always faithful

I know some of you probably want more details about Trish's doctor's appointment yesterday. And I promise to provide those soon, but, tonight I need to blog about something else. Tonight I need to take a minute to make sure anyone reading this blog understands just how great God's faithfulness is. Because it is so great.

Ten years ago this month, my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. Seven years ago this month, her breast cancer progressed to stage IV when it metastasized to her liver. According to medicine, her prognosis was terminal. She survived. One year ago today, hundreds - probably thousands - of prayer warriors stormed the gates of heaven begging for God to spare my mom from another fight with cancer. One year ago today, we were disappointed with the answer He gave. One year ago today and every day before and since, He has remained faithful.

On August 31, 2010, my mom, dad, and I sat in an exam room at The West Clinic and received some of the hardest news of our lives: my mom had pancreatic cancer. We were shocked and devastated. We went out to eat (we tend to do that whether we get good news or bad . . . why not?), and then I came home and wrote this post. I wasn't sure I'd be still be posting updates about my mom a year later. I knew that only about 20% of people with pancreatic cancer survived a year after diagnosis, and most of them probably didn't have a history of stage IV breast cancer. But here we are, one year and thousands of prayers later . . . I'm blogging about Trish, and she's currently rocking a baby girl to sleep. Great is His faithfulness!

I've read and re-read the post I wrote a year ago today. Whenever I need a reminder of God's faithfulness, all I have to do is go back and read my "Tricia" posts from last fall and winter. Try it. Depressing as it may sound, it's encouraging to go back to those hard days and be reminded of how far my mom has come and how God has been working in our lives all along. He's done so much more than we could've imagined. He's walked with us through fires we were sure we'd never make it through. He's blessed us in ways we never saw coming. I simply don't have the words to express how thankful and amazed I am. My cup runneth over.


(Not my favorite video, but definitely my favorite version of one of my favorite songs. It has often been played in the dark quiet of my room when I've run out of words.)

"I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope:

Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness."  -Lamentations 3:19-23

mystery unsolved

Hey friends. Sorry for not getting to the blog until midnight! Hopefully you've already seen or heard our good news. If not, I'll just give you the short, facebook status version of Mom's doctor's appointment today. Trish's CT scan is unchanged from 6 weeks ago. The two enlarged lymph nodes in her chest are the same, as is the one enlarged lymph node in her abdomen (which we just found out about today, but has apparently been there for who knows how long). This is great news, because it means that, if it is cancer, it's not growing. It also means there's still a possibility that it might not be cancer! So guess what we get to do? Watch and wait. Again. Dr. Tauer wants to do another CT scan in two months. Thanks for all your prayers and please keep them coming!

More details to come, I promise. :-) 

such a blog hog

Pray hard, Team Tricia - tomorrow is my mom's next big scan! As you probably know, it's mainly being done to check on those enlarged lymph nodes in her chest, but we know her pancreatic cancer could show up again at any moment. So just pray for a scan that's clear of all types of cancer!

Mom had blood work done when she got her herceptin a couple weeks ago. We prayed for normal tumor markers. If you're wondering why I never posted the results of those tests, it's because we never received them. As it turned out, somehow her tumor markers didn't get done. That's a little frustrating, but we weren't too upset about it because we've been focused on other things. I don't want to elaborate on this too much, because we don't know anything for sure . . . but I will say that we received some encouraging news last week. :-) I think I'm even a little bit excited about tomorrow (weird). We're cautiously planning on good news. And we're planning on God sustaining us even if we don't get good news.

And we're also planning on spending the afternoon playing with a really cute 11-month-old. Oh, because there's one at our house right now. Baby Z's foster family is out of the country, so she's hanging with us for the next week. Respite care is fun. Did I mention she's really cute? Because she is.

Okay, back to Trish (she's such a blog hog) . . . I think we have to be at the clinic at 10 in the morning. Trish will have lab (tumor markers for real this time), then the CT scan, and then see Dr. Tauer. Hopefully we'll have some news to report by lunchtime.  

