6.1.24

Bear one another’s burdens, and thereby fulfill the law of Christ

Galatians 6:2

I cannot say thank you enough for all of your prayers and support!! We serve a mighty God. He is faithful. He is good. He is always faithful. He is always good.

Half of the kiddos are done with school. The other half will be finishing next week. Which isn’t surprising given our year this year. (Aaron and I were gone for 2 weeks in October for my first surgery and then we were all gone for 2 weeks in February for my revision.) A quick little update for ya’ll as I think this will probably be my last post. (Which makes me sad. But I don’t really have anything new to share- which is a good thing! Now it’s just learning to live after cancer. Finding my new normal.) I had my follow up with the gynecologist a month after my surgery. He gave me the green light to go back to normal daily activities with the caveat of listening to my body. I’ve started lifting light weights 3x a week and doing cardio on the off days. Taking a break on the weekends. I can definitely tell when I work out and when I don’t. I had one week where I was lifting every day, I may have over done it 😉 the following week I was just too tired and didn’t do anything. So this last week I started back up again. All that to say the week that I wasn’t doing anything I was definitely more tired and just kind of blah. I didn’t really have any kind of exercise routine before cancer so this will be a life change for me. I’m ok with that. Everything is different now with my hormones so building strong muscles will be a good thing! I’ll just throw this out there: if anyone is looking for a workout buddy let me know! Or if you want some accountability we can text!! I started doing that with my aunt Kim. She doesn’t need the accountability!! But she’s that for me! 🙂

Before & After

I love how a fresh cut can make you feel better! And I think she’s trimmed off all my natural highlights! Au naturel right here!

Something I’m really excited about! I don’t have any cancer appointments until August 19!! I get the whole summer off!!! I am so excited!! Last year I was going in once a month for my shots. So no doctor appointments the whole summer! I may have to go in for a physical therapy appointment. (She wants to follow up with me on my workout program.) She knows that I was looking forward to not having to come in so we’ll see. I probably will, because I know she wants me to. haha. I will be meeting my new oncologist at the appointment in August, so that will be fun. 🙂

The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.

James 5:16

I have one more prayer request. Evalyn had the opportunity to go to a bible camp/ram camp in Missouri this coming week. (She’ll get to hunt a ram!!) She’s on her way there now. We’d appreciate prayers for safe travels and safety while she’s away from home. And that they would all have a good time and if there are any unsaved girls, they would come to know the Lord. 🙂

You all have been such a huge blessing to me and my family! Thank you again for the prayers and support!

I want to leave you with a couple of my theme Bible verses as I’ve walked/continue to walk this cancer journey.

For we walk by faith, not by sight.

2 Corinthians 5:7

Fear not, for I am with you; Be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, Yes, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.

Isaiah 41:10

How comforting it is to know that I am in God’s hands and He is in control.

4.23.24

I just want to say thank you for your continued prayers and support. I am beyond blessed! Sometimes it can be hard to see the positives when you are walking through trials. I have a little positive to share… You guys guess what!!

For the first time in over a year. Closer to a year and a half. I was able to get a ponytail in my hair!

/\/\/\ These are from today!! /\/\/\

I am so excited. I’ve had quite a few people ask me if I’m going to keep my hair short. Maybe some day. (At least I know how I’ll look with really short hair.) But I didn’t choose this hairstyle. It’s just another reminder of my cancer. I want my long hair back!

Aaannnddd

My pathology report came back.

The pathology report from your hysterectomy shows all benign results, as expected...

Praise the Lord! I’m still doing good. No weird or more pronounced side effects from my surgery. The glue is gone! So that’s nice. I have to remember I’m still under weight restrictions. I feel good. So I want to do more. If I do too much I get sore. I guess that’s a good reminder to take it easy. I’m looking forward to the summer and hoping to find some kind of normalcy again.

This is the day the Lord has made;
We will rejoice and be glad in it.
Psalm 118:24

4.17.24

I can’t believe my surgery was a week ago already. The human body is such a fascinating thing. Our ability to heal and our resilience. You can just see God’s handiwork in it all.

I’m happy to say that I haven’t noticed any differences (so far) between having my ovaries removed and getting the shot. I was a little concerned that maybe I’d have more hot flashes or some other menopausal symptom with the removal of my ovaries. But so far, everything seems the same so that’s nice! I’m healing nicely! In fact the last two nights I’ve laid on my side for a little bit (and it didn’t hurt right away!!) The incisions are still tender if I bump them, but I can tell even that gets better each day. It does hurt on my left side when I stretch or stand up straight. That’s the side that has the two cut marks one below my ribs and the other a couple inches below that one. Those two cuts have a little bruising around them as well. The one above my belly button and the one on the right I barely notice. As I’m typing this, I’m wondering if the reason I feel the ones on my left side more, especially the one just below my ribs, is because I’m not really numb there. However, I am pretty much numb from my belly button down across my abdomen. It’s the weirdest feeling ever! I’m guessing at some point I’ll regain normal feeling. I only say that because after my c-section with Emersyn I was numb at the incision site. Then one day I noticed it felt normal again. Yay!

I was hoping to get back to doing physical therapy, but after messaging with the nurse I’ve decided to wait until after my one month follow up with the gynecologist. I’ll see what he says about massaging my scars and what I can do/not do. The nurse told me this:

... the 10 lb restriction would apply. Very gentle on the scars as we now also have the laparoscopic incisions that we noted intraoperatively are under quite a bit of tension due to the stretching of the remaining skin after the DIEP reconstruction.

I’m not looking to pop open any incisions! 😉 Every once in awhile I get random back spasms. They seem to happen more so on my left side than my right. I can’t really stretch it out without hurting my incision sites (especially that top left one.) I kind of wonder if its from surgery- like if I’m subconsciously babying my incisions by not standing up straight or if its from laying on my back for the last week. Just things that are not my normal… I don’t know. I’m hoping that it will resolve itself sooner than later! And I have to remind myself: my body has gone through a lot!

I had a bone density test scheduled next month but that is getting postponed until next year. I am now considered post menopausal and because of the medicine I have to take I am at an increased risk of osteoporosis. We’ve pretty much fast tracked that for me by like 20 years. Typically a woman in her 60’s would start to see bone loss after having gone through menopause. I’m there now at 39. I’ve started taking a calcium and vitamin D supplement. And once I get the go ahead to do more physical activity I would like to add some light weight lifting to my work out regimen. Hopefully that and walking will help counter the osteoporosis stuff. Plus I think it helps with the hormonal stuff too. 😉 UW Eau Claire has a program for cancer patients in their kinesiology department. I have to commit to 2 days a week for a semester, but I’ll get paired with one of the students and they will determine a work out plan for me. I have to wait until the fall semester for that but am looking forward to it. I’m hoping to regain some of my muscle back. I have lost so much of that going back to October 2022.

I had a quick doctor appointment with Dr Naqvi to go over my thoughts about the possible side effects of Tamoxifen. Since I seem to be doing better now we’re just keeping everything the same. I’ll continue taking that for at least another year. At that point I’ll discuss with my oncologist if I should continue taking Tamoxifen or if I should go to a different medication. Tamoxifen is the recommended medication for women premenopausal. Since I’m not considered that any more it opens the door for other possible medications. Dr. Naqvi would like to let the dust settle a little though before we make any other changes. And I’m ok with that.

The bumps on the road reminded me that I did in fact have surgery recently. The pillow helped stabilize the motion so it wasn’t as painful.

On Friday there was cosmic bowling and unlimited games for x amount. Pretty sure Kade could be a lawyer 😉 He pleaded their case and won. The four older ones went bowling from 7:30-11:30 and the two younger ones got Mc Donalds and some time at the play place.

When you have similar tastes in fashion… What do they say?? Great minds think alike! 😉

Aaron’s grandma Julaine makes these little scrubbies and I love them!! She brought me a couple when they brought the kids back from a couple days stay with grandpa and grandma. 🙂

Gave the boys a haircut! Easton said he wanted a mohawk (Ev promised candy to whoever cut their hair that way.)

4.11.24

We sang that hymn in church on Sunday and I couldn’t help but think how true those words were! I can’t tell you how thankful I am that I am not walking this journey alone. Even if I didn’t have my army of prayer warriors I still have Jesus.

Easter Sunday

Last Wednesday I got whatever stomach bug some of my kiddos had.. Thankfully it only lasted the day. But it was pretty miserable from 3am-6pm. (I threw up until noon. And had a pretty nasty headache most of the day). I think it was the first time I’ve been sick since I found out I had cancer! How crazy is that!?!

We have been busy, busy, busy! On Saturday I got super ambitious and deep cleaned the entire house. Well just the main level, I didn’t get to the basement. I think I went from 9am to 9pm. It was a long day! But it felt good to have that all done before my surgery. Aaron got the garden tilled up too. I’ve wanted a garden for awhile but kept saying we’ll have one when we move out in the country (I just didn’t want to go through the work of putting one in here and then leaving in a year.) It’s looking like we’ll be city folks for awhile so we decided to just go for it. 🙂 I’m excited. I think the kids are too.

A little reward for working all day 😉

Phase 1 complete!

Tuesday was my birthday. It was a nice quiet day. Aaron and the kids spoiled me. And my parents came up so they could be here for my surgery on Wednesday. We went out to eat at Lucette’s. Wood fire pizza. Yum. Here’s to my last year in my 30’s!

Kade and Ev bought me flowers and a coffee!

My aunt and uncle sent up some homemade cinnamon rolls!

My surgery was bumped from 10:30 to 8:30 and I didn’t mind that one bit because I couldn’t have anything to eat or drink after 10:30pm.

Everything went really well! They told Aaron it was textbook. No scar tissue to deal with or anything like that. We weren’t sure if there would be from my previous surgeries. I was a little slow to wake up but I think that’s kind of normal for me. I was able to go home the same day, which was the plan from the beginning. But, I had to be able to walk and go to the bathroom and I think either be able to eat or not be throwing up (something like that). I was super tired and dizzy after this procedure. More so than any of the other ones I’ve had. It took me awhile to get up and moving just because I felt so light headed. Once we left the hospital we made our traditional Culver’s stop for some food. The tiredness and dizziness would come and go the drive between the hospital and Culver’s (roughly 3 mi) did me in and I had to just sit and rest because I felt so dizzy. It was crazy. We decided to get the food and just eat in the car incase I got sick. Thankfully I didn’t! But I was only able to eat half my burger and a few french fries. When we got home I crashed on the couch. I could barely keep my eyes open. I had been joking with Aaron since my surgery got bumped up maybe I would be good to go to church that night. I think being super tired and so light headed was God’s way of saying: Stay home and rest. 😉 Which I did. Seriously I think I slept the rest of the afternoon/evening away.

The IV in the thumb was a little painful… Even after it was in if I moved my hand it felt all bruised and achy!

I was number: 1282

I had some of the sweetest nurses! My memory is a little foggy from the anesthesia but I’m pretty sure she said she’d be praying for me as I recovered. 🙂

My pokes

my battle wounds

Mom and I went for a short walk.

Pain wise it hasn’t been too bad. My muscles feel a little achy. My stomach feels a little crampy. I think it’s from the air they fill you up with to do surgery. It feels like the cramps you get after you have a baby when your uterus is shrinking back down to normal. Which is funny to me since I don’t have my uterus any more. I don’t really notice my incisions unless I bump them. Most of my “pain” is the cramps I feel from the air. I’d rate it at like a 2 or 3. Enough to know it’s there but not enough to stop me from doing things. haha. Right now I just alternate between Ibuprofen and Tylenol. They called in a narcotic for me but I don’t know that I’ll need it. Which is good because I don’t like how they knock me out. I’d rather just deal with the pain.

Here’s a fun fact for you: This is the first surgery I’ve had where I can use my arms to get up. All my other surgeries (the mastectomy, my DIEP flap, and then the revision) I was told not to use my arms when I got up. When I was getting out of bed at the hospital I asked if I could use my arms she was like YES we want you to use your arms. Haha 🙂

I’m feeling pretty good today. Way more like my peppy self! I plan to keep up with the short walks to help with blood flow and I don’t know but I’m going to guess that will help with getting the trapped air out of my system as well. I have my follow up scheduled next month. Hopefully then I’ll get the green light to do more.

The rest of the words to the song I quoted above.

Our Great Savior

1 Jesus! What a Friend for sinners!
Jesus! Lover of my soul;
friends may fail me, foes assail me;
He, my Savior, makes me whole.
Hallelujah! What a Savior!
Hallelujah! What a Friend!
Saving, helping, keeping, loving,
He is with me to the end.

2 Jesus! What a Strength in weakness!
Let me hide myself in Him;
tempted, tried, and sometimes failing,
He, my Strength, my vict'ry wins.
Hallelujah! What a Savior!
Hallelujah! What a Friend!
Saving, helping, keeping, loving;
He is with me to the end.

3 Jesus! What a Help in sorrow!
While the billows o'er me roll,
even when my heart is breaking,
He, my Comfort, helps my soul.
Hallelujah! What a Savior!
Hallelujah! What a Friend!
Saving, helping, keeping, loving;
He is with me to the end.

You can listen to it HERE

Thank you for your continued prayers! We serve a Mighty God!

3.29.24

A lot has happened over the last month. I’m healing nicely from my revision surgery!! I’m happy to say it never got as bad as I thought it might!! A huge answer to prayers!! I think this was the first time it actually wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. So that was nice. I can officially sleep on my side again. I’m so thankful for that!! In case you didn’t know sleeping on your back for 4 weeks straight is highly overrated! And, I don’t have to wear my compression garments anymore!!! WAHOO!!!

Thursday (3/28/24) was a big celebration day for me! It has been one year since my last chemo!!! That’s the day the doctors considered me “cancer free”. Actually, I think the correct term is no evidence of disease (NED). And if I’m being honest, that is easier to say than cancer free. I don’t know if I’ll ever feel comfortable saying I’m cancer free. I know there are many women that have had breast cancer and are 10, 15+ year survivors. I don’t dwell on it. However, it’s hard to not wonder if/when it might pop up again (locally or metastatically). I don’t know that it gets easier, you just learn to adapt… Earlier this month I was struggling with how do we know there’s no evidence of disease. I have not had any kind of scan to say one way or the other. On one hand it’s a good thing. My cancer was caught so early that a scan isn’t part of the protocol and my doctor said that he wouldn’t recommend one plus he also said insurance wouldn’t pay for it. On the other hand even if I had a “clear” scan doesn’t mean there isn’t cancer… We learned that the hard way with my MRI. (It didn’t show cancer in my lymph node even though there was a microscopic dot.) Every three months I get labs done and they monitor my LDH (tumor marker) and my liver functions. Also my oncologist still wants me getting yearly mammograms so if anything starts to come back locally we’d hopefully catch it early with that. They said the biggest indicator that something might be up is how I feel. If I were to start having symptoms or feeling off then they could do more tests to check into those symptoms. Right now I feel at a little disadvantage since I’m still trying to learn my new normal.

One thing I’ve learned about myself over the last year and a half: it’s easier for me to talk about something once I think I have it “figured” out. I’ve been struggling since I would say at least November with my emotions. Some days are better than others. I just keep waiting to feel normal again. And it’s not happening. Then the other day (last Friday to be exact) I had this ah ha moment. I don’t remember where I read it but I saw this comment that said don’t think you don’t have any side effects. (Pertaining to my research on Tamoxifen side effects.) It seems like most women who take Tamoxifen, if they are going to have side effects, its awful joint pain. Like they can’t get out of bed kind of pain. I have yet to experience that. Thank you Jesus! I just assumed since I wasn’t in pain I wasn’t having any side effects. However, some of the less talked about side effects: depression/anxiety and mood swings. I don’t know that I’ve experienced anxiety (yet) but I would say yes to the depression. I get in these funky moods where I am just down and out. I cry a lot. And I hate it! I am crabby a lot. And I hate that. Some days I have to work really hard at not being irritated all the time. Seriously! I’ll be giving myself a pep talk: Cassie don’t open your mouth you are just going to be mean. I’m embarrassed to say even the kids notice it. I know this because they have told me: “I didn’t want to make you mad.” more than once. Tamoxifen causes brain fog which is something I’ve been dealing with! (I thought it was chemo brain but now I don’t know.) And headaches. I’ve noticed those more this month and even had like a 3-4 day stretch. I used to get headaches a lot growing up so I didn’t think too much of it other than that’s weird because I haven’t had much for headaches since starting chemo (I think because the chemo put me into menopause.) Vision problems are another one. Sometimes I feel like my eyes have a hard time focusing. I just can’t tell if it’s because I’m tired, if it’s my contacts, or if it’s the Tamoxifen (That happens mostly in the evenings). Fatigue is another side effect. Some days as soon as I get up I just want to go back to bed. So that’s been a little rough. Especially with kids at home and homeschooling… As you can imagine, fatigue and irritability are not a good combo. Prayers for patience or to show grace for me and for the rest of the family would be appreciated. As far as the joint pain side effects: I have noticed a couple things. If I sit for too long I’m a little slow to start moving. The other night my hips ached for a few a little bit, it was like a sharp, stabbing pain in my joints. It kind of reminded me of restless leg syndrome- where you just want to move to make it go away. I’ve had a couple of different days where my wrist has ached for a little bit. I don’t always associate the aches and pains with my medication, I mean I am getting closer to 40 each day. 😉 Given my little “revelation” it’s possible I’ve been dealing with more side effects than I realized. Oh, and while I’m listing side effects, this one I have been dealing with since I started taking it: my tongue and mouth feel weird, like someone has taken a scraper to them. It’s not painful or anything it just feels weird. I ended up messaging my doctor about it the mental side effects I think I may be experiencing. I would have talked to him at my last appointment but I hadn’t connected the dots at that time. We have a follow up appt schedule for mid April to go over my concerns. It’s hard because I don’t know if my side effects are medication related or if it’s hormone related as in menopausal symptoms because I know they are similar. Boy can life leave you scratching your head sometimes! But just for the record, I feel more like myself than I have in a long time! I have no idea how I flipped the switch but I’m glad it’s switched. 🙂

I had my 11th Lupron shot (3.12.24). It’s weird to think that I’ve been getting them for almost a year! Every three months I get lab work done and meet with my oncologist before I get my shot. At this last appointment we talked a little more about having my ovaries (oophorectomy) removed. He had recommended I do that last fall but said there was no rush. And then he told me that he is leaving Marshfield Medical Center. This doctor has been with me, with us, from the very beginning. I am so sad to see him go. We have seen God’s hand through all of this, His guiding and answers to prayer. I do think I got the best care I could have with Dr. Naqvi. That God used him in my cancer journey. We got a letter the other day recommending two of his colleagues for my future care. Whenever I’m sad about Dr. Naqvi leaving I remind myself: He was the doctor I needed for the first part of my journey and whoever I end up with next will be the best doctor for this next leg of the journey. It’s still hard to see him go…

Monday (3/25/24) I had a consult with an OB/GYN. We discussed a complete hysterectomy verses an oophorectomy. Long story short: I have an increased risk of developing uterine cancer from Tamoxifen. After talking with him it sounded like it wasn’t uncommon for women to come in 8-9 years into their Tamoxifen treatment with bleeding or some other type of concern where they have to remove their uterus. And since the goal is for me to be on Tamoxifen for 10 years having a complete hysterectomy seems to make the most sense. At least I won’t have to worry about cervical, ovarian, or uterine cancers popping up down the road… Plus no more Lupron shots!!!! We went from yeah I should probably do that and we’d like to get it done this year to it’s happening in two weeks!! I’m scheduled for surgery April 10th. What better way to ring in my last year in my thirties than another surgery haha! (My birthday is the 9th.) He thought it would take about three hours, it’s typically an outpatient procedure so that will be nice! It will be done laparoscopically but he’ll be using a robot. I guess the robot is over me and then he uses a 3D monitor to see what he’s doing. By using the robot it saves on his back, he doesn’t have to lean over me to do the work. It’s so crazy what they can do! I’ll have 4 small incisions on my abdomen. I won’t be able to lift more than 12-15lbs for 6-8 weeks. I’ll have a follow-up around 4 weeks post op, depending on how everything is healing I could possibly get the green light to do more.

All my layers! I have a shirt under my compression bra. The bra was really tight and dug in. I was supposed to wear it 24/7. I could only take it off to shower. The shirt helped with the sore spots I would get. My binder. Some type of compression shorts. And then my sweat pants.

I came home with some visible sutures. I messaged about them and my nurse said we could clip them if they were bothering me. I tried. It was surprisingly hard to cut. So I had Aaron try. I’m surprised I didn’t get hurt from all the laughing. You try laying still without laughing while your husband is saying good grief while he is trying to clip a suture at your hip. He couldn’t believe how hard it was to cut too! (I think we were both expecting to clip it like fishing line since that’s what it looks like.) Needless to say we only did one. And I decided to wait with the rest until they just fell out/ I could pull them out.

I have yet to cut my hair on the top. I want to keep that to see/show how much my hair has grown since my last chemo.

This poor kid has the worst luck with the dog! This time he got in the way when Tucker’s favorite human (Aaron) came home from work.

My sutures finally came out! The one we tried to clip was sticking out a little (it felt like a whisker haha!) and when I noticed that the part sticking out was longer than it had been I pulled on it and it just came out! So I pulled on the other ones and they just kind of came out. Yay!

I’d like to say he was doing this for his mom. But the truth of the matter is: His cousin had pink shells and he thought it was cool so he wanted some too. 😉 🙂

I finally went to one of the support groups that my physical therapist holds for women who have gone through breast cancer. I wasn’t sure what to expect. Actually what I was expecting was to go and all the women there were going to be way older than me. There were like 7 or 8 women in there and I think about half of us were around my age.

At my last appointment we had talked over my fatigue. Some days I just want to climb right back in bed. I am so tired. Dr Naqvi encouraged me to walk (which I had not been doing as well as I should have been.) So I’m back at it. Trying to walk a couple miles each day. And I do think it helps. I think it has helped with my mood as well. 🙂

My consult with the OB/GYN ended with an early lunch at Culver’s before Aaron went back to work.

We went out to celebrate my one year mark.

No Evidence of Disease.

March 28, 2024

But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation. I will sing the Lord’s praise, for he has been good to me.

Psalm 13:5-6

2.23.24

We are home!!! And as much as we loved the warm Texas weather, we’re glad to be home! Our first week here was on the cooler side (like 50s/60s). Thankfully the 2nd half of the trip was warmer! (70s/80s. We even had a day in the 90s!)

Wednesday we went to the mall: Shops at Rivercenter. Then we walked around the River Walk some more. Once we were back at the house the kids went swimming. Many evenings were spent in the pool!

Thursday we made a last minute discovery and decided to go to the Witte Museum. We weren’t really sure what we’d find but were pleasantly surprised. I think all the kids enjoyed it, not just the little boys. 🙂 Once we were done there we had an exchange to make at the mall so we did that and then one more walk down the River Walk. And of course more swimming.

Here’s your sign to read what your kids want to buy. Easton asked to buy jelly beans and I said sure. We got home and he goes “Mom, these jelly beans are spicy!” Oops!!! They have a bite to them… Ironically Colton likes them.

Our last night in Texas Aaron and I sat on the front porch and drank Mexican Cokes while we enjoyed the warm weather.

Friday was an early start. Our flight didn’t leave until 1:05pm, but we had to get to the Austin airport and that was an hour and a half drive from where we were staying. Traffic in Texas is crazy! We’d rather get there early and waste some time in the airport than miss our flight. Going through security at MSP was a breeze. We were at terminal 2 and like nobody was there. The Austin airport was a way busier! I got flagged thru the metal detector. They rubbed something over my hands and that flagged too! When they said it flagged I said for what?!? They didn’t know. But said I needed to get padded down. I made sure to tell the security officer that I had just had surgery; she was good to be careful. That held us up a little but thankfully we had planned to get there plenty early so we still had time to grab a bite before we boarded the plane.

The traffic was insane! Our guide at the Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch said if we found a jar of prickly pear jam we should buy it because it’s really good. We found some on our way to the airport!

bag sitting

a little bts

Everyone was excited to be home. They couldn’t wait to see Tucker and Toby. They didn’t even mind the 47 degree temperature difference! Thank you Grandma Jill for the sweet treats!

I think it’s safe to say that I’m past the worst part of the recovery. Tuesday was probably the worst day pain wise for me. I could definitely feel it and it slowed me down! But it was not nearly as bad as I thought it would be! Thank you for praying!! I know that makes all the difference! My bruise is getting better! Still looks pretty rough. You can see it if your interested. Just keep scrolling.

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2.20.24

It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.

Deuteronomy 31:8

My surgery went really well!! Thank you for your continued prayers!! They wouldn’t let the kids sit by themselves in the waiting room because they were all minors, so Aaron couldn’t come back with me while the doctors talked to me. They wouldn’t let them come back with me either (just their policy). And they didn’t want them sitting in the van by themselves on their property. They did bring them all back for a couple minutes to say good bye. That was hard for me, I wanted Aaron with me when the doctors were going to talk to me. I ended up putting Aaron on speaker phone so he could hear what they were saying. I was out before I entered the OR so I have no idea what that looked like. I did get sick after this one, even with the Scopolamine patch. The nurse said everybody gets sick with this procedure. They weren’t sure why. She wondered if it was because they sit you up a lot to check for symmetry. So a lot of up and downs while I was out. haha! We left the clinic shortly after 3pm. I got ‘home’ and crashed on the couch! Woke up around 6pm had a little supper and my meds. (I probably should have taken those right when we got home because when I woke up at 6pm I was feeling a little rough.) I went back to the couch and slept until 9pm. By then the meds had kicked in and I was feeling pretty good. Aaron has been taking good care of me. He has alarms set for all my meds and woke me up to give me my meds through the night. I even slept really well last night too! In fact Aaron woke me up at 9:45 this morning. He asked if I was going to get up today. haha When I asked what time it was, I was surprised to hear 9:45.

