Parker (AKA Camille, cough, hack) in Stage 4

 

                                                              A Day in the Life with Metastatic Breast Cancer           Episode 3 Hello, again. This episode was supposed to be more about drug side effects, but life has intruded, and taken me off topic, as it were. Today, I’m more interested in talking about how people respond, once they find out about what you’re going through. Often, what they say tells you more about them than about what is actually going on with you. This is useful! As Maya Angelou famously wrote, “When people show you who they are, believe them the first time.” And move on from them, if you must. Here are some of the reactions I got from strangers, as well as those close to me in the early days with stage 4 breast cancer. Making those initial ...

                                          A Day in the Life with Stage 4 Metastatic Breast Cancer      Episode 2 - side effects no one tells you about! Hello again - Parker here - I’m back, as promised, with more of a day in the life with stage 4 metastatic breast cancer. Today, I’d like to talk about the more peculiar side effects from one of the meds I’m taking - the super serious drug prescribed to keep my terminal cancer from becoming terminal sooner, rather than later.   In February of 2021, I began a daily regimen of Verzenio, a wildly powerful drug shown to (for a time) inhibit the further spread of cancerous lesions. And, because most breast cancers love estrogen, I was also prescribed an aromatase inhibitor. That one is to squelch every last bit of estrogen my already post menopausal body wants to produce. I’ll talk about that on...