A HUGE THANK YOU.....Oh & Merry Christmas!

 In my last post I shared with you everything that had been going on and what a struggle the last few months had been. I asked you to stand with us in prayer, not only for healing, but for the energy and focus - and joyous spirit - to get through the upcoming family events.

I helped set up the dessert table and caterer's backdrop for Isaiah's Senior football banquet and still had the stamina to attend and feel good that night.  Thankful for the support Isaiah has in his life.  This would be double this size if everyone were local and it weren't a week before Christmas. :)

Lydia (Chris' Adopted Mom), Brittany, Chris, Alyssa, Isaiah, Me, Billy, Katy, Rachel, Joshua and Emeric

Two days later Billy & I, along with Chris' Mom, Lydia, were honored to host about 65 family members at Chris and Brittany's Rehearsal Dinner.  I plan events and parties for a living, but it is so special and meaningful when I get to do it for my own family or friends.  We had great food, decorations, games and a time to get to know so many important people in Chris and Brittany's lives.  It was a true joy to plan and host and be a part of.  And I felt good enough to do it...on steroids! :) Of course my family tribe helped us so much.  Danina, Worley, Josh and Amy all stayed behind while we attended the actual rehearsal, so the appetizers, drinks and food were all out and waiting on us to arrive!  Even us hosts! #bestfamilytribeever

My sister, Amy, and I at the dessert table.

The next morning my sister, Danina, led us in making the bridal boquet, bridesmaids boquets, boutineers and corsages.  Lydia, Rachel, and I helped.  Danina's husband, Worley and Billy's brother Steve pitched in also!  We just barely got them done so we could get ready! 

Then the beautiful wedding was at 3:30 Saturday and we left there about 9:30 that night after a fun reception of dinner, visiting and dancing.  My feet barely survived, and I could't dance like I used to, but I enjoyed it all so much.  Such a beautiful happy day of celebrating hosted by Brittany's parents. We are so grateful Chris is marrying into a big, fun and loving family! 

Brittany and her Bridesmaids - Alyssa is the 3rd from the Right

Chris and his Groomsmen - Isaiah is his best man and is 3d from the left. Brittany's brother, Johnny, is 2nd from the left.

My, Billy, Brittany's parents, Justin & Cindy

The beautiful couple

The next morning we got up to see off our company and then went to watch Chris and Brittany open presents.  They were so blessed with many's generosity and we loved to see what they received. Brittany's parents hosted many of us at the Indian Dealership her Dad manages, provided food and drinks and lots of space, plus looking around at lots of fun Indian motercycles!





I crashed Monday, but bounced back enough to finish Christmas prep and enjoy company and dinner at our house Christmas Eve, then Christmas day fun.  Thank you so much for praying.  I felt the strength of prayer and joy overflows!

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.Romans 15:3
But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 

 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties.
For when I am weak, then I am strong.2 Corinthians 12:9-10

For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her."
Ephesians 5:25

Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife,
and they shall become one flesh." ... He who loves his wife loves himself.
 Genesis 2:24

9 years & 1 month since cancer diagnosis

I haven’t updated in a while. October was hard. November was hard. Early December has been hard. 

Cancer grew. I radiated 1 lung spot. Got an infection, extreme fatigue and weakness, vomiting. Got meds, recovered. 

New Cancer in neck found. Had an insane asylum creepy-type experience having a giant wet, hot mold formed around my head, neck and shoulders and bolted to a table to keep me still. I radiated it. Thought I was in the clear. 8 days later, last two days of Alyssa’s Pageant trip to CA I got a terrible raw throat, infection, extreme fatigue, muscle weakness, vomiting. Got meds. Wrong meds. Got fluids. No help. Finally right meds and steroids. Recovered. 

New cancer found in right side of my brain. Today we left the house at 8:15 am and got home at 6:15 pm. Used that same molded mask bolted to the table. I radiated it. Got immunotherapy infusion. Started with energy and ended physically exhausted, even on steroids. Told I will lose my hair in the size of a quarter, possibly forever. They don’t know as everyone’s different. Told I’ll have swelling and headaches. Told I could have a brain misfiring causing me to have seizures. 

I laid on that radiation table, bolted down in that mask today and said, Jesus you are my healer. Please make this my final cancer-killing, full-healing radiation treatment. I know you can by the power of your Holy blood shed for me. I thank you in advance and put this in your hands. 

Chris was with me all day keeping me company and entertained. 

We also enjoyed a great visit with my past clinical trial nurse and friend, Mary. 

