Scan Results

First, I must say that I have been feeling great.  I didn't realize how tiring the chemo was because now that I have not had chemo in three weeks, I have had more energy, my taste has come back and my skin is clearing up.  I am so happy to be over chemo.  Second, I have scheduled my reconstruction surgery and I will have that done on March 19!

I had my CT scan this past Tuesday.  I learned a valuable lesson, don't ever drink the contrast drink that is offered at the doctor's office but drink the contrast drink that they offer at the imaging office.  It tastes like orange Tang and there is a lot less to drink then the other contrast drink.

The good news about the CT scan was that the place on my liver had not changed so my doctor was confident that it was a harmless cyst and nothing to worry about.  The bad news was that he saw something on my spine that he doesn't understand.  He couldn't tell me much about what he saw.  I had had a bone scan done this past summer and it was clean.  I have had 16 rounds of chemo so no cancer should have grown there.  He is concerned so he has ordered a PET scan.  I will have that done next Wednesday and then I go see him about the result on Thursday.

I will admit that I am a little upset.  I have been feeling so good and then I get this call and I now I feel like the wind was knock out of my sails (sorry for the cliche but that is how I feel)  Now I have to wait and how I hate waiting.  Waiting just makes me think and when I start thinking, I think of the worse sometimes.  So please keep me in your prayers that this is nothing and I can continue feeling good.

Time Off for Good Behavior

That's what Dr. Rafesky told me when I went in for my first post chemo visit this past Monday.  I don't have to go back and see. him for 6 weeks.  For the next 6 weeks, I don't plan to go to any farther then Mt. Juliet if I can help it. 

The visit went well.  He just checked me over and talked about some of the things that I will be doing.  I will get another CT scan on February 2 just as a precaution and he was not too concerned about finding anything.  He talked about some hormonal therapy that he will want me to do in the future.  That will involve some oral medication.  Also, because of the trial that I signed up for, I will be taking a drug called lapitnib which is an oral drug.  I won't start that till I see him next time. 

The chemo was very hard on my skin.  My face, arms and chest have broken out something awful.  That was the first thing he noticed when he came into the room.  He gave me a prescription for an antibiotic.  I hope that with the antibiotic and me switching to soap and laundry detergent for sensitive skin, it will clear up soon.

Monday was so wonderful not having to go and get chemo.  I felt so good.  The kids are happy that I am not getting chemo also.  Even though they have been so good during these past months, I knew it had bothered them to see mommy tired or not feeling good.  Things will start getting back to a better routine around here and I will feel like doing more.  I will be going back to teaching at Mother's Day Out next week and I know John Derrick will be glad about that.  I have to lose the weight that I gained during chemo and I will be glad about that.  Now if I can just start sleeping better at night, things will be good.

The End

I am finished!! Enough said!  (Besides the fact that Kevin took me to my final treatment and we went out to eat a Red Lobster for lunch as a mini celebration)

Come, let us sing for joy to the LORD; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song. For the LORD is the great God, the great King above all gods (Psalms 95:1-3)


...I will trust in God's unfailing love for ever and ever. I will praise you forever for what you have done; In your name I will hope, for your name is good. (Psalm 52:8-9)


Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again; Rejoice! (Philippians 4:4)


Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. (Ephesians 6:10)

A Merry Christmas, a New Year and Closer to the End

I have been very behind in blogging about my treatments.  I finished treatment # 11 yesterday so I have only ONE MORE TREATMENT TO GO!! (Can you tell that I am a little excited?)  I am still feeling good.  The side effects that I experience are very minor and don't affect my everyday activities.

We had a very merry Christmas this year.  I am very thankful that my treatments didn't interfer with the time I spend with my family.  Christmas Eve was spent at my parents house with my brothers and their families.  I was thankful that my younger brother Lane and his wife Kristen and daughter Josie were able to drive up from Houston to be with us.  I was sad that my sister-in-law, Penny, had thryoid surgery just a few days before Christmas Eve.  She didn't get out of the hospital till Christmas Eve so she had to stay at home and rest (which she needed to do anyway).  My older brother, Marty, did come and bring his kids, Emilynne, Nathaniel and Susannah.  Christmas morning was spent at home and we ate Christmas dinner at my Aunt and Uncle's home with the extended family where we had a fun Dirty Santa exchange.  Kevin and I along with Lane and Kristen went to the Titans game Christmas night where we were very cold and the Titans lost.