Here are the prayer requests for tomorrow in review:

• a scan that shows no cancer or disease of any kind anywhere in Mom's body
• normal tumor markers
• some definite answers to whatever's going on in these mystery lymph nodes . . . preferably answers that include fixable problems!
• wisdom for Dr. Tauer
• peace for our hearts
• God's glory to be revealed

Also, I want to follow-up on the prayer requests I posted a few weeks ago.

• After a grueling round of chemo, a biopsy that showed remission(!), and five and a half weeks in the hospital, our friend Karen got to go home last week! Pray that God will strengthen her as she enjoys this time at home with her family and that her leukemia will remain in remission.
• Our friend LeAn's sister-in-law Kathy starts her chemo for pancreatic cancer tomorrow at 9am! Her treatment has been delayed a few weeks because she's been in the hospital with elevated bilirubin (sound familiar? Trish had that problem this time last year). Pray that her treatment this week will be hard on the bad cells and easy on the good! LeAn keeps a caringbridge site for Kathy here.
• I didn't share this last time, but our friend Joan had a PET scan today - her first after the latest change in her treatment for her lung cancer. Pray that she'll get good news when she meets with her doctor on Wednesday!

Goodnight, dear blog readers. I'll post some news tomorrow!

just another manic Monday

Last week was busy with Camp Granna activities (and an adoption ceremony!), and the past few days I've been a bit under the weather, so my blog has gotten neglected. But I wanted to pop in real quick and remind everyone to pray for Trish today! She's still feeling great. She goes to West Clinic for a herceptin treatment tomorrow, and we plan on asking them to draw her tumor markers again. Pray for normal blood work tomorrow and a clear scan on August 30th!

Big P and Little P in late July

a little about a little p

 

Yes, Little P is still with us. Yes, she over a month old now. Yes, I've only dedicated one post to her (and even that one post she had to share with Trish).

Usually when we have a foster baby, his/her pictures and updates are plastered all over my blog on a pretty regular basis. Unfortunately, due to vacations and cancer and just general summer craziness, I'm afraid Little P has gotten the short end of the stick in the blog department.

I don't think she's too happy about it, either.

 

It's okay, Little P. I promise you are just as adorable and have been just as photographed as all of our other babies. See?

Little P (or maybe I should say Not-so-little P) went to the doctor this week and weighed a whopping 9 lbs, 1 oz! She was 6 lbs, 12 oz at birth. What can I say? The girl likes her food. Just what kind of food she likes has yet to be determined. Due to fussiness and spitting up issues (and possibly some diva issues?), we're on our third formula, and she seems to like it the best so far. In fact, she likes it so much that she wants to wake up every four hours and eat some. I know what you're thinking - "Callie, she's a newborn. Of course she wants to eat every four hours." You don't know this newborn. This newborn started sleeping all night (we're talking 7-8 hours) on her second night home from the hospital! She's advanced. And, while she is a bit of a diva sometimes, we think that just gives her more character.

Oh, yeah, and she smiles now. And every once in a while she'll let out a little coo. I've yet to get a picture that showcases her adorable dimples, but I'm not giving up.

By far the most exciting news in the life of Little P is that she met her family last week! I can't wait to tell you all about her mom, dad, and big brother. I'll post pictures and share details when things are a little more official. I'll also share her new name! She's glad to finally be called something that doesn't sound like a child rap star. ;-)

Little P's "Gotcha Day" is set for Monday! Until then, we're soaking up every second we can. :-) 

Jesus in my driveway

Jesus came to our house last Wednesday night. At first they just looked like a bunch of regular teenagers, but, by the time they left, I was certain Jesus was among them.

When we first saw the group of teens park their cars in front of our house, we thought they were some hoodlums who came to pick a fight with Jamal (he'd received a weird prank call earlier that evening). The men of the house weren't home. Tekia was so freaked out that she took the baby to the back of the house and locked the two of them in a bathroom. She swore she saw bullet holes in one of the cars. ;-) Trish went out to talk to them, while I stood at the back door with phone in hand in case one of them started to cause trouble.

