or healthy tissue. We needed to wait until the swelling went down. My scans showed everything else being the same and the troublesome tumor growing minimally. That wasn’t the news I wanted to hear, but I wasn’t too spun up about it as there were 6 months between the scan results. The minimal growth could have been in the three months between the scans in Feb and the radiation in May. OR…I could still have some swelling. I met with the radiation oncology NP today and she is also not really concerned. We decided we would wait another 3 months or so and then repeat the scans then. That would give us a true understanding if the radiation worked to stunt the growth of the tumor. Due to the Thanksgiving holiday and the NP going on vacation, I will be scanned the week of Dec 7th and meet back with her on Dec 14th. That means I will go into 2027 with life as usual or getting ready for chemo. That will be next year’s problem. Right now I am going to move forward with the freedom that I have the rest of the year to stop worrying about this. Tim arrives at the end of the week and I am looking forward to enjoying time with him.