Wednesday we will celebrate Isaiah’s high school football career at a banquet. Friday we will host a rehearsal dinner for Chris and Brittany. Saturday we will attend Chris & Brittany’s wedding officiated by my Dad. We’ll meet new family and enjoy family visiting! 

We’ll also be thinking of our uncle who passed away today and will be honored at a service in CO On Saturday. We are all sad not to be able to attend. 

What a week it is, but how incredibly blessed I feel to be here still battling. Still living. Still parenting, loving, worshipping...9 years & 1 month after my original diagnosis. Jesus continues to provide and go before us, sustaining my life for His glory alone. 

Please pray against side effects and for complete healing. 

It could always be worse, but this news was hard to take.

Sometimes we can't hear God. We cannot feel Him or sense Him. I felt that way this morning.  Numb. Shocked. Discouraged. Confused.  How can a God I love and try to follow so closely leave me in this place hurting emotionally, physically and spiritually? How can the God who I've felt so close to me, upholding me with his strong right hand, feel so far away and absent today?

I'm wandering aimlessly thinking about yesterday and how things unfolded at my oncologist appointment.  I wasn't even nervous to go to this appointment.  The radiation was a 90% for sure killer of this one spot in my lungs and should realert my immune system to all the other cancer in my body so it could attack.  I expected good news. 

Instead I got pretty bad news.

My radiated spot in my right lung is almost double in size.  Two spots in my left lung are growing quickly also.  A new small spot in my brain was seen and will be reviewed at the neuro board next Monday.  And this pain in my neck and shoulder - well we recently learned that is from a cancer growth in my C3 vertebrae. It extends from the bone out into the soft tissue wrapping around an artery and pressing against some small nerves.  Usually cancer doesn't itself hurt, but this cancer in my neck is really painful. A constant reminder that something is in my body that shouldn't be. 

I'm mad. I'm sad.  I'm stunned.  I'm heart broken. I'm discouraged.  I'm confused and disappointed. I'm afraid and full of doubt.

Yet, I'm also fighting to still believe, still hope, still pray.

This morning as I stared out the window a book caught my eye by Ken Boa.  It is about praying scripture.  I didn't have the words to pray for myself, so I picked it up and began to pray the morning affirmations in the front of the book aloud.  In between I would share my heart with God about not feeling His presence or His strength and then pray the next scripture.  By the time I was finished my emotions let loose and I could feel that God was still there even in my doubt and disappointment. 

I once wrote down lyrics to a song I called, My Little Mustard Seed. I've been here before fighting to keep the faith that God hears my prayers and will answer them here amongst the living.  People say that as Christians we win either way; healed in Heaven or healed on earth.  Somehow I find little comfort in that right now as I am still here living a full life.  I know it is true, yet I believe God will give me peace about that if and when the time comes.  No peace here.

I want to meet Chris and Brittany's babies,  I want to host a rehearsal dinner for Isaiah, I want to help Alyssa pick out a wedding dress.  I want to sit in a front porch rocking chair in my old age with Billy.  I want to share God's character with the next generation and the next.  And I have just a mustard seed size of faith that this can still happen. 

"Truly, I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you." Matthew 17:20

"The apostles said to the Lord, 'Increase our faith!' And the Lord said, 'If you had faith like a mustard seed you would say to this mulburry tree, 'Be uprooted and be planted in the sea', and it would obey you." Luke 17:5-6

I pray that God will use this situation to grow/increase our faith and that He may show me His goodness in the land of the living. Ps. 27:13

I pray for radiation to kill the cancer in my neck and alleviate all the pain there. 

I pray that there will be a treatment I can begin that is curative and not just a maintenance chemo, like I had to do for 21 weeks in 2015. That was mentioned and we are not seeing this as a good option.

I pray that I will feel good to enjoy Isaiah's senior year, Chris' wedding and Alyssa's national pageant.

I pray God will reveal Himself in a mighty way as my healer from all cancer here on earth and allow me to continue to live fully in His grace.

We thank you for joining me in these prayers.

You won't believe how my app is encouraging me!

I've been asking for others to pray that my strength, energy, endurance and stamina come back full force. Well, my app sent me an update today that says I am +45% more active this week versus last week. So out of curiousity I looked down at last week's update and it said I was +105% more active last week than the week before. Well praise God for that. Prayers are being answered and there is real proof "because my app says so"! LOL! Honestly, though, I feel that these things are coming back. I'm not fully back, and have to pace myself, but I'm so grateful that God created our bodies to recover and heal like they do.