I’m not as sore as I thought I would be, but we’ll see what the next couple of days bring. I would have rated my pain this morning at a 3/4 enough to know it’s there but not enough to stop me from doing things. However as I’m writing this post I can feel it in my sides. I feel like I got in a good fight. I would say a 4/5 in pain I know it’s there and it slows me down. My whole body feels bruised. So far not as bad as my first surgery though. I have a pretty gnarly bruise on one of my inner thighs already. I have to wear my compression bra, a binder, and since they took some from my thighs, I need to wear some kind of compression shorts. So lots of layers haha. Sitting down and getting up are the worst. Once I’m up and moving it’s not so bad.

Dr. Nastala said the first week is the most critical. Thats when the fat cells connect with the tissue that’s there. So I’m trying to take it easy. No raising my hands above my head. Don’t lift more than 10lbs. And just don’t over do anything. I am really happy with my results so far! And I’ll be even more happy once all the swelling goes down and I know the final results. I’m hoping I don’t lose too much of the fat cells that were transferred.

We had promised Easton we’d go to a park after my surgery. Figured if I wasn’t feeling up to do anything sitting at a park would be easy enough. So as soon as I woke up and came out he asked “Mom when are we going to a park? You said after your surgery we could go to a park. It’s after your surgery.” haha! We found a pretty cool park about a mile from the house. It even had a splash pad. They were disappointed to find out it wasn’t turned on when we got there. The kids played there about an hour and a half and then went to the air force base. We were going to see the planes after waiting like an hour to go in to talk to them (you have to register and they call you when it’s your turn) We found out that it’s closed on Tuesdays and if we wanted to go in we’d have to come back tomorrow. So we left there and went to get some ice cream.

Before surgery

They had this tool to show my veins. She wanted to make sure there wasn’t a valve where she would be poking.

After surgery

Colt got a little burnt.. he was only out for an hour!

The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.

Zephaniah 3:17

For those that want to see my gnarly bruise keep scrolling 😉

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2.18.24

We have had a busy couple of days here in San Antonio. We arrived Wednesday evening.

Thursday we went to Tower of the Americas, did the River Boat Cruise and then walked along the River Walk. We had lunch at the Rain Forest Café. That was the first time all the kiddos had eaten there, they thought it was pretty cool!

Friday we drove to Seguin for some more Burnt Bean. It was so good! Then we stopped at the Alamo on our way back ‘home’.

Saturday we met my cousin Jasmine and Jon in Austin. It was so cold that day! (Like 40 and windy) They showed us around. We went to see the first book ever printed: The Gutenberg Bible. (150 were printed and this was one of them.) We also got to see the first photograph. Then we headed to the State Capitol Building. On our way back to the vehicles we stopped for ice cream (because you never say no to ice cream- even when it’s 40 degrees outside! Haha!)

Sunday we took the kids to the Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch. That was a lot of fun! We did the guided drive through safari. They also had an aviary where you can feed the birds. And a fun dinosaur exhibit.

We purposely found an AirBnB with fun things to do right at the house. The place we are staying at has a pool, foosball table, and a 2 player arcade gaming system with like pac man and various other games (412 games to be exact!) We wanted some fun things for the kids to do without having to leave the house just in case I didn’t feel like doing anything after. I think about every night the kids have spent some time in the pool. Even when it’s 40 degrees outside! (thankfully it’s heated)

My surgery prep starts tonight. I have to drink one of my preop surgery drinks. Take a shower with the hibiclens. And then nothing to eat or drink after midnight. Tomorrow I need to take another shower using the hibiclens and drink the 2nd clear fast and take a Celebrex. I have to be at the hospital at 8 am. My surgery is scheduled to start at 10 am and Dr. Nastala has 3.5 hours blocked off for me.

Thank you so much for your continued prayers!

2.16.24

Thank you for your prayers! We were able to all sit together on the plane (like I wanted.) We flew into Austin on Monday and then drove 3 hours down to Corpus Christi. There we stayed in a two story condo with a shared pool. And we were only a short walk from the beach. The kids had fun walking along the beach and then swimming in the pool. I had to laugh because Tuesday morning the kids were in their swimsuits ready to swim and the outside temp was 49 degrees. haha!

Thank you for your continued prayers for safety. We had a pretty close call on Tuesday. The kids were swimming in the pool while Aaron and I watched. It was too cold for us old people haha! Next thing I know I see a head bobbing in the water. It took me a second to realize that head wasn’t a big kid head playing. I started shouting “Get him! Get him!” Then jumped up, ran over, and pulled Colton out of the water. Thankfully he was alright. He said he didn’t swallow any water or breathe it in. There was a ledge that wrapped part way around the pool from where the splash pad connected to the main pool, I don’t think he realized that it didn’t go all the way around to the steps and he went right off the edge. I have no idea how long he was under before I noticed, I don’t think it was long. It felt like forever for me. (And I’m sure him) He said he was thinking ‘Mom, help me.’ It’s going to take awhile to get the image of his little head bobbing in the water out of my mind. I just feel sick to my stomach when I think about what could have been!

Wednesday we went to the USS Lexington. The kids had fun checking out the different decks on the ship. Once we were done there we walked over to the Texas State Aquarium. The kids really enjoyed that as well. After that we headed to San Antonio.

Guess what!?! I got stuck in the sand…. after my husband told me to be careful and don’t get stuck!!! A couple of guys helped Aaron and Kade push me out.

2.10.24

Hard to believe we’ll be in Texas in two days. The kiddos are getting really excited. The parents really stressed. ha. It’s all good. I need that shirt: It’s fine. I’m fine. Everything is fine. There’s just a lot to get done before we go. Or I should say a lot that I want to get done before we go.

I’m trying to think if there are any big updates to give… I had my phone consult with PRMA early last week. There wasn’t too much to go over. I have 5 prescriptions I had to pick up. One for nausea, 3 for pain management, and then an antibiotic. I also get to drink that yummy pre surgery drink again. One the night before and then one the morning of surgery. It actually doesn’t taste that bad and I think it helps with not getting sick with anesthesia so I’m not complaining. It’s just one more thing to do. I think it will be a game day decision on where we will be taking the extra fat from. She said the doctor likes to take from the love handle area and flanks. I’m not opposed to losing some there. I’m just not sure how much extra I have. However, I feel like my thighs have a little extra to give… haha! We’ll see what the doctor thinks. The nurse said that was another common place they take from. They will be doing scar revisions where necessary. I have what they call ‘dog ears’ on my hips. I think it’s from having the drains there. You get like extra skin that bulges out. Mine aren’t too bad but they’ll fix it none the less. I’m the 2nd surgery for the day. We have to be there at 8am with a surgery start time of 10am. This one should be 3-3.5 hours and is outpatient, so that will be nice.

Things I would appreciate prayer on:

1. We’re flying Southwest. They don’t do assigned seating. At first I wasn’t too concerned about it but the closer we get the more I’m like I hope we can sit in the configurations we want. (I am hoping Aaron with 2 of the younger ones. Me with 2 of the younger ones. And then Kade and Ev together.) But after saying we’re flying Southwest to a few different people the reaction was the same: Oooohhhhh, they don’t do assigned seating. (And a good luck with that was implied…)
2. For safe traveling. Both in the flights and then the driving we’ll be doing. We fly in to Austin but will be driving down to Corpus Christi for the first couple of nights. Then we’ll spend the remainder of the time in San Antonio but will be doing day trips from there.
3. That I wouldn’t get sick before my surgery. I don’t know what their threshold is for being “sick” and rescheduling. I can’t take any supplements the week leading up to surgery or I would for extra precaution.
4. That my surgery would go well. I would really like this one to be the last as far as all the reconstruction goes. I was informed at the consult that typically half of the fat grafted actually sticks… I’m hoping that what sticks is what I need to be back to “normal”.
5. And then of course that the healing process would go smoothly.

Thank you for your prayers and support. It means so much to me and my family. We really appreciate it!!

I made lefse 3x in one week last year. And my poor dad didn’t get any of it. So when we headed to Iowa the last weekend in Jan. I made some just for him! And of course I had to do a quality check… 😉

Any guesses on how many people you can fit in a fire truck??

A: More than 8! Haha!

After 37 years of serving on the volunteer fire department dad “retired”.

The kids got to go on a little ride from my parents house to the fire station and then back to my parents house. They thought it was pretty cool.

Look what happened to this girly!!!!

NO MORE BRACES!!!!

She was pretty excited to get them off!! 🙂

These two went up with me to get my shot. They thought it was pretty funny. It is given in the fatty part of your back, at your pant line. So like the back side of your hip bone. (hopefully that makes sense) They went out to the van and told everyone “Mom got a shot in her butt!” haha. But it wasn’t actually my butt.

When your 4yr old gets a hold of your phone…

OH! And we found out that she is actually a he. So meet Toby. 🙂

Children are a gift from the Lord; they are a reward from him.

Psalm 127:3

I’m embarrassed to say I was getting frustrated with Madi when she was hanging all these pictures on the wall the other day. I have so many things I want to get done before we leave and quite frankly I didn’t think we had the time to be doodling… I didn’t even pay attention to what she was hanging until the next day. Then I felt bad. What a blessing it is to have kids remind you what truly is important.

I thought I would take a couple “before” pics of my scars. Nothing too revealing but wanted to give fair warning for those that would prefer not to see them…

Keep scrolling to see.

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That puckered up skin on my hip is what they call ‘dog ears’ and one of the things they’ll be fixing in my revision.

1.15.24

Well, I have some exciting news… I have my phase two scheduled!!! It’s happening sooner than we originally thought. We were planning sometime in the spring but found some really good prices on airline tickets and couldn’t pass up the savings. We told the kids at Christmas they get to go with us for the revision. Most of them are excited and one is scared to fly. This will be a first for most of them. Kade and Ev are the only ones that have flown but they were 2 yr and 5 mo old at the time. Oh and I was like 10 weeks pregnant with Easton when we went to Hawaii for our 10 year anniversary. So technically he’s flown. The other night at supper Colt asked him if he had fun flying. E replied in kind of an annoyed tone like Colt should have known better: I was in mom’s tummy I don’t remember it. (I love listening to their conversations!)

February 19 is revision day.

We’re planning to fly out a week before so we can do some fun things first. I’m not sure how much I’ll feel like doing after, I have heard you get pretty sore with this one.

I’ve reached a new chapter in my cancer journey. Or at least I’m dubbing it that. I’m learning to “live” again. Since my diagnosis it’s been go, go, go. You are in survival mode and you have all these doctor appointments and things to do. That part of it has slowed down for me. Which is really nice! But now I’m left more with my thoughts and just this is what life is like now. Outwardly I appear normal/healed. Anybody looking at me would have no idea that I’m a cancer survivor. (Aside from the shorter hair, but lots of women have shorter hair so…) However on the inside nothing is the same. I’m still battling the mental stuff. I’m sure ya’ll can imagine without me going into too much detail so I won’t do that. I know over time that part will get better. Time has a way of doing that. At least that’s my hope. One thing I didn’t see coming: I’ve noticed my cognitive ability is not the same. Chemo brain anyone?? I had heard the term but thought it was something you dealt with more during chemo. (Which I did.) But I did not realize it was something that would have lingering side effects. It’s hard for me to focus/process new information. Which is super frustrating when I used to pick things up so quickly. My sarcasm/quick witted humor is not what it used to be. Or at least I don’t feel like it’s the same. I also feel like I struggle with words, I’ll know what I want to say but can’t think of the right word. It doesn’t sound like I’m the only one with these kind of issues after chemo.. I was encouraged to keep trying new things. I wondered if doing something like a crossword puzzle or some other brain game would help with the brain fog?? I just have to find the time/energy to do them. In the mean time I’m learning to take it easy on myself. (We’re always our own worst critics aren’t we?)

I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.

John 16:33

Emersyn has patiently been waiting since her birthday (in June) for a kitten. We told her she could get one but it had to be after my surgery… She finally got her kitten!!

Meet Hazel.

At least we think she’s a Hazel. Unless we find out at our vet appt that she is actually a he. haha. Then we’ll have to come up with a new name…

Everyone is excited. Including Tucker! It’s been a learning curve but they are slowly warming up to each other.

Believe it or not they actually put themselves in there and locked it!

Talk about sticker shock!! Each time I have labs, meet with my doctor, and get my shot it costs over 3K. (I see my doctor every three months now.) But my shot alone is $2600. And I have to get that each month. Thank goodness for insurance! It’s ridiculous it costs that much though! My oncologist is highly recommending I get an oophorectomy (my ovaries removed). He was pretty adamant that I didn’t need to make a decision right away. He told me I’ve been through so much, I should just take a little breather. It’s something we can talk about in the fall. However, if I’m going to do it I’d rather have it done sooner than later since we’ll hit our deductible again this year. One positive to the oophorectomy: not having to get the Lupron shot each month! And of course not having to worry about getting ovarian cancer… I’m just so tired of surgeries..

The Lord is my strength and my shield; in him my heart trusts, and I am helped; my heart exults, and with my song I give thanks to him.

Psalm 28:7

We finally got some snow!!

Psalm 28:7

12.25.23

Wednesday marked 8 weeks post surgery which means I no longer have to wear my binder 24/7. Woohoo! Now it feels weird not wearing it haha. Oh! And I’m officially laying flat in bed!! I still need to be careful rolling over.. not sure when my abs will feel normal again. Which I find really interesting because they didn’t cut through any muscle but boy do I feel it when I try to stretch. I also had my follow up with PRMA a couple weeks ago. That went really well, they biopsied what they took: No signs of malignancy! You don’t realize how sweet those words are until you’ve been told you have cancer.

Aaannnnnddddd drum roll please …-…-…-…-…-…-…-…-…-…-…-…

Saturday I got my hair styled for the first time in over a year! My 2nd hair cut, nothing off the top. I kind of want to keep that as ‘this is how much my hair has grown since I stopped chemo’. She blow dried it and then ran a straightener through it. I got so used to seeing the curls on top it took me a min to get used to it straight again haha. I tried to repeat the look Sunday but looked ridiculous so I rewet it and styled it curly. I guess there’s a learning curve to styling short hair. haha. I know it’s kind of silly and a small thing but you gain new appreciation when you go so long without/not being able to do something. It’s kind of fun to celebrate those little milestones.

They brought me a surprise from the grocery store!

I started physical therapy again… working to gain strength and flexibility.

Peyton made me earrings and a bracelet before I had my surgery and gave them to me at the Larson family Christmas.

We finally made lefse yesterday!! I accidentally peeled enough potatoes to make a double batch… which worked out well because we like to share. And the kids have become lefse eating machines. haha!

I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas!!

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

Isaiah 9:6

12.5.23

I can’t believe we’re into the last month of the year! Wow has the time gone by fast! I don’t have much to update on but wanted to share a little win. I wore jeans for the first time on Saturday!! It only lasted for the time we were at the tree farm haha but still worth documenting!

On a lesser note… I tried sleeping without the extra pillows behind me Saturday night. Let’s just say that was not a win. I wanted so badly to sleep on my side. But it was pretty rough! I’m not sure how much sleep I even got. It actually surprised me: it felt weird to lay on my side! Every time I moved it felt like I had been hit by a truck. My chest hurt, my ribs hurt, my hips hurt, and my abs. It was crazy! I never would have guessed that because I don’t hurt like that while I’m up and about (maybe a little if I do too much or are super tired by the end of the day I’ll be a little more achy). And the icing on the cake: I needed Aaron to help me get up since I haven’t put my full weight on my arms yet… Not really sure when I want to try sleeping like that again… Knowing me, probably sooner than my body is ready for. Haha! And maybe it’s going to hurt for awhile laying on my side until my body adjusts to it.. I don’t know??

Look at that drool! He was watching us eat… haha (He did get a little bite)

Life is not always easy but we have so much to be thankful for! I hope you all have a blessed Christmas season!

This is the day the Lord has made; We will rejoice and be glad in it.

Psalm 118:24

11.22.23

Hard to believe my surgery was 4 weeks ago!! Or that we were in Texas 4 weeks ago! I’m doing really well. I was just telling Aaron on Friday I think I’ve finally rounded the corner. For the longest time whenever I would move my arms I could feel it stretching in my arm pits. I don’t feel like that is as obvious now. I feel a little stretch but not like before. My skin is pretty sensitive though. That should hopefully get better with physical therapy. One of the things I was told to do is massage the area. One it stimulates the nerve growth and two it desensitizes the over sensitivity I have right now. It’s kind of hard to do though when your entire chest feels bruised. 🥴

I drove for the first time in over a month on Sunday!!! Kris graciously said the kids could help with collecting shoe boxes at church. So we left the younger 3 there to help and then I went back to pick them up. It’s a little of a challenge climbing into the van, I’m careful not to pull myself up and then I try to keep the door close to me so I don’t have to pull the door closed too far from my body. I find if I get the door rocking first it goes pretty smooth. I even took the kids to Walmart Sunday evening. We tend to run out of the basics (bread and milk) quite regularly 🤣 and since I had my Lupron shot appt Monday morning I figured I better get what the kids needed before that.

At my appointment I had a nice visit with my oncologist. He said we could possibly go to a three month Lupron shot if I wanted. Honestly I’m not sure how I feel about that… I’ve been handling the monthly ones fairly well (aside from that 2nd one) I kind of don’t want to throw a wrench in the system. One thing I would appreciate prayer on: I’m wrestling with the idea of having my ovaries removed. I brought it up with my oncologist at my appointment. What would that look like? Is that a smart decision? Isn’t it? Would I have more menopausal symptoms than I do now? He did say that given my age and the fact that there is a connection between breast cancer and ovarian cancer, it wouldn’t be a bad decision to have them removed. Then I wouldn’t have to worry about it. That would also eliminate the need for the Lupron shot. If you know me, you know I’m not a fan of extra pharmaceuticals. So that would definitely be a plus. I seem to have a little family history with ovarian cancer. (A great grandma who passed away from cancer and they pretty sure it started in her ovaries and an aunt battling it right now. And then on the other side of the family an aunt who passed away from cancer, I’m just not sure if it started in her uterus or ovaries.) I don’t have to decide anything right away. I can decide in 6 months or two years. It is nice to not have to make huge decisions rapidly.

Guess What!?!?!

Last night I slept in my bed for the first time in over a month!!!! Not gonna lie. It was nice to be back in my own bed next to my husband! 💗

Up until now I was not “allowed” to used my arms to push myself up. Now that I’m at 4 weeks I can start to use them but very gradually. I haven’t been able to lift anything more than a gallon of milk for the last 4 weeks so I don’t want to push down harder than I should… I’ve been slowly reaching above my head for the last couple of weeks. I can tell I use my right arm more since that side seems to be returning to normal faster than my left.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

11.12.23

My last drain came out Thursday!!! It feels so good to have those all out!! A referral was put in for me to start physical therapy again. I’m guessing I’ll get a call sometime this coming week to get back on the schedule. When you don’t use it you loose it. I can feel it under my arms when I do the stretches from my discharge papers. (And that’s just moving my arms up the wall 🤣)

It’s hard to believe that we’ve been home for a week already. The older I get the faster I think the time goes! We’re all doing good. I get around better each day. I try to go for a couple one mile walks a day. I still find myself taking naps daily.. sometimes more than one a day. haha. Mom’s been here since Monday which has been nice. She’s been busy with the never ending cycle of dishes and laundry. 🤣

My hair. When I don’t put anything in it… It reminds me of a q-tip… 🤣 🤷🏼‍♀️

Saturdays the kids get coffee. They want it every day but mom says no. Yesterday they wanted their coffee iced. 🤪🤣🙂

Took my last Gabapentin at 12am. This particular medication is supposed to help with nerve pain. They said I may want a refill so we’ll see. It wasn’t until I finished the bottle that I noticed the warning… I just assumed the tiredness and lightheadedness was from the anesthesia… And maybe it is. We’ll see if it gets better now that I’m not taking this anymore.

Today was kind of a big day for Aaron. It had been in the making for awhile, but with all my cancer stuff it got postponed. He was ordained as an elder in our church. I couldn’t be more proud of him. I’m so thankful I get to do life with him by my side!

11.6.23

It feels so good to be home! Two weeks is a long time to be gone! We flew home Saturday. That went really well! I wasn’t sure how it would go sitting a little more upright than I’m used to but it was fine. We had one down day at home before we got the kiddos. I can’t tell you how nice it is to have us all under the same roof again! 💗

Remember that BBQ place I said was so good? On Thursday we drove back to Seguin and got some more! 🤣 I think from the time we got there to the time we sat down with our food was like an hour. It’s crazy how many people come and wait in line. Every day. We made sure to order a little extra and then had some left overs for Friday. 😉🙃 After that we headed home and had some down time before Phil and Pat came over for a little visit. They are the owners of Roses’s House. They are a super sweet couple and the visit felt like a visit with old friends, not someone we just met.

I added my story to the many others.

On Friday I had another appointment to check my drains. They pulled three of them!!! I can’t tell you how good it felt to get those out!!! A fun little fact for you: Aaron said she had to have pulled 8 inches of tube when they pulled my hip drain! 😳 I wasn’t sure what to expect. When the drains are in they can really be sensitive. There’s a stitch holding them in and if that gets tugged on/bumped it hurts. She was good at what she did because I didn’t feel a thing when they got pulled!! I have one more hip drain in. Once that hits less than 30ml daily then it can get pulled. The PA for my plastic surgeon in Eau Claire has already said she’ll pull whatever drains I come home with. I’m hoping to have that last drain out later this week. It’s kind of funny, they pull those drains then they just put some bacitracin on a piece of gauze and tape it on. There’s literally a hole into my body. She said it will scab over and heal. Isn’t it amazing how God created our bodies? I’ve been very aware of that with this whole cancer journey. Who would have thought I would have numb spots on my back from the nerves they cut through on the front!?! Now that I have my upper drains gone I don’t have to wear the surgical bra any more. WAHOO!!! However there is a list of criteria on what type of bra I can wear. Once I get that last hip drain out I won’t have to wear the abdominal binder anymore either!! (My abdomen and back get so itchy in that thing! I’m looking forward to gettind rid of it. Plus I’m a little more short waisted so it doesn’t fit the best to begin with…) But then I will have to wear some type of compression underwear/garment for at least 8 weeks. They did not cut any muscle but they kind of pulled things apart to get the blood vessels they needed. Right now I’m at a higher risk of developing a hernia if I’m not careful.

After I got those drains pulled we decided to do a little more site seeing. There are 5 missions in San Antonio. I thought it would be fun to see them all. We had already seen one: The Alamo. So we decided to hit the other 4. These missions were built in the 1700’s. I wasn’t big on History when I was younger, I enjoy it now!

We flew home Saturday. Per recommendations, we asked for a wheelchair through the airport. That made getting on the plane a little easier and then when we landed at MSP I got wheeled from the plane, to baggage, to the hotel shuttle location. Which left Aaron free to pull our luggage. 🙂

We went to church Sunday morning and then I proceeded to take a 3.5 hour nap! 🤣 I didn’t think I was that tired/warn out. Apparently I was. 🙃

Aaron’s grandma made cinnamon rolls for us. They made the perfect breakfast for our first morning back home!

Sunday morning. 💗

Our kiddos are home!!!! 😀😀😀

❤️❤️❤️

11.1.23

The Lord is a refuge for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble. Those who know your name trust in you, for you, Lord, have never forsaken those who seek you.

Psalm 9:9-10

Hard to believe my surgery was a week ago already!! I’m doing really well! Thank you for the continued prayers! I had my follow up with Dr Nastala yesterday. Everything looks good and is healing well. I was right on the line about getting some drains pulled. Since we’re not flying out till Saturday I have another appt scheduled Friday morning. They will pull whatever drains are ready to go (the drain has to have less than 30ml in a 24hr period.) I’m hoping that they will pull all but one. (The nurse said they would leave one abdominal one in for the flight.) They are pretty uncomfortable so I’m looking forward to that!

After my follow up we spent some time at Shops at Rivercenter. It’s a huge mall right along the River Walk. They get 12 million visitors a year! There are even a couple of hotels attached to it! So that was kind of fun. 🙂 I plan on taking it easy today. I don’t want to over do it. It’s hard because I feel pretty good, but it doesn’t take much and then I’m reminded, Oh yeah, I had major surgery 7 days ago… 🤪🤣🙂

You can do all your research but until you actually experience it it’s hard to know what to expect. I found it’s hard to stand up straight. My ab muscles feel like they are in a constant cramp when I’m standing. It also feels like I have a ten pound weight wrapped around my waist whenever I’m standing. That feeling is getting better, but it’s weird! On the flip side when I sit down I feel like I have a rubber band cinched around my waist at my belly button. 🤣 The incision goes from hip to hip and then it went above my belly button kind of like a football shape. They actually had to cut a new hole for my belly button. You should have seen Easton’s face when I told him and Colt “I got a new belly button hole!” 🤨 🤣 Then they pull all that skin back down tight. I tend to notice my incisions more when I “over do it”. I get a burning/stinging sensation at my hips and across my abdomen. It’s not terrible, but enough to know it’s there! I can’t use my arms at all. So I have to scoot to the edge of the chair and then stand up. I feel like I’m 9 months pregnant without the baby bump when I try to get up. 🤣 Thankfully the pain is going down significantly each day. Those first couple of days were rough in the abs department whenever I would sit/ try to stand. Right now I have Aaron support my back whenever I need to move forward or lean back. That helps tremendously with the ab discomfort! 🙂 It still hurts to laugh. Pretty sure my husband does silly things on purpose or at least it would seem so when I can’t laugh. 🤣🤣🤣

If you are anything like me you’re curious about what some of the incisions look like. I’ll share a couple of those at the bottom of this post, but wanted to give fair warning for those that would rather not see drains and incision lines… (just a little part of my abdominal incision and where one of the drains come out.)

Pretty sure he’s glad I got the Larson chicken leg gene! 🤣 They aren’t a necessity but they are recommended. And given the fact that last I checked my left ankle was still a little puffy from back in February when I was doing chemo. I figured the compression wouldn’t hurt. Maybe by the time we’re done with this it will be normal again…

It got a little chilly here in San Antonio! And we didn’t bring our warm weather clothes… 🤣🙂

I got the best mail the other day!!! 💗💗💗

Drinking extra protein to help with the healing process!! I had to laugh, I think my phone was scolding me for not being as active…🤪🤣🙂

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Just to give fair warning… the next couple pictures are my drains and incisions. I don’t think they are that bad but I know some people either don’t want to see it or can’t handle that type of stuff. 🙃

I wear a shirt under the binder and the surgical bra to protect my incisions and help keep the bra/binder clean.

