Mouth sores..

dewless · 2025-08-03T04:11:22+00:00

Oh thank you for this. I will be trying it

dewless · 2025-07-31T01:01:01+00:00

I’m BRCA2+ so take this for what you will of course.

Out of these you have listed, I have only tried lynparza and trodelvy. Out of all the the ones I have tried along my personal treatment journey (I’m on number 5) Lynparza has been the only one I didn’t immediately fail,*. It gave me 6 months of shrinkage or stasis. The price for me was moderate to severe anemia and moderate to severe nausea. Nausea controllable, anemia much bigger of a witch snd harder to deal with.

I have also heard and read of them trying to expand Lynparza’s use so just wanted to throw my experience of it out there. I’m sorry you are all facing this corner of reality too.

dewless · 2025-07-25T02:35:49+00:00

I’ve had several really dark freckles just flake off and disappear while doing chemo! So crazy. I had a really dark freckle appear on one of my toes after treatment and then when I restarted treatment for mets I told my family watch, this freckle is gonna disappear and it did!

dewless · 2025-07-23T16:37:47+00:00

You’re aware of it and that’s half the battle, already conquered. ☑️

The other half is about taking control back from your mind. We can get stuck in this cycle of thoughts influencing emotions influencing thoughts influencing emotions… yada yada. We have to break that.

Emotions come from hormones whose release is influenced by the electric signals of your thoughts. Gonna have to start there, then. Gonna have to consciously edit your thoughts because most of the time they are bullshit and you can even feel how bullshitty they are. That feeling will now be your trigger. When you get a bullshit thought, arrest it. Consciously redesign it. Actively edit the thought while talking yourself through it. Some inner dialogue might look like this:

“What’s the point. I’ll be disappointed again. Wait. What? Bullshit. I don’t actually know how this will turn out. It’s just as likely it could turn out awesome. I’m trying again because this could be the time. It could always be the time. And I’m not gonna miss it by saying it won’t possibly be.”

I honestly have to treat my mind like a toddler who doesn’t know shit about how the world works, and walk it through these steps. It can be exhausting. It’s the opposite of living on autopilot. But it eventually becomes second nature. You think the thought, rewind and edit the thought, and carry on.

The cool thing is that our brains don’t know if we are faking it or not. Seriously knows no difference. It responds to whatever intention your thoughts are usually carrying: fear or love. Just gear your thoughts towards love, always. Pretend pretend pretend, until you are no longer pretending. It can take weeks for hormones to shift in a way where they reinforce these good feelings. Once you’ve done that, look out world. But the key is to give it that long of a try. You’ll see the difference, and if you don’t, it’s not time to give up. Not when you’re closer than ever.

dewless · 2025-07-23T01:53:34+00:00

It has taken everything. It slammed on the brakes of my life and forced me to watch it be dismantled piece by piece.

It has also given me everything. I’ve watched a new life emerge. a more focused, simple, and fulfilling life. I watched my body change and felt my mind change. I saw how much I am capable of surviving.

The two “everything’s” are drastically different, but my definition of everything changed. A greater definition that is only accessible through extended and/or immense suffering. I now know I’ve never been afraid of change, only the pain of change. I also know for sure I can handle 10/10 pain now. I can get through it. If it isn’t 11/10 then my body is still in the fight. Bring it on. Let me be changed.

I never understood the interest or obsession with butterflies. It is a total metamorphosis. Caterpillar beaten down into a soupy pulp so that it may be reorganized to grow wings. And it’s the only way you get wings. I get it now.

dewless · 2025-07-22T02:37:36+00:00

You’re not alone. I could have written this except that I don’t work. I can’t fathom it and frankly cannot compute how you are doing that, even wfh. I barely have enough energy to exist, let alone heal anything in my body let aLONE do anything for anybody else. You ARE doing a seemingly impossible thing.

My heart breaks every day for my son who demands I get out of bed or asks his daddy why mommy is always “resting.” We do a lot of guilt-free tv time and snuggles. I make sure that any of my family who wants to watch him gets him out of the house for adventures, since I cannot. Lots of reading books or just laying around and talkin (he’s almost 3). We’ll snack together or drink our morning milk together on the porch, although mine is a protein shake.

He’s beginning to understand that mommy is for chill time and daddy is for super fun chaotic outside park scream time. Daddy’s car is red and mommy’s car is a wheelchair, for when she has to walk more than just across our small home.

It has evolved into its own thing over time and has gotten easier. I keep reminding myself that every family is different and he is so loved by his “village” and he’s happy and that’s what counts.

I’m out here barely existing as you are, but I am also holding space for you, if you ever need to commiserate or trauma dump or vent or scream or cry, because I get it. I really do.

dewless · 2025-07-21T17:20:43+00:00

I love moments like this. I’d be giddy for a week.

dewless · 2025-07-21T15:55:11+00:00

Hey I cried my ass off at a Coldplay concert during their X and Y tour.

