Kyla Strong

So much has happened and changed in my life since the end of September, things I never thought would happen to me. After many tests, I found out that my cancer had come back for the 3rd time, this time in my pelvis, sternum, femur, and multiple places in my spine. Since I have had so many chemos in the past that clearly haven’t cured my cancer, doctors decided it would be best to send a biopsy of one of my new tumors off for genomic testing. This would figure out with my specific mutations in the gene and with my specific Ewings Sarcoma, what drugs I am resistant to and what drugs my tumors might be more sensitive to. It would take 3-4 weeks for results after they sent a biopsy off and in the meantime they wanted to radiate 3 of my bigger tumors, sternum, upper spine (neck area), and pelvis. Radiation was 15 rounds and started October 1st ended October 21st. The side effects from the radiation to my tumor in my spine in the neck area have been atrocious. They also gave me a 5 day round of 2 chemos that I had been on 4.5 years ago for my first round of cancer, in hopes that it would keep the cancer from growing while we waited 3-4 weeks for the genomic testing to come back and during my radiation. That chemo knocked me on my butt. Now it is October 23rd and my doctor told me that the results of genomic testing came back and there are clinical trial drugs that I will be able to try, the plan isn’t finalized on paper but it will be 4 new drugs I will be on, some of the drugs are pills taken at home, 1 is an outpatient drug and 1 is an inpatient drug. I have a long road ahead of me and I’m just going to take it one day at a time. I had to take a break from UConn Nursing School unfortunately, but I am just going to focus on taking care of myself and packing a ton of fun into my life moving forward. I’m going to figure out how I want to invest my time and enjoy myself and I have some great ideas that will be made into a reality when it is time. I love my life and appreciate it more than ever before. I wanted to thank everyone from the bottom of my heart for the love and support they have shown me, for the people who are being there for me in any and every way that they can because I truly wouldn’t be able to do any of this without yu all. Ilove all of the support on my “Kyla’s Krusaders” Facebook page, it has been so nice to find a place to update everyone so I don’t have to tell each individual person and for everyone to share their comments which I read every single one of them and appreciate them more than you know. I can’t wait to see you all with my shirts and I would love for everyone to post pictures to my “yla’s Krusadrs” Faceook pagein themI knowyou are all with me on this new journey of mine and together we are going to be #KYLASTRONG