Right now I think my belly button looks a little goofy. We’ll see how it looks when the swelling goes down and everything is a little more healed. I will have one revision “surgery” that has to be at least 90 days after my first surgery. It usually involves liposuction. Never in a million years did I think I would get liposuction- yet here we are. 🤪😬🤣

10.29.23

I’m officially out of the hospital!! I actually got discharged yesterday and had every intent of doing an updated post but you would not believe how drained a person would feel after surgery. It’s crazy! I literally do nothing all day and can’t manage to keep my eyes open. 🤪🤣🙂 Energy wise I’m doing much better today though! Each day I can tell that my endurance is getting better and my pain is going down. So keep them prayers coming. I’m hoping for a comfortable flight home! 😉🙂 I’m more of a glass half full type person. That’s probably boded well for me this whole journey. 😉 Because I totally underestimated the pain I would be in after surgery. It hurt to breath. And they want you taking deep breaths to open your lungs. You try taking a deep breath with a surgical bra and abdominal binder on. It’s hard! And if that’s not bad enough, when you take those deep breaths in and slowly let them out- it loosens the gunk in your lungs from the anesthesia and makes you want to cough. All I can say is OUCH! I did everything in my power to not cough. Lots of softly trying to clear my throat.. 😬 I say all that with tongue in cheek because while it was more painful than I expected it wasn’t so painful that I needed the extra pain meds. I didn’t like how when I took the oxy during my mastectomy that it knocked me out. I literally took the med and I think 5 minutes later my eyelids were so heavy I handed my computer to Aaron and fell asleep. I only took that once and then said nope not again. Since the pain was tolerable I just did my maintenance pain drugs (Tylenol, Gabapentin, and Celebrex) The one night nurse I had the 2nd night said I was the first DIEP patient she had that didn’t take the extra pain meds… So I asked how many patients she had had? While she was counting them in her head I said: One? 🤣 Joke was on me though because it hurt to laugh! 😬 She laughed and said like 10ish but she had only been at that hospital since Aug. 🙂 I told her it was my Norwegian blood. 🤣🇳🇴 I should have told her that it was an answer to prayers. ❤️

Because I had to go back for a second surgery and then be put on heparin (a blood thinner) they wanted to keep me for one more night to monitor my flaps as I came off the heparin. Thankfully everything went well after that second surgery and every time they went to listen to the doppler they found a pulse. I had to wait until discharge day to take my shower. I think that’s the same no matter how long you stay. Mainly because they have these monitors taped to my flaps that they called “T-stats”, I’m pretty sure those couldn’t get wet. That’s what monitored the oxygen levels in the newly transferred tissue. Needless to say my first shower post surgery felt amazing! We had a 20 minute drive to the house we’re staying at for the next week of recovery. This place is such a blessing! They have two lift chairs, one in the living room and one in the master bedroom. There’s a shower chair in the master bath, which is a walk in shower. They have extra mastectomy pillows, robes, and drain holders for me to use. The owners live right next door and are willing to be as involved/uninvolved as we want. They even brought me flowers after we got settled in! ❤️

Our first night here went really well. I think we both slept pretty good given the circumstances. They want me taking a shower every day and to keep my incisions clean and dry. Todays shower was a little action packed. It’s not completely surprising. I’m not sure how many are aware of this, I don’t think I shared it when it happened… but my first shower at home after my mastectomy led to me passing out. I had just gotten out of the shower and we were checking the incisions and making sure everything looked ok. I think Aaron was getting ready to strip my drain.. I just remember getting tunnel vision, feeling clammy, having the echoey hearing and telling Aaron “I’m gonna go.” I’m gonna go!” He wrapped his arms around me and I passed out. Thankfully he was right there. I was out for a couple seconds, came back to and then everything was fine. Definitely scared me and I didn’t try taking a shower by myself for awhile just incase it happened again. Thankfully it didn’t. Until this morning. And I didn’t actually pass out but I think I was seconds away from it. I felt myself going again. I got super dizzy, my whole body got hot and my face was all sweaty. Thankfully I was already sitting in the shower chair so I just rested my head against Aaron, closed my eyes, and took slow deep breaths until I felt better. It happened twice fairly close together and then I was good to go. Hopefully that is the extent of my drama and there will be no more passing out/almost passing out. After I finished my shower it was time for our church service. We actually watched two this morning. Not because we’re so religious but because our kids were part of a youth lead service at the church we go to Wednesday nights. So we wanted to watch them. And then there’s something about being part of the church body and while we couldn’t be there in person we still wanted to be connected. So we watched our home church service as well. ❤️

I’m taking some short walks outside. I don’t go too far but it’s nice to get in the fresh air. It’s hot here though! Almost uncomfortably when we went for our walk earlier this afternoon. The temp is supposed to drop significantly though. Like into the 40s by Monday. It’s funny because the nurses were saying that the schools were reminding parents to bring winter jackets (for 40 degree weather mind you) and that if it got that cold they wouldn’t be going outside. I just “laughed” and told her the kids go outside by us until the wind chill is like 0 or -10 I could remember what the cut off temp was since we homeschool but it’s definitely colder than 40 degrees. 😂 There were fireworks Friday night. My nurse moved my bed to the middle of the room so I could watch them! 💗

Channeling my inner Emersyn 😆😀 She likes wearing knee high socks and shorts. Good thing no one know me here 😂 Maybe I’ll start a new trend… Compression socks, with a drain holder and shorts. 🤔

10.26.23

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. For the continued prayers.

My surgery went well! I was just about to go up to my room when one of the nurses said she didn’t like the look of one of my flaps. The flap is a small football shaped section of skin from my abdomen. It’s how they monitor what is going on on the inside. Part of that was starting to turn purple. Which meant it wasn’t getting proper blood flow. They monitor the flaps every hour for like the first 12 hours. Monitoring them includes: looking at them, making sure they are the right color, pushing on them to make sure they are soft, warm, and to time the capillary refill, and then they use a doppler to listen for a heart beat. After the first surgery they couldn’t find a heart beat on my left side but they could hear the whooshing noise of the blood flow. But because the skin was turning purple they went ahead and called the doctor on call and my doctor. They sent them both pictures of the skin and they both said they were coming in. It was decided that I would have to go back for a second surgery. (I guess thats kinda my thing 🤣) They weren’t sure if it was a blood vessel kinked or if there was a blood clot and they wouldn’t know until they went in. They found a blood clot. He said it was a long stringy clot. So they got that all taken care of and now the flaps look good and you can hear a pulse on both sides. A big answer to prayer! They normally don’t give you blood thinners right after surgery. The blood vessels on the left side did not match up in size so I think that contributed to it a little and they said because I am young my body is wanting to heal itself. It’s doing what its supposed to do- we just don’t want it to do that this time.

A fun little tidbit for y’all- I remember them rolling me back to the OR. They were getting everything ready for the 2nd surgery. They had to get me to the operating table so the nurse was like: “We need to roll you, and it’s not going to feel good sorry.” Or something like that. They rolled me up just enough to slide a foam pad and the rollers part way under me, they rolled me onto the rollers and then on to the operating table. It did not feel good just for the record. I remember seeing the bright lights above me then I was out! Next thing I knew I was in the recovery room again. And every thing was looking like it should.

Pain wise I’m doing ok. I’m sore, but thats expected given the circumstances 😉 At the moment Im just taking the maintenance medications and not asking for more pain meds. I would prefer to feel a little pain as I push my body than not feel anything and over do it. 🙂 Plus the pain meds they would give me would knock me out. I really don’t want to do that unless I have to! I’ve moved from my bed to my chair. And walked the hallway twice. She said I did better than they thought I would after my first walk. I have some light headedness/dizziness. I’m pretty sure it’s from all the anesthesia. So hopefully that will go away sooner than later. When I stand up I feel like I have a 10 pound weight wrapped around my waste, it’s crazy! Oh and my catheter is out!! Wahoo! All in all I’m doing great! 💗🙂

10.25.23

Today is the day. I have to be at the hospital by 6:00 a.m. I had my consult where I met my doctor and his nurse on Monday. He said the ‘surgery’ start time was 8 am (but he thought under the knife around 9am). They expect the surgery to take 6-7 hours. It’s amazing what they can all do! They already know that I have one large vein on my left side of my abdomen that won’t be a problem but on my right side my vein branches out into a “y” and goes into my muscle. It’s not an issue by any means it just means it’s not as simple as the other side. They already have two ways in mind of how they want to extract the vein but will make the final call during surgery. The silver lining in all of this you might ask.. I have about a two finger diastasis recti separation from my pregnancies that they said they would fix during the reconstruction. I was warned that it will add to the soreness. But I’m ok with that! 🤣

We spent the last couple of days exploring San Antonio and the surrounding area. Sunday we drove out to Seguin, TX to hit up a highly recommended BBQ joint: Burnt Bean Co. It’s one of those places you wait outside in line for and they go until they run out of food. We waited in line for an hour. It did not disappoint!! If you’re ever in the area and like BBQ we highly recommend it!! And get the brisket!! 😋 We spent a couple days exploring the River Walk- that’s like a whole thing in itself. It’s in the middle of town but it’s below street level you wouldn’t even know it’s there if you weren’t looking for it. We saw the Alamo. I don’t know how many have seen that, but I wasn’t expecting it to be where it was. It’s nestled right in the middle of all the hustle and bustle of down town San Antonio. We also went to the Towers of the the Americas. It’s an observation tower 750ft up. You get some amazing views of San Antonio! Tuesday we got an early start and headed south to Corpus Christy. We toured the USS Lexington, a retired aircraft carrier. Our tour guide worked in the engine room of an air craft carrier similar to the Lexington so he was a plethora of knowledge! After we were done there we drove to Mustang Island (north of Padre Island) and spent some time walking the Gulf of Mexico. 💗

Be still and know that I am God

Psalm 46:10

The creator of the world, the one who placed all the stars in the sky. He cares about me. He’s holding me in the palm of His hands. He knew I was going to be here way before I ever did. And He’s in control. I just want to say again, thank you for your prayers. The last couple of days have been great. The reason for our trip was not on my mind while we were enjoying the area, so that was a huge answer to prayers! We’ll try to update everyone as soon as we can about how the surgery went.

10.22.23

We made it to Texas!!! We dropped the kiddos off Friday morning, swung by the Cancer Center for my Lupron shot, then after we finished packing our stuff up headed to the hotel. Saturday started at 4am in Minneapolis and ended at 9:20pm in San Antonio with a few fun stops in between. We flew into Dallas so we could stop and see my cousin Jasmine and her hubby Jon, then there were some stores in the area Aaron thought would be fun to check out. After that we drove down to San Antonio (roughly a 4hr drive depending on the traffic.) Needless to say, by the time we got to the hotel we were drained. 🤣 It was a good travel day though! We’re planning to do some sightseeing in the area over the next couple days. I just want to say thank you for your your prayers. They are being answered!! I was nervous before we left, I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to enjoy myself because of the weight of it all. But we’re 3 days out from surgery and I’m looking forward to the next couple of days. 💗

Check out my curls!! ⬆️⬆️⬆️

On Thursday I took the boys for coffee and the girls to get our nails done. I just wanted to do something fun with them before we left for two weeks. Especially since the last couple of weeks had been prepping for surgery. 💗🙂

Got my lift chair all set up for when we get back home. 😬

My meds! 😳😬

10.6.23

September flew by! I felt like I was hitting the one year mark of being diagnosed, I blinked, then September was over! Part of that may have been because the kids planned and I threw a surprise 40th birthday party for Aaron! It was great. He was SURPRISED!

Now we are quickly, and I mean quickly approaching my surgery date! It’s amazing how excited and nervous you can be about the same thing. I am so ready to have this chapter behind me! But if I think about it, I get sick to my stomach. So I am working hard to not think about it. At the moment I’m keeping myself busy with shifts at Deborah’s, an evening each week at Red Cedar Chiropractic, and then I have 3 family sessions and a wedding all scheduled over the next two weeks of October. However the week leading up to surgery I won’t be “working” anywhere. I’m sure it will fill up with all the last minute things that need to be done before we leave.

I received my pre surgery email Tuesday… 😬 I printed off 5 pages of consents! I need to initial and sign acknowledging of all the possible things that could go wrong. Talk about stomach turning. I also received my pre surgery instructions. Three weeks before surgery I have to have some tests done (CBC, EKG, chest xray, etc.) They will call in my prescriptions that I need to have on hand for after surgery. Two weeks before surgery I need to stop vitamins, herbal supplements, aspirin products and my tamoxifen. One week before surgery they want me drinking 1-2 protein shakes a day. The night before surgery I need to drink a ClearFast (that’s the brand I bought), take a shower using Hibiclens (4% Chlorhexidine), remove all jewelry, and nothing to eat after midnight except if I’m instructed to drink another ClearFast the morning of surgery. The day of surgery I’m supposed to take another shower using the Hibiclens, no deodorants/lotions etc. I will be told to drink another ClearFast so I’ll do that and take a Celebrex (one of my prescribed meds) before arriving at the hospital. My arrival time: 6am. Surgery time: 8am. I’ll be at the hospital for 2 days and up and walking within 24hrs of surgery. I have 5 pages printed of instructions and what to expect! It seems a little overwhelming when you get all this information at one time and there’s a certain order in doing them. I know it won’t be as bad when I actually get to each of them. I’m looking at the mountain right now vs just taking the first step. 🙂

I don’t know how many of you are familiar with what type of reconstruction I am doing. It’s called DIEP Flap. If you would like to read more about it you can here. It’s a 6-8 hour operation where they will be connecting a lot of little blood vessels. The biggest concern right after surgery is that the newly transferred tissue has proper blood flow. If it doesn’t I risk necrosis. I would appreciate prayers that everything would go smoothly with both the surgery and the recovery. Prayers that I can focus on what is good and right. It’s easy to go down rabbit trails. This cancer journey has taught me how much we can fear the unknown. It’s a very real thing. And if you aren’t being diligent on taking your thoughts captive you can find yourself bogged down in worry or what ifs. Also, no cancer is a “good cancer” to get. Sometimes in peoples attempts to be positive or they don’t know what to say… They will say something like: Well if you are going to get cancer that’s a good one to get. Insinuating that the survival rate is good and it’s an “easy” fix. My two cents: This particular cancer can be a very hard cancer to go through. It’s not an easy fix. The mental battle with body self image is real. Some days it doesn’t faze me at all and other days it’s hard. (Poor Aaron) I have to remind myself, God is in control. He has this all figured out. And when I’m feeling particularly spunky, I remind myself this body is only temporal 😉 I’ll get a new one some day that will be PERFECT. What a glorious day that will be! And last but not least, prayers for Aaron and the kids. The caregivers can easily get overlooked and I know it’s hard on all of them. Prayers for patience, strength, and stamina. It will be a long couple of weeks of recovery.

9.14.23

Hi! I don’t have a ton to update on right now. BUT something kind of exciting happened yesterday. I got my hair cut for the first time since losing it all!! I can’t tell you how good it feels to have a hairstyle!!! It did so much for me mentally/emotionally! I got tons of compliments on my growing hair, but felt so much like an unkempt little boy… I definitely don’t feel like that now! It seems to be coming in just like it was before chemo. I think there’s a little more curl to it, but I’m not expecting that to stay. I don’t notice any gray yet either so that’s a plus! 🤪🤣 The medication I’m on can cause thinning hair so we’ll see how it goes as it grows out. Maybe I’ll notice that more with longer hair?? I don’t know. At least for the moment nothing has seemed to change that way. 🙂 Just for the record, she didn’t take anything off the top, she just trimmed around my ears and cleaned up by my neck. So I still have some curls and the sun bleached hair on top and you can see how dark it’s coming in on the bottom.

Before

After

Also, I started a part time job! (Actually a couple 🤣) Here’s another answer to prayer. A little back story first, I started working for Deborah again. For those that didn’t know, I had started working for her last year, we hadn’t even finished my training when I found out I had cancer. So, I just went off the schedule. Fast forward to May and she was looking for caretakers again and I said I could help out until my reconstruction surgery. I love working for her. It doesn’t really seem like work really. Anyways, on one of my shifts she mentioned that one of her caretakers parents run one of the chiropractor places in town. That they were looking for someone for the front desk and every time the two of them talked about it she thought of me. So she mentioned it to me. I said yeah, that’s something I would be interested in and planned to talk to the caretaker the following week when we were training together. I figured I’d ask a little more about it and see what her parents were looking for. Well, guess what! That afternoon I had a message from one of the owners that said her daughter worked for Deb and mentioned I might be interested in a job. If I was to come on down and we could chat. So that’s what I did. And here we are, I got a job from a place I didn’t know was hiring and didn’t apply for! She knows that we homeschool and that’s not a problem with the scheduling. It really is the perfect job for me. Once I’m all trained in it will be 2-3 days a week starting at 2:30ish. No weekends or holidays. And they don’t offer insurance, which I know sounds like a bad thing, but Aaron’s insurance would penalize us if I got a job that offered insurance and I chose not to use that. (I get it, I’m not knocking them. It was just one of the things I had to watch for in looking for a part time job.)

9.5.23

Everything just got a little more real! We have our plane tickets, the rental car, and the hotel for before surgery booked. I can’t tell you how excited I am to have this hurdle behind me! With school starting now I know the time is going to FLY by!!

I got my 4th Lupron shot a week ago Monday. It was actually a busy day for me. I had my yearly physical in town, then labs, a visit with Dr Naqvi, and my Lupron shot in Eau Claire! Friday I had my yearly mammogram but just on the side without the expander. It was one year +1 day from my last one. I’m happy to say there are no signs of malignancy! My oncologist still wants me to get mammograms even after reconstruction because of the type of mastectomy I chose to do. I’m not sure when they will want to do one on the side that had cancer. The month after my last shot went so much better than the month before! Thank you so much for your prayers. We definitely serve a mighty God! I’m hoping this month goes just as well as the last one. Maybe then I can figure out what my normal will be like and I won’t feel so much like I’m on pins and needles with my emotions.

September 2nd marked one year since I got the call about the results of my biopsy. I knew that it would be hard, but I wasn’t really sure what to expect. I was definitely more withdrawn and it didn’t take too much to get me to tear up. However we spent the weekend at Family Camp, and that was a nice distraction! What a blessing it was to dig into God’s word and visit with others who have been praying for me and my family for the past year.

We celebrated Kaden’s birthday. The girls were in Iowa… 🙂

17 years later! 💗

Kaden got a job!! And it’s my job as a parent to embarrass him! 🤣🙂

Yearly mammogram. No cancer!!

Family Camp!! ✝️💗🧸

A couple of my prayer warriors! ✝️ Their church has been praying for me the last year! 💗

Guess what!?! I have more hair than this guy again!! 🤣💗🙂

We started school today!! 📚✏️🍎

8.2.23

How is it August already!?! This summer seems to have gone by faster than most! September is going to be here before we know it! And I still have to order the kids’ school stuff! 😬

I have some exciting news!! I officially have my surgery date! October 25th. Ironically that’s exactly 1 year after my 2nd surgery to get clear margins. 🙂 Now that we have a date we’re starting to plan our travel. I can already see God’s hand in it. There’s a house that is in highly recommended in the PRMA facebook group I’m in, Rose’s House. The couple that owns it has been down the breast cancer journey and only rents this house to women who are traveling for breast cancer. The house is set up with everything I would need during recovery for my specific surgery. We figured they would be booked. They aren’t! It’s ours while we’re there!!! Not going to lie, there were some happy tears when I heard that. Once we had a surgery date Aaron reached out to them to see their availability, with in minutes they called us. They helped answer any questions and even offered to pick us up from the hospital if we didn’t have a rental. I can not tell you how nice it is to not have to stress about it. PRMA has also been great with helping out of state patients. They have links to hotels that will offer discounts to their patients, they even tell you where to park. I know that sounds silly but when you are completely out of your element, just knowing you have to go to xx parking lot helps relieve the anxiety/stress of traveling for surgery. I’ll meet my doctor and nurse on the 23rd, and then I’ll have my surgery on the 25th. I need to stay in the area for 7-10 days after surgery for my follow-up and then I’ll be free to head home!

Monday I had my 3rd Lupron shot. Other than feeling bruised at the moment I’m doing good. Maybe a little tired. The fatigue with all of this is a real thing. And it’s crazy! Some days all I want to do is take a nap. 😬 I did have some crazy emotional swings after my last shot. I got that one June 30th. I headed to mom and dad’s on the 2nd, a little impromptu visit after mom’s knee surgery. I think she took more care of me than I did of her, and she was just a week removed from surgery! 🤣🤣🤣 Not really, but I could not get myself out of bed at 6 when she was getting up to do her physical therapy. And I had no energy left in the tank in the afternoon. I just wanted to sleep. So that was kind of a bummer. Then when I got home I had a good week to ten days of crying… I know that I’m more emotional when I’m tired, so I’m sure that didn’t help. But this felt different than that. I think I cried every night. I couldn’t have a conversation with Aaron without crying. Everything felt like it was an uphill battle. I didn’t really feel like leaving my room. Totally not my normal personality. As far as I know I’ve never dealt with depression or postpartum depression so I don’t know if that’s what that was (depression, I know it wasn’t postpartum depression 🤪). Then one day I woke up and felt like myself again. Like a switch had been flipped. It’s easy to look back now and see things a little more rationally, but when you are in the middle of it that’s a little harder to do. I’m very aware of the cycle that happened last time so I’m hoping that if I start to go there again after this shot I’ll be a little more prepared for that battle. I was kind of blind sided with it the last time. 😬

Thank you for walking this journey with us. I can’t even tell you how much we appreciate the prayers and support. It’s hard. Cancer disrupts everything, even when you don’t want it to. We are quickly approaching the one year mark that started us on this journey. One year since we found the lump: Aug 17. One year when we found out it was cancer: Sept 2. One year from my first surgery Oct 11. Hard to believe it’s only been a year. Some days it feels like forever ago and other days I can’t believe how fast it’s gone. 🙂

As far as specific prayer requests go. I would really appreciate prayers that my hormones would level off and that I don’t go through that low again. And then for travel and my upcoming surgery. I have my yearly exam later this month so I’ll probably find out then when I’m supposed to do my next mammogram. 😬

A throwback to Colt’s birthday since I didn’t share those earlier…

twinning!

The fair was in town! It was our first year doing the pedal tractor pull. They had fun!

Easton does not like thunderstorms. If he can’t hear the thunder then he is good.

Easton’s birthday celebration

Madi has started her orthodontic journey.. she got her spreader put in last month.

Check it out!!! I took a little nap on the couch and woke up with bed head!! My hair is officially long enough to get messed up now!!

7.1.23

A song of ascents. I lift up my eyes to the mountains- where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth. He will not let your foot slip- he who watches over you will not slumber; indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord watches over you- the Lord is your shade at your right hand; the sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord will keep you from all harm- he will watch over your life; the Lord will watch over your coming and your going both now and forevermore.

Psalm 121

What do they say? Time flies when you’re having fun?? June was busy! Hard to believe it’s been about a month since my last update. There’s not a lot new to share so I guess that’s a good thing. I’m still waiting for approval from the insurance company for reconstruction surgery. They said it could take 2-6 weeks for the approval. It’s been 3 weeks so far.

I had my 2nd Lupron shot yesterday. I got a little more sore with it this time than I did last month. So far the side effects haven’t been too bad. I’ve had a few hot flashes (I can’t complain on the severity of them though) and my joints get a little achy after my shot. Maybe one of the more bigger things I’ve noticed: I’m more emotional right now. I’m hoping that will level off sooner than later! 😬 I also had a survivorship consult yesterday after my labs and followup. I got a nice little packet of what my diagnosis was and the treatment plan I received. It also includes all of the doctors and their contact numbers. Funny how something so small, IDC Stage 1B, can wreak so much havoc. I am so thankful we caught it as early as we did and that my prognosis is so good, but boy does it change everything!

I think that’s really all that’s new with me. 🙂 As always, prayers are so much appreciated. As far as specific ones: 1)That my body would adjust to the hormone therapy sooner than later and that my emotions would level out. I was warned that once I was done with treatment and things slowed down that it might get hard again. For the first part of the journey I was in survival mode. Just make it through the day. Make it through the next chemo round. Then just like that they were done. Honestly, I wasn’t too weirded out by not going once a week. I was actually really excited to not have to go to the doctors for a whole week! 🙂 Now I’m coming to terms with what my cancer diagnosis has changed. Coming to terms with what my normal will be now. Sometimes those days are hard. 2) Prayers for learning to live life after cancer. I’m not really sure how to word that one, it’s just sometimes the mental battles are hard. And 3) Patience in waiting for a surgery date. I keep reminding myself that it will happen in God’s timing. 🙂

Some pictures from our June. Because life doesn’t stop. And I want to remember the good. 💗

Another milestone hit in June! I officially have more hair than dad again!! 💗🤣🙂 I’m just hoping it grows faster than it did when I was a baby! 😉🙂

A little birthday celebratory supper for the birthday girl!

She finally finished school! It was a hard push but she’s done! Just in the knick of time too! 😬

Kaden shot trap at state this year for the first time. He did great! (89/100) 😀🙌🏻

Dad being Dad. 🤣💗

She got the green light! No more buddy tape for this girl. (Unless she’s going to play some high impact sport.) It’s not 100% yet but its getting there and if she doesn’t use her fingers she risks losing the mobility. She’s doing great with her physical therapy so we’re not worried about that.