Along with the above prayer, I just have to ask you to add that when I have scans again on 11/01, they will show the radiation and immunotherapy combination has done its job perfectly and cancer is not active and shrunk or gone. Oh how this would revive my soul and encourage me. I'm ready for a break from this every other week treatment I've been doing since June 4, 2018 (16 months).

I believe that God can heal me of this cancer once and for all. This November 9th marks 9 years since my first surgery to remove some growing episiotomy scar tissue that turned out to be a rare rare cancer. I remember then my gyn told me this was going to be a long hard road. Little did we know what that would really look like, yet praise God, here I am alive and still in the fight. We didn't know if we'd make it to this year, let alone be hopeful for a good scan in a couple weeks.

Today in my bible study Lysa TerKeurst, Christian author said, "The enemy is vicious, but he is not victorious!" Praise God for that. I'm counting on it. I hope you will too.

"Though a thousand fall at your side, though ten thousand are dying around you, these evils will not you." Psalm 91:7

I am not depressed, but I am depleted.

After feeling poorly for a couple weeks, I ended up on the couch for the last 6 days sleeping my life away. I began radiation on the one spot in my right lung that continues to grow and since then I’ve been going downhill until I’ve just slept, became mentally foggy and physically bed-ridden. It’s an extremely difficult place to find myself once again, but my body isn’t as strong as it used to be to stay in the fight. We are closing in on 9 years since this cancer battle began and today I awoke weary in every way.  Fully depleted of all self-strength and human will. As I made myself keep one eye open and push toward getting ready for today’s appointment I became so angry, but not with God - but Satan. I yelled out loud like an angry lion. I’m not sure where it came from, but it was deep within me and felt good. I yelled again and said Satan go away! And then fell into a puddle crying and blubbering to Jesus, begging him to carry me as I have nothing left, I told Him. 

My sister came to pick me up and brought her sweet Evelyn Grace. I couldn’t be fun Aunt Kee Kee today. It made me sad and I told Jesus I need to fully live. I’m not depressed. I am depleted. It’s in this place where I meet Jesus face to face. Where I weakly give Him all my pain and weakness and frailty and ask Him to carry me. I admit I cannot do it anymore. I’m done in. 

I told my nurses and doctors I felt like I needed to go to the hospital. Not that I wanted to, but I needed help now. I guess they know me well enough to know I don’t ever want to go to the hospital and put their heads together reviewing bloodwork etcetera etcetera and determined I have Pneumonitis (like pneumonia, but without the infection). Radiation can cause this down the road a ways, but coupled with Immunotherapy that can also cause it, they decided to treat with a steroid regiment. This means no Immunotherapy infusion next week, but did allow me to continue radiation today. I also have a bad Urinary Tract Infection, which always presents different since I have a urostomy. Plus regular physical strain from radiation and Immunotherapy treatments. I’m been so mentally foggy, but I can tell the iv fluids, multivitamins and antibiotic, coupled with steroids is helping in this area or I couldn’t focus more than two seconds on this update. 

Please pray that I will rest in the wings of my Savior and my body will respond to these meds and quickly so I can get back to fully living and serving. 

And thank you to my sister, Katy, who gave over half her day and got me to the doctor today. Without help I would have not gotten there at all. 

         When I am weak, He is strong.

The crazy life stories continue....

Praise the Lord, I do not have cancer in my brain.  Why would I think I did? Well it's quite a traumatic story, so I'll have to start from the beginning.

July 3rd I was shopping with my daughter for a couple items before we left town on the afternoon of the 4th for her to compete in the National American Miss State Pageant.  We stopped at a stoplight and I stretched back against my seat and was suddenly struck in the back of the head with a huge amount of force. I screamed as I thought we'd been hit from behind and something had come through the car and hit my head. My daughter looked at me like I was crazy until she realized what happened.  She took a picture of my headrest and showed me that it had exploded toward my head.  I was so confused and it was very painful.  We've now learned this is supposed to be a safety mechanism that deploys when you are hit hard enough your body would jolt forward.  However, mine just deployed for no reason at all and it has caused a series of painful emotional and physical events.

