Fight Like a Girl

I was born in Houston,Texas on February 10, 1983 to Theresa and Leon Apostolo and I have a younger brother, C J. I graduated in 2001 from Langham Creek High School and went on to pursue a degree in Fashion Merchandising at Texas State University. After graduation, I began working for Saks and worked my way up to Manager. I left Saks in November, 2009 to become a fourth grade teacher in the Houston Independent School District.

I was just getting in the swing of things as an elementary school teacher, when I was hit with the biggest blow of my life. I had been experiencing some female issues and went to the doctor, only to find out the worst news I could imagine, I had cervical cancer. I began treatment immediately, six weeks of daily radiation, weekly chemo, and followed by two three-day hospital stays for internal radiation thereapy, all the while still trying to continue to work. Shortly after treatment began, I became sick with a bad stomach virus, then a urinary tract Infection, experienced terrific back pain, and to top it all off, a blood clot in my right leg, which the doctors said was caused from the chemo. I had to give myself two injections daily for 5 days and will have to continue taking Coumadin for as long as 6 months. After just nine radiation treatments, the doctor told me the tumor was shrinking, HOORAY, finally some good news! The doctors and I were hopeful this treatment would take care of the cancer, however a couple of weeks after the treatment was completed, I began running fever. I went to several doctors and no one could tell me why I was running this fever. After several more weeks, a sore appeared and I decided to go to the ER. The news just seemed to continue to go downhill...I now had a staph infection. The ER doctors ran some other tests and before I could leave there, I was told my cancer had spread to my lungs. This is when I decided I needed a higher level of professional care and made an appointment for June 1 to see Dr. Bevers at MD Anderson. We were told Dr. Bevers was ONE of the BEST in his field. According to the first PET scan, there was no evidence of cancer anywhere except the cervix. Unfortunately, small cancer tumors do not necessarily show up on CT or PET scans. My diagnosis now was a combination of squamous cell and adenocarcinoma. The doctor said, if in fact this is cancerous, he believed the original cancer was “small cell cancer” in conjunction with the original diagnosis. This would be the only explanation as to why this cancer has spread as fast as it has. BUT, we also have the chance of the tumors being benign. My family and I were staying optimistic. Is there any other way?

On Monday, June 7, I went in for my lung biopsy at St. Lukes. Ouch… this was definitely a lot more painful than I expected! Although my doctor works for MD Anderson, he prefers to have his testing done at St. Lukes, because his patients are able to be seen faster, and he has the utmost confidence in the doctors there.

The entire staff at St. Lukes was very helpful and comforting during my procedure. I had to stay in the hospital for 4 hours after the procedure to make sure that my lung would not collapse. I was released at 3 P.M. and returned home to rest. By Wednesday, with a lot of rest and the help of a few pain pills, the pain had subsided.

Thursday morning, June 10, I went in for my PET scan at another St. Lukes center. I think the next time I see on a questionnaire, “Are you claustrophobic” my answer will be YES. Being in that machine brought back the horrible memories of my last MRI. After the testing, my parents, Bobby, and I went to grab a bite to eat, before our appointment to see my doctor to discuss my test results. Earlier in the week, I had eaten my favorite food, Chinese, and opened not one but two fortune cookies that both read the same thing, “Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.” Even though I thought I had prepared myself for the worst, the news I received far exceeded any thoughts that had crossed my mind.

Dr. Bevers invited us all in his office, and by the look on his face you could tell this conversation was not going to go well. As he started talking, it was like I could hear the words, but refused to believe them. Dr. Bevers told me that my cancer had now spread to my lungs and liver. This type of cancer is not curable. He suggested chemotherapy as my first option to hopefully slow down the growth or stabilize the tumors. The treatment would be to receive a round of 3 chemo treatments which would each consists of 3 days in the hospital. At the end of these 3 treatments, another PET scan would be taken to evaluate the effectiveness of the chemotherapy. Dr. Bevers was honest in stating that this first form of chemo only has about a 30% effectiveness rate, the other options after that will only have about a 15% effectiveness rate. He also suggested clinical trials as an option for later down the road. At this point I was basically numb, just sitting there staring off into space. He ended the conversation by letting us know that the prognosis is usually 8-12 months. Are you kidding me?

I got home at 5:15 p.m. and fell to the floor crying. I picked myself up and vowed at 6:00 p.m. I would be done feeling sorry for myself and that my outlook needed to change. I made my parents and Bobby agree to this, as well. At 6:00 p.m., we made a toast saying “hasta la vista Cancer!” Although my outlook might look bleak, I refused to let this evil beast bring me down. I have too much to live for and will fight and give 100% every day.