It’s Growing!!! I’m three months past my last chemo! And now I feel like I’m at the stage where people are going to think I chose this hairstyle… 🙄 I’ve had a few compliments on my buzz cut and feel the need to say: “Thank you, but this wasn’t by choice.” Maybe they know that and they are just trying to be nice? 🤷🏼‍♀️

🇺🇸 Happy 4th of July!! 🇺🇸

6.7.23

Monday I received the call about my CT scan. Everything looked good! They are booking into August now so my surgery won’t be scheduled until at least then! 🙂 It’s also been 6 days since my Lupron shot. So far I haven’t noticed anything different! Not sure if that’s because it take a few doses to accumulate like the chemo did or if it just takes a couple weeks for my body to notice the changes. I guess time will tell. 🤪

Evalyn had another follow-up on her fingers Friday. Everything looked good and there was signs of new bone growth so that was good. She no longer has to wear her hand splint. YAY! We go back in 3 weeks for another round of x-rays. Hopefully we’ll get the green light for no more buddy tape and she’s good to go. 🙂

Here’s a little humor for you! I was all set to get a little video or a picture of me getting my first Lupron shot. Then I found out where I get the shot… haha! Plan B: take a picture of the shot instead. It’s a pretty hefty needle so getting it in the arm is not advised… As she was warning me about all of this, all I could picture was the scenes from the war movies where the nurse jabs the shot into the soldiers backends and they all jump in pain. I’m thinking oh no this is going to be awful and I have to do this every month! 🥴 She assured me the women handle it better than the men. 🤣 She said the men are big babies. 🤷🏼‍♀️ I barely felt the poke (wahoo). However, later in the day I could feel it- it felt like I had a nice bruise. 😬 Thankfully that only lasted the day!

The paper I got with the list of side effect from the Lupron shot… 😬 I know they are fairly common to what women go through during menopause. It just really stinks that it’s getting forced on me now verses my body getting to go through it naturally.

Tuesday (6/6/23) marked 10 weeks since my last chemo!! My hair is coming in fast!! And it is so soft!! Looking at it you expect it to feel like a buzz cut. Nope! It feels like a fluffy, little bunny. 🤣❤️ Easton and Colton will ask to rub my fuzz and then laugh and make a face saying something like oh that feels weird or it’s so soft!!

Look at it!!! 😀❤️

My eyebrows are filling in nicely too! They are about half way in.. I think there is hair across my whole eyebrow, but the outside edges are just really light. If I want them to look full I still need to fill them in. But hey, I’ll take it! Hopefully by the end of the summer they will be back to normal! 🙂

Saturday I had the opportunity to take some pictures for a wonderful family. It was my first real session back after all my cancer treatments. What a blessing it was to photograph them. When you think of it keep their family in prayer too as Bev is in the middle of her cancer journey and will be starting Taxol soon. ❤️

One more kiddo has officially started their summer break!! ☀️🍦⛱️ I have one scraggler left. ONE. She needs to be done by the end of the month or she doesn’t get to go swimming at the waterpark when we go for Kaden’s state trap shoot! So you can pray that she will stay motivated and finish her work!!

The last time I had my nails done was 6 years ago when Aaron and I went to Hawaii for our 10 year anniversary! What a treat it was to meet up with a dear friend, enjoy some coffee, and get a little pampered.

5.31.23

I’ve decided to go to PRMA in Texas for my reconstruction. I went round and round with this decision. It is where I really wanted to go, but it involves plane tickets and hotel costs (verses doing something closer to home that we could probably drive back and forth for). I found out about them when I was researching mastectomies and what that was going to be like. Cancer is bad enough, it was a huge blow to find out that with a mastectomy comes loss of sensation. PRMA does what they call TruSense (where they reconnect nerve endings to give you the best chance at regaining sensation or not losing it) and that gave me hope that I might have some sort of normalcy again. We seriously considered going there from the beginning but we weren’t sure how long it would take to get the approval from our insurance company and a surgery date scheduled. We didn’t want to wait an extra month to get the cancer out just in case that meant the difference between needing chemo or not. Little did we know I would need chemo either way. They specialize in breast reconstruction and since they are in network with our insurance I just can’t pass that up. I don’t have a date yet but I’m hoping to have it scheduled for sometime this summer. It would be nice to get it all behind me this year. I really appreciate the prayers for wisdom and discernment as we’ve been faced with tough decisions. It’s so hard making choices for the future that will permanently affect the rest of your life when you don’t know what the future holds. I know I can’t make a “wrong” decision. But I do have to be able to live with the decision I make. Without going into details: I have to look at my options and figure out the worse case scenario. Am I ok with that if that happens? It’s hard.

I had my CT scan last Wednesday. That was an experience! She said that I would feel it going in, have a funny feeling in my throat, my body would get hot, and then I would feel like I wet my pants. 😳 After she told me what to expect I wasn’t sure I wanted to do it! But, the point of the CT scan was to make sure the flap they will use for reconstruction has good blood flow and there aren’t any surprises during surgery. I definitely felt it going in. My arm burned. My whole body got warm and then I felt light headed. 😬 I’m glad to have that behind me. Hopefully they’ll get my results sooner than later and we can move forward with getting a surgery date scheduled.

I had another follow up with my oncologist yesterday too. I just want to say we’ve been so blessed with him as my oncologist. He takes the time to listen, he presents the facts, and then he sits back and lets me process it all. He isn’t pushy about what decisions he thinks I should make. In fact he’s quite insistent that I need to have a peace about the decision I make. He even said they (as in oncologists/doctors) tend to get caught up in how to get rid of the cancer, they don’t always look at the patient’s well being. And the patient’s well being is just as important as getting rid of the cancer. I’m just so thankful that this is the type of doctor I have for my cancer treatment. This time the follow up was to talk about how I was doing on Tamoxifen and then to talk about the shot that I will have to get once a month. And honestly I don’t feel like I have too many side effects. A huge answer to prayers ❤️ He didn’t think that my achiness was from the Tamoxifen. He said it could be the residual side effects of chemo. I have noticed a few hot flashes, but to be fair I have no idea if it’s truly that or the fact that it is finally getting hot out! ☀️ They also ran some kind of test on my cancer from the biopsy they took back in August. It was to determined how long I should be on Tamoxifen. My results: 10 years (the full time recommended). Not what I really wanted to hear, but it is what it is. I go in on Friday to get my first shot. I would really appreciate prayer for that that to go well. Hopefully I won’t have any horrible side effects from that either!! It will bring on full menopausal symptoms though. 😬 If I heard right they will set up a consult with his PA to go over some of those side effects and how to handle them if I would like. I can really appreciate they are trying to set me up for success as I navigate all of this. The nice thing about this step in my journey is if I feel like this shot is too much for me then I don’t have to get another one. 🙂

I’ve officially hit the 5 o’clock shadow stage!! And my eyelashes and eyebrows are more noticeable every day!! ❤️ Both dad and one of my sisters said they thought my hair had grown just in the time I was in Iowa over the weekend! 😀🤣❤️

CT time!

Grandpa needs a bigger bike! 🏍️❤️🙂

I can not tell you what a blessing it has been to have someone my age, that I know, who has walked the same path as me. This journey can feel so lonely sometimes. Unless you’ve actually gone through it you can only empathize so much. And honestly, I hope you will never fully know what it is like. It is definitely not how we would have liked to reconnect! However, we have decided at least a yearly trip to the Dariette would be in order. ❤️😉🍦🙂

I think it’s safe to say like father like daughter?? 🤣

Two more kiddos are done with school!! 😀

5.18.23

Today marks two weeks since I’ve started Tamoxifen.

Last Wednesday I woke up and felt completely drained. I just wanted to curl up and go back to sleep. 😬 On top of that my joints (neck, back, hips, and knees) hurt. Whenever I would get up to move I could barely walk. I also had a slight headache. I felt like I was in a fog… Around noon I finally broke down and decided to take some ibuprofen. Once that kicked in I felt a lot better, enough so that I went out for a walk. 🙂 I’m hoping that my body will adjust and the side effects won’t be too bad. I refuse to get prescribed another RX to “take care” of these side effects, that’s one road I don’t want to go down!

The next morning wasn’t so bad. I woke up feeling a little stiff and nauseous but to be fair I’m not sure if the nausea was from the Tamoxifen or because we were up late getting back from the ER. Evalyn decided last Wednesday night at church would be a fun time to break her finger. We have decided they are called sidewalks for a reason. You should walk on them and not run! She tripped and fell and as you can see her hand took the brunt of it. You know it’s bad when your daughter comes to get you telling you her sister fell and you say it’s ok and start to brush it off and she goes “No, Dad said “Get Mom.”” 😬 Sure enough, when I saw her hand I knew her finger was broken. Aaron dropped Ev and I off at the ER, ran the rest of the kiddos home (we had 4 extra kids with us), and then came back to Eau Claire when I texted we were almost done. She handled it like a champ! She said the worst part was the shot to numb her finger. We had a follow up Friday where we learned she actually broke two fingers! Her ring finger and her pinky finger! We have another appointment scheduled tomorrow. We’ll get another x-ray to see how it’s healing (it’s very close to her growth plate, they don’t think it will affect the growth though.) They want to watch it so unless something changes tomorrow, we’ll be going in once a week for a couple weeks. She will also get a hand splint vs what she has now. They want her moving her joints.

I’m really hoping that last Wednesday was a fluke and I won’t feel like that again!! It was pretty miserable! It seems like joint pain is going to be a thing for me. I can feel it in my hips like when I was at the end of a pregnancy. If that’s all it is, it’s annoying, but I can deal with it. I’m a little slower getting up and am feeling a little old. I can’t make fun of dad anymore. 🤪 Maybe I’ll have to get a little video clip of us trying to walk after we’ve been sitting for more than 10 minutes! 🤔🤣🤪🙂

Last week was a rough one for me. And when I say rough I mean, there were lots of tears and focusing on what I have lost. For example, one thing I was having a hard time accepting: I won’t get to experience menopause like a “normal” woman. I know that sounds so silly. My body was thrown into menopause during my chemo treatments. One month I had my period, the next I didn’t. My period hasn’t come back yet and I doubt it will because 1) I’m taking hormone blocking pills and 2) I will be getting a shot to shut down my ovaries. As I’m sharing with you one of my struggles I’m also giving myself a little pep talk. 🤣 This is such a small problem to have. And things could be so much worse. It’s just hard to remember that sometimes when you are in the thick of it. 🙂 (I also know I need to grieve what I’ve lost/won’t get to experience/do whatever that may be.) Some days are going to be great and other days are going to be hard.

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.

Lamentations 3:22-23

I have another prayer request. It’s not really a new one but specific. Prayers for wisdom, discernment, and peace. We’ve been faced with some hard decisions. Sometimes the decisions were already decided for us (as in not being able to guarantee getting all the cancer with a lumpectomy) other times they were more open (like choosing not to do radiation). Can I just say I’m tired of making decisions?? Especially permanent ones! Before my reconstruction surgery can be scheduled I have to decide if I want to have a prophylactic mastectomy. (Surgery to remove the other breast tissue). The type of reconstruction I want to do (DIEP flap) can only be done once. I don’t carry any of the known genes for breast cancer but I did develop it and was diagnosed young by their standards, therefore I am considered high risk. I was told I have about a 30% chance of developing breast cancer on my left side. Tamoxifen decreases my chances by about 50%. Just for the record, the average woman has a 1 in 8 (12.5%) chance of developing breast cancer in her lifetime. As a high risk patient I will have to have yearly MRIs and mammograms offset by 6 months. That means I could possibly have 30 more MRIs in my lifetime. (Not sure at what age they would stop doing them?) There’s a lot to consider, if I chose to do the prophylactic mastectomy that would eliminate the yearly MRI and would obviously lower my cancer risk. Without going into details there are some significant cons to that choice as well.

On a more positive note! Thank you for praying about my shoulder. I noticed a couple days ago it isn’t bothering me any more!! That’s a huge relief, especially since when my right shoulder started hurting that lasted a couple months… 🥴

We were up north for our nephew’s confirmation and I had to snap a pic with Paul. He’s one of the Larson men that get to enjoy having more hair than me for just a little bit! 🤣

Those eyelashes are growing!!! The pics are from last week (6wks post chemo). I’m 7 weeks now and wore mascara on my tiny little lashes for the first time to Bible Study last night! 🤣❤️ You still can’t see them, but Aaron said he could tell a difference when he got home. 🙂

Look what else I found!!! Eyebrow tattoos!!! 🤪🤣🙂 Now I don’t have to worry about rubbing them off! Or them washing away in the rain! 🤪

So proud of this kid! He shot 92/100 at the Hudson Invitational. He tied for 1st (but placed 2nd based on back runs) for Menomonie. And got 10th place overall in JV (89 participants).

We finally got to celebrate me being done with chemo! ❤️

We finished the league season. He placed first in JV for Menomonie, earned his letter, and at his last practice day he shot a 25/25!!! He still has a couple tournaments left this summer that we’re looking forward to watching.

Today was his last day! The first kiddo done with school for the year!! So proud of him! This was his first year doing school and as you know it wasn’t ideal. Our school year started a week later than originally planned because of my cancer diagnosis and doctor appts like every day that week. He worked hard and now he gets to officially start his summer break!! ☀️😎

5.6.23

I had another follow up with my oncologist this week. This time to talk over hormone therapy. I am really struggling with this. I don’t want to do it. The whole point of taking this is to lower the risk of early breast cancer coming back locally and to cut down the chances of getting breast cancer on the other side.

Warnings:

• Stroke
• Blood clots in the lungs/legs
• Cancer of the uterus
• Cataracts
• Liver problems, including jaundice

Side Effects:

• Hot flashes
• Nausea
• Leg cramps
• Muscle aches
• Hair thinning
• Headache
• Numb/tingling skin may occur
• loss of sexual desire or ability (in men)

I hate that I have to trade the chances of getting one kind of cancer for another. I feel like I am betraying myself, like I have a total lack of regard for my convictions. I’ve never been big on taking extra medication.. (I didn’t with my c-section or my mastectomy). Now here I am having to take a hormone therapy pill, for the next 5-10 years… 🥴 It’s really hard for me to accept/wrap my head around. As I drove home from the pharmacy I couldn’t stop the tears from coming. On the plus side, I don’t seem to have too many side effects when I have taken medication. I’m thinking of the recent stuff I’ve just gone through: MRI contrast, anesthesia, AC, and taxol. Hopefully this won’t be any different! Although, it sounds like hot flashes seem to be a fairly common side effect that I’ll have to deal with. 🙄

My oncologist would like me to take tamoxifen for at least a month and see how I handle it. If all goes well, we’ll discuss when to start the shot that I’ll have to get every month to shut down my ovaries. The goal is to have as little estrogen in my body as possible and to block the estrogen receptors since that is what my cancer was feeding on. One of the downsides to getting the shot, besides the fact it’s shutting down my ovaries, it needs to be administered by a nurse, which means I have to go in every month to get it. 😒

On a more positive note, I had a second consult for reconstruction last week that went really well! This place is in Texas. They specialize in breast reconstruction, specifically with nerve restoration. They are in network!!! And, I could possibly get in this summer! I have a CT scheduled for later this month to make sure that when we do the reconstruction there aren’t any surprises. I am doing a DIEP flap reconstruction. They will be taking a flap of tissue/fat from my from my abdomen and putting it where the breast tissue was. It involves a 2-3 day stay in the hospital with a lot of monitoring (they reconnect all the blood vessels and need to make sure everything goes ok and there is no necrosis). It’s a longer recovery time but the results are more natural. I’m not 100% sure I’ll be going to Texas for this, but I would like to.

I do have a few of prayer requests:

1) Please pray that I don’t have any side effects from the tamoxifen and that I’ll be ok with taking it. I hate that I have to.

2) That my upcoming CT scan would go smoothly.

3) For wisdom, discernment, and things would go smoothly as I plan my reconstruction.

4) I’m still dealing with some edema in my left ankle.. Last time it got noticeably larger was Easter Sunday. 😬 I don’t know that anyone else would notice it now, but I do. My skin feels tight around my ankle whenever I move it. I was hoping that it would have gone away by now but it hasn’t.

5) My left shoulder is starting to hurt like my right shoulder did last March. It got so bad that I couldn’t lift a cup of coffee. I ended up going to a chiropractor and doing some physical therapy and it all kind of worked itself out… Then we found out I had breast cancer on that same side. It’s a little unnerving.. I know I don’t have cancer on the left side. At least nothing showed up on my mammogram or MRI and I just got done with 5 months of chemo. But none the less it feels a little deja vu… I don’t think I fully realized how much my cancer diagnosis has affected me mentally. I keep thinking ok great here we go again. I know that’s silly, but that’s what I mean with the mental aspect of it. The old me would have just shaken it off as annoying- I did with my right shoulder until it got so bad I had to do something 😬🤣🙂So, I’m working on taking all my thoughts captive. 😉🙂 Prayers that it would work itself out soon and that I won’t worry it’s a sign of something more serious.

He was working on a new way of holding his gun for trap… he got his mistake fixed but not before it left a mark! 🤣😬🙂 Pretty proud of this kiddo. His new personal best is 24! (out of 25 for those that don’t shoot trap.)

I had the opportunity to speak to some 7th and 8th graders about photography. It was the first time I wore my survivor bracelet. I’ve had a hard time putting that one on. At what point am I considered a survivor? At first I thought of that one as one for when I conquered cancer. But how do you know it’s gone? You don’t. Plus you are surviving every day when you are battling an illness/medical condition. 🙂

Colt had to get a cavity filled. The dentist was pretty adamant about not letting him bite his lip, as you can see by the white cotton tube in his mouth. We did such a good job of making sure he kept that in there and didn’t bite his lip.. until the drive home. I never in a million years would have thought you could get such a fat lip from biting it!! It’s a lot better now, but the poor kid cried drinking water because it hurt so much! He basically had a huge canker sore from his lip to his gum line!

As of right now, I have two eyebrow hairs on each eyebrow (lost everything but those) and I have baby eyelashes!!!

My fuzz at 5 weeks after chemo!

He brought his bear out to remind me we had matching bears. ❤️

4.22.23

Be still and know that I am God.

Psalm 46:10

That verse has been bouncing around my head off and on for the past week and a half. Guess what verse my mother-in-law shared with us Thursday afternoon when she was checking in. Yep, you guessed it, Psalm 46:10. 🙂 She shared this person’s take on the verse, which I thought was good too.

Hello everyone! Yes, there is a much deeper meaning to "be still". Today in church our pastor taught on the Bible scripture, "Be still and know that I am God." Psalm 46:10 "Be still" means to stop striving, stop fighting, relax. It also means to "put your hands down". Sometimes we put our hands up to defend ourselves from all that life can bring our way. We put up our hands so that we can fight things off. 

To "know" means to purposefully and intentionally think about God (who He is and how good He is to us).

So, to me, "be still" means to put down my hands, stop fighting/striving and purposefully think about God and how good He has been to me and will continue to be................... 

My chances for local reoccurrence fall somewhere in the range of more than 10% but less than 30%, with one of the radiation oncologist saying mine was more around 15%. When we first found out I had cancer we did the oncotype test and found my cancer didn’t rate high on responding well to chemo. It wasn’t until we found the micrometastasis spot in one of my lymph nodes that chemo was put on the table. We decided to do chemo because my oncologist wanted to treat my cancer case aggressively. The spot on my lymph node was not big enough to show up on the MRI or in the freeze test they do right away (while I’m still in the operating room). It wasn’t until they dissected my lymph node that they found the cancer. I didn’t want to do chemo. I even felt sick to my stomach at the thought of having to do it, but I knew that’s what I needed to do. I have been praying that God would give me a peace about what decision to make in regards to radiation. My choice: I’m not going to do radiation. I feel more comfortable with not doing it than doing it. I keep coming back to they aren’t telling me I HAVE to have it. One radiation oncologist told me he didn’t feel the risk was worth the possible survival benefit for me and another radiation oncologist said that while she couldn’t guarantee it, if it were to come back locally it would more than likely come back in the skin. She told us what to watch for and how they would treat it if that were to happen. We got clear margins in surgery and as an extra measure we did chemo (which infiltrates my lymphovascular system as well). I feel we’ve gone above and beyond with what we’ve done so far. I don’t think taking the extra risk with radiation is worth it for me. It is surreal for me to think: now we’re done. That’s it. It’s only been five months of treatments, but it’s been f i v e months of treatments. To just be done is weird to think about especially when it’s my choice. A fun little side note: this was my first week of no doctor appointments in the last five months! It was nice to not have any places I needed to be! 🙂

I want to thank you all again for your continued prayers as we were weighing all the pros and cons.

 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 4:6-7

When you have a peace about something and can’t really explain why you just know that’s a God thing. I don’t know if my cancer will come back again. I don’t know if I’m making the right choice. But I feel good about my decision. I don’t feel sick to my stomach wondering if I’m making the right decision. I think I’m more “concerned” of having to defend myself for not doing it. When you go through something life altering it can make you reevaluate things. What can I do naturally to lower my risk of a cancer reoccurrence? I plan to make some lifestyle changes, like being more mindful of what I eat/drink and to make sure I exercise more regularly. I want to be the healthiest version of me moving forward. Now that my energy is returning I’ve been a little more determined to get out an walk again. Which has felt great!

First dandelion of the year. So he picked me a “flower” ❤️

Easton: 0 Tucker with a stick: 1

My fuzz at 3.5 weeks post chemo. (I never lost this hair.) I don’t feel like it’s changed much since we finished but plan to take weekly pictures to document it’s growth. Don’t worry I won’t be posting those weekly!! 🤪🤣 I have absolutely no eyelashes!! 😳 I Googled when eyebrows and eyelashes come back after chemo… 4-6 months for eyebrows and it can take up to a year for the eyelashes to completely fill in!! I sure hope they both come in sooner than later! And last but not least, the glue is off! I have a slight bump where my port was. I’m guessing that it is scar tissue from where I felt him separating the tissue that was stuck to my port. 😬 It’s so nice having it gone!

Yes, we still have a dog, but he is pushing his luck! 🤪 I was so mad when I saw what he did to my end table!! 🙄 And just for the record our makeshift doggy gate does not work… that little stinker can still wiggle his way through! 😬🤣 I find it so interesting the changes in my heart rate from when I was on chemo vs not having it… It definitely affects everything! Aaron’s grandma Julaine makes the best oatmeal buns!! She sent some up a couple weeks ago. They were d e l i c i o u s !

I started walking daily again. (Or at least try to get a walk in daily.) It wasn’t raining when I started… 😬☔️💧 I am terrible about checking our weather! I think Mom knows more about what the weather will be like for me than I do and she lives in another state! 🤪🤣🙂 Needless to say, I was just a little wet when I got home. Friday I changed up my route and walked past our church. How thankful I am that the words from this hymn are true! ❤️

'Because He lives, I can face tomorrow, 
Because He lives, all fear is gone; 
Because I know He holds the future, 
And life is worth the living just because He lives.'

4.15.23

What a busy week!

Easter on Sunday, piano lessons Monday, physical therapy on Tuesday, port removal and church on Wednesday, dental appointment for all the kiddos on Thursday, my third consult about radiation and we went to a softball game for Olivia on Friday, and last but not least Kaden signed up for a trap tournament Saturday!!!

I sort of glossed over it above but my port is out!!! There was a little more involved in that than I thought. 🤣 In my head, I was thinking: I would just go to his office, they would numb me up, cut me open and kind of just pull it out… Which they did. It’s just not what I was picturing. It was done at the hospital (not really sure why I was thinking it would be in a doctor office! 🤣) as an outpatient procedure. I had to show up an hour before the procedure. They numbed me with a local anesthetic, which felt kind of like a bee sting. Once that kicked in he cut me open along the same incision line they put it in and started working at getting the catheter part out. Before he started he asked if he could play some background music. Sure why not, right? The first song playing when they started: ‘Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing’. I said “Hey this is a hymn!” Of course he had to ask which one and at that moment it eluded me. 😳 I was singing the words in my head along to the music (instrumental); the title was on the tip of my tongue. He asked if he could give the first word. “Sure.” He said, “Come.” And then of course I said it right away. 🙂 ‘Amazing Grace’ also played. 💗 Once the catheter part was out he applied pressure to my vein for about two minutes to give the area some time to heal itself. After that he worked on getting the port part out. That was stuck to some tissue- which I felt him separating. 😬 At the beginning he told me if I felt anything to let him know. I wasn’t sure how fast things could go from just feeling it to ok, yeah, that really hurts so told him if he was almost done it wasn’t a big deal, but depending on what else he had to do I could feel that. (It mainly felt like I was getting pinched and poked by a needle but nothing awful. On a scale from 1-10 maybe a 2?) He said he was done with that part and then I didn’t feel much else other than a little pressure which he told me I would feel. I am a little sore, but nothing like getting it put in! It feels like when you start exercising for the first time in awhile and your muscles are achy. I can’t lift anything over 10 pounds for a week and I need to watch for infection/bleeding. So far so good!

Friday afternoon we had a consult through my portal with the doctor in Madison. I did not get my “No, I don’t think you need it.” that I was hoping to get. I fall in the category of my cancer case doesn’t “require” me to have radiation but it also doesn’t say no you don’t need it. She couldn’t really give me an exact percentage like the 2nd radiation oncologist did. She put me in the greater than 10% but less than 30% chance for local reoccurrence. The 2nd radiation oncologist said 15-20 percent; he was leaning more towards 15%. She couldn’t guarantee, but she thought IF it were to come back locally it would more than likely come back in the skin. She talked about if that were to happen they would remove it surgically and then I would have radiation, and possibly chemo again. It just depends (on the chemo part). She also talked about putting a gel on my skin to help with my skin absorbing the radiation. She said that by doing that I would be at a higher risk of burning/blistering. With that comes a higher risk of damage to my skin, for example, if I were to burn really bad my incision scar could pop back open, or because the skin is thinner over the expander if I blistered really bad I could end up with an open sore anywhere there. If that were to happen I would have to remove the expander and I’m not sure what would happen to my skin at that point. She mentioned me having to “go flat” while I was completing treatment. I am not comfortable with that. I think that almost scares me more than getting cancer again. Radiation also can make reconstruction harder (the skin doesn’t heal as well). She mentioned that severe burn/blistering happens about 25% of the time. If we understood right, the risk of cancer coming back goes up more after I come off of the hormone pills. I have not made up my mind yet, but I think I am more comfortable not doing radiation and following up with a dermatologist and monitoring my skin closely for any changes whatsoever than to do radiation and have some of the problems she listed.

