Remembering 2 yrs of navigating through stage 4 colon cancer!
In support of
Karen Vaughan
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Karen Vaughan
Hello Everyone!
One Month Update: First of all; THANK YOU for the gentle & effective support in so many ways. I have no words!
☀️ A brief summer recap: The day of the diagnosis, 2 years ago, I was told 📢 "you're looking at about 6 months left". The diagnosis came at the convenient time of “back to school”. So later that same day, I had a school orientation at my oldest child’s class. I tried to listen to the “class rules” but the teacher’s voices sounded muffled. Suddenly, I couldn’t possibly relate to any other parent in there. At that time, I had also recently given birth to our 3rd baby. I can say it was THE hardest moments of my life! This year, I attended school orientation again, but as the teacher spoke, I smiled in realizing that although I’m still fighting, I’m STILL HERE!
I’m living each day more purposefully. In late June, I celebrated my 38th birthday surrounded by love. I had 3 celebrations, unapologetically :) I visited family, including my mom, grandma (who also has Colon cancer but is living her best life). In July, my husband & I celebrated our wedding anniversary. One more year of growing older and closer together. What blessings to rejoice in!
Earlier this year, things got scary as “kancer” reappeared, aggressively trending a 3x growth, every 6 weeks. I was told it spread to my lungs and I was now “palliative” and the only route for more days was “chemo, indefinetly”. This put me in a dark hole. So we rolled up our sleeves and opted for adding intensive alternative therapies despite the significant costs. Summer has been action-packed. I invested a majority of time into health, cutting back on work & stressors. Between alternative therapies not covered by insurance, as well as regular copays & supplements, this past month’s health costs were just shy of $4K. Thankfully, we raised close to half, to help cover this first month! We had no idea if our efforts would work: but any cancer therapy is a risk & gamble and the only other option was “indefinite chemotherapy” for palliative care.
🎖️ Latest accomplishments: before immersive therapy, my Spring CT Scan showed that the mass in the peritoneal (abdomen) grew by 2x. The other spots (spleen, lung, colon, liver/diaphram) had remained STABLE! I take this as a blessing.
My latest Signatera (a bloodwork that tracks residual tumor DNA in the blood) drastically came down from 3.16 to 0.52! My other tumor markers started coming down as well! This made me feel confident that there may be hope for continued management, outside of chemo. Having done chemo in the past, my wish is to avoid it because it was extremely traumatic. I know stage 4’s rarely get this, but I’m determined to heal at the root cause without compromising quality of life.
Though I rarely let Cancer steal my joy and I live life as normal (you'd never believe I'm going through this if you didn't know it), this is a real battle- everyday & in every way! We have 2 more months of these upcoming supportive treatments. Then we monitor & evaluate. Our next CT Scan is sometime in September/October. I’m hopeful that we can wow our doctors with a complete "spontaneous remission" as they call it. But I call it: miracle + teamwork.
The support on here allows me to have access to continued care & therapy. Keep praying for me, over me, and with me. Keep sharing my story. Keep living your best life.
I hope I can continue to bring knowledge, hope and positivity to my community. I truly couldn't accomplish this without each of you.
*the picture attached is random but I thats how these cancer accomplishments make me feel :)
One Month Update: First of all; THANK YOU for the gentle & effective support in so many ways. I have no words!
☀️ A brief summer recap: The day of the diagnosis, 2 years ago, I was told 📢 "you're looking at about 6 months left". The diagnosis came at the convenient time of “back to school”. So later that same day, I had a school orientation at my oldest child’s class. I tried to listen to the “class rules” but the teacher’s voices sounded muffled. Suddenly, I couldn’t possibly relate to any other parent in there. At that time, I had also recently given birth to our 3rd baby. I can say it was THE hardest moments of my life! This year, I attended school orientation again, but as the teacher spoke, I smiled in realizing that although I’m still fighting, I’m STILL HERE!
I’m living each day more purposefully. In late June, I celebrated my 38th birthday surrounded by love. I had 3 celebrations, unapologetically :) I visited family, including my mom, grandma (who also has Colon cancer but is living her best life). In July, my husband & I celebrated our wedding anniversary. One more year of growing older and closer together. What blessings to rejoice in!
Earlier this year, things got scary as “kancer” reappeared, aggressively trending a 3x growth, every 6 weeks. I was told it spread to my lungs and I was now “palliative” and the only route for more days was “chemo, indefinetly”. This put me in a dark hole. So we rolled up our sleeves and opted for adding intensive alternative therapies despite the significant costs. Summer has been action-packed. I invested a majority of time into health, cutting back on work & stressors. Between alternative therapies not covered by insurance, as well as regular copays & supplements, this past month’s health costs were just shy of $4K. Thankfully, we raised close to half, to help cover this first month! We had no idea if our efforts would work: but any cancer therapy is a risk & gamble and the only other option was “indefinite chemotherapy” for palliative care.
🎖️ Latest accomplishments: before immersive therapy, my Spring CT Scan showed that the mass in the peritoneal (abdomen) grew by 2x. The other spots (spleen, lung, colon, liver/diaphram) had remained STABLE! I take this as a blessing.
My latest Signatera (a bloodwork that tracks residual tumor DNA in the blood) drastically came down from 3.16 to 0.52! My other tumor markers started coming down as well! This made me feel confident that there may be hope for continued management, outside of chemo. Having done chemo in the past, my wish is to avoid it because it was extremely traumatic. I know stage 4’s rarely get this, but I’m determined to heal at the root cause without compromising quality of life.
Though I rarely let Cancer steal my joy and I live life as normal (you'd never believe I'm going through this if you didn't know it), this is a real battle- everyday & in every way! We have 2 more months of these upcoming supportive treatments. Then we monitor & evaluate. Our next CT Scan is sometime in September/October. I’m hopeful that we can wow our doctors with a complete "spontaneous remission" as they call it. But I call it: miracle + teamwork.
The support on here allows me to have access to continued care & therapy. Keep praying for me, over me, and with me. Keep sharing my story. Keep living your best life.
I hope I can continue to bring knowledge, hope and positivity to my community. I truly couldn't accomplish this without each of you.
*the picture attached is random but I thats how these cancer accomplishments make me feel :)
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