Savi placement and surgery update

Yesterday I had a small procedure done. Because my tumors and My lymph node are shrinking so fast (praise God!) they needed to make sure they could find the exact lymph node during surgery. So they placed a device called a Savi into my lymph node yesterday. This technology is pretty cool and during surgery will make it to where she removes the exact lymph node! I had another mammogram yesterday to make sure it was in the exact place it needed to be. Y’all - they brought me in to see my first mammogram and this one side by side. God has done AMAZING things. My new mammogram- you couldn’t not see the tumors!!!!! All praise goes to God for doing things only He can do. 

Also, due to operating rooms being full my surgery has been moved to January 10th. 

My Sweet Grandma

A little over a year ago I wrote a tribute to my grandpa who passed away. In that post I talked about how much he adored my grandma. I truly believe my grandma's heart broke the day he passed away and that she missed him with everything in her. When we were at the hospital with my grandpa my grandma had a terrible cough. Long story short, over the past year she has been to numerous doctors, been in the hospital several times, and basically told that she would be living with her cough and bad lungs for the rest of her life. This past weekend after being rushed to the hospital by ambulance my grandma made the decision to go "home". I was in a lot of pain from chemo and couldn't travel to be with her and my family. We facetimed several times on Sunday night and Monday morning. I was so thankful that I got to tell her that I loved her and that I would miss her. Even in her pain, she told me I looked tired and needed to take a nap - looking out for me even as her life was coming to an end.  It was very tearful, but they were moments that I will cherish forever.



In our family, when you turn 5 you got to spend a week by yourself with my grandparents. I am 4 1/2 years older than my cousin and brother so I had my grandma and grandpa each summer for 5 years all to myself. My grandma was the very definition of a grandma. If you've ever read a book about a sweet grandma with white hair that bakes you cookies - that book was written about my grandma. I would even go as far to say she might have been Mrs. Claus or Mrs. Claus is fashioned after her. When I would go spend a week with her it was the most amazing week of my summer. She would take me grocery shopping for all my favorite foods and make all my favorite meals. I even convinced her once that I wanted lobster for dinner and loved lobster...so she bought live lobsters from the Commissary only to have to order me pizza a few hours later when I cried that they had died.  She even, somehow, made sandwiches for lunch seem magical and not boring. She would take me to movies and if they were Disney we would visit the Disney store and I always went home with the newest Disney loot to match the movie. She would take me swimming and to VBS. She would even find a teenager to take me to Uncle Cliffs, a local amusement park, so I would have someone to ride with. All of our time seemed purposeful and special. She was in the business of making memories and could turn going to dinner at Luby's into something I would always remember.

My grandma had a song for everything. She taught preschool for years and had a song to teach just about anything. She loved to sing and taught me songs about dinosaurs, pie, birds, the alphabet, Christmas songs and everything in between. One of the things I will always cherish is her singing those same songs to my kids and hearing them laugh.
My grandma could cook! Her meals were always delicious. The thing I always found funny was she followed her recipe 100% of the time. She never substituted, she never added just a little more of this or that - except dressing which always needed more black pepper :). Her cookies were legendary along with her fudge and peanut butter fudge. Others can follow the same recipe but hers just taste better.
My grandma was notorious for sending my grandpa to the grocery store with a list and by the time he got home would have a second list for him of things she forgot. When they got a cell phone he would even call and ask if there was anything else she needed, she would say no, he would get home and she would have a list of 2 to 3 things she had forgotten.

She loved to decorate for every holiday and season. Ever wonder who buys complete seasonal bathroom sets from the toilet rug to the toothbrush holder? My grandma did! She could quilt the most amazingly beautiful quilts - I am so lucky to have several. My kids each have one and a Christmas quilt that she made for them.
She was the best Dooda to my kids. She loved them so much and would read to them, sing with them, and kiss all over them.
I will miss so much about her. There are a handful of people in my life who only call me D and she was one of them. I will miss her emailing me a question but wanting me to call with the answer. I will miss her sweet smell - she smelled the best. I will miss her birthday cards and her perfect cursive writing. I will miss the way she sang "hello" when you called her. I will miss her snow white hair and her perfectly matching jewelry to every outfit. I will miss her.
She left an amazing legacy and I hope to do her proud.

Round 7 is Done!

    We left Livingston this morning around 8:30 and drove to The Woodlands. We had a delicious breakfast at The Black Walnut - we highly recommend this place! At 10:30 I had my port accessed and my bloodwork done. I know I hated having my port put in but I’m so thankful for it right now. Bloodwork is a piece of cake. 

     We then went to meet with Dr. Ramshesh who had 2 oncology students with her so it was kind of fun to hear her ask me questions, listen to my answer, and then turn to them and explain why she asks the questions she asks. She even dove deeper into my case so they would understand more about me. I felt like I got a deeper look into my case today! 

    Then we went over to the Infusion Center to get started on round 7. We have to have the green light from Ramshesh before they even start mixing the chemo so it takes about an hour from the green light until it’s ready. Premeds take about 30-40 minutes and then this chemo takes 3 to 4 hours. Michael and I had lunch, worked with our nurse navigator to set up a small procedure next week and my initial meeting with my plastic surgeon - this proved to be harder than we thought with Bethlehem build, Bethlehem, and Bethlehem take down. Now that we have a surgery date and Christmas is around the corner we are on a time crunch to meet with the plastic surgeon and get a game plan. But we made it work. 