It’s weird for me to think that I’m done with cancer treatments. When I got my port taken out I had asked a question about one of the possible “side effects” and he said well your cancer free so your risk goes down with whatever I was asking about. It’s hard for me to wrap my head around that. I don’t really know when I was considered cancer free… Was it after surgery when we got clear margins? After chemo? Will I really be considered cancer free if I don’t do radiation? I don’t know. I suppose over time the thought of being cancer free will be easier to accept. It’s a life altering thing. No matter how much I want to go back to the girl I was before cancer, I’ll never be her again. (That’s not necessarily all bad, there are things that I wouldn’t have experienced if I hadn’t walked this road. It’s just that things won’t ever be the same.)

We had the whole place to ourselves! 🤣

proof I knew her before she was famous! 😉🤣🙂

We are so proud of this kid! He shot a personal best of 22 in one of his rounds and got a 43/50 in the tournament!! 🙌🏻

Next week will be the first week in five months where I don’t have any cancer related appointments! I have either had labs, chemo, physical therapy, etc. at least once a week since November 7th!

4.10.23

And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. He is not here: for He is risen, as He said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.

Matthew 28:5-6

I hope you all had a happy and blessed Easter! It was a little extra special this year, it also happened to be my birthday. The last time Easter was on April 9th was in 1950! I can normally skate by undetected but this year a little birdie made sure everyone in church knew. haha! Suffice to say, I was well loved on Sunday! 💗

Tomorrow marks two weeks since my last chemo!! 😀 Dr. Naqvi said that my hair should start growing back around two weeks after my last dose. He was pretty spot on when he said I would start loosing my hair so I am going to go out on a limb and say he’s probably going to be pretty close on this one too. My sisters are taking bets on how fast it will grow and what it will look like when it comes in. Anyone else want in on the action?? 🤣

Thursday I talked to my nurse navigator about setting up the radiation consult in Madison. We are hoping to do that as soon as possible via zoom. As I wait for a call I’m praying for wisdom for my doctors (as well as Aaron and I). Specifically that the Holy Spirit would lead the doctors in their recommendations for me. On a slightly different note, I have a zoom consultation about reconstruction with an out of state doctor later this month. You can also pray that goes well. And last but not least, I’m still dealing with some swelling in my ankle. As my energy levels go up I’m more active. I think I may have just been on it too much, it got kind of big last night. I put it up and iced it for awhile and by this morning it was looking more normal but the top of my foot felt like I had a cramp in it for part of the day. Prayers that it would just kind of take care of itself and not swell any more would be greatly appreciated! I’m hoping as I get the chemo out of my system little things like that will go away. 🙂

I am excited to let ya’ll know my port is coming out on Wednesday!!! I. can’t. wait. Most nights when I lay down I end up noticing it at some point. It tends to feel like I have a bruise there. Or when I go to pick up Colton, it doesn’t happen every time, and he bumps me just right same thing: it will feel like I’m bruised. I have to go to the hospital to have it taken out, but it sounds like they just numb the area and pull it out! 😳🙂

Unless something changes drastically I don’t think you’ll be seeing me in your inbox as much. No news is good news, right? I will definitely make sure to keep you updated on what we find out and then decide on about radiation. Things will hopefully slow down for a little bit now and we can take the time to recoup and catch our breath. It’s been go, go, go since being diagnosed back in September. After the radiation decision has been made, we will start planning for the reconstruction. I just want to thank you all again for your words of encouragement and prayers. I know I wouldn’t have done as well as I did through all of this if it wasn’t for everyone lifting me in prayer. ❤️

The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.

James 5:16b

❤️❤️❤️

I thought there was going to be more when we started out! Not too bad for 5 months of chemo. 🙂

4.5.23

First of all I want to say: This is my first official week without chemo in 5 months!!! However, that doesn’t mean I still didn’t need to make a trip to the cancer center… 🙃

At the beginning we were overwhelmed with everything going on. How can I seriously have cancer when all the statistics would suggest otherwise… We decided to trust God. We prayed for wisdom in our decision making and for our doctors. We decided to trust that the doctors God placed in our path were the ones He had for us. We have not had to “fight” for one thing. When I went in for the lump my doctor automatically ordered the mammogram. I have heard of women that did not meet the normal criteria for breast cancer so they were told it can’t be or don’t worry about it. I had a second doctor appointment scheduled at a different hospital just incase Marshfield wouldn’t do the mammogram or biopsy. I didn’t even have to request the biopsy. When I went in for the mammogram the doctor told me the only way to know for sure was a biopsy and left it up to me. Then when he called to tell me it was cancer he told me that if I was his wife he’d push for an MRI. When we had our first consult with the oncologist he said right away, we want to do an MRI. When we were at the second appt for that day (with the surgeon) they came in to tell us the MRI was schedule, roughly two weeks from that day. Our surgeon was like: “That’s not good enough call so and so and see what they can do.” The nurse came back in ten minutes later and said she had me scheduled for the next day. When I found out I would have to have chemo I was worried they would want to try something that was newer and didn’t have the research behind it. As crazy as it sounds I would rather do chemo that has been around for years and years than to try something that we wouldn’t know what possible side effects could happen in 10 years… My doctor automatically went with chemo and I didn’t even have to voice my concerns about it. If you are like us, you see God’s hand in it all. Obviously not what we wanted, but He’s had us in the palm of His hand this entire journey!

On Wednesday I had another appointment with Plastics, per the recommendation of the plastic surgery doctor in Madison. He suggested to add more saline to the expander if I was going to do radiation. Long story short, radiation has a tendency to tighten your skin, by adding more fluid it can counter that side effect so that when I’m done and ready for reconstruction surgery my skin will be the right size. (Hopefully that makes sense!) One positive and I’ll call it a huge answer to prayer. When she poked me to fill the expander, I felt it!! 😀 The last time they added saline was at my 6 week follow up after surgery to get the expander to the amount they took out. She told me then they don’t worry about numbing you because typically women are still numb at that time. I was. I did not feel her poke me. But Wednesday when she poked me I was like “Hey, I felt that!” I know, a silly thing, but I was excited. And remember I like to celebrate the little things too. 😉🙂 It means my nerves are healing!

Once in awhile I will have a day where I am just mentally spent. As in, I want to be done with all of this. I want to feel like ‘myself’ again. I know it will be a life long journey of accepting my new normal. I hate that term, but that’s what it is. I hope that once I am able to have reconstruction surgery and get rid of this stupid expander I will feel like I can finally move on. Do any of you remember what the water babies from the 90’s were like? You picked them up ands they were heavy. That is what the expander feels like, only it’s sutured to my chest wall. 😬 And it sloshes when I move. 🙄 Although, that part has gotten a little better since adding more fluid. 🤪 Now it just feels like when your milk first comes in after having a baby. 🤪😬🤣 And it’s about as comfortable as that too. Eventually you get used to the feeling though. 😬

This diagnosis has been such an eye opener for me. I thought it was going to be a “simple” surgery to remove cancer and life would go on. I did not realize how drawn out everything could be. I know there are cases where the cancer is removed and life goes. But even then, life doesn’t just go on, it isn’t the same. We are 8 months into this journey with a possible 6-12 months to go before I can be completely done, surgeries and all. Even then life won’t be “normal” I am considered high risk and it is recommended that I have either a mammogram or MRI every 6 months. I think for a majority of women diagnosed with breast cancer you are looking at a year before reconstruction with chemo and radiation in between your surgery and finally being done with it all! That means this could potentially tie up 3 separate calendar years for me. Diagnosis, surgeries, and start of chemo in 2022, finish chemo, possibly radiation in 2023 and if I’m lucky my first reconstruction surgery in 2023 with the second one to follow 3-6 months later. Depending on the doctors availability and what we decide with radiation it’s possible that reconstruction won’t even be able to be scheduled until 2024. 😳

On to my consult from Tuesday

We met with my oncologist first. We talked over what my next steps would be. My cancer is ER+ which means that it is driven by the estrogen in my body. Once we make a final decision about radiation then we will start my hormone therapy. Basically I’ll get a shot every month to shut down my ovaries and then take a hormone pill to keep my estrogen levels down. I’ll have to do this for 5-10 years. If we choose to do radiation this will start after that. If we choose not to do radiation then we’ll start this right away.

My next appointment was with the radiation oncologist. We talked over some numbers and about my concerns. I have about a 15% chance of cancer coming back locally. By doing radiation I can knock that down to about 5%. He mentioned in the women that have radiation only about 2% have an actual “survival” benefit. Meaning by doing radiation it added years to their life.

He did not recommend radiation for me.

He said the risks didn’t outweigh the benefits in my case. We talked about the dermal invasion. He did say his gut instinct was to do radiation but he had consulted other radiation oncologists that specialize in breast cancer patients and according to them that is not reason alone to necessarily recommend radiation. He also mentioned if we wanted to get a third opinion we could set up a zoom consult with Madison. He couldn’t say enough good about them there and their knowledge. I’d been praying that God would give the doctors the wisdom/discernment to know what’s best for me. It’s funny, I got the answer I wanted. I went to the car and cried a few happy tears. And now I sit here wondering if this is too good to be true. Did he just not recommend it because I’m concerned about the cosmetic side effects. Our oncologist told us that if the cancer does come back they consider it incurable. They would look at ways to manage the disease versus curing it. The nice thing is we don’t have to make a decision right away. He said the soonest he would start radiation is three weeks after my last chemo and the latest they would start it is four months. I think we’ll go ahead and get a third opinion before we make the final decision. The first radiation oncologist started our appt with no you don’t need it and then switched (because of the dermal invasion), the second radiation oncologist said no you don’t need it (and he admitted he thought about recommending it because of the dermal invasion) getting a third opinion is kind of like getting the tie breaker. Aaron didn’t like hearing the term incurable. And I guess I don’t either. So you can continue to pray for wisdom, discernment, and a peace with whatever decision is made.

The white tab is the bottom. The black disc you see in the middle is the port in which they fill the expander. There is a special tool that goes over the port and marks the center to let her know where to poke in order to fill it. It usually leaves a little blue bullseye mark on me for a day or two. 😬

Meet Dr. Naqvi, my oncologist. We’ve been very blessed to have him as part of my treatment plan! He has been great to explain what is going on and at our consult on Tuesday he said something along the lines of: It’s our job to give you all the facts so that you can make an educated decision for yourself. You need to listen to your gut. I cannot tell you how nice it is to have a doctor that works with you. We never felt like we had a stupid question or pressured to make a certain decision.

3.29.23

Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;
    his love endures forever.

Psalm 118:1

We are officially done with chemo!!!

And what a great feeling that is!! 💗 It’s funny when I started my chemo back in November it seemed like it was going to take forever before we were done. It didn’t. Especially once I hit my second chemo drug. There were more of those but they were weekly so I think it just made the time go by faster. I’m so excited to have this hurdle crossed! 💗 I’ll be taking a moment to enjoy this little victory before we tackle the next steps whatever those may be.

Dad and Mom came up for my last treatment. I had them bring the kids once we started the actual chemo part. A typical chemo day for me on Taxol was: show up for labs, depending on the week I would have a doctor visit- that was every other week, then go back for chemo. The labs would take about 45 minutes to get back and we couldn’t start the premeds and chemo until we got those results back. If it was the week I met with the doctor I would see him about 30 minutes after my labs to fit in the 45 minute time frame. Two of the premeds they gave me needed to be administered over two minutes, famotidine and Benadryl, and one, dexamethasone, over 10 minutes. Then I would have a 30 minute wait. Once we were done with all of that I could start the Taxol, and that took an hour. After that there is a 10 minute flush, then we are done! We live about 30 minutes from the cancer center so once I started the Taxol I had Aaron call my parents to bring the kids in for the last 30ish minutes of my chemo. It meant a lot to me to have them there as I finished this hurdle. It’s been a tough couple of months for us and I’m so grateful we got to celebrate that moment together. 💗

💗🔔 They got to see me ring my bell! 🔔💗

I wanted to do something to celebrate my last chemo with it being on a week day made it a little harder to include everyone. We decided to just invite my parents, Aaron’s parents and his grandma to come out to eat with us. I’m still on the fence about radiation. I go back and forth with it all, it can be so frustrating at times! One minute I’m thinking I won’t do it, the next I’m like how can I not do it, and then I go to I don’t know if I should or not. 🤪 All of that to say, I thought about doing something fun with everyone that would like to after we are done with treatments (so if I go through with radiation and once we’re done with that do something). The weather will be nicer, we can plan it on a weekend and maybe do a bonfire or something and just celebrate with whoever is available/wants to. If that sounds like something you’d be interested let me know and I’ll make sure to include you if we do something. And if we choose not to do radiation we can still do something like that too, I’d just wait until it’s a little warmer outside and our snow is gone! 🤪🤣🙂

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

Lamentations 3:22-23

Next week we meet with my oncologist and another radiation oncologist, then we start the next leg of this journey. I’ll hopefully have a better understanding of what’s to be expected with radiation. It is something I’m not looking forward to. It doesn’t come without its own set of risks. One being it can cause cancer. Figure that one out, we are going to treat your cancer with something that has the possibility of causing cancer down the road… 🙄 I know there can be cosmetic changes to my skin as well. The radiation doctor didn’t really elude to that, but the plastic surgeons and people that I know/met that have had radiation have said otherwise. I am having a hard time with that one! But do you want to hear something crazy??? Last night at our celebratory dinner the manager on duty went through breast cancer last year! She did not have to do chemo. But based on all the side effects of radiation she chose NOT to do it. She was very kind and willing to share her experience with me. It was nice to talk to someone that has gone through this and not taken the advice of her doctors. Sometimes you don’t always feel like you are really given a choice. (If that makes sense) Or that you are really pressured to go one way vs another. I got home last night and asked, “Do you suppose God put her there, if for nothing else, to get me to really think about my decision.” It is pretty hard to not take their advice when they say 1. You have a higher chance of the cancer coming back in that area and 2. You won’t regret doing it, but you might regret not doing it. And just to put all of this into little perspective… In 20 years I won’t even be 60 yet.

Breast cancer mainly occurs in middle-aged and older women. The median age at the time of breast cancer diagnosis is 62. This means half of the women who developed breast cancer are 62 years of age or younger when they are diagnosed.  A very small number of women diagnosed with breast cancer are younger than 45. - American Cancer Society

From what I understand, if I choose to do radiation, that won’t start for at least a couple weeks to give my body time to heal from the chemo. I would really appreciate your continued prayers for wisdom and discernment! Especially as we head into the consult on Tuesday! 💗

I know God has a plan in all of this and He is in control.

Thank you to Erin and Heather for helping me get my celebration cupcakes for the cancer center. I was going to order them and Erin is like oh I think Heather and I can do that! 🤣❤️🙂 I loved them! I had a couple nurses come and tell me thank you for bringing them and that they were good!

Erin’s husband, Butch, works for a discounted price though! These turkeys sent me the pic below and said they went with a “spring theme” I loved their image… but in my head I was thinking ok… maybe they look better in person. (I didn’t tell them that so they’ll be laughing when they read this 😬🤣🙂) Sometimes pictures just don’t do them justice. 🤣🤣🤣 I’ve seen both Erin and Heather’s work and well this pic just wasn’t up to their standards! Haha. Needless to say I’m glad I got the above pictured cupcakes and not the ones pictured below! 🤣 No offense Butch, I’m sure they tasted GREAT! 🤪

In the spirit of celebrating my last treatment I figured I’d record putting on my numbing cream for the last time… Looks like I need to work on my getting in front of the camera skills.. so to make you laugh, roll your eyes, or think hey I could have done that better 🤣 here ya go:

Last day of chemo!!!

3.22.23

One more chemo treatment left

Yep. ONE more!!!! <insert happy dance>

Yesterday’s appointment went well! The ice hurt my fingers about the same as last time.. maybe a little longer and a little more intense?? But I’m telling you, I have one more. I can do this!

I brought a friend along this time, Erin. It’s always fun getting to show others what all goes on during chemo. Afterwards we went out to eat at the Olive Garden. Some of you know Adrienne and her family. She has a private facebook page Walking with Willow: Watching for the 😉. I thought of them yesterday when I had a little wink of my own from God. 🙂 As we entered Olive Garden there was a lady (Jackie) and her daughter (I’m assuming she was her daughter, I didn’t ask.) leaving. She had a breast cancer support shirt on that said Peace, Love, Hope (the H in hope was a pink cancer ribbon). So in true dad fashion I took a side step towards her, leaned over, and said, “Nice shirt.” She looked down to see what shirt I was complimenting her on said thanks and then asked if she could give me a hug. 💗 “Sure!” As she left I was thinking that was so sweet. Then my photography brain kicked in and I’m like hey I should see if she’s ok with getting a picture with me. So I ran back out side and sort of chased her down… 🫣🤣🙂 “Ma’am! Ma’am. Would you be ok with taking a picture with me? I’m doing blog posts to help keep everyone up to date with my cancer journey.” (or something to that effect) She said sure and then we took the picture. Then guess what!?! I got my wink. She asked if she could pray with me! 💗 What an unexpected blessing!! It amazes me how God can use a seemingly normal (boring even) moment and make it something special. If I hadn’t leaned over and said “Nice shirt.” None of that would have happened… Or maybe it would have if she had noticed me. But I’m going to go out on a limb and say most people aren’t going to approach me about cancer with my “bald” head… 🙂 Although, I think it’s safe to say she isn’t most people. 😉🙂

I was warned that I would lose hair everywhere… including my nose. Do you know what it’s like not having hair in your nose? Let me tell you: Your nose drips. Doesn’t that sound fun?!? 😬 I thought I might have missed out on that little experience, nope. It took until now, it’s not a constant drip, but it sure doesn’t take much to get it going! On the plus side, I know you ladies will appreciate this, I haven’t had to shave my legs! Too bad I could’t have at least taken advantage of that little perk during the summer! And, one more thing, since we’re on the topic of “hair” I don’t know whether this is an embarrassing tid bit or not… (I’m totally not high maintenance… or at least I don’t think I am?? You can verify that with Aaron 🤷🏼‍♀️. I don’t know if women do something about this or not??) I noticed last week all the little peach fuzz on my face is gone. Most of the hair on my arms is too! Another fun little fact for you: not having the normal body hair has made the fabric on my skin feel weird. Isn’t that crazy? I only notice it if I actually rub my arm. Or I’m snuggled down into the sheets. That saying: as smooth as a baby’s bottom. Yep that’s me. 🤣 (Except for the top of my head because I still have some fuzz up there! I definitely wouldn’t have been able to not cut it, but I don’t look like Mr. Clean either!) I’m just really hoping that when the peach fuzz comes back I won’t be giving Aaron a run for his money in the beard department! 🤪

And in the spirit of ‘I hope I don’t have to do this much longer’ I thought I’d show you what it looks like filling in my eyebrows vs not. Does anybody know how long it takes for eyebrows/eyelashes to grow back?? It is amazing what a little eyeliner and a brow pencil will do when you are missing your eyelashes/eyebrows! I am definitely looking forward to having those back! I can’t believe how sickly a person can look by not having those two features! 😬 I give a lot of props to all the women who have to fill in their eyebrows! I’m terrible at it! I was late to my chemo appt because I couldn’t get them to look right! 🤣

Ruth brought me some flowers when she came for the kids’ piano lessons Monday evening, a Happy First day of Spring surprise. 💗 They are too pretty not to share so I snapped a pic for you all to see. And Evie snapped a picture of me after I got home from chemo. For some reason I seemed a little more tired after getting home, I’m guessing it is just accumulating in my system. So glad that next week is my last one!!! 😀🙌🏻💗 We got this!! 🙂 As for prayer requests: Continued prayers that my last one will go well too! I have a follow up with my oncologist and the radiation oncologist April 4th. You can pray that those both go well, especially the radiation oncologist appointment. We’ll be talking over what they are recommending for a treatment plan with radiation. I’ve shared some of my concerns about radiation with a few people in person. Pray that if that’s what I’m supposed to do I’ll feel peace about it. Knowledge is power. I plan to ask more questions to get a better understanding on why they are recommending it. I will say that most of the decisions I’ve had to make are ones that I haven’t wanted to, but when it came time to make the decision we just knew that was the right decision for us. I’m so thankful for God’s hand in it all and all of your prayer support! 💗

 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

Philippians 4:6-7

Don’t judge me! Haha. I was stuffed, but the Freckled Lemonade Cake was calling my name… and I HAD to go by on my way home so I picked up dessert to go! 🫣🤣 I was too tired last night to enjoy it. But when I do, I’ll make sure I take a “pretty” picture of it too! 🤣

3.16.23

We’ve had a busy couple of days! I had my reconstruction consult on Tuesday. We planned to head down a day early and enjoy some time away. But apparently we live in the season of life where whatever we plan doesn’t go as planned and our get away was cut short. Such is life. We were able to enjoy a meal out with dessert before our change of plans so that was nice! 🙂 (Not sure I would have drove 3 hours for the meal but Aaron might disagree 😉🤣🙂 Don’t get me wrong, it was VERY good!) The good new is, I am a good candidate for the type of reconstruction I would like to do. The “bad” news.. This particular doctor is booked out about 9 months at the moment! He also strongly recommended waiting at least 9 months after radiation to do surgery. I do have another consult with an out of state doctor later in April so I won’t be a making any decisions quite yet. From what I have seen in their facebook group waiting at least 6 months is what seemed to be the most common. Of course that all depends on the doctors availability. One thing I will say is that even when things don’t go like I would like them to I can see how God has everything in control. I was pretty bummed when I found out I couldn’t do my reconstruction immediately after surgery. BUT at the time of surgery we didn’t realize that I would need chemo or radiation. Had I had the immediate reconstruction I may not have been happy with my final results after radiation. (Radiation can be hard on the skin and we were told that they may be able to fix some of those problems during reconstruction.) So while I was disappointed at the time, I’m thankful now. 🙂 As much as I want to have my reconstruction surgery done this year, I know there were will be some disappointment if it doesn’t, I’m going to rest in the fact that God knows whats best for me and there is a reason it’s not happening when I want it to. ❤️

As for God, his way is perfect: The Lord’s word is flawless; he shields all who take refuge in him.

Psalm 18:30

Since our consult was on Tuesday, my normal infusion day, we had chemo on Wednesday. Everything went really well! My fingers are still sensitive. They do hurt with the ice but nothing like that one day where they hurt basically the whole time. I still say I have no idea why they hurt so bad that day and haven’t since- other than, that’s a huge answer to prayers! 💗 I’m dealing with more hot flashes during the night, not sure if I should be thankful that that’s when they happen or not.. They tend to interrupt sleep. 😬 But I don’t notice them so much during the day. 🤷🏼‍♀️

Aaron’s mom came to stay with the kids while we were in Madison, and then during my chemo appointment. The girls had fun making crafts and hanging out with grandma. (I’m sure the boys had fun with grandma too!) She brought up some yummy cookie dough balls from Aaron’s Aunt Linda. Aaron’s grandma makes the BEST oatmeal buns, she brought up a couple bags of those that are in the freezer, I am looking forward to gobbling those up!

I was told at the beginning that chemo could change my nail beds. And it does. I finally decided to just paint them because they looked kind of gross.. And if I keep them long, they “roll over” the end of my finger (kind of hard to explain but it looks goofy. If I remember right, that should all clear up once I’m done. Yesterday’s weather was warmer and I could definitely tell! I ended up spending most of the day not wearing a hat. You know, it took a couple of week being out and about wearing a hat to not feel like I had everyone’s eyes on the back of my neck. It’s going to be the same going out and about without a hat too. Especially while I’m basically bald (I didn’t loose it all! There is still a little fuzz up there! 😉). My hair won’t officially start growing back again until about two weeks after the last infusion. With number ten in the books that leaves two left. TWO. I’m getting so, so, so excited!!

Prayers are still very much appreciated! That the last two treatments would go as well as the other ten have. Prayers as we face more radiation stuff, for wisdom for our doctors as they recommend treatment options. Prayers for wisdom for us as we are faced with decisions to make. We were planning to head to Iowa this weekend, but Mom is not feeling well so we won’t be going down now. She started feeling sick last week, we thought she’d be good to go by now.. she’s not. You can pray that she will feel better soon. We are all pretty disappointed our plans got canceled. Also, a couple of our kiddos woke up Wednesday not feeling well. 😬 Mainly headaches and laying on the couches feeling down. You can pray that no one else gets sick including Grandma Jill!

3.7.23

We are down to the LAST month of chemo!! It’s crazy how this has seem to fly by and yet it seems to have taken forever. It’s like when you are raising kids and they say the days are long but the years are short. 😉🙂 I was the lone ranger today. Which I promise is not as bad as people think! I love having people with especially so they can see what it all entails, but I also don’t mind just sitting in the quiet for a couple hours either 😉🤣🙂 And actually, I did bring Evalyn with, she had an ortho appt after my chemo appt. But, she was picked up at the cancer center to do some shopping for her baby. I just realized I need to apologize to ya’ll… I was so caught up in all my cancer stuff I forgot to mention:

I’m a grandma! 🤣

Meet baby Leo. Mom and baby are doing great! You guys she’s so spoiled! He is such a good baby, he even sleeps all through the night! 😳🤣😃

I did tell her she’s not allowed to leave that baby anywhere in the van where someone might think we actually did leave a baby in the car. I really don’t feel like paying for new van windows at the moment! 🤪

While Ev and I were in Eau Claire I had some help manning the fort. Thank you so much Liz for keeping the kids on track. She definitely has that special touch! The kiddo I have trouble keeping focused finished school earlier than normal! I don’t really have too much to update on the chemo part of things. Everything at the moment is kind of staying status quo. And I’m ok with that. As far as I can tell I haven’t really developed any new side effects. And the ones that I do have seem to be about the same. I did hear back from the radiation oncologist. (Well, his nurse.)

Dr. Badiozamani had a chance to speak with the pathologist to discuss your case, and with their collaboration and based on your tumor pathology, they determined you may be at higher risk of recurrence. Radiation therapy would help decrease the chances of cancer recurrence. This is why Dr. Badiozamani is recommending radiation.

So there you have it. We will be getting a second opinion with another doctor as we get closer to a possible start date.

