I blew up seven balloons today. Now, in comparison to your average birthday-party-throwing suburban mom, that's not much of an accomplishment. And to be honest, I have been working on building up my lung power for a few years now. But three Octobers ago, back in 2017, I didn't have enough wind in my lungs to make it up a few flights of stairs to my office, let alone blow up party balloons. I didn't know the reason at the time, but would discover a few weeks later that I had a trachea full of tumors—adenocarcinoma, to be exact. Lung cancer. Ugh. No wonder I couldn't catch my breath!
Fast forward to today, when as part of the Lungevity Foundation Breathe Deep Together event, I walked a little over three miles (which I now consider a short walk) with family and friends in honor of lung cancer patients, caregivers, researchers, doctors, and loved ones lost to the disease. When I was diagnosed with stage 4 disease in November of 2017, I wasn't certain I'd see the next November, but when 2018 rolled around, cutting edge targeted therapy had gotten me well enough that I was able to help co-organize and walk in that year's Breathe Deep Nashville event. I helped organize the 2019 event too, and walked, a bit more slowly however, having just finished a round of chemo that week.
This year we couldn't hold our regular community event due to the pandemic, but I'm grateful that my husband John, daughter Rachel, and friends Erica, Tara, and Ben could meet up to walk the course at Shelby Bottoms Greenway under an overcast October sky. Thankfully, the rain held off long enough for us get around the 5K loops. The annual event is usually a HUGE fundraiser for Lungevity, and this year's goal nationally is $500,000. I know it's not the best time to ask people for money, generally, but if you've got some extra jingle in your pockets and want to support the great work Lungevity does on behalf of folks like me (a living, breathing miracle of science), I encourage you to make a donation to my Lungevity fundraising team, The Litwits.
Oh, and there's also this to report: clear CT scans of chest, abdomen, and pelvis this past week. According to the best diagnostic machinery around these parts, that nasty ROS1+ adenocarcinoma is still sound asleep, snoring away somewhere deep in the cancer DNA. May the lorlatinib tyrosine kinase inhibitor keep on inhibiting! We'll scan again in December, adding in an MRI of the brain, so fingers crossed! Each day, each breath is a work of grace. And science. And I am ever grateful.
