Welp. Here we are. I’ve written another blog post from Friday night, but that one felt a bit heavy, so I’m leaving you this, too.

Preston’s cancer is back. It’s a hell of a lot sooner than we’d hoped.

But.

Well, it is what it is.

He has 8 nodules in his lungs and one in his liver. They’re “tiny” by cancer standards, so we’ve got that going for us. We’ve met with his oncology team and feel confident that they’re ready to come out swinging.

Chemo starts June 4th.

FOLFIRI + Avastin this time. We’re switching out the Oxaliplaitin which was the drug that caused all sort of weird side effects. He’ll still get the pump for 46 hours once every two weeks in addition to an infusion of the other stuff.

Surgery’s not really on the table since it didn’t really work. It’s just too hard on the body and the lesions are in too many places. The idea is to shrink/keep the existing tumors at bay while keeping others from forming. It’s pretty much like managing a chronic disease. Hopefully we’ll be doing the managing for a long time!

We were pretty blindsided (see my other post for the real-time version. I’m sharing it because I think it’s an honest perspective) but now a few days out, I am really glad that  I didn’t spend the last 6 months agonizing over cancer. We were pretty free from it, actually, and it was a real blessing.

I’ve updated our FAQs page here with information about how you can help and also some things that we learned from last time. Hindsight is kind of an amazing thing. There were a few things that I’ll do differently this time – for example, I plan to see a counselor – and where we are now doesn’t feel like we’re riding a rollercoaster without a harness. It’s more like a commuter train – it stops in plenty of places we’d rather not be, but it mostly gets us where we need to go and it’s not scary unless you jump in front of it.

I’m not sure that analogy works. Sorry. I’m tired and that’s the best I can do for now.

With love,

Sarah