Do you want to know what one of my first thoughts were when I got “the news?” I just wanted to break something. I am not sure if this is a normal reaction, but it was my reaction. On Sunday, I spoke with Pastor Karen, at Gruene United Methodist Church, and one of the first things she said to me was, “Break Lindsey, feel free to scream, cuss, or break something.” After this, I felt like I had been given the OKAY to do just that. BREAK SOMETHING!!! After my doctors appointment on Monday, I asked my mom to drive to Ross, of course I chose one of my favorite stores, to buy a set of dishes. In the meantime, I started to round up a few of my closest friends to come and join in the “free therapy session.” After a few glasses of wine, we were all ready to release some of our pent up anger and frustration. We all agreed that we would write our own affirmations on our dishes before throwing them across the garage floor and watching them shatter. After receiving the news last week, Bobby and I had decided to video tape my journey through this cancer fight. Bobby was our amateur video guy for this session. Boy did we have fun doing this! I suggest this as an outlet for anyone who is feeling anger or frustration.

Cancer Treatment: $100,000 Dishes: $6.99 Aretha Franklin “I Will Survive” iTunes download: $0.99 Therapy Session with Friends: PRICELESS

ON MONDAY, JUNE 14, my mom and I went back to visit Dr. Bevers to discuss what we had “thought” about during the weekend. Honestly, I am not sure we did much thinking over the weekend, we were all still in shock. However, one thought that did come up was clinical trials or alternative options. I brought this up to Dr. Bevers, and he said he had also had been thinking about the clinical trials over the weekend. Those of you who know me know that I hate to deviate from my plans, so my major concern here was, should I really be putting off my treatment for a few more days? Dr. Bevers assured me that a few more days would not hurt the situation. We left the office that day deciding to put chemo on hold, and hoping to have an appointment with the MD Anderson Clinical Trials doctors by the end of the week.

“Good things come to those who wait.” I am confident that this will be the case, as another day has passed and I am still without a definite treatment plan.

I met with Dr. Naing in the Targeted Therapy Department at MD Anderson. He mentioned a specific drug, Avastin, which could possibly work in my case. However, I would first need to undergo yet another CT scan before being approved for this trial. The drug has a close interaction with the blood vessels, and my approval for the program was dependent on how close my blood vessels were in relation to the tumors. From the CT scan, he would also be able to see where the majority of the tumors were located, whether on the liver or lungs. He did mention a very specific chemo that could be an option for just the liver alone; this made all of our ears perk up since this seemed to be the major beast to tackle. After blood work and the CT, I revisited with Dr. Naing to discuss moving forward.

As I sat in the waiting room, I just kept thinking how depressing an atmosphere this was. The hospital should really consider hiring a standup comedian or offering karaoke in these waiting rooms. Shoot, I might consider bringing my ipod and dancing or wearing my old green St. Patrick’s Day wig just to get a laugh out of someone the next time I was there. Toward the end of my wait, I did end up meeting a young man who is also battling lung tumors by the name of Wills Setzler. I would like to ask that when each of you say a prayer for me that you also say one for Wills. I also met another man who practices alternative medicine that is visiting from out of state. He had a lot to offer regarding books to read and the benefits of acupuncture (believe me I was already working on setting up my first appointment). It was very nice to visit with both of these guys and I really got a lot out of our conversations. The waiting game continues...

On Wednesday, June 23, I finally received some good news! Dr. Naing discussed the results of my CT scan and said the tumors on the liver were not severe enough, so I should consider chemotherapy for the liver alone. He suggested a clinical trial that would consist of the combination of three drugs: Avastin, Cetuximab, and Tarceva. Two of these would be given by IV and the other would be taken daily by mouth. I just needed approval from my insurance company to move forward.

SO NOW I HAD my two options... chemo from Dr. Bevers or the trial from Dr. Naing. I was confident in my decision to go with the trial. I would be committed to this for 8 weeks and then have another scan completed to evaluate whether the tumors had stabilized. Stabilized was Dr. Naing’s term or plan, but for me I wanted those little bastards GONE!!

I returned to MD Anderson at 8:30 A.M. for more poking and prodding. My blood work was not quite where they wanted it to be, so I had to have a few more tests run. My test results would be reviewed immediately by Dr. Naing’s PA and if they still did not meet standards, I would need to undergo a blood transfusion.

After being on a high from the good news about the trial, I woke up at 2:30 a.m. on Thursday morning, June 24 with reality; severe chest pains. Since I was already scheduled for blood work at MDA later that morning, I decided to tough it out through the night and ask the doctors about my chest pain at my appointment. I was instructed to go straight to the Emergency Room. That’s what I did and I sat there until 9:00 p.m. going through more and more testing.

The doctors initially thought that either the blood clot from my leg had traveled to my lung or that a new blood clot had formed. Although I was on blood thinners and this seemed unlikely, it was still a definite possibility. I had another CT scan (I was thinking at this point I should invest in one of these machines with as many as I have had) that confirmed, it was not a blood clot. The chest pains however, were a result of the tumors in my lungs.