With the warmer weather I’ve been trying to get out and walk more. That has been nice for me both on the physical and mental aspects. It’s amazing what a little sunshine and fresh air can do for a person! ❤️ Also, Kaden started trap on Sunday. This is his 3rd year doing it and he seems to enjoy it. It’s fun to watch him and see his personal growth.

Next weeks chemo will be on Wednesday. Aaron and I will be heading to Madison Monday for a reconstruction consult. The type of reconstruction surgery I want to do is not done here in Eau Claire. I plan to get a few more opinions before we commit to a certain hospital/doctor. So you can be in prayer about that as well!

I hope you all have a wonderful week!! And I hope we don’t get all the snow they are forecasting! 😳❄️🥶

3.4.23

Our consult on Thursday (3/2) with the radiation oncologist did not go as I had hoped. You could say it went how I think we expected it to. I was just really, really hoping for some good news. From the very beginning I’ve been told I’m a unique case. My cancer doesn’t quite fit the molds. I’m too young for all their statistics. Yesterday he said I was “relatively” young and then scratched that and said. No you are just young. We have had the rug ripped out from under us every step of the way.

1. The lump was cancerous. (The doctor that did the biopsy was almost sure it wouldn’t be because of my age and no family history.)
2. We thought it was just the lump and was hoping to do a lumpectomy and life would go on. (The surgeon said she couldn’t guarantee she’d get all the cancer with just a lumpectomy- so mastectomy it is…)
3. According to my mammogram and MRI the cancer looked to be localized. No chemo needed. (I needed a 2nd surgery to get clear margins AND there was the tiny spot in my lymph node and what showed as lymphovascular invasion… chemo was in fact needed.)

One of the positives we were told to having the mastectomy (and under the impression that the cancer was just in the breast) vs a lumpectomy was that I wouldn’t need to do radiation. Guess what. They are at the moment recommending radiation. To say I am disappointed is an understatement. Thursday evening and Friday were very much a rollercoaster of emotions for me. I think what made it all the harder was we spent the first 15 minutes of the consult with him telling us we could do radiation if I wanted but he wasn’t recommending it. He didn’t really see there being a huge advantage to it in my situation. I sat there thinking this is too good to be true. Then he said to hang on a minute, he wanted to step out and look at my pathology report- he had messaged the pathologist about wanting some clarification. When he came back in his view point had done a 180. He said that I wouldn’t regret doing radiation, but I could regret not doing it if the cancer came back. See what I mean about that rug. It totally got pulled out from under me again. It sounds like there will be another doctor looking at my charts so we’ll get a second opinion before treatment were to start. This consult was done “early”. I think typically you’d meet with the radiation oncologist after you are done with chemo. It’s just we have a consult later this month in Madison on reconstruction and I wanted to know before going to that if I was going to have to have radiation.

Emotionally speaking, I’m doing so much better today than I was Thursday evening/ Friday. ❤️ Prayers would be greatly appreciated as we continue in the decision making process. Especially for clarity and acceptance. I know God is in control. Some times I can’t see the forrest from the trees which makes it a little harder… Or maybe the fact that I can’t see the big picture makes it a little easier to take one step at a time? I don’t know. Either way I do know I’m not alone. And I so appreciate all your prayers. On a lighter note if you come to my house and notice I have no rugs you’ll understand why! 🤪

2.28.23

How is it the last day of February already!?!

I am happy to say that I had my eighth Taxol treatment and things went pretty well. A HUGE answer to prayers: my hands didn’t hurt this time like they did last time. I have no idea why they hurt so much last time and no idea why they didn’t this time. Other than God answering prayers!

For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and His ears are attentive to their prayer, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.

1 Peter 3:12

This past week was uneventful as far as side effects go. I don’t think I experienced anything new. My fingers are definitely more sensitive. I grabbed a container out of the microwave and once the steam hit my hand I dropped it. Taco meat all over the floor. Then I grabbed a pan off the stove. The handle had been over the burner that was hot. I dropped that pan too. 😬 (I wasn’t cooking that particular time or the handle would not have been over the hot burner, I was helping one of the kiddos.) 🙂 The lesson to be learned here: I need to be more aware of the change in my fingers so I’m not dropping any more food or burning my hands haha!

I go back and forth on how much to share and what I should share so bare with me… This past week was a little more rough emotionally/psychologically speaking. Remember back in December (I think it was December) I had a rough day or two emotionally. It was along those same lines again. It’s funny, because I’ll say, 90 percent of the time life is going by just hunky dory (yes, even with all this cancer stuff) and then out of the blue it will hit me. And as much as I don’t want them, the tears just fall. I want to be very clear, I have SO, SO, SO much to be thankful for. My prognosis is great. THE oncologist said I should be around for my grandkids/great grandkids. 🙂 Obviously no one can guarantee that. And even if I hadn’t gotten cancer, he couldn’t guarantee that I would never get it. We know only God knows that and He is in control. But there is still the for lack of better words “grief” of what I lost. Things don’t feel the same anymore and I have no guarantee that they ever will again and sometimes that’s hard to accept. I am reminded of it on a daily basis every time my husband wraps his arms around me or I give the kids a hug, etc… I don’t say that for sympathy or anything like that, it’s more that I just want to be real with you all. Some days are hard. I’ve had so many people tell me “Stay positive.” or “A positive attitude really helps.” or “You seem to have a good attitude.” things like that. To which I reply “This is the only attitude I know.” haha! I’m not putting up a front to look tough or be tough. This is me. 90 percent of the time I’m all smiles and bubbly and handling things pretty well. (Thanks to the overwhelming prayer support!) But every once in awhile it gets hard. So if you know of anyone going through a rough time, it might not hurt to just ask them how you can pray for them right now. 🙂 I promise I’ve rounded that emotional corner and am doing much better in that department at the moment. I’m sure it will hit me again.. it will probably be something I deal with on and off for awhile. But such is life, and everyone has something hard they are dealing with…

On a different note, last week I asked if we could get a referral for the radiation oncologist. I have a reconstruction consult in a couple of weeks in Madison and wanted to know if I would for sure need to do radiation. It took like six months to get in for this consult, I wanted to get the ball rolling so we wouldn’t have to wait longer than needed for the reconstruction part. I would appreciate prayers for wisdom and discernment as we go to that consult, it’s Thursday. It sounds like they will look at my particular case and let us know if they recommend radiation. I did ask my oncologist why I would need radiation since we removed all of the tumor. He said there were a couple of parameters that they look at 1.) Tumor size. Mine was not big enough. 2.) Clear margins. We did get that with the 2nd surgery. 3.) Over four lymph nodes having cancer. I only had one. and 4.) The lymphovascular system. My cancer had crossed into the lymphovascular system and that is why they are recommending me to a radiation oncologist. We’ll see what he says as far as the risks and benefits of doing radiation and what the actual treatment will look like.

As you can see this past week wasn’t a complete bust. We were able to do some fun things, like sledding with some friends. My cousin, Heather kept me company while I was at treatment today. We took advantage of no kids and grabbed some lunch afterwards. I didn’t get a pic of my meal because I was starving by the time we got there, but we splurged and got dessert so I took a pic of that 😉🤣🙂 I didn’t get any pictures, but Carolyn (and Paul) was nice enough to sit with the kiddos while I was gone. Kaden would say that he doesn’t need a sitter haha but I think it was a nice break for the older ones to not have so much responsibility placed on them… especially since I’m gone once a week right now. My ankle is still bothering me, so last night I tried icing it. That felt good! Thankfully it doesn’t seem any worse.

As always, thank you for your prayers and support. As far as specific prayer requests. 1) That things would keep going as well as they are. 2) That the neuropathy wouldn’t get any worse. 3) For wisdom and discernment as we go to the next couple of consultations. And 4) That we would show a little more grace/patience to each other… maybe it’s cabin fever or it might me the added stress of everything going on not sure which but I think we need to be reminded to take a breath before we react. 🙂 March 2nd marks 6 months since I got the call: it’s cancer. In some ways that seems so long ago and in other ways it doesn’t.

2.21.23

Oh I can’t tell you how good it feels to be on the downhill side of this!!! I am still doing pretty good! My energy level drops around days 3-4. Nothing terrible. I’m just ready for bed by 8pm. (As in like it or not I’m asleep on the couch around then. haha.) I have noticed that my fingers are more sensitive to touch. It’s kind of hard to explain. I wouldn’t say they are tingly or that I am experiencing pain, but I can tell they definitely feel different. I talked to both my Physical Therapist and Oncologist. The PT stressed the importance of doing the desensitizing exercises. During my session she used a tuning fork to see how responsive my fingertips were to the vibration. Thankfully that hasn’t changed and as soon as she touched a fingertip I could feel the vibrations. The plan is to monitor it for any other changes. I would appreciate prayers that it doesn’t get any worse. If it stays the way it is, it’s not a big deal. I can still function with it that way. My fingers really hurt with the icepacks today though. I toughed it out but I was very wiggly through it. They throbbed and felt like I had knitting needles being jabbed into each finger tip under the nails. 😬 So while your praying that my fingers won’t get any more sensitive you can pray that next weeks ice session goes a little better than today’s…

The swelling in my ankle that I had the ultra sound for last week is still there. Lori gave me a compression tube that I can wear to help with it. I plan to get a pair (or two) of compression socks too I just forgot when I was at Walmart today. 🤣 I’m guessing it’s from the swelling but my ankle, top of my foot, and then my calf, running up the inside of my leg, feels like it’s bruised when I touch/push on it… it just depends on where I’m touching and how sensitive the area is on wether just touching it will hurt. Prayers that that wouldn’t get any worse would be greatly appreciated as well. ❤️

Five more weeks. I can handle this for five more weeks! 😉🙂 Remember how I said I had good and bad news.. My bad news was my eye lashes/eyebrows were getting scarce… 😬 You know it’s obvious when your five year old notices it. “Mom you don’t have any eyebrows.”/ “Mom where are your eyebrows.” it was something like that I can’t quite remember how he said it. You definitely look goofy. (And I don’t mean that in a bad way.) It’s just we’re used to seeing ourselves with eyebrows and eyelashes… so when they are so sparse you can’t really see them you look weird. So I took a couple more pics. I know in a few years things will get foggy and all the details will kind of mesh together and I don’t want to forget. The little comments or the way I felt. On the bright side, I will hopefully be a pro at filling in/drawing my eyebrows so that when I’m a little old lady and need that skill I’ll have it! haha.

This artice ‘Finding Ways to Better Support Cancer Survivors’ was shared with me by a fellow breast cancer survivor a while back and I want to pass it along to ya’ll. You all have been so supportive. Between texts, emails, comments on here, and everyone praying for me, I’m just so thankful for your support and love. Some of the things in the article I’ve already experienced and some I’m sure is yet to come… I think it’s a good article for anyone who has experienced trauma or a life altering experience. Which is why I figured it would be a good article to share. 🙂

Both Easton and Colton went ice fishing for the first time this past week. First Easton got to go, then Colt got to go when we were down on the farm. They had a ball! It was the boys’ turn to go to chemo with me this time and the girls got to spend a couple of nights with grandpa and grandma Hestekin.

2.14.23

But the steadfast love of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him, and his righteousness to children’s children, to those who keep his covenant and remember to do his commandments.

Psalms 103:17-18

❤️ Happy Valentines Day!! ❤️

Today was a day of celebrating. One: Valentine’s Day. And Two: I am officially half way done with this chemo treatment!! <Insert happy dance!> I am so excited to be on the downhill side of this one. I don’t want to make any of you ladies too jealous… I know it’s every girls dream to have a nice romantic getaway to infusion room 12 for chemo. And let me tell you that’s exactly what I got to do! 🤪 Aaron took the day off so we could do a lunch date. And as luck would have it- we didn’t even get to do that. At least not like we planned. Saturday I noticed the inside of my ankle was sore when I slid my shoe on. It hurt to walk and the pain went up my calf. It was still hurting on Sunday. If I touched it it felt like a bruise. Or like when you had a really bad leg cramp and then the next day your leg is sore. The only thing is, I didn’t have a leg cramp or do anything that would make it sore. It just started hurting. On Sunday I noticed that it looked a little swollen. So, on Monday I messaged the doctor. I honestly thought about waiting and just mentioning it today, but didn’t want to get scolded and told that I should have said something sooner. They weren’t too concerned but said to keep an eye on it. (Not concerned because one: I sent a pic in and two: I didn’t have any redness and the area wasn’t warm to the touch.) At my appointment today I had the nurse look at it and they wanted to have an ultrasound done to rule out a DVT (Deep Vein Thrombosis). I finished with my chemo at 1pm today and the ultrasound was scheduled for 2:15pm. Not a whole lot of time to get a nice lunch in. So we did fast food and then headed back to the clinic for the ultrasound. I’m glad to say they didn’t find anything concerning. No DVT. So hopefully the swelling will go down soon and my ankle/leg won’t hurt anymore.

Things are still going well. One side effect I forgot to mention last week is the bone/joint pain. It isn’t super painful. But it makes me restless. So when I go to bed it’s really hard to fall asleep and stay asleep. The last two nights I’ve taken Tylenol and that has helped a lot with the achiness of it all. Now if I could get the hot flashes to go away I’d maybe get a full nights sleep! haha. I’m hoping after the chemo that my hormones will go back to normal. You don’t always realize all of the little things that chemo affects… like hormones. Thankfully that only seems to be an issue at night. I still haven’t noticed anything with tingling in my fingers or toes. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Prayers are being answered! ❤️ I do think my fingers are more sensitive to hot and cold. But I’ll take that over having trouble buttoning up a shirt! Another verse that was shared with me:

As for God, his way is perfect; the word of the Lord is proved; he is a shield to all those who trust him.
Psalm 18:30

Some fun pics from the week. Aaron led music on Sunday and Evalyn wanted to sing with him. She did a great job. She doesn’t like talking in front of people so we were really proud of her for doing this. She said she wanted to because she like singing. If you want to see it you can click here. Kaden had a part in a skit in youth group on Saturday. They all did a great job. He was in the first skit if you are interested in watching that you can click here. If you come to Sunday School you’ll have to take note of the bear with napkins… We’re going through Luther’s Small Catechism and on Sunday we were talking about the 7th commandment. And what does that mean. If you go into a restaurant and take a handful of napkins from them are you stealing them? (We concluded it was a heart issue.) I only grabbed a couple (four to be exact) and we used two. I took the other 2 for the car because I couldn’t just throw them away.. and I knew they wouldn’t reuse them. So I had to take a pic. Haha!

2.7.23

Today was dose five. Next week I’ll be half way through this regimen. How crazy is that!?! I had a follow up with my oncologist today and he asked if I had any tingling or numbness in my fingers or toes… I said no. And I don’t think I do. Haha. But if I sit there and think about it, then I think I may feel something? I don’t know. It’s so weird. I don’t know if it’s just a mind thing? Or if it’s the beginning of something more… On a daily basis I don’t notice anything. Other than maybe my fingers are more sensitive to cold/hot. I’m going to try to pay more attention this week to see if I notice it more.

I have noticed a few more little things… Like I get more tired at like days three & four nothing major. I’m just ready for bed by 8pm. I tend to get cold through out the day. It’s not all the time it just happens randomly… Or maybe it’s when I’m more tired? And then I end up getting hot in the middle of the night. Haha! I guess my body can’t make up what it wants to do. As far as the side effects go though- I can’t complain. The fatigue isn’t terrible. I’m not throwing up (yet). I’ve noticed a little change in my digestive system, nothing major. And as far as I can tell my fingers and toes are holding their own. Like I said, I can’t complain!! 🙂 I had this verse shared with me today. 🤍

I will be the same until your old age, and I will bear you up when you turn gray. I have made you, and I will carry you; I will bear and save you.

Isaiah 46:4

Dad and Mom were able to come up and go with me to this appointment. That was fun. Today we were done around 12:30, so on the way home we grabbed a bite to eat. If you are local and want to tag along to see what it’s all about you sure can just let me know!! (If you aren’t local and want to come you totally can too! 🤣) And just for the record grabbing lunch isn’t a requirement! 🤣🤪🙂

1.31.23

Surprise! We did my chemo a day early. At my last appointment I asked my oncologist if we could move my chemo appointments to Tuesdays instead of Wednesdays. Wednesdays were getting a little hectic. I tend to want to take a nap after them (thanks to the Benadryl) so by the time I get home and rest a little it gets tight on time to get supper ready and be on time for church… So hopefully this will solve that.

They will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.

Isaiah 40:31

Today’s appointment went really well. I got to bring a friend along this time, so that was fun!! 😃 It’s also kind of nice I don’t need to meet with my oncologist at every appointment. I touch base with him every other week. So today, I had labs, had to wait 45 minute for the results. After that they took me back to the infusion room. If I need to meet with the oncologist I’ll do that after my labs during the 45 minute wait, but it is usually after they have gotten the results back so he can talk over any concerns there might be. I learned today that the two pre-meds they give me by a syringe (Famotidine and Benadryl) are supposed to be administered over two minutes. My nurse today said she likes to dilute the meds with the saline and then slowly push it in to me over the two minutes. She said diluting it just helps her to consistently push it in over that two minute time. So that was fun to learn. After I get those two pre-meds I get a bag of dexamethasone. Once that’s administered I have a 30 minute wait. Then they give me my chemo, Taxol, and that takes about an hour to empty. I wear my icepacks the whole time. And then once I’m done with the Taxol I can go home. So today’s appointment was about three hours start to finish… Not too bad… especially when some people are there for 8 hours!

Oh! And guess what!! Today’s appointment marked my half way point with rounds of chemo! I will have a total of 16 rounds and today was round 8!!

WAHOO!!!

On Thursday we went sledding with some friends from church. I didn’t get many pictures. I was a little cold. I kind of forgot my winter coat when we were up north. 🤣 I was so focused on getting all the kids’ stuff I left mine hanging on the hook! Haha! (I did have a coat with- just not super warm!)

1.25.23

We are into single digit chemo rounds!!! 😃 Things have been going pretty well! I don’t think I’ve had any new symptoms. I have noticed a little more with the bone pain. It runs up my spine, to my neck, and then in my hips. It’s not really painful. It is more of an achy feeling. I make sure to do my physical therapy to help with possible side effects AND I make sure to wear my ice packs while I’m getting my chemo. But on the bright side, I didn’t notice any pain in my hands during the second round. Prayers were definitely answered there!! ❤️

I brought the girls with to this round. I had labs yesterday so there wasn’t as long of a wait to start my chemo. However it wasn’t a free pass. They still had to do school. Although, I’m not sure how much school was actually done… haha!

So, I have some good news and some bad news. What do you all like getting first? The good news or the bad news? I’m going to give you the bad news first this time…

The bad news. I’m officially loosing my eyelashes… Pretty sure I have nothing left on the bottom and and I’m getting gaps in the top… My eye brows are starting to get spotty too… 😬

The good news you ask??? I still have some fuzz on the top of my head!! 🤣🤣🤣

This past weekend we were in Iowa for my niece’s 2nd birthday. It was a great time spent with family! And as much as I like traveling, I’m looking forward to a quieter at home weekend this weekend.

The older dad gets the more I see grandpa! (Had to throw in a fun picture from the party on Saturday.)

Don’t let that cute little face fool you… He has officially eaten a peanut butter and jelly sandwich crust, nutella toast, and a butter wrapper from the garbage. And today he got on the table and ate half a bagel with strawberry cream cheese while I was on my way to chemo!

1.18.23

I’ve been meaning to give an update… We decided to roll the dice last Thursday and headed up north. The guys got to go ice fishing, the kids got to hang with their cousins, and Nat and I got to get coffee and hit some local shops. It was nice to get away for a little bit! I’m happy to say, I had very minimal side effects with this first round. Ones that I noticed:

1.) I was flushed on Thursday. And ran a little warm, mostly when sleeping. Pretty sure that was chemo related because normally Aaron is the one that’s hot and I’m the one that’s freezing. And he said he didn’t get hot.

2.) I was little tired. Hard to say if that was completely chemo related… It may have just been staying up until midnight each night. haha.

3.) On Friday I noticed that the L shaped part on both my hands, from my index finger down through my thumb had a tight/burning/stinging weird feeling. It was “painful” enough that I noticed it. And it bothered me. Mainly because I wasn’t sure if it was chemo related or not. (I drove the five hours on Thursday and I was kind of hoping it was from that..) I started doing the desensitizing hand exercises that Lori showed me. Pretty much every time I thought about it I started doing them. By Saturday I didn’t really notice anything. So that was good! I felt like my icepacks for my hands didn’t stay as cold as the ones for my feet. With this second round I’m bring more icepacks. I also ordered a mitten icepack hand set to try. I’m hoping that if I can keep my hands colder longer then maybe that won’t be an issue in the future.

4.) I also noticed some joint pain in my hips Sunday evening. It was noticeable when I was sitting. They felt achy, kind of like having restless leg syndrome. Which made me feel a little fidgety. I wanted to move around to find a position where I didn’t notice it. On a scale from one to ten I’d rate it like a two. I knew it was there but it wasn’t painful. Thankfully when I went to bed I didn’t notice it!

5.) And last but not least I did notice a day here and there or maybe a better phrase would be a couple hours here and there where my stomach felt a little off. I kind of wonder if that becomes an issue when I have an empty stomach.

Some fun new things to celebrate with this chemo drug: I don’t have to do the Neulasta anymore! (Unless my white blood count really drops) AND instead of taking the Dexamethasone twice a day for three days after my infusion I was prescribed a different nausea med that is on an as needed bases. I hate taking medicine if I don’t need to. It’s nice to not have to take pills. I still take Prilosec, but as soon as I’m done with chemo I can stop that. I found out today that I will be getting a dose of Benadryl each time with Taxol. She said it was mainly because this one tends to give people an allergic reaction. So they try to be as preemptive as possible. I didn’t get as tired as the first time so that was good. But can definitely feel the effects of the Benadryl! Another plus, I didn’t notice my mouth getting as irritated with with round. Hopefully that will continue! It seems like these are accumulative. So as the chemo builds in your system you start to notice more and more. Or what you did notice gets worse… The verdict is still out on whether that will be an issue or not.

Today marks the half way point time wise for chemo!!!!

My chemo regimen was four doses two weeks apart and then once a week for 12 weeks for a total of 20 weeks of chemo. We are on week ten! Ten more weeks and I can check this off of my list!

As for prayer requests, I would appreciate prayers that the next 10 rounds go well. Prayers that the neuropathy would stay away or be minimal. That is probably my biggest “concern”. Most of the other side effects will either go away after treatment or can be managed (ie have heartburn: take Prilosec, nauseous: take your nausea med.) You can also pray for clarity in decision making for the future. We don’t really have a lot to decide right now. But as we get closer to doing reconstruction we will.

1.11.23

Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.

1 Peter 6:7

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for lifting me in prayer! Everything went really well with my new chemo drug. I’m not gonna lie to you. It was a little unnerving to hear that there is a higher risk of having an allergic reaction to this one. We were told that if I was going to react to it it would be in the first 10 minutes. In preparation for a possible side effect they gave me a pretty hefty dose of Benadryl! You guys! It was CRAZY how fast that worked! While she was giving it to me I started feeling light headed. And before she was done pushing the syringe I was already wanting to close my eyes!!!! I spent most of todays infusion sitting in the chair reclined with my eyes closed. (I’m still dragging!) They also have a nurse sit with you for those first 10 minutes to watch for any possible side effects. I am happy to say that I was able to manage the icepacks on my hands and feet pretty well. I wasn’t quite sure how that would go.

I didn’t get many pictures today… I wasn’t anticipating being that affected by the Benadryl! 🤣 Prayers are still appreciated for minimal side effects as I start this new one. I know I can’t chose my side effects, but neuropathy seems to be a big one with Taxol. So if we’re being specific maybe that I won’t get that one or that it will be minimal. The nurse told us today that I should let them know right away about any numbness/tingling. It sounded like that was irreversible… Of course we know nothing is impossible with God! 😉

1.10.23

For we walk by faith, not by sight.

2 Corinthians 5:7

I feel like this verse and the one at the bottom of the post have kind of been my theme verses as we started this cancer journey. I am so thankful I don’t have to walk this path alone. 🤍

Tomorrow I start my new chemo drug: Taxol. I’ve heard from a couple different people that this one is easier on the patient. I’m hoping that’s the case for me! As with anything new, I’m a little nervous about the possible side effects, particularly the more serious side effects… like being allergic. I would really appreciate your prayers. For a sense of peace going into this second chemo round and for minimal other side effects. I feel extremely blessed to have gone through that first round so well! On a side note: I think the nausea/vomiting did in fact get to me. Thankfully it was after the fact that I noticed it. (About 10 days after my 3rd round of AC I woke up with a really bad headache and ended up throwing up a couple times. I didn’t think too much of it because I do get headaches that are bad enough to make me sick- that happens 1-2 times a year. BUT, about 10 days after my 4th round, I woke up with another bad headache and got sick again! That’s a little to coincidental for me to think it was just my “normal” headache/getting sick… I kind of think it was chemo related.)

Not a ton has happened since my last post. We’ve just been chuggin along, getting back into the swing of things with school. As you can tell from Easton’s face, no one was excited to start up again! 🤣

Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

Isaiah 41:10

1.4.23

I’ve been a little quiet lately… That last round of AC hit me a little harder. Mainly with fatigue, but also my stomach just feeling off. I’m a stubborn one though. It wasn’t bad enough to take anything extra, just enough to feel off. I am thankful that my only noticeable side effects with this chemo drug were fatigue and my mouth feeling funny. I never did get the mouth sores- however, my whole mouth feels like it has been scraped with a tongue scraper (not really sure how else to describe it). Not sure if it’s because of that or just a random side effects of chemo but my food tastes different. There’s not a lot of flavor… so if any of you have had covid and lost your taste you can sympathize a little with me now 😉 That usually lasts that first week then things start to return back to “normal.” I’m glad I’m done with this chemo drug! With my side effects getting mood noticeable with each infusion I’m not sure what I would feel like if I had to do more rounds of it!

Yesterday was a hard day for me more so emotionally than anything else. I was struggling with everything going on and just wanting things to be like they were before we noticed the lump. Before I was diagnosed with cancer. And then today‘a devotions:

Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.