We spent New Year's Eve at home and I made a pot of homemade chili and attempted homemade cinnamon rolls which turned out delicious.  On New Years Day we drove to Memphis to spend the weekend with some of our dear friends, Jeremy and Laura Tolleson and their son Bradley.  Kevin and Jeremy went to the Liberty Bowl to see the Arkansas Razorback play.  They turned into ice cubes and Arkansas won in overtime.  Laura and I took the kids to a nice warm movie theater were we saw The Chipmunks, the Squeakquel.

A special thank you to Tammy Robertson who took me to my treatment, Monday December 21.  She is a very special friend who has wanted to do something but she works at Mother's Day Out on Mondays and Thursday.  Since school was out, I asked if she could take me and she did.  We enjoyed our time even together.  Thank you to Nicole Brashear who took me to my treatment yesterday and thank you to Jenny Leech who brought over supper yesterday.

I know I left a day out.  On Monday December 28, my dad took his turn to take me to the doctor.  He got to do a little extra because I had to see my breast surgeon Dr. Lawson that morning.  My appointment with her was at 9:45 downtown Nashville at Baptist and my treatment was at 1:00 in Hermitage at Summit.  We planned on doing lunch together in between.  Well I got done with Dr. Lawson fairly quickly and we had a some time to kill before lunch and my treatment so he drove me around Nashville.  He showed me the homes that lived in as a boy.  He drove me by the schools that he went to and told me the places that he remembered going to.  We also drove by one of the houses that lived in before we moved to Lebanon and drove by the house my mom lived in as a girl.  I wished that I had my camera with me because I want pictures of those houses.  I also wish I could see the insides of those houses.  I was very fascinated by this history lesson.  We went to lunch at Paneras in Hermitage and then off to the doctor.  They were busy because of the holidays so my dad was not able to come back and stay with me to keep me company but he waited in the waiting room and got some studying done.  I really enjoyed and appreciated the time I spent with him that day.

Thank you for keeping me in your prayers.  Remember to also pray for others who are battling cancer even if you don't know who they are because there are a lot of people who need those prayers.

Getting Closer to the End

Yesterday was treatment number 8. I am finally seeing the end of the tunnel. I will be done with chemo by the second week of January. Yipee!!

I am still feeling good. Yesterday I was really tired when I got home and went straight to bed and slept for 2 hours and I had no idea what was going on around me. Kevin took me my treatment yesterday mainly because I forgot to ask anyone else to take me. Luckily they were not too busy yesterday so Kevin got to sit with me most of the time except when I let him go out and get him some lunch. A special thanks again to Rachel Gray for bringing over supper last night. She makes a very good Poppy seed casserole.

Thank you everybody for keeping me in you prayers. I love how God works in my life. Sometimes I start feeling a little discouraged but I feel the prayers working. Sometimes I think it is just meeting a random person on the street. Just last week, I was having a down day but I had to go to Joanne's for some crafty supplies. As I was checking out one the men who works there asked me how I was doing. He had checked me out before (and I mean at the register so I could buy my stuff). Since I was wearing a turban, he had asked if I was going through chemo and he told me that he had gone through it also several years ago. When I in there last week, he saw me again and asked if I was still doing good. I really appreciated that and I know it is God telling me that it will all be ok and I will make it.

Over Halfway Done

Today I had my seventh treatment out of 12. I am still feeling pretty good. I have been getting a little tired easier but nothing unbearable. I met with Dr. Raefsky first this morning and he seems pleased with my progress. He mentioned hormonal theraphy that I will have to do after this is over but we are going to get through these treatments until we worry about that. When we get done with these treatments I will have to get a CT scan just to check a tiny spot they saw on my liver at my last CT scan. Both the radiologist and Dr. Raefsky was not overly concerned but they have to check it to be safe.