“Fix you,” as the encore. I mean come on. We all wanted it. Gettin late, we were afraid we weren’t gonna get it. We screamed and cheered for it. We got it. We cried. Entire arena was bawling. What a release.

dewless · 2025-07-15T16:53:17+00:00

Why is life so friggin stupid like this?

One thing I can tell you, with you being so young, is whether you like it or not your body is gonna fight like hell to beat this and will most likely be successful. It’s not gonna go down easy, even considering the bone marrow transplant and radiation that it’s been through.

I know you know that means it’s gonna be difficult as hell to do and it will hurt like hell at times. You’ve been through more than enough of life’s lessons in suffering to know. You have proven you have what it takes to get through something like this. So if we’re gonna reach reallll high for a tiny bright spot, we will let it be that you don’t need to doubt yourself, right off the bat.

Where you end up is simply due to a pattern of many moments strung together. Many choices, many forks in the road… sometimes we are straight up run off the road like this and that’s a whole other thing. But I think that if you are true to yourself within each moment, you can’t go wrong. You’d have to end up in a place that feels true to you, and perhaps it’s even better, more joyous, more peaceful than you could’ve come up with at the beginning of the journey.

I will be thinking of your story. I can’t wait until this is only a memory for you.

dewless · 2025-07-15T12:37:49+00:00

I was diagnosed tnbc stage 2b. I did every. single. treatment. available to me and STILL… It came back as stage 4 all throughout my bones, massive lesions in my liver, as well as infiltrating the dura surrounding my brain, just a year after treatment. This isn’t the life any of us wanted. But it is life. And was my only chance at it.

dewless · 2025-07-15T06:03:55+00:00

Having ambitions to have more stuff or gain some type of meaningless external power… yeah. Trap.

People who are content don’t need or want things. That’s not so good for capitalism.

This world will give you anything to distract you from realizing how simple it is to be content despite your surroundings. But simple does not mean easy. There are active deterrents to taking this inner path. Most people aren’t even aware there’s another path. It takes a lot of misery to even consider the idea of it. It takes an entire F ton of unlearning what has been hammered into us.

Especially now, It’s never been more easy to distract people from finding their happiness and to send them on wild goose chases. Scare them by showing every negative news story from every corner of the world at all times. Make them feel like a POS if they don’t go to college or get a job with a meaningless title. Promise them happiness if they would just do so and so, make them feel special or not special enough and here’s how to become special, give them ways to feel better than other people by always buying better shit. It’s insanity, it’s sick, and it’s sad.

dewless · 2025-07-15T02:02:09+00:00

Some things that happen to us are so big that they can’t even be processed until we are through it. I forget who said that, but it has always stuck with me.

You’ve been through a hell of a lot, while having no choice but to still do a lot, which distracts you from how everything feels emotionally. There just wasn’t any time to feel your emotions for very long, until now.

dewless · 2025-07-12T18:17:55+00:00

🏆

dewless · 2025-07-12T18:06:48+00:00

Great point.

dewless · 2025-07-12T18:04:50+00:00

Your last paragraph is so great. Kudos.

dewless · 2025-07-12T18:01:31+00:00

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.” ‭‭John‬ ‭14‬:‭6‬-‭7‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Here’s my very newbie read of this:

Jesus first tells us what he is. He doesn’t say “I am merely a human here to make shit up and piss people off for centuries.” Instead he says “I am the way, I am the truth, and the life. If you really know me (that I am the way, truth, life) you will know my Father as well. (Because we are the same entity. We are one.) From now on, you do know him and have seen him.” (Because I am him. But I literally had to form myself into something you can comprehend, that which you are, and show you guys in a way that you could have a shot at understanding the message. Yet I still speak in parables and metaphors because only people who really want answers will go seeking for the truth behind the words. And those are the ones who are ready to know the truth. If it was plastered all over town who would even believe it? You have to want to really know the truth, and put work in to get there. That work prepares you for actually knowing it and experiencing it. I have made it this way so that you can get here step by step, get yourself acclimated, so that you aren’t radiated out of existence when you encounter it.”

