Blessing in Disguise

Life has been a whirlwind, running from one thing to the next. Everything from family coming to visit to prepping Jason to leave for his two year mission, grocery shopping and everything in between. It has been anything but the quiet norm around here. Last week was supposed to be a chemo treatment week, but with the excitement going on, was pushed back to today.

This is Valerie, writing again on my mom's account. We are currently at SCCA bright and early in the morning. It is so good to be back home, I miss Seattle very much and it is great to be with my family. Jason is leaving tomorrow, I can hardly believe it. I am so lucky to be here watching him prepare to serve his mission.

After the usual pre-chemo blood test, the results were a blessing in disguise. My mom's white blood cell count was too low to do chemotherapy today. This is the first time being turned away. With all that has been going on, her body did not get adequate rest. This means we push back chemo another week, not without a little help for next time. We are waiting for her to get a shot to help boost those white blood cells! She needs to be careful hygiene wise by eating well, getting rest, washing hands more frequently because she is more susepctible to infections and the like. It is a blessing because today is Jason's last day and we get to spend it with him!! My mom is so thrilled about that. Just so everyone knows, this happens and is not uncommon for cancer patients. It is something they monitor regularly and will treat as needed.

We're off to enjoy our day! See you next week SCCA.

A Failed Attempt

Valerie Here. I am at SCCA with my mom, on her computer, while she is getting her next round of chemo. No changes to her chemo treatments yet.On Friday the 19th she went in for a lung biopsy to confirm if the growing/multiplying tumors in her lungs were in fact cancer. The rest of her organs have been stable with the current chemo. The procedure was 2 hours long. Her back was numbed in the area they would be putting the needle in. She laid on her stomach and was told to breathe in and out the same amount of breath as they pushed the needle deeper. She was not sedated for this, the local anesthetic did not take away all of the pain. When the needle hit her ribs it hurt her. They had to maneuver around the ribs. When the needle was pushed though the layer that surrounds the lung, that also hurt her. They had just gotten the needle through the lung and were very close to getting the targeted tumor when the lung leaked air and began to collapse. As the lung collapsed the tumor moved farther away from the needle until the needle was no longer poking the lung. It was too risky to poke it again with the air escaping, so they pulled the needle out of her and stopped the biopsy. They did an X-ray to see how much it was shrinking. She was hooked up to oxygen for the following six hours of rest at the hospital. They monitored her to make sure she was getting better not worse. They would not let her eat until two hours before leaving in case they needed to do a chest tube to drain fluids, or anything else in an emergency to fix her lung. She turned out to be ok and was not admitted! We were glad to be home friday night. She was to get lots of rest for a couple days and not go up/down stairs or lift anything heavy. It hurt her to breathe, especially if she sat up. Her back was also sore from the needle.For those of you who don't know this, my mom rarely sleeps more than 4 hours a night (I know, how in the world is she surviving!?). The night of the lung biopsy she slept for 10.5 hours! She felt so good and well rested the next morning. I had to make sure she didn't push herself since she was still healing. Its so frustrating for her to be held back, physically. I don't blame her. I am so grateful for her energy and the times she feels "normal." I hope that continues to be a big part of her life and the moments of pain and sick feelings are kept to a minimum.As for the biopsy, we are thinking there will not be a second try. Which we are completely ok with. Her doctor is going to decide for the next round, if the chemo will change or not. Most likely it will.I have been so impressed with my Mom throughout all of this, but she gains giant boosts of confidence when she hears from all of you in a variety of ways. You are what keeps her fighting strong. Thanks for expressing your love and support. Keep it coming!

Results from the 2nd CT Scan

I just got back home from an all day adventure at SCCA. First we did the CT scan and then had 3 hours to kill before meeting with the Doctor to get the results. We went to the mall and had brunch...I love brunch. :)
Then we browsed through some stores and had fun window shopping...wishing money was no object.

The results of the CT scan showed that all tumors are smaller and nothing new has cropped up. Good news!
My cancer marker is now 877! Again, that's down from 16,000 and just last month 1400!
So chemotherapy is working! The Doc gave me a couple of choices. I could continue on chemo as we have been doing or I could go on the chemo pill. The downside of going on the pill is that he doesn't know what dosage will be right for me so we need to start and then tweak it til we get it right. But I chose the pill anyway. Once it's tweaked just right it sounds easier. I still have to go in every three weeks for some kind of infusion...sorry I can't remember what but it's just a small part. And every 2 months I go in for another CT scan.

With all the love and prayers being sent in our behalf it's no wonder the cancer is running scared. I do not feel alone in this battle. I can feel so many warriors standing behind me and beside me in support.
Thank you to all of you for your love, support and prayers. I am glad to have the love of family and friends through all of this.
Ultimately it is not what the doctors say and it is not what we want for ourselves but it is in God's hands and I put my trust in Him.

More Than Half Way

This is at Mom's first chemo treatment after her half way mark.

View from the waiting room.

View down from the waiting room.

Walking, outside of SCCA

Dad and I went with her this time and this was our view from her room. 

Everything went well that day.

She had another blood draw yesterday,

(like she does every Friday before a chemo treatment)

and is going in on Monday for another treatment.

Only a few more treatments left.

Results

We just finished meeting with the doctor here at SCCA. He went over the results of the CT scan. We have two months of chemo down and two more to go. Her tumors have shrunk an average of about a third of the size, or less, of the original. The large tumors in her liver have only lost only about 2-4mm, which is not nearly as significant as we had hoped. They are still fairly large, but they are at least responding! The doctor was pleased with the results. He also said surgery is not likely after the treatments. It would not help because of how wide spread the cancer is. After two more months of chemo she will switch to a pill form that is more a targeted therapy than a chemotherapy, that will cut off the blood supply to all of the tumors. The pill would still help shrink the tumors. It's looking like the tumors will never completely dissapear, but there is always hope! It is good news that the cancer is responding to the treatments. Just because the tumors did not shrink in half does not mean there isn't hope for there to be more progress. Only time will tell and we pray continually we will pull through this.
Her cancer counters went from 16,000 to 3,600.
We are currently in the waiting room for her next chemotherapy....

Prognosis

Monday we went in to our first oncology visit.

Almost to the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance

Beautiful view from the waiting room

The first thing we were told is that they cannot "cure" stage 4 colon cancer, but they can extend my life expectancy with chemotherapy. They said that on average with treatment I could expect to live two years. Of course we have read about those who have survived this and I believe that if it's the Lord's will, I can too.


I go in on Thursday to have a "port" put in which provides a simple and relatively painless (I hope) method to administer chemotherapy drugs.


Monday I begin chemotherapy. I will be there a large part of the day to get chemo and then go home with a pump that will continue to give me chemo over the next couple of days. Then a nurse will come "unhook" me, take her pump and I will continue this process every other Monday for a couple of months. Then I will have a CT scan to see how I am responding.
The good news is the doctor doesn't think I will lose my hair! I guess I didn't need to get this haircut afterall but it sure is a LOT easier to do! Of course I wonder how sure he can be that I won't lose hair so I'm prepared for either way.

This whole thing has happened so fast. I can not believe I am sitting here talking about the things I'm talking about. But there is one thing I want all of you to know...I trust my Heavenly Father and my Savior Jesus Christ. If I have to go through this, there is a  reason. And I know I am being watched over and blessed as well as my family. I am so grateful to all of you for your outpouring of love and concern for me and my family.