They give me a large dose of Benadryl with my premeds and they make me very sleepy. I decided to run to the restroom before taking a nap and Peggy my nurse navigator called me into another room. I met another woman, my age, who has just been diagnosed with inflammatory breast cancer. She and her husband have 2 daughters and they are both having a hard time with everything- very understandable. I got to share about my journey and what helped me. She’s very nervous/upset about loosing her hair and wanted to make it through Thanksgiving with her hair. She’s on round 2 so I advised her not to touch her head tomorrow. I also told her to let people help her. She kind of laughed and looked at her mom and said that’s what she was having a hard time with. I got to tell her all about you guys and how my Village and my Faith were the two things getting me through this time so to let people help her. We talked about 15 minutes. It was nice to be able to help someone else going through this awful disease. 

So I went back to my room and laid down - really just declined in the chair. I was watching Hallmark movies and dozing in and out when I had my very first hiccup during an infusion. All of a sudden I couldn’t breath. It felt like I had a large amount of weight sitting on my chest. My throat was clear so I knew I wasn’t having an allergic reaction but my chest was so tight and I couldn’t get a deep breath. I told Michael and he went to the nurses station. If you want to get the attention of the entire infusion nursing staff just tell them you can’t breathe. I sat up and they hooked me up to monitors and called the oncologist. They stopped the infusion and monitored me closely. My blood pressure was fine, my heart rate was fine and ironically my pulse ox was fine. Slowly the feeling started to go away. One of the weird side effect from this drug is that while laying down the fluid can pool on top of your lungs causing a large amount of pressure on your lungs. As soon as you sit up straight it disperses into your body releasing the pressure. So I was back to normal. They slowed my infusion down and continued to monitor me. They said all of this side effects I’ve had since starting chemo have been the most unusual side effects. The normal side effects I haven’t really had...they said I’m just a funny case. 

So we finished round 7 just after 5pm. It was a long day. We are thankful tomorrow is Thanksgiving and my parents and sister, brother and his fiancé are coming to our house so that I can be resting all day. 

Still be praying that I will feel good through out the weekend so we can spend the weekend together. 

Round 7 and surgery

On Wednesday, November 21st I will have round 7 of chemo. The neuropathy in my feet has gotten pretty bad. My hands are off and on all of this I can handle because 1) it is temporary and 2) it means the chemo is working.
On Monday I met with my surgeon over at MD Anderson. I really like her and have full confidence in her plan. She is one of the leading experts in lymph node dissection and she feels that she can save most of my lymph nodes as long as they do not show any signs of cancer.  So, the plan is - to have a single mastectomy on January 8th. She will remove the one lymph node that showed cancer and test 3 to 5 around it. She will most likely remove those as well. If those come back cancer free then she will stop there. This will make my chances of lymphedema 2 to 3%.  If they do come back positive for cancer then she will have to remove all of my lymph nodes which increases my chances of lymphedema to about 75%. Then 6 weeks after surgery I will begin radiation. Radiation will be 5 days a week for 6 weeks.  After radiation I will have to heal for 4 to 6 months and then we will do reconstruction. During reconstruction I will have another mastectomy on the other side and they will reconstruct all at the same time.  Doing this will dramatically decrease my risk of infection during radiation. 

How to pray for me right now
- That pain in my hips and legs will be minimal this round
- That I will be able to enjoy Thanksgiving with my family and feel good all day Thursday
- Michael and I want to be able to enjoy the end of our break with our kids and that all depends on how good I feel Friday and Saturday. So selfishly I would love to feel good enough to do fun things with them.

How can you pray for me from now until surgery
- We are praying boldly that when they test my lymph nodes they will show NO trace of cancer!
- I will be out of work for 3 to 4 weeks...pray that I could go back to work quickly. I will be docked the entire time I am out and I would love to be out the least amount of time possible but also want my body to be 100%
- That the tumors would be gone when they go in for surgery.  They don't have to be gone - but I have loved watching God do things only He can do and my doctors not be able to explain it! I have loved telling my doctors that this is what we have specifically prayed for.

My God is Able

We went today for my midway through Taxol scans. My oncologist had told me she just wanted to see some shrinkage to know that the chemo was working. As I was on the table it was taking the tech a long time to do my scan. I started to get nervous and asked if everything was ok. She smiled and said - yes the tumors are just hard to find right now! 

So! My tumors have shrunk a LOT! God has done something only He could do. Praise Him from whom all blessings flow! 

New Scans

I’m half way through this new chemo. It has been harder than I thought it would be and the fatigue seems to last for the entire 2 weeks. 

We are doing halfway scans on this chemo to make sure it is killing the tumors. My oncologist has said as long as we see some shrinkage we are good. So let’s pray again that God would do something only He could do and make these tumors way smaller than expected!! 

We also meet with my surgical team on Monday to officially set up our surgery date. It needs to be 3 weeks after chemo which just happens to be Christmas...which we are not going to do. So most likely we will have surgery after the first of the year. 

Thank you for joining us in this journey. 

#alreadywon 

New Side Effect

So round 5 was a lot harder than I anticipated. I guess because so many people told me it was so much easier it hit me really hard mentally and physically when it wasn’t. Taxol, my new chemo, causes bone and joint pain and starting Saturday night into Wednesday morning I was in the most excruciating pain I’ve felt in a long time if ever. Nothing seemed to help. Tylenol, Advil, serious pain meds, hot baths, oils - nothing worked. Some of them took the edge off but I was in constant pain from my hips to my toes for almost 5 straight days. And then, just like that it was over. Chemo is the strangest thing ever and I’m glad that I don’t have to make this apart of my life forever. 

Taxol also can cause neuropathy, and starting last night I began to feel like my feet were going to sleep but it would come and go. Today at lunch my feet and palms of my hands went numb and stayed that way. My doctor has prescribed me a medicine for my nerves and has said that the neuropathy will go away after treatment. 

Thursday I go in for Round 6. I am so thankful that the actual infusion part is so much easier on me! I’m also thankful that the day after seems to be easier. 

Please pray that my pain would be minimal this round and that this chemo is just as effective at killing this cancer as my last chemo.