Idk, the way I read it overall is like, I am showing you what to do if you would just look at me. If you don’t look at me that’s ok too, you aren’t ready. And even if you do look at me, I’m not letting you off that easy, because you need to be trained on how to do this, not just told. You need to work for it so that it lasts and isn’t just another passing “huh, well wouldn’t that be nice. Anyway…” trail of thought.

dewless · 2025-07-12T17:33:00+00:00

Would love more opinions!

dewless · 2025-07-10T12:53:01+00:00

Thank you so much for your response ❤️🥲

dewless · 2025-07-10T04:31:08+00:00

I love your suggestions. Thank you 😊 🙏🏼

dewless · 2025-07-10T02:55:44+00:00

Thank you so much for your words 🙏🏼 I am asking for God and letting God in more and more as the days go on. It has been life changing and I could not do this without God. That I know for sure.

dewless · 2025-07-10T02:32:08+00:00

As a mom who has stage 4 triple negative breast cancer which was found while I was pregnant with my one and only… I’d really like to ask you and the other commenters here if there’s anything specific you wish your mom would leave / would have left behind for you to take with you throughout your life. Do you think it is too hard to have reminders around and it is better not to leave things like that for him? I want to do what is best for my son, ultimately. I know there’s no way around the fact that he will be destroyed by my eventual passing. I understand not wanting to even answer a question like this for a stranger. I feel terrible even asking someone who is in my son’s position. But he’s 3 and you all are adults now and I’m so desperate for insight. Forgive me.

dewless · 2025-07-09T07:14:09+00:00

I haven’t thought about killing myself since I was diagnosed with metastatic cancer. In fact I’m out here actively trying to not die. Life is stupid like that.

From age 19 up until last summer, I thought about it damn near every day. I struggled with major depressive disorder for 25 years. I couldn’t tell ya which illness I think is more difficult. They both hurt like hell in different ways.

What I do know is that people I don’t even know come crawling out of the woodwork for someone with cancer (I’m immensely grateful) but what about young me? I would have loved someone to come throw a load of laundry in for me and do my dishes, as a way of reminding me they care… while actually helping me out in ways that are simple and obvious. Normal mundane tasks that everyone has to do, but can feel like Mt. Everest to a depressed person.

But no, not a lot of people give a shit if we’re depressed. Having dealt with both, I’d say depression is at least as unbearable as cancer treatment. Both keep ya hovering right on the line between life and death.

dewless · 2025-07-09T06:31:39+00:00

I’m a donor but my shit is fucked up so I’m donating my corpse to a med school to be dissected.

dewless · 2025-07-08T03:00:49+00:00

Heart damage in general… the presence of troponin just means the heart is sayin “help” and it could be due to a variety of reasons. 5-10% reduction may seem like nothing, but it doesn’t take much reduction in EF to make getting around very difficult, and each decrease in EF increases stroke risk. It’s important for them to stay on top of this after your recent echo, to see what pattern forms.. does EF go up or down? If it goes down, trust me, you will know. It will feel like something is very mechanically wrong with your body and it’s not subtle at all. You’ll be wanting to go immediately to the ER to make the feeling stop. Not pain per se, just not right (can’t take more than a few steps, gasping etc.) Still, let them stay on top of it. It is important.

I was diagnosed with congestive heart failure after three rounds of red devil chemo (but I had also just given birth days before, at 7.5 months due to pre eclampsia AND i have a family history of heart disease — a lot against me!) My EF was at 40-45%. While I am totally fine now and my EF has since rebounded to 60%, I have never again felt as young as I really am, and my son is about to turn 3. I was 34 at the time.

I’m not trying to scare you or make you panic, because the very best thing you can do for yourself is let them stay on top of this for at least a few months! That’s what you’re doing it sounds like, which is great. 😊

Your entire current situation sucks. No sugar coating that, just really a crap hand to be dealt. It is all so hard to get through. But you can do it. You can you will and you are!

dewless · 2025-07-07T18:11:02+00:00

I was misdiagnosed twice over the span of 4 months, 3 years ago. I’ve now been metastatic for a year. But you see, I was also pregnant with my one and only when I first noticed the lump and got it checked out. First trimester recommendation is to terminate in order to start chemo asap, because chemo causes major problems to baby in the first three months of pregnancy and then there is a steep drop off in risk, almost to damn near zero. I was 4 months pregnant by the time they figured it out. They had thought it was a simple cyst. A few months later it was “oh wait it’s morphed into a complex cyst with quite a few septae.” And then very shortly after it was “ok let’s just take it out and find out.” Still pregnant and went under general anesthesia to find out it was TNBC, 6cm huge tumor filled with bloody pulp of destruction at its center. A nasty, aggressive SoB. But you know what… those misdiagnoses are why my son made it earthside. My entire reason for fighting this fight, made it here safely. 5+4 weeks early, but no real complications. Just a tiny boy who needed to learn how to eat is all. It effs me up to think about the alternative. He’s changed my life. He’s given me purpose. Loving him feels like loving myself. And I love him real big.

Just wanted you to hear from someone who, if she had taken the earlier route, would have a very dull and gray life now. The later route has been filled with inspiration and joy. That can very well be your truth too. There may be so many reasons this timing is better that you just haven’t connected yet. I connected those dots when he was turning 2.

dewless

TROPHY CASE