Last week My Hero had another treatment and visit with her oncologist in Portland. Chuckles went with Papa and Nana as he LOVES Auntie time, but has caught on to the pattern of "spoiling" when trailing behind. It was really special for him this time as he lost his second tooth away from home!!!!!
Many times over the past almost seven years, this joy-ride of breast cancer has gone to extreme highs to rock bottom lows. There has been a village of people who have stood in support, prayed holes in the carpet, and been the medicine outside of the bottle to My Hero and our family. From the mission house right after the first surgery to fundraisers across the states; people have extended themselves to bring healing and encouragement to this entire journey. Recently, we've experienced some more set-backs, but are HOPEFUL in the new abilities of technology and education in medicine. We pray for super-woman strength for our sister, daughter, friend, and co-employee.
This weekend, I attended a Dare To Be event and was reminded to thank God for being "in the middle" of our situations. I can't begin to explain how many times I've felt like, as a family, we've been paddling in the middle of the lake against an upstream current in this battle. BUT, God is faithful and will give us the arm muscle to paddle against anything that gets in the way. As long as we can keep our eyes on the shoreline in front of us knowing that God will NEVER leave us, NEVER forsake us, and will ALWAYS have His will in His best interest, then we will be okay.
"I praise you in the storm…"
Here is My Hero's latest update for those interested and needing something to jot down on their prayer list. Yes, it's confusing, but you will see the faithfulness in this servants heart speak louder than any positive diagnoses.
God is SOOOO good!
"Had another treatment of Pamindranate for my bones yesterday with my buddy and parents at my side. Charlie brings me so much joy when he comes and I think he puts a smile on more than my face up in the infusion room!! Yesterday he was watching a movie on my computer so when he wanted to say something, he would shout due to earplugs being in his ear. He had quite the group of us laughing!
My tumor marker numbers are continuing to go up which is not the direction I want them to go! For two months they had been going down and I thought we had FINALLY turned a corner in beating this thing. But last month, they shot back up leaving the two months of decline erased. Yesterday my labs went up again, smaller amount this time, but they still went up. Although I am responding well to the chemo (combo of a daily chemo pill and every 4wk bone maintenance chemo), it isn't working hard enough to beat my cancer. It is keeping my bone mets from spreading, but not working enough to also kill what is there.
So my doctor is going to be sending my tumor samples both from my lower spine as well as the original tumor I found in my sternum back in 2011 to a lab where they will be doing a DNA test on the tumor itself! Crazy how far science has come in this area! If needed they will also look at my original, original tumors from 2007. The goal of these tests will be to determine the biological make up of the cancer in order to treat my cancer at a biological level. This is cutting edge cancer treatment stuff and I am thankful my doctor wants to be as aggressive as I do in beating this once for all!!
So what does this really mean? On a scientific doctor level, it means my cancer doesn't have a chance! I'm not going to try and explain beyond that since I'm still trying to understand how this works, let alone help someone else understand it too! All in know is that they will be looking at my tumors down to the smallest DNA levels to see what the most effective form of treatment will be. It kind of sounds like a dah-type thing to do but unfortunately scientists have not been able to do this up until recently. So this method of treating cancer really is cutting edge work!
On a daily life level this means that at my next Pamindrinate treatment, my doctor will be switching things up. He may start me on a new chemotherapy drug (lose your hair hard-core type chemo), or change me to a different pill form only type of chemo, or change the dose and frequency of the current chemo I am getting. It could also mean doing radiation on the most painful bone met areas, or any type of combo of the options above. I will also be doing another PET scan later February to establish a new baseline before I start a new chemo regimen.
For now I will continue taking Afinitor (chemo pill) on a daily basis and its sidekick drug at night. For pain I will continue taking a muscle relaxer but also adding a new pain killer for when the muscle relaxer doesn't work. Hopefully I will not have to take the pain killer too much but I have been experiencing more pain on a consistent basis and I consider myself to have a fairly high pain tolerance so you can do the math on that one. I am very thankful I haven't been experiencing mouth sores the last few months...you can only go so far eating baby food! In that regard, if anyone needs Gerber baby food I have some to spare and would gladly hand them off to you!
This has been a long journey so far but God is good!! Thank you to everyone who is on this road with me too!"
My tumor marker numbers are continuing to go up which is not the direction I want them to go! For two months they had been going down and I thought we had FINALLY turned a corner in beating this thing. But last month, they shot back up leaving the two months of decline erased. Yesterday my labs went up again, smaller amount this time, but they still went up. Although I am responding well to the chemo (combo of a daily chemo pill and every 4wk bone maintenance chemo), it isn't working hard enough to beat my cancer. It is keeping my bone mets from spreading, but not working enough to also kill what is there.
So my doctor is going to be sending my tumor samples both from my lower spine as well as the original tumor I found in my sternum back in 2011 to a lab where they will be doing a DNA test on the tumor itself! Crazy how far science has come in this area! If needed they will also look at my original, original tumors from 2007. The goal of these tests will be to determine the biological make up of the cancer in order to treat my cancer at a biological level. This is cutting edge cancer treatment stuff and I am thankful my doctor wants to be as aggressive as I do in beating this once for all!!
So what does this really mean? On a scientific doctor level, it means my cancer doesn't have a chance! I'm not going to try and explain beyond that since I'm still trying to understand how this works, let alone help someone else understand it too! All in know is that they will be looking at my tumors down to the smallest DNA levels to see what the most effective form of treatment will be. It kind of sounds like a dah-type thing to do but unfortunately scientists have not been able to do this up until recently. So this method of treating cancer really is cutting edge work!
On a daily life level this means that at my next Pamindrinate treatment, my doctor will be switching things up. He may start me on a new chemotherapy drug (lose your hair hard-core type chemo), or change me to a different pill form only type of chemo, or change the dose and frequency of the current chemo I am getting. It could also mean doing radiation on the most painful bone met areas, or any type of combo of the options above. I will also be doing another PET scan later February to establish a new baseline before I start a new chemo regimen.
For now I will continue taking Afinitor (chemo pill) on a daily basis and its sidekick drug at night. For pain I will continue taking a muscle relaxer but also adding a new pain killer for when the muscle relaxer doesn't work. Hopefully I will not have to take the pain killer too much but I have been experiencing more pain on a consistent basis and I consider myself to have a fairly high pain tolerance so you can do the math on that one. I am very thankful I haven't been experiencing mouth sores the last few months...you can only go so far eating baby food! In that regard, if anyone needs Gerber baby food I have some to spare and would gladly hand them off to you!
This has been a long journey so far but God is good!! Thank you to everyone who is on this road with me too!"
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