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.