It was a busy day at the oncologist office. I have moved my treatments to Mondays because of Thanksgiving. I think I like Mondays better because I am getting it over with at the beginning and don't have to think about it all week. There were a lot of people there getting treatments today. So many people that there were not enough chairs for the patients so people were waiting for others to get done. I met another lady named Belinda who was going through cancer for the third time. She tickled me because she was really enjoying talking but she was sharing way too much information about her bodily functions. It was nice talking with her and she shared her snacks with me which I appreciated because I was hungry and I forgot to pack a snack and I was hooked up to the IV and I couldn't get a snack that kept for the patients.

A big thanks again to Margaret McPeak for driving me to my appointment last week. She has taken me 4 times to the doctors and I am appreciative of her for taking time out of her week for me. My mom took the day off to take me today. Since it was so crowded she couldn't sit with me so she got some Christmas shopping done.

Did you know that Steak 'n Shake has a Happy hour from 2:00-4:00? After I got done, my mom wanted to get me something to eat or drink so she suggested a milkshake from Steak 'n Shake. We went through the drive through and ordered 2 Peppermint Chocolate Chip shakes. She counted out her money for the 2 and when we got to the window the very nice man gave us a total for one and when we questioned it, he told us that it was Happy Hour and all drinks and SHAKES are half price. That made both of us so very happy and it was good.

We Have Something in Common and We Wished We Didn't

On Thursday, November 19, I had treatment number five out of 12. So far, any side effects that I have had have been managable and I can go about life as normal as possible. I do come home from my treatments tired but I manage to take a nap but as I said before I can't get back to sleep. Like tonight, it is almost 3 in the morning and I am wide awake. I could have gone to see the midnight showing of New Moon this morning. The main reason that I am still awake is that I had a rather large cup of coffee after supper tonight.

Today was John Derrick's 5th birthday. My baby boy is growing up very relunctantly. He knows he is our baby and he wants to stay that way but I still see how much he is growing and learning and next year he goes to kindergarten and I get teary eyed just thinking about it.

I really am beginning to dislike going to the doctor especially since I have to go every week. I have been going on Thursday while John Derrick is in preschool and of course Faith is at school. So I only get one day of the week child free and I have to try to get a lot done during that time so losing that day really messes me up. But when you go every week, people start becoming familiar faces. I am quite the reserved person so I don't always start up conversations but I have met a lot of people who are there for the same thing. We are getting some type of treatment for some type of cancer. So we all have that thing in common and I know I wish I didn't have that thing in common with them. I have met a teacher from the Lebanon Special School distict (she teaches at Castle Heights Upper Elementary where Faith will be next year), I have met only person who has gotten the exact same treatment as I have, I have seen a lady up there several times while there but today she sat across from me and we were able to talk, I think she said that her cancer was in her bones and she had stem cells removed and she will go back to the hospital on December 18 to have them put back in and to receive more chemo and she will be there for 2-3 weeks. Today I also met a lady who was getting her first treatment for breast cancer that had come back in her lungs and spinal cord and she was going to be there all day till 4:15 in the afternoon. There is another lady I have seen twice but have not spoken to her but she doesn't wear a wig but wears scarfs and turban and she looks so beautiful and peaceful. Last week, I was able to chat with another lady and we didn't talk about treatments but talked about our children. Her children were older, one being in high school and the other a freshman in college but I enjoyed the talk. There are some men who are there, they usually comment on how young I am and we will exchange a few words. We are all having to do this and I garantee that we don't won't to be there and we are all making the best of it and keeping as positive as we can. I keep them in my thoughts and prayers because we all want to be healed.

A special thanks to Kolleen Mangrum who drove me to my treatment last week. She stayed with me and really helped to time passed by. Last week was different because shortly after I got to the treatment everyone left and no one else came in and we had the whole room to ourselves. Also thank you to Rachel Gray who brought us dinner last week. She lives farther out and while she would drive me, it would be a long trip so she decided to make me dinner instead and I definitely appreciated it because I didn't feel like cooking or going out to eat. Thank you to Jenny Leech who drove me today. She had her kids so she wasn't able to come up with me but I soooooo appreciate her taking the time to drive to get me and take me home. Her little boy, Cooper, is John Derrick's best friend.

Now I really need to try to get some sleep. I would hate fall asleep tomorrow when I go see the matinee of New Moon with some of my friends....

For this reason I kneel before the Father,from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. (Ephesians 3:14-21)