I pushed through taking 3 IB Profin twice a day for the pageant, but by the time I got home on the 7th it was worsening and I knew it wasn't healing on its own.  I told a PA at my cancer treatment appointment that I could barely turn my head and it was causing me to not be able to sleep or function well because of the pain.  This is a big deal because I'm pretty used to pain and discomfort nowadays. The PA ordered a CT Scan of my neck to ensure there wasn't a fracture.  They did not see a fracture so I planned to schedule an appointment with my MD.  Before that could happen I began throwing up randomly and my Oncologist became concerned that I had a concussion from the headrest deploying so called me in for an immediate CT of my brain. He told me right away that it looked like I had a brain hemorrhage and that the neuro surgeon he consulted wanted me to go the ER for better imaging. I could not believe this was happening! When I arrived they were very concerned that I may have an aneurysm causing this bleed.  They labeled me as a fall risk and put me in a bed.  They told me this was urgent because if I had an aneurysm I would have to be flown out to have a surgery immediately. They prepped me quickly to do a CT with Contrast (which requires steroids and Benedryl as I've had a previous reaction) and then rolled me in my bed down to get the CT Scans.  Thank the Lord they came back fairly soon to tell us it was not an aneurysm, but they didn't know what it was so needed an MRI. I had the MRI and finally around midnight the doctor came in and asked if anyone should leave the room.  Billy, Isaiah, Alyssa, my sister and brother, Amy and Joshua, all wanted to stay and hear the news together, so he proceeded to tell me that I had metastatic cancer in my brain.  That they were going to give me a big dose of steroids to keep me from having seizures, but this is a side effect to be aware of.  He also told me this could progress into mental confusion and then into speech problems.  He said he was sorry and that I should see my oncologist the next morning first thing.  We were traumatized, in shock and disbelief. My brother kept saying they didn't know if this was really cancer or not and Alyssa asked me on the way home if that was just her uncle's coping strategy. I think God was giving him a Word!

The next morning Billy & I walked the familiar stairs up to see my oncologist after a very restless night. When we saw my doctor he said he was thrilled with the news it was not an aneurysm or an active hemorrhage.  We agreed, but were a bit confused by his upbeat mood.  I told him that the ER  doctor had told us it was definitely brain cancer and he immediately said that was not true.  He said he looks at brain scans all the time and this is not indicative of brain cancer.  No edema, no swelling, nothing aggravated, no symptoms.  He told us to go do something with our kids and not worry about seizures.  He would be thorough though and take my case to the neuro cancer board for review, which he did, and they have also agreed this is not cancer.  It could be fatty tissue, a mole on the brain, a calcification.  They aren't sure, but will watch it with my regular scans.

So, back to my car headrest, they referred me to an Orthopedic Doctor and sent my scans to him. After seeing him he said he can see how this caused real pain and damage and it won't heal quickly.  He gave me a numbing shot in the top of my shoulder to numb the muscle spasm and prescribed muscle relaxers and PT 2 x per week for a month.  Plus exercises at home and ice therapy. I will see him again in a month.  I am a week into my PT and wow, it makes me sore, but I am getting a small amount of mobility back in my neck.  My Physical Therapist agrees that this is going to take a while to heal as his tests show there is nerve response down my right arm and down my left leg from this injury also.  This is because the nerves are inflamed and run through the body.  I'm taking prescription pain meds at night to sleep for 4-5 hours without waking up due to pain and taking 3 IB Profin twice a day and using ice and heat to try to get through most days.

Isn't this a crazy story?!?  I would have never had a brain scan, a brain cancer scare or any of this additional pain and extra appointments and therapy to deal with if that head rest hadn't deployed.  It is unreal!

Plus, in the midst of this I learned that I cannot stay in my clinical trial because my cancer in the top of my right lung has grown over 20% since we began the trial, so I'm kicked out.  However, my good doctor has a plan and we are going to radiate that one growing spot, releasing my cancer "essence" back into the body for my immunotherapy to recognize again and go attack.  My doctor was able to apply for these meds himself through the pharmaceutical company and they were approved.  His opinion is that it is working, but needs more time.  2 of my spots have totally disappeared, many are smaller, some are stable and just one is growing.  And symptomatically I was finally feeling really good, until the crazy headrest blew up!

So, please pray that this PT and home therapy works and I don't have to have anything else done to heal my neck and shoulder and nervous system. Pray that the radiation added to the immunotherapy kicks this cancer once and for all.  Pray that I can stay positive and patient when in pain every day right now.  I still desire to live fully and enjoy everything that is coming this next year with our business, with Billy & I and with our kids' lives. It's hard to live fully when at medical appointments, under stress and in pain.  Thanks for reading and praying.  God is still writing this crazy life story of mine and I'm doing the best I can to live it out still smiling.  XoXo