Napi Horsemanship

Long story short I know I’ve been gone a long time. I’ll make this long story as short as I can. I know right? But there’s more? Oh yeah, it didn’t end at my dog getting cancer and me making the call to put him down.

My mare died. She just turned four and was officially a mare. My mare. Then she got hurt loading out of the horse trailer and had a freak autoimmune response and died. So there’s that. That one I can’t linger on long.

My scan after my post chemo scan wasn’t clear. I was feeling fine so that shock I experienced when my CT came back with a giant mass in my chest… lets just say that even my oncologist was convinced it was a relapse, though of course he didn’t admit that until we confirmed it was not, in fact, a relapse. Most Non Hodgkin shows up in the mediastinum (front chest cavity behind the sternum). And it was a large mass and the time between scans was only six months. Around this time I had been documenting high heart rate and other issues (dizziness). I was thinking it was POTS, but a giant mass in my chest could be the reason.

I got to experience a mediastinum CT chest biopsy. I’ll do a whole blog post about that experience. I’ll sum up the experience for myself… my needle phobia enjoyed that. And then my drugs wore off halfway through and I had panic attack while not moving. So that was also wonderful. But the one tech did say at the end that it was a soft mass and usually cancer is hard. I will never forget that little glimmer of hope that man gave me. I had been so scared and so convinced but then his words snapped me back to a hope. Something I hadn’t had since the CT scan showed that mass.

I also had another PET scan while I was over in Seattle doing the chest biopsy. Long story short I had Thymic rebound hyperplasia. Say that one ten times fast? It happens in younger cancer patients after chemo because the thymus glad (in charge of making T cells) shrinks during chemo and then goes into over drive after chemo to make up for the damage it experienced. Older patients don’t get it because by the time you reach a certain age the thymus has shrunk to a small size and doesn’t have the vigor of a young thymus anymore.

About a month or two later after this we were back in Seattle for our youngest brain surgery for unicoronal craniosyntosis. Thankfully everything went as well as it could have gone with this scenario. Grateful for the Seattle Children’s team we got. A win is a win.

So for about the next 6 months I deal with debilitating POTs symptoms that leaves me barely able to do basic house hold tasks while also being a stay at home mom. An example, my heart rate would be 130 just doing the dishes, and then I clocked it once at 180 walking up a hill. But the solution for this ended up being somewhat simple. My port was in my right atrium and that’s what my doctors said to try. We had the thing (port) removed. I posted a video of that experience on Tik Tok and I think YouTube. I willl write a whole blog post on that experience as well. I still seem to have some issues with high heart rate but I’m able to do household chores now and some going out. I just got done wearing a seven day heart monitor so I’m hopeful (morbid I want to be sick?) that will come back and show some dysautonomia and I don’t have to feel so crazy anymore. I could even get on a regulating medication that could improve my quality of life even more by managing my huge heart rate swims from 60-120 just standing up.

Speaking of quality of life my Shoresy boy is coming along so well in service work. He is able to smell my heart rate when it gets around 120 and he has a task he performs where he sits up on his back legs with two front legs up off the ground. That’s when I know it might be time to go sit down. He also still gets my meds for me. We are expanding his vocabulary to things other than meds. Like diapers, water, and shoe. I’d like his public access to be a little better but in all honesty he is amazing. I took him out Halloween and he had so much thrown at him and handled it so well. Off leash dog, people, people in inflatable costumes, and moms balloons getting wrapped up in a tree. And he came back so well each time and did so good with the dog that came up to us and sat and just waited for my lead. Then tonight I was able to take him to my second physical therapy session and he not only behaved himself (mostly) but he even helped and tasked for me. It’s just a crazy feeling going from healthy and doing anything to having to watch every move risking pissing my body off. But then there’s Shoresy. He’s right there wanting to help in anyway he can. And he has allowed me to pace myself more often and have the confidence to go out. Plus sometimes I do feel like I might fall or get hurt and having him right there in tune with me gives me a little peace among that ample anxiety I’m feeling these days (CPTSD???).

So long story short I haven’t been doing okay the last few months. My family is just exhausted. We’re all exhausted. But it all goes on and things are less drowning these days for us. Just in time for the holiday season. Hopefully I can write sooner than half a year next time. Thanks for reading,

Napi

P.S. we got a kitten for the baby after her surgery and his name is Mo or “El Mo”.