We Are In The Endgame Now

This is probably the most bizarre blog post I’ve written but the fact that I can tie mom’s cancer to a Marvel movie, well ya it’s just bizarre. But hear me out.  Also, this post contains spoilers from Avengers: Endgame.

I was thinking about it on my drive to work, how this whole thing makes me feel and how I could describe it in a visual way.  When she started chemo back in 2016 it always felt like I was in quicksand the day she would start.  I would feel this weight pulling me down and it happened like clockwork with every new cycle.

Today I was thinking about her CA125 number and how it felt like I was standing in a room and the walls were just one by one collapsing. As I went to hold up one wall another would fall. And then I thought “NO! It’s like the final battle in Avengers: Endgame”. If you haven’t seen the movie this post may mean very little to you. And if you have…it still may mean very little to you.  But it makes sense in my mind with how I feel, and this is how.

So Thanos, he plays the role of all the cancer that has been there since reoccurrence began that we’ve been trying to defeat all along.  Previous chemotherapy drugs are the Avengers that survived the snap and have been trying to take Thanos down without any previous success.  They’ve beaten him up a bit but he’s still standing.

So here we are in the final battle.  All the Avengers knocked out minus Cap (aka Captain America but I feel comfortable enough with my Marvel love to refer to him as Cap) and he’s just standing there bloody and broken ready to take on Thanos. Then all of Thanos’ little minions come flying in out of nowhere and that is how 9,387 feels.  Like you’ve put in all this fighting and given it your all and out of nowhere cancer is like, Hey if these current lymph nodes weren’t enough to deal with I’m going to throw in some more lymph nodes or tumors to deal with. Plus, I’ve already defeated the rest of the chemotherapy drugs that were made to destroy me.

And that is where the similarities end because in Avengers: Endgame a bunch of Avengers pop through portals via Doctor Strange and Wong and it’s this epic battle. RIP Tony.

The problem with our situation is that we don’t have reinforcements and backup. The cancer proved to be stronger than them. We have one drug to take down an army of cancer. The question is, will it be strong enough to get the job done?

🤯🤷🏻‍♀️

Mom’s CA125 is now at 9,387. On September 26 it was at 4,298.

On June 24, 2016, the day she was diagnosed she was at 8,374. It’s sucky news for sure. But the silver lining is she isn’t in the same condition she was when she was diagnosed. She’s still functioning and not doubled over in pain and that feels like a pretty big miracle.

Today she started her new chemotherapy and now we just wait and see if it does anything. The effectiveness of this drug is between 15-20%. So while I would love to be optimistic my brain won’t allow me to set myself up for the heartbreak of another failed drug. So I’m just going to live in the moment and appreciate that mom is here and still her crazy self.

Thank you all for your love and support and riding along with us on this crazy cancer coaster 💜