Isaiah 43:18

Talk about God giving you what you need exactly when you need it! The following verse was just as encouraging to me: See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland. And if this wasn’t enough, I was reminded on Sunday that while making plans is normal It’s so easy for us to have everything planned out to a T, that we forget to take into account God’s plan. I don’t always understand the whys but I do know that God loves me more than I love myself. Sometimes that can be hard to remember. This is hard. And like I said in a previous post, sometimes I feel like a two year old throwing a temper tantrum. Wishing this was all just a bad dream. But as the saying goes: No pain. No gain. I can either use this as an opportunity to learn or I can let this make me bitter. I’m choosing to learn. To look for God in the small (and big) things. And when I‘m focused on God the other things don’t seem so big. I love how my perspective can change when I’m not focused on me.

I don’t have a lot of pictures to share this time. I was really lacking ambition this past week. However, if things progress like they have in the past I should be more back to normal this week. And I am noticing that. I’m still awake and it’s after 6pm. 🤣🙂

I am happy to say that we have survived our first week with Tucker. He is still alive. And we are still alive! Haha! If any of you have helpful tips for his puppy biting stage I’m all ears! My poor hand is taking a beating (chemo definitely hasn’t helped… my skin is so dry.) So, for your puppy viewing pleasure, a picture of our sleeping Tucker.

12.29.22

Hi everyone! We are officially done with one of my chemo treatments!! It feels so good to mark that one one off of the list! So far things have been going about the same as the last three. We were done with treatment around 12ish yesterday. By 5pm I was ready for a nap. I crashed on the couch from 7-11 then got up and went to bed around midnight. It is crazy how fatigued you get with treatments. haha. I feel like my chemo updates are a little boring at the moment. However I’ll take boring over dramatic any day! 😉 I’m so thankful that things are going as well as they are. I asked the nurse the same question yesterday that I did at my infusion treatment two weeks ago… she had the same opinion. This particular chemo treatment tends to be harder on patients than the one I’m doing next.

My next chemo treatment is schedule for January 11. That will be my new one. You can be in prayer that that one will go as well as this first one has. I’m nervous about drug reactions (I haven’t had issues before but it’s still on my mind) and then the neuropathy side effect. I have ice packs that I will be using during treatment to help mitigate that. At my physical therapy session today we did some baseline measurements on me: checking my balance and grip strength. The physical therapy I’ve been doing so far has been more for my surgery it includes stretching exercises and massaging my arm and shoulder. I did sign up for a physical therapy program to help with the neuropathy side effect. So I’m curious what that will look like… but I want to do everything I can to help with all of those issues!

I hope you guys all had a wonderful Christmas! We did here. It was a nice and quiet one. We went to our church’s candle light service Christmas Eve, then we had our church service Christmas day, came home for a lighter lunch, opened presents and then had our big Christmas dinner. They talk about chemo brain being a thing… not sure how fast that kicks in haha. But I’m thinking pretty fast.. or at least that’s what I’m going to blame it on! Because for the longest time I said no. Not while we lived in town. We have too many neighbors with dogs… And then my sister showed me these puppies that would be ready close to Christmas when we were in Iowa over Thanksgiving… Aaannnddd we got a puppy! His name is Tucker. He’s mostly lab with a little poodle. (His dad is a registered lab, his mom is a labradoodle.) He is loved by all. Except for maybe Madi.. She is stuck on the couch like the floor is lava 🤣 she is getting better but that first day was hilarious to watch! Apparently I like a challenge because dealing with chemo treatments and homeschooling the kids just wasn’t enough… we decided to add getting a puppy to the mix! 🤣🙂 Things are going really well though. I think he is adjusting nicely!

12.24.22

Hard to believe Christmas is tomorrow!

My third round of AC was about the same as the first two, which is a huge answer to prayers. I have noticed that with each treatment I don’t bounce back quite as quickly. The fatigue sets in a little earlier and lasts a little longer. It’s messing more with my hormones. My stomach feels off a little more often, not bad enough to take anything extra though, so I’m thankful for that! I also noticed that things don’t taste quite the same anymore. The biggest thing I’ve noticed: there isn’t much flavor to things that I eat. But, on the plus side, I didn’t wake up with headaches after my infusion this round so that was nice!

My last round of AC is scheduled for Wednesday. I’m looking forward to checking that box off my “to do” list. One more hurdle down. Thank you so much for your continued prayers. I really don’t think I can say that enough! I mainly wanted to come on here and let you all know that things are still going really well! And to wish you all a Merry Christmas! ❤️

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

Isaiah 9:6

12.12.22

Today was my third round of chemo. One more round of this one, AC (Adriamycin and Cyclophosphamide) and then we move on to the other chemo drug, Taxol. It’s crazy how fast time goes! I mean, some days do seem to crawl by, but for the most part I feel like I blink and it’s been a week! (Hey that rhymed. haha!) I’m a poet and I didn’t even know it. (Ok I’ll stop! haha)

We took the kids to Duluth on Thursday to see the lights at Bentleyville. This was our 3rd year going. They love it. Not sure what they like more: seeing the lights or swimming at the hotel. From there we headed down to Iowa, which surprisingly only added an extra hour to our trip! Aunt Amy took all the big girls to the Nutcracker. They had a blast!! We celebrated Christmas on Saturday. Then on Sunday we got to celebrate my brother, Hans’, birthday. The big 5-0. According to Madi he looks 30. I’m hoping I got whatever gene he did so when I’m 50 someone will say I look 30!

As the saying goes: no news is good news. Things really have been going well! Whenever anyone asks how I’m doing I say “I can’t complain”. And it’s true! Thank you all for lifting me in prayer. Last week one of the devotional titles I read was ‘Lighten the Load’. Boy, have I felt that! I really believe the only reason I’m doing so well is because you all have been covering me in prayers. And I so appreciate that. More than words can says!

Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.

Galations 6:2

I asked my nurse today in her opinion what seems to be worse for patients. The chemo I’m doing now or the one I’ll start in January. I’m kind of scared to start that one… One of the bigger side effects of Taxol is neuropathy. She said the one I’m doing now tends to be harder on patients than the next one. I was kind of shocked. I expected her to say the opposite. She said a lot of patients on AC tend to suffer from nausea. You guys! Thats “never” really been an issue for me! My stomach feels a little off the first couple of days after an infusion but I wouldn’t give it a second thought if I wasn’t going through what I’m going through.

What a HUGE answer to prayers

It made me feel a little better about the next round, but I’m not holding my breath. That one is going to be a bear. A lady from our church just finished her rounds of chemo and radiation and passed along her ice packs for me to use. ❤️ The hope is by icing my fingers and toes I can hopefully mitigate some of the neuropathy in my fingers and toes. So y’all are gettin a little glimpse of a future prayer request I’ll have.

Some fun pictures for you to enjoy from the weekend. And today. Like I said we celebrated Hans’ birthday on Sunday. It was the first birthday we got to spend with him so that was really special!! I said we should have done the first birthday cake smash. He disagreed. haha. (If you don’t know about my parents adoption story send me a message and I’d love to share it with you. It’s a great answer to prayers story!) This morning I had labs, a follow up with the doctor, my physical therapy, and then chemo. On my way home I stopped for a few groceries. It made for kind of a long day- I was gone for over 6 hours! Aaron came home around 3:20, then we left to get our Christmas tree!! Talk about a busy day!! But I figure I have to take advantage of the days when the fatigue hasn’t set in yet! Plus I’m a little stubborn. We could have easily got a tree from a parking lot in town. (And no one would have blamed us for that this time.) But the kids love going out and cutting our tree and I didn’t want them to miss out on that. Plus I needed to get my steps in so it was two birds with one stone. Work smarter not harder, right?

12.6.22

Today I am officially off of my restrictions!!!! WAHOO!!! I thought about burning my compression bra in celebration, but there’s a good chance that I will need that after my reconstruction surgery… so that will have to wait for now. 🤣

My 2nd round of chemo was fairly similar to the first round. I didn’t have any new symptoms. The kids were sick that first whole week and surprisingly, I did pretty good. (I shouldn’t even say it that way. I know it’s from being lifted in prayer). In fact on Tuesday, the day after my treatment I was wired! I was up before 5am and still going strong at 10:30pm! Aaron said my new nick name was going to be “Chatty Kathy”. haha! I did end up napping Wednesday though! And as the week went on I could definitely tell I was getting more tired in the evenings. By Saturday the kids were finally feeling pretty good! That’s the day I crashed. I took THREE 2hr naps!!! And I still slept through the night! Now that I’m on the 2nd week after chemo I can tell my energy is coming back! I’m definitely more peppy and feeling more like myself.

There wasn’t a lot that happened this last week, especially since the kids were sick most of it. Aaron and I still haven’t gotten whatever they had! How many days do you wait until you feel safe enough to say, “Yep, we didn’t get it!”?

So thank you for praying that Aaron and I wouldn’t get sick!

We finally got our deer taken care of on Saturday. I was able to help with the trimming part, but wasn’t much help after that. Thankfully the kids like helping with grinding the meat. They divided and conquered. It definitely feels good to have that done! And now that I have more energy I’m finally starting to decorate for Christmas. (We’ll get our tree next week after we get back from Iowa.) It’s nice when things start feeling normal again.

I am still getting used to my new look. I wear a hat/scarf most of the time. (Your head gets a little cold when you aren’t used to having no hair!) It’s funny, I’ll be walking around the house and feel like I have my hair towel from after a shower on my head and think “Oh I have to get that off and dry my hair before it gets all wonky!” and then remember I don’t have hair to get wonky! Haha. It’s still falling out like crazy! You just don’t notice it as much since it’s shorter. (Anther reason for wearing something on my head… at least the hair stays trapped in that vs falling everywhere in the house!) Pretty sure Aaron isn’t minding this “stage”. It’s hard to tell the difference between my hair falling out and his beard trimmings… Now, I can’t just blame him for the short hair in the sink! Haha. Here’s another little tidbit for you. If a kid tells you it hurts when you rub their buzz cut. They aren’t lying! 🤣 And maybe it’s just the chemo making my head super sensitive. Even wearing a hat can hurt at times! It feels like someone is pulling my hair. 😬 As much as I don’t want to loose my hair, I will be looking forward to being bald for that reason. Hopefully then it won’t feel like someone is pinching and pulling my hair.

I realized I didn’t take any official pictures of me the day we cut my hair. I figured I better do that before I completely lost it. You can already see it’s getting thinner on the sides!

12.2.22

I was told by my oncologist that my hair would start falling out about two weeks after my first chemo treatment. It is crazy how accurate they are!!! Monday morning I woke up for my 2nd chemo treatment. And actually I didn’t notice anything super obvious with my hair. Nothing came out in the shower or while I was blowdrying and straightening it. However at the clinic I did notice the nurses were grabbing a strand here or there as they were messing with my port and giving me my meds. As you know the treatment part went well. I drove home. I decided to see how accurate the doctors are so I ran my fingers through my hair. Aaannnndddd that’s when I noticed it. It wasn’t every time but I was pulling out more strands of hair than I ever had before! (Not sure I’ve ever pulled out more than a strand or two running my fingers through my hair.) Losing your hair with chemo isn’t what you think it would be like. Or I guess I didn’t know what to expect… But it doesn’t come out in clumps. I don’t find it on my pillow case. It’s just when you run your fingers through your hair you get a ton of strands that come with them!

I have mixed feelings on all of this. Part of me is like ok it’s no big deal. We’ll just jump this hurdle and keep moving forward. Then there’s a small part of me that feels like the two year old at the grocery store throwing an absolute fit. Kicking and screaming. I don’t want to cut my hair. I don’t want to be bald. But here we are. I will say when you are losing gobs of hair it makes the decision to cut easier. We’re kind of past the maybe that won’t happen to me. I know that would have been a long shot, but when you see God working so many little things out already and all of the answered prayer to this point, it wouldn’t surprise me if that happened. I couldn’t just shrug off my sisters comment about the maybe you’ll be the one in a million that doesn’t lose their hair. That and the nurse I had on Monday said that she had a male patient taking the same chemo regimen that didn’t lose his hair or his facial hair. Talk about flaming the fire of hope.

Tuesday I had my hair in a ponytail. So I wasn’t running my fingers through it. And I didn’t want to be shedding everywhere. I was going to take another shower but I had my fun little Neulasta body injector on. They say you can shower with it but I guess I’d rather not chance it coming off so I waited until it had done it’s thing, then I can just take it off and shower. All that to say, I didn’t get my shower in until the kids went to bed. I took my ponytail out and started running my hands through my hair. 😳 WOW. What a difference between Monday and Tuesday! Not only did I pull out gobs with my fingers, I had a ton come out in the shower, and when I brushed my hair a ton more came out. 😬

Wednesday afternoon we buzzed my head.

There were some tears. There was laughter. I knew there was no way around it, so I figured I would make it as “fun” as possible. And what better way to do that than to let your kids help? Pretty sure Colton had the most fun! Haha! We told them this is the one and only time mommy would let them cut her hair. 🙂 I now look like G.I Jane. With the amount of hair I was pulling out I figured I’d see some bald patches.. but not yet! Apparently all those hairdressers that said I had a lot of hair were right! It’s definitely an adjustment. It’s weird to see myself in a buzz cut and yet I’m like hey it’s not that bad. Haha who would have thought!?!

A cute little story for you. In prepping the kids for me losing my hair I told Easton that the doctors were going to give me medicine that was going to make me lose my hair. I told him I’m going to look like papa Craig. 🤣 He jumped off his chair ran to find Colton and said “Colton, guess what! Mom’s going to get medicine that is going to make her lose her hair!” Colton goes, “So she’s going to be a boy?” (haha) Easton: “No, she’s going to look like papa Craig!” It’s fun to see how kids process things. The next day Easton asked me how medicine could make me lose my hair. So I explained how it was special medicine to help fight the cancer. That we’re making sure there are no cancer cells hiding in my body anywhere. It has no way of just targeting just the bad cells and because of that it kills the good cells that are growing at the time the medicine is given.

11.28.22

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! We were able to spend time with both sides of the family during the week of Thanksgiving. On Tuesday we were down on the farm. Everyone was back so we had a Hestekin family dinner. The guys did pretty good hunting. Seven deer total in four days!

This year it was our turn to be in Iowa for Thanksgiving so on Wednesday we headed south. Everyone was able to make it. 22 people in total! It was great getting to spend time with family. The last couple times we’ve come down I’ve helped Dad and Mom with putting up Christmas lights. I wasn’t going to let my current situation stop me from doing that this year haha so I climbed up on the roof and helped too. Many hands make light work. I’m pretty sure this was the fastest we’ve hung lights!

Sadly the “flu bug” hit our family. We had three kiddos wake up with a fever Saturday morning. Given what’s going on with me, we decided to head home early. And to top that off, Kade cut himself while he was skinning a deer Tuesday. We thought we had it cleaned up pretty good when it happened (he bled a lot, I figured it had flushed itself out pretty good.) But Friday night it really started bothering him and by Saturday you could see his finger was pretty swollen. Once we got home Aaron ran him in to urgent care to have it looked at. Long story short he’s on a 7 day antibiotic, they marked the swollen area to make sure it wasn’t getting worse. (It’s not) He’s happy about that! They talked about doing a surgical clean out if it didn’t get better! He can now open his hand almost all the way. The poor kid was helping unload the van with his cut hand on his head because if he put it below his heart it would just throb!

Thankfully the kids being sick doesn’t really affect my chemo schedule. I called on our way home to ask what their protocols were when it comes to having sick kids. The triage nurse I talked to said as long as I was feeling ok we could go through with it. So round two is down in the books. Everything went well. I can tell as the day goes on I’m getting more tired. But that’s what happened last time so it’s expected. If you are looking for specifics on prayer requests. You can pray that things go like they did last time. I really can’t complain with how well things went the first time. And two you can pray that whatever the kids have I don’t get. Or if I do, it doesn’t hit me like it did them!

** Can you believe with all those kiddos in Iowa that we actually had a left over caramel apple that I got to bring home!! haha.

11.21.22

Today had my third round of PT with Lori. I got my compression sleeve. She suggested wearing it whenever I was doing a new exercise or something more strenuous. It basically just helps keep things flowing through my arm. I also had labs this morning. I’ll have those every week to watch my counts and make sure everything is functioning correctly. All that fun stuff you don’t think about. He said everything was good except my white blood count. That was pretty low. Low enough I got prescribed an antibiotic. 😬 I get to take that for three days and hopefully by then my counts will go up! We talked about my side effects. Great news! He said whatever I felt at this point through this first round would be how I’d feel while doing this particular chemo regimen!

Huge answer to prayer!

While I was waiting for my labs to be drawn I was chatting with a couple of ladies who were there waiting for their husbands. They said the first chemo round was easy. It was the others that were harder on you. 😳🤣 Pretty much the opposite of the oncologist said. haha. So we’ll see. It’s very possible the chemo that their husbands are doing is completely different than what I am doing. That’s another thing we learned along this cancer journey. It’s not just ‘chemo’. There are different kinds with different side effects. And no two people react the same. But for now I’m doing great! Side effects are still minimal and maybe if I wasn’t constantly analyzing my body I may not even notice them! My biggest ‘complaint’ is probably fatigue. I’m pretty much ready for a nap every afternoon/evening. I now have a little more sympathy for my dad… or any other adult that sits on the couch and promptly falls asleep! Haha! That and my mouth feels like it’s on the verge of getting sores. Thankfully I don’t have any yet, but that’s kind of a constant weird feeling.. it’s hard to get used to.

See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me.

Isaiah 49:16

It shouldn’t, but it does, amaze me how God works. I feel so humbly blessed to have so many people that care about and support me. Nobody wants to hear they have cancer. The funny thing is, instead of dwelling on that, the only thing I can think is how blessed I am. Crazy right!?! I’m sure I sound like a lunatic to some! I was reading Friday’s devotion in Our Daily Bread. The title was ‘Thoughts and Prayers’. When I read the title my first thought was: my army of prayer warriors. Every time I think of you all I start tearing up. This particular devotion was about Peter heavily guarded in prison. The christians were fervently praying for him and God sent His angel to rescue Peter. I know it’s not the same, but I couldn’t help comparing Peter’s situation with mine. He had christians fervently praying for him and God answered their prayers. I do too! ❤️ (and prayers are being answered!) I really struggled at the beginning of my diagnosis. It was so hard for me to wrap my head around everything and how I was going to deal with it. Now I just shake my head at what I was concerned about. God has a miraculous way of working things out!

To be prayed for and to pray for others is no small thing when we serve the great and powerful God.
-Our Daily Bread

One could argue I’m a lot younger than most women who go through breast cancer or that my genetics played a part- you know, that Larson blood is strong! OR that Norwegian blood runs deep! 😉🤣🙂 But the truth is, I know it’s my prayer warriors covering me in prayers on why things are going as well as they are. And I truly appreciate it!! I feel sick to my stomach when I think of them injecting me with chemo and what I’m putting in my body. When I had my first surgery I thought, how bad can it be? They are just removing some tissue. It hurt more than I thought! Then when I got the port put in, I thought, how bad can that be? They are just inserting it under the skin. Yeah, that hurt more than I thought too! And being just far enough away from my first surgery I found myself contemplating what was worse, the surgery or the port! haha! Now I’m at the chemo part. How bad can it really be?? I’m 0 for 2 when it comes to reality! So we’ll see. I’m holding my breath, how hard will the rug get pulled out from under me with chemo treatments. I’m hoping my oncologist is right and what I’m feeling is what I’ll feel. So please keep those prayers coming! God is answering them! On a different note. Thursday night I was able to sleep on my side, no pain. It was like before I had my first surgery! I know it’s a small thing, but I like focusing on the positives. 🙂

As far as prayer requests go: 1) That my white blood count comes up. (He was certain it would.) and 2) That the side effects I’m experiencing stay the same (or I’ll take go away completely I’d just prefer them not to get worse haha).

Some fun pictures from the last couple of days. Our church is a drop-off location for Operation Christmas Child. We were there one night helping collect shoe boxes. We got to visit auntie Jenna at the Mabel Tainter for her art show. And it’s gun hunting in WI this week. So while Aaron and Kaden were down on the farm hunting, the rest of the kiddos and I went to Heather’s. The kids got to hang out, have some cousin time, and do some crafts. It was a busy, but nice weekend. Happy Thanksgiving to you all!!

Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 4:4-7

11.17.22

To be honest I don’t know how they count the days. Is it 24 hours after you finish your first treatment? Do you count the day you get your treatment as day one? Not really sure. I’m kind of going off of the hours after treatment. I finished my first chemo round Monday afternoon. 24 hours later: Tuesday afternoon. 48 hours later: Wednesday. 72 hours later: Thursday. Makes sense to me! haha.

These first three days haven’t been too bad. Praying my days continue this route. I’ve heard the next couple could be a little more rough so we’ll see. As far as my side effects so far… While I was getting one of my anti nausea meds Monday I noticed my legs getting kind of tingly. It’s a steroid one, she said that is normal. The rest of the day whenever I was sitting my legs would tingle. That did go away by the next day though! I also noticed that first night my legs would get warm and then my head/face. I guess it’s a glimpse into the future of hot flashes for me 😉🤣🙂. Thankfully that hasn’t been too bad yet. I noticed it Monday evening. I maybe have felt warm once or twice since then. Although my skin will look flushed once in awhile. So if you notice that I’m a little pink/red it is just the chemo. Tuesday I noticed what kind of felt like heartburn. I plan to let my oncologist know. It was nothing terrible. Just kind of a burning sensation in my stomach area. I had heart burn towards the end of most of my pregnancies and it wasn’t anything like that! Thankfully it’s more just the sensation right now. I am pushing a lot of water so maybe that contributes a little?? This morning I woke up feeling a little more punky. Kind of like I could be coming down with something. It’s a weird sensation. Your stomach just feels off. I don’t feel like I’m going to throw up or anything, but the desire to eat something isn’t really there either. I do eat though! I need to with my one nausea med. If I remember right, I think this one that I’ll finish today can also cause headaches. I had one last night and woke up with it this morning. After the Tylenol had a chance to kick in I felt much better. To be honest what I have felt so far is really nothing to complain about! I feel a little silly sharing about it because it’s so minimal compared to what some people go through!

You learn a lot when you are thrown into the thick of it. Did you know that chemo and your body fluids are a thing?!? 😳 Yeah. For the first three days after treatment I’m supposed to make sure to close the toilet lid when I flush the toilet. (Not a big deal because I already did that but still. Talk about being acutely aware of bodily fluids in general! 🤣) The new rule in our house. No more sharing with mom. A couple of reasons. One being the whole chemo in my system. And two, my immune system being more compromised now. No point in sharing colds! haha! And on that note, I get to take my temp every day to make sure I’m not getting sick. I’m on strict orders. Even if it’s 3 am on Christmas Eve. CALL IN if I have a temp over 100.4. If you know me, you know this is will be a challenge! I’m what you might call a: tough love type parent. Unless my kids are “dying” we aren’t calling in and we’re not going to the doctor. So this whole having to watch my temp and call in IF it reaches that point is a new way of thinking. Aaron said he’s going to give me gold stars when I do what the doctors tell me I need to do. (Daily temps, doing my physical therapy, etc.) I get enough gold stars I get to go shopping at Maurices! I’d say he runs a pretty good bribe! 😉🤣🙂

Madi turned 9 on Tuesday! We always let the kids pick a place to go out to eat for their birthdays. She chose the Texas Roadhouse. We were able to tie that in before church on Wednesday. She had some birthday money burning a whole in her pocket so we went to the Dollar Tree and got some Caribou Coffee on Tuesday.

Walking is highly encouraged! As long as I’m feeling good I plan to try to get some kind of walking in each day. Kaden was my walking buddy Monday. We went a mile which felt really nice! Looking forward to getting out more and going farther as my body allows! And just for fun I threw in a picture of the back side of my Neulasta pump. You can see the little cannula that stays in me until the medicine is released. There is a needle that is stored inside so I need to take to the doctors office to dispose of it (unless I have a sharps container, which I don’t).

11.14.22

Today was infusion day. I love that they try to schedule multiple appointments on days that I’m already there. So before we did anything chemo related I was able to get in for an ultrasound to look at the fluid build up. That went well. They did aspirate the area. Anyone want to guess how much fluid they got? (Answer to follow). The doctor that did that procedure was tied up on the phone which put us a little behind schedule, that seemed to follow us the rest of the day. Everything is all timed out. Labs at a certain time. Wait. Labs come back, now you can start the first medication: an anti-nausea one. Wait again. Then a second anti-nausea medication. Wait some more. Then you can start your first chemo drug.

The first one I had was one that if it gets on you it destroys whatever it touches. Hence her wearing the gown. Every once in awhile she would pull back on the syringe to check for blood (she was making sure everything was ok and she was still in the port). It is a safety precaution to make sure she isn’t accidentally pushing the drug into my body vs the vein. (It would be bad!) The 2nd chemo drug I got was through the IV bag. Once I finished those I was good to go home. I’m so relieved to be done with the first round. I don’t have a history of reacting to medications, but it’s something that is on my mind when it’s new to me.

Will I have a reaction to this? What should I be looking for? If I’m going to have a reaction how quickly does that happen?

Now I get to wait and see what kind of side effects I’ll have to deal with… Before I left I got a little “pump” I’m not sure what you actually call it. But I was supposed to go in tomorrow for a shot to up my white blood count. To save a trip, I got this little thing put on my stomach and after 27 hours it will infuse the medicine. Once it’s done a light will indicate that I can take it off. How crazy is that!?!

Because you have made the Lord your dwelling place- the Most High, who is my refuge- no evil shall be allowed to befall you, no plague come near your tent. For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways.

Psalm 91:9-11

I’m so thankful to have this round done. Thank you for your continued prayers in all of this. It means so much to me. ❤️

11.11.22

I just wanted to let everyone know what a difference a day makes!! I feel 10x better than yesterday! I know I didn’t ask for it, but knowing you guys: my army of prayer warriors, you were lifting me in prayer. I want to thank you! Another answered prayer! I am a little sore and can feel it but definitely feeling so much better today!! Honestly I thought I would be miserable through the weekend with how I felt yesterday. Giving God the credit for how well I feel today!

I start chemo on Monday. I am a little nervous about it… It’s that whole unknown thing again. 🙂 You can pray that everything goes well and that I don’t have any weird reactions/side effects! I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!! ❤️

Bandages are off and the glue stayed on!

And because today is Veteran's Day I can't not say something... 
Thank you to those who have served to help keep this country safe and free! We are so blessed to call this country our home! 🇺🇸

11.10.22

This week has been a busy one! I had my port consult on Monday. He showed me what it looked like and talked about why I’m getting it. By putting in the port they won’t have to keep poking me each time I go in for an infusion. Chemo is hard on your veins, this will make everything a lot easier.

Wednesday was super busy! We were in town from 7:45am-5pm with doctor appointments.

I had my first physical therapy appointment! My physical therapist’s name is Lori. She was super nice and helpful. She is a breast cancer survivor. It’s nice having someone help you that has been down the same road as you. I am at a low risk, but because I had a couple lymph nodes removed, I will have to watch for lymphedema.

Lymphedema is swelling due to build-up of lymph fluid in the body. Lymph nodes act like a drain in your sink. If the drain is clogged, the fluid cannot drain. It usually happens in the arms or legs, but can occur in other parts of the body.

Lori is teaching me how to keep my lymphatic system moving on my surgery side. It is something I’ll have to be aware of the rest of my life. The first step is recognizing any changes and then managing them right away. I have some stretches and massages that I can do now and as I continue to heal from surgery we’ll add more to the list.

My second appointment for the day was my follow up with Plastic Surgery. It got cancelled last week because she got held up in surgery. She said everything was healing nicely! They did not put a drain in with the second surgery, which was nice, but now I have some fluid build up on my side by my ribs (medical term: seroma). She wasn’t concerned about it right now, she said that’s normal and expected when a drain isn’t put in, but we’ll watch it. (Biggest concern is if it sat there too long it could get infected- but like I said it’s not a concern right now!) I will have an ultrasound scheduled to look at it and if the doctor decides there’s enough there or they think they should, it’ll get aspirated.

We had a two hour break between appointments so we decided to get a little Christmas shopping done. Then we were back at the clinic for my echocardiogram. It was something they wanted to do before I start chemotherapy. That was an hour long procedure!

And last but not least, my port was put in! It was an outpatient procedure. They gave me something that made me super drowsy and pretty much not care what was going on. haha. I can remember laying on the table, most of the time I had my eyes closed (I felt really tired), I could hear them talking but I can’t tell you what about other than, I remember them commenting on my heart rate and I chimed in on that. lol. I can remember opening my eyes a couple time and seeing the sheet draped above my head (it was taped right above where they were working and then it went up over my head.) It was weird to be out of it but not while they were working on me.

We left the hospital around 5pm. We had one stop to make, I sat in the car and talked to my parents while Aaron ran in quick. Honestly, I wasn’t feeling too bad right after the procedure, I still had all the pain meds and what not in my system so after that we grabbed a bite to eat. After supper I started getting more sleepy. I could barely keep my eyes open on the drive home. Once we got home I crashed on the couch and didn’t wake up till like 10pm! I finally got myself a nice long nap! Haha!

I may have underestimated the pain of having a port put in… I mean how bad can it really be?? They make a little incision under your collarbone and then a small circular incision at the base of your neck. Then they thread a tube into your vein. But, apparently it involves all those muscles when you make a yikes face. Aside from just aching in general. It hurts to take a deep breath. I can feel it when I swallow (not the tube, the muscles involved in swallowing), anytime I move my head, or clear my throat (or have to cough 😬). It even hurts to yell down the stairs to get the kiddos attention! The muscles are sore when I move my arm on that side too! Last night Aaron had to support my head to lay me back in bed. (You don’t realize how much you use those muscles until you “can’t”) I got up when he did this morning so he could support my head to help me get out of bed. It doesn’t help that I can’t take ibuprofen (ibuprofen is a blood thinner). I can ice it, but the whole area feels like a bruise so that’s uncomfortable too. According to the doctor, today is supposed to be the worst for pain and discomfort and then it will start getting better. I can tell the more I’m up and moving the better it is. If I sit around too long I get stiff and sore.

Last week I was finally able to wear “real” clothes (ie jeans) and I was given the go ahead that I could drive as long as I felt comfortable doing it. So of course I had to document the occasion!! 😉 (For real though! It’s amazing how much everything is tied together! You don’t realize how many muscles are involved until they are messed with and you can’t use them!)

11.2.22

We had two of our three follow ups yesterday. The one with plastics got rescheduled because she got tied up on surgery all day. The official report: clear margins!!!

Praise the Lord!!!

I was hoping to have the update for ya’ll sooner.. They had 30 slides to go through. 29 came back clear! There was a little mishap with the last one so they needed to redo it. We did get the unofficial report yesterday, but I wanted to wait for the official report to post. 😉🙂

This is such a huge answer to prayer! It means we got clear margins all the way around the cancer! (I really didn’t like the idea that the cancer was up to my chest wall.) With this hurdle crossed, we move on to the next one. Chemo. I will be taking two different kinds (sorry, didn’t get the names of them). One I’ll take every two weeks (4 doses) for eight weeks. The second one is once a week for twelve weeks. 😬 They like to keep things moving quickly. It sounds like I’ll be getting my port put in sometime next week. And chemo will start the week after (11/14)!

My prayer bear was along for the ride… ❤️❤️❤️

10.30.22

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

Lamentations 3:22-23

I really appreciate all of the prayers and support it definitely makes this journey a little easier. Thought I would give everyone another little update on how things are going. Right now, I’m doing really well! My pain is pretty well managed… to the extent that I am not taking anything for pain. If I feel especially sore I’ll take some ibuprofen. But it is nothing like when I first came home. I actually wonder if I even had anything in my system then. I didn’t take anything when I left the hospital. 🤷🏼‍♀️ I suppose I maybe had something from when they put me under?? 🤔

Mom and Dad came up Tuesday morning, they got here about an hour before I had to leave for the hospital. Grandpa took the kids to the park and Grandma took them either shopping or out for coffee (it just depended on what kids she had at the time on what they did.) We were right back at it with school on Wednesday! I’m not as strict on my start time right now but we are getting it done! So I’m happy with that! My sisters came up this weekend too! (My parents went home Friday morning and my sisters arrived Friday evening!) It was nice to get some quality sister time. 🙂

My follow up appointments are on Tuesday (Nov 1st). (Three of them!) We’ll find out then if we got clear margins this second time around. I think we’ll find out more about what my future treatment plan is as well. As far as prayer requests go: 1) Continued prayers for wisdom for my doctors. 2) Wisdom for Aaron and I as we make treatment choices. 3) Continued healing for me (the incisions are healing great!) 4) We don’t know what we will hear on Tuesday. You can pray that we can handle whatever news we get well and that Jesus can shine through us. After the first follow up appt (the one where my treatment plan pretty much did a 180 and we found out I would have to do chemo and radiation) my oncologist said “You guys are handling this really well.” All I could say was we have a lot of people praying for us right now. 🙂

10.26.22

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for all your prayers! Everything went really well with my second surgery. The tests they did looked good, but just like last time, we won’t know until next week at our follow up. I think I came out of anesthesia 100x better this time than last time which is a HUGE answer to prayers!! I had one little nauseous moment and the ceiling lights were bouncing around on the ceiling but once I took the nausea patch off (like 30 minutes later) I was feeling a lot better. I was able to go home last night!! I even felt good enough to stop at Culver’s for supper on the way home! 😃

A little side note: I ended up having to take another covid test… 😬🤣🤪 My nurse had to give it to me. (At least I didn’t have to make a special trip in for it this time.) She was great about it and I loved her sense of humor! Actually everyone at Marshfield have been great to work with! We have been so happy with my care there!

I was a little more sore coming home this time. Thankfully the Tylenol and Ibuprofen are kicking in now! This time the pain is more to the side/under my arm where they ended up taking some more tissue. When I first came home I couldn’t move my arm without it feeling like I had a broken rib. Maybe not that bad, dad was telling me his broken rib killed him… OR maybe I’m just tougher than him! 😉🤣🙂

** I forgot to mention!! My drainage tube came out during surgery too!!!! 😃😃😃 That was getting so uncomfortable and we thought I’d have to deal with it for another week after surgery but I don’t!!! YAY! 😃

10.24.22

There isn’t a lot to update on right now, but tomorrow is my second surgery. If I understood right the clear margins they didn’t get were just around the tumor area. I don’t think they are taking any more lymph nodes or anything like that. As far as particular prayer requests go: 1) Pray we can get clear margins. 2) For wisdom and guidance for the doctors as they are working on me. 3) That I handle surgery well. It takes me a little while to come out of anesthesia. (Not uncommon.) But they are planning on me going home the same day- unless it takes me too long to wake up. 4) For healing. (So far my incisions have been healing nicely! We get to start that process all over again. 🤪)

It was a bummer to find out that we didn’t get clear margins the first time. We knew this could happen, it didn’t show up on the MRI, but my oncologist said from the beginning that we wouldn’t know for sure until surgery and they go through everything. I don’t think this second surgery changes anything with my future treatment plan. Which means I will still need to do chemo and radiation based on what we found during the first surgery. We’ll find out more next week at my follow ups.

Some fun pics from the week.

10.19.22

The Lord is my strength and my shield; in him my heart trusts, and I am helped; my heart exults, and with my song I give thanks to him.

Psalm 28:7

We didn’t get the “good” news we wanted to with our follow ups. They did not get clear margins, which means I will need to go back for another surgery next Tuesday. There was a microscopic cancerous mass in one of my lymph nodes. It’s too small for it them to say it’s positive for cancer but it wasn’t negative for cancer either. It’s equivalent to a pen point. (In order for them to say yes there’s cancer there the mass would need to be 2mm mine is .75mm.) And last but not least there was evidence of lymphovascular invasion. Which means I will more than likely have to have chemo and radiation.

We know God has a plan. Sometimes we just have a hard time seeing the forest from the trees. We are definitely bummed, it wasn’t what we wanted to hear. Please pray for wisdom for my doctors and for us as we’ll be making a whole new round of decisions moving forward. On the plus side I was informed that I would not need to take another covid test for my 2nd surgery… they’ve dropped that now! WAHOO!

The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears them; he delivers them from all their troubles.

Psalm 34:17

So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

Isaiah 41:10

10.17.22

We had a nice quiet weekend. Evalyn celebrated her 12th birthday on Saturday. She wanted to go out to eat at Red Lobster and then shopping at the mall. We were able to make it happen. Not quite like she would have liked… we had a crabby 3 year old .

This week is full of follow ups. As of now I have one today, tomorrow, and Wednesday! We get past all this and I won’t need to see doctor for 10 years! (Just kidding, I’m considered high risk now so I’ll get to see them every six months…yay) This week we’ll find out more about my cancer and if I will need to have chemo. I really don’t want to do chemo. You can pray that we’ll be ok whatever results we get. Ideally they would be that chemo isn’t needed.

I may have a little too much of my dad in me 😉 (I think it’s still up for debate on whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing!🤣) I was over ruled about going to church Wednesday night… However we did make it to church Sunday morning!! I know ya’ll think I’m crazy. It felt great to be there though! I have so much to be thankful for! Concerns I had before surgery aren’t even on my mind right now. I credit that to answered prayers. I really appreciate all of the support. Thank you for your continued prayers. ❤️

PS Today is Aaron’s birthday!! He’s been so great through all of this (I know you don’t expect any thing less, he’s a great guy.) But the least I can do is give him some recognition for how supportive he’s been! ❤️ So if you have his number wish him a Happy Birthday!

10.14.22

It’s hard to believe it’s been three days since surgery already! I wanted to give everyone a little update on how things are going. We were able to leave the hospital Wednesday morning! (Less than 24 hrs after having surgery!)

I wasn’t sure what to expect for pain… I can definitely feel it! It’s somewhere between some really bad pulled muscles and feeling like you were hit with a 2×4. (Although I have never been hit by a 2×4 I’m just guessing. 🤣) And every once in awhile I get a burning/stinging sensation at my incision sites.. They told Aaron that was normal… The nice thing for me is I still have one “good” arm. That helps with doing daily things like brushing my teeth and hair. On the surgery side I have a nice ~2″ incision under my arm where they removed the lymph nodes. So that side is a little more tender. I can still use it I just need to move slow. I also have this really cool drainage tube. 😬 Twice a day (12 hrs apart) I get to record how much drainage I have. I’m not sure how long I’ll have that, with any luck it can maybe come out next week at my follow up. (I posted b/w pictures of the drainage tube and underarm incision below. So if you don’t want to see those don’t scroll to the bottom.)

I was pretty excited last night! I survived (or I should say we 🤣) my first shower. I wasn’t sure how that would go because the compression bra they give you helps with the pain. Maybe because it was 48hrs after surgery, but it wasn’t actually painful to have that off. I think the worst part was trying to put it back on! That sucker is TIGHT! When we were in the hospital my ribs were bothering me… I thought it was from sitting in a hospital bed. Then it dawned on me, it was probably from the compression bra. (The side opposite my surgery was sore too..) It is getting better now that we are a couple days into it.

I also have to remember to intentionally take deep breaths. That can be a little uncomfortable at times. But if I don’t do that I can risk getting pneumonia. That and making sure I walk around to avoid getting blood clots. It’s crazy the things you don’t always think of after a surgery.

The kids have been doing pretty good. They really stepped up to the plate last night with supper and clean up. ❤️ Today is our first full day with just me and them. Fridays are Aaron’s short days. He’s normally home early afternoon so it shouldn’t be too bad! 🙂

I am amazed at how well I am doing and feeling! That just shows the power of prayer. Thank you to all my prayer warriors! ❤️

10.11.22

Surgery went REALLY well! Thank you all for your support! ❤️ I’m still feeling a little dizzy (as I’m writing this this evening) mainly when I turn my head. Hoping that will wear off soon! 😉 I got to Facetime with the kiddos too! ❤️ Did this mama’s heart good to “see” them.

10.10.22

I don’t think I’ll every be able to say thank you enough for all of the support! Tomorrow is the big day. Please pray that both surgery and recovery go well. We’ll do our best to keep everyone updated.

This morning’s devotion. ❤️

Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 4:4-7

A good reminder to give thanks in all situations. You can read the rest here: Happy Thanksgiving

10.7.22

I just want to say thank you, thank you, thank you! 💕 The support I’ve received over the last month has been overwhelming! Between random texts of checking in, sharing verses/songs, pictures in pink showing support, and gifts sent. I know I have an army of people who love, support, and are praying for me! Today alone I’ve had four little surprises. One that didn’t come with a name, so whoever sent the book “A Walk of Faith” thank you! I’m planning to bring it with me to the hospital.

I know there are many, many more than what’s pictured… but, here’s a picture of my immediate ‘Support Squad.’ 💕

10.4.22

It’s all a little surreal. Some times I still have a hard time believing this is happening. I think mainly because it was SO far off my radar. I never in a million years thought I’d be dealing with breast cancer. Aaron summed it up best when he said you don’t seem as upset about having cancer as you are about what life will look like after. He’s probably right. Getting the cancer out is the “easy” part. It’s the dealing with multiple surgeries and what the healing part is going to look like that “scares” me. Not like can’t breathe or function kind of scared. More like will I feel like me again afterwards kind of scared. Plus the healing process doesn’t look fun… Cancer (among other things) changes things. I had a dear friend say as much as you want things to go back to normal they don’t. Things will never be the same again. That doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing it’s just something I need to learn to accept.

Moving forward I would greatly appreciate prayer for the surgery itself. That everything goes well and according to plan. Pray that we have a clear margin (that they get all the cancer), and that it still isn’t in my lymph nodes (it didn’t look like it from my MRI but that was a month ago.) And that the healing process goes well with no complications.

I am definitely looking forward to being CANCER FREE! Once we get this step completed then I can start looking at the next one. I don’t know when the next surgery will be… sounds like maybe 3-4 months or later?? Once my body has had a chance to heal.

Thank you all for your support. It means so much to our family! 🤍

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

If you are a woman please make sure you are doing your monthly self checks! And if you are old enough for a mammogram please don’t put it off! I think breast cancer needs a “rebranding” it isn’t just 60+ year old women that are getting diagnosed with this. I’ve seen a lot of posts of women that are under 30 and had to fight to get a doctor to take them seriously or get a mammogram/biopsy because they are “too young” to have breast cancer. The majority of breast cancer is sporadic, meaning they develop from damage to a person’s genes that occurs by chance after they are born. 

Meanwhile life still goes on… 🙂 We do Easton’s school in our room so that the songs and me talking doesn’t distract the older kids from their school work… Colt likes to be the class clown… I also got all my guys’ hair cut before surgery. (I didn’t get pictures of the big guys 😬) I have two more photo sessions this week (neither of them know I have cancer.) Oh and I squeezed in the kids school pictures tonight! And I’m hoping I can have the house a little more organized before dad and mom come up… 🤣🙂 (I’ll let ya’ll know if I’m successful! 🤣)

9.30.22

Welp. We have a surgery date… October 11th. The type of reconstruction surgery I want to do they do not do in Eau Claire… so that is kind of a bummer. Right now we are going to focus on making sure the cancer is out of me (sooner than later). A referral has been put in for a doctor in Madison that will do the reconstruction part. We discussed doing all of the surgery there, but we’d need to meet with both the surgeon and the plastic surgeon before surgery and we’d have to line up a time they would both be free to do my surgery. Since there is a lot of uncertainty with that route and we know for sure I can go in on the 11th we’re going to do that. Throughout all of our appointments they really stressed wanting to have surgery completed within a month of diagnosis. I found out Sept 2nd I had cancer so there is more of an urgency to do surgery sooner than later. Both Aaron and I don’t want to wait another month or two for a possible opening in Madison either.

Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous be shaken.

Psalm 55:22

As we get closer to the surgery date I know there will be a lot more nerves. You can pray that there would be a calmness for not only Aaron and I but the kids too. I tend to forget how much this is affecting them. I had a little heart to heart with the girls this morning and some tears were shed. One of them voiced how they didn’t like what was happening to me. It breaks my heart that they have to go through this too. It definitely doesn’t affect just me. Ironically (well more like an answer to prayer 😉) a lady from the Marshfield system called me today, she was offering a program to kids who are dealing with a parent/grandparent/loved one’s cancer diagnosis. This came after Aaron and I prayed last night about giving us wisdom to handle any questions the kids might have and after my little heart to heart with the girls this morning.

9.28.22

We were able to do our follow up appt a day early! It’s crazy how fast your perspective can change. Our plastic surgeons appt on Monday felt a little deflating. We left there, not sure what our next move would be. I actually sent out a couple emails to two of my doctors just asking questions. My surgeon called me back to shed some more light on my situation. I have the original lump but there are “satellite” cells that branch off of the main lump that showed up in my MRI. She did say that we could still do a lumpectomy if I really wanted to but she can’t guarantee that she’ll get all the cancer. I’m not going to go through all of this and then worry about not getting all the cancer! It’s not the update we wanted to hear. But it clearly takes some options off the table. It’s like when you go to the ice cream store and there are 50 different flavors and you don’t know what one you want… you finally make your decision and then you wonder if you should have picked a different one. We don’t have that problem now…

A couple of positives in all of this. I got the results of my blood work. They came back negative! So that’s good. Especially for the girls… At least we don’t have to worry about them having a genetic predisposition to this. Also, if everything stays as is… I may not have to do chemo. They did a test (sorry I can’t remember what it was exactly) but it basically said that chemo wouldn’t necessarily be beneficial for me. There is an exception: If when they remove the cancer and find that the lump is over 5cm OR that I have it in more than four lymph nodes then I will need to do chemo. (Then there is a risk that it could have traveled in my blood stream to a different location- we could risk finding cancer in a different location a couple years down the road.) The MRI doesn’t show anything suspicious in my lymph nodes so that’s good! We won’t know for sure until surgery and they get them under a microscope. I asked if I need to worry about the cancer moving like into my chest wall or anything like that. The oncologist said the MRI is pretty accurate and according to that it doesn’t look like that’s the case with me. Of course we won’t know for sure until the the cancer is removed and they can see a clear margin (no cancer on the edges of the tissue removed.)

Monday and Tuesday were hard for me. It was kind of like getting gut punched… Today I’m doing pretty good. I know there will still be rollercoasters of emotions through all of this. Especially as we get closer to a surgery date. (We don’t have one yet. I’m waiting for a call back from my surgeon and probably the plastic surgeon so we can go over our plans.) I want to thank you all for your prayers. We feel good where things are at and I know that’s God. How can it not be?

The oncologist said today his main job was to get the cancer out of me. And that’s what we want too!

We had our plastic surgery consult today… I was really hoping that there would be this aha moment and we would just know what we needed to do. We left there and some tears were shed… It’s not just a simple remove the lump, fill the void, and life goes on… There are some negative side effects to both of of the options that have us stopping and considering what our next steps will be. Prayers for clear decision making would be greatly appreciated.

We really liked how honest our plastic surgeon was. He wanted to make sure we knew what we were getting into with whatever route we chose. After getting that reality check I started thinking is this our only option… Up until now I’ve stayed away from google… I was sent a link after we found out I had cancer that talked about an OTC drug that had cured cancer in one person. (I struggle with things that seem too good to be true.) In searching more about that I came across a different one (actually it was a combination of two OTC items) that had promising results in breast cancer. It was a study done on the NIH website and has really peaked my interest. I sent a message to my oncologist and I’ll be meeting with him again on Thursday so maybe I’ll know more about it by then??

I’ve had so many people offer to help along the way and I’m so thankful for all the support 🤍. Grandma Jill came and hung out with the kids today while we had our appt. We didn’t tell them so they woke up to a nice surprise. After my appt we went to Caribou Coffee for a little “perk” me up. Not sure if it was my shirt or the fact that I couldn’t keep the tears from flowing (seems like once I start I can’t stop) but there was a free drink attached to my drink order which of course started the waterworks all over again… 🙈 Just when I think I’m composed… I’m not!

9.21.22

We have our consultation with plastic surgery scheduled for Monday! Please pray it goes well and that we’re happy with our surgery plan. I’m a little nervous about it. I know what I want for surgery, but I’m not sure that will be an option… So it’s a little nerve wracking and scary.

I know God is in control- I’m just feeling very vulnerable about it all. So here’s a good reminder for myself…

9.20.22

Just a little update… We went ahead and called the doctor’s office yesterday to see if we could get get on a tentative schedule for surgery. Since we did the blood work last week, we have a half an idea of when we’ll get that back. So we can maybe pencil in a surgery date.

I did talk to my surgeon today. Got some good and bad news you could say… The lump is large enough that we will have to get plastic surgery involved. (So that kind of stinks) But the good news is: She said that according to the MRI it doesn’t look like there is any suspicious activity in my lymph nodes!! She was surprised by that given the size of the lump. (I was quick to mention it’s because we have so many people praying for me! 🤍) So thank you all!!

Hi! I’ve been debating on how much of my story I wanted to share and even how I wanted to share it… I figured this would be a way to keep all of my family and friends informed vs trying to text it all. This will be longer post so bear with me…

It has been just over 2 weeks since we found out I have cancer. It’s still weird for me to say that: “I have cancer.” About a month ago we found a lump. And by we I mean my husband… I’m not even old enough to qualify for a mammogram yet! And before all your minds all go “there” I’ll tell you were were snuggled up in bed and he had his arm around me. His thumb could feel the lump and was pushing on it which was starting to bother me. So I asked him to stop. That’s when he asked me if I felt something there. I rolled to my back and sure enough there was something there that wasn’t on the other side. (I think I was told if you feel something on one side check the other side.. if it feels the same it’s probably nothing.. not sure if that’s a thing but that’s what I did.)

I made the appointment with my doctor. She did the initial exam and ordered a mammogram and ultrasound. During my mammogram and ultrasound appt the Doctor came in to talk to me. Cancer was not a concern at the time given my family history and age. But he said the only way to know for sure was from a biopsy. I’m so glad they offered. Because when this all started I knew that I wouldn’t feel comfortable with a don’t worry about it. I wanted the biopsy so I would have a for sure nope, it’s not cancer. So I drove back to the clinic the next day for my biopsy. Two days later the doctor called with my results.

“It’s cancer.”

“For real? Are you serious?” I thought he was joking.

“You sound as shocked as I am.”

I don’t remember everything else that was said. I was still trying to wrap my head around the fact that I had cancer. He did say that given my young age if I were his wife he would push for an MRI.

We got the news that I had cancer Labor Day weekend. We were on our way out the door, to celebrate my grandma’s 90th birthday. Talk about a long, hard weekend.

The following week was a busy one. I had appts every day! I met with the oncologist and found out what type of cancer I had. Invasive Ductal Carcinoma. Did you know there are 15 different types of breast cancer! And they are all treated differently. During our visit the results came in that I was + for the hormone type receptors. We took that as good news because if I was a triple negative that would have meant my cancer was more of an aggressive type and I would have to have chemo first before my surgery. After the oncologist appt we had another one with the surgeon. Thankfully the Oncologist recommended the MRI (I didn’t have to ask for it) and I had that the following day. Which was good because the MRI showed that the lump was bigger than they originally thought. And because of my young age it was recommended that we do genetic testing to see if anything shows up that way. Thankfully we were able to do that appt over the phone.

So now we’re in the waiting game. The doctors would like to wait until we get the results from my genetic testing before we go through with surgery. (Just in case the results of that would change what type of surgery we do.) And we still don’t know if I’ll need chemo. Once the lump is removed they will test the cancer to know the best way to deal with it.

I want to thank you all so much for your prayers. It is so humbling and heart warming to know that so many people care about me and my family 🤍 And continued prayers are much appreciated for wisdom for my doctors and for us! (We’ve been bombarded with so much information! To be able to discern our options and go with the one that is the best fit for us.)

A side note* We did the engagement project last year in adult Sunday School and all I can think is how fitting that was! This wasn’t in my script for myself and my family. But God has something more planned. We don’t always understand the why’s of life, but I do know that He is in control. His ways are higher than my ways and He has a plan for us in all of this. We are trusting in Him.