Mom went outside and called into the dark, "Can I help you?"

Teens/Jesus: "Um, we came to pray with you."

Oops. (By this time, Mom could tell who they were.) 

Okay, then, I guess we won't call the police on you. Or fight you. 

After chatting for a few minutes and then praying over Trish, they grabbed their sidewalk chalk and went to work on a masterpiece that brought tears to my eyes and continues to bless us daily.

Check out the driveway love they left for us (click to see bigger).

 

 

Thank you, Jesus, for sending your people to speak truth to our hearts (and our driveway). And for making us laugh along the way.

a post about PET scans, plans, and prayers

Okay, as promised, I'm back to give you all the details on Tricia's latest doctor's visit. This post will be long. Consider yourself warned.

The enlarged lymph nodes that Dr. T saw on Mom's CT scan last Monday did light up on her PET scan on Thursday, which would lead us to believe that there is cancer there. However, the nodes are too small to biopsy, and, as Mom has had two types of cancer, Dr. T doesn't want to do anything without a biopsy. So right now we're kind of stuck. We're going to watch and wait and go back in 4 weeks (August 30th) for another CT scan. If the nodes are normal-sized, then we do nothing and assume it was a fluke (provided Mom's tumor markers are still normal and she's still symptom-free). If they're larger or if there are more involved (or if Mom's having symptoms or has elevated tumor markers), then I'm sure Dr. T will further investigate. If everything's the same, who knows?

Now, as you probably already know, we've got two cancers to consider here (at least we hope it's just two!). There's Mom's breast cancer (BC), which was last seen in her liver in 2004; she's been NED (no evidence of disease) on the BC front ever since. And then there's the pancreatic cancer (PC), which was removed via surgery last September. The lymph nodes closest to Mom's PC tumor were removed in surgery, and five of them tested positive for PC. Even though Mom's BC is stage IV and her PC was stage II, the PC is more of a concern to us because there are very few options for treating PC (and basically no effective treatment options, according to medicine). Hence, if this new finding turns out to be cancer, we want it to be BC, because there are several different treatment options available for Mom's type of BC.

Because of the location of these new enlarged lymph nodes, Dr. T still feels this is very unlikely to be PC, which is great news. These nodes are located in the center of Mom's chest, closer to her original BC site. Dr. T says that it's likely that Mom's BC has cloned itself into a form that's resistant to herceptin (the drug that Trish has been receiving for the last 7 years to keep her BC away) and started growing again in these lymph nodes. Upon looking back at Mom's last PET scan from last August, Dr. T noticed that this same area in her chest took up some of the radioactive dye back then; but it was subtle enough that it wasn't concerning. So that's discouraging, as it seems to point to cancer being present there a year ago. What's encouraging (and also puzzling) about this is that Mom's BC tumor markers are normal, and, in the past, they have always been elevated when her BC was growing.

False positives are pretty common on PET scans, as any infection, inflammation, or increased activity can make body parts "light up." Just to give you an idea of how sensitive these things are . . . after being injected with the radioactive dye, Trish has to lie in a recliner in a dark room for an hour before the scan. She can't talk or read. She can't even work a crossword puzzle because that might increase activity in her brain and make it light up on the scan. So there is still a possibility that this could turn out to be nothing, but the fact something showed up on last year's scan makes it more worrisome.

We've known Dr. T for almost ten years now and can usually read him pretty well. We've seen him happy and encouraged, and we've seen him grim and somber. Mom and I both agreed that he was difficult to read this time. When he could tell we were trying to read his mind (apparently we weren't hard to read, ha), he told us that he's worried by the PET scan results. And then a few minutes later he noted that he's encouraged by Mom's normal BC tumor markers. So who knows, really? Who knows if this is breast cancer? Who knows if it's pancreatic cancer? Who knows if it's some other kind of cancer? Who knows if it's cancer at all? One thing we know for sure, though, and that is that God is alive and at work here, just as He always has been. Before leaving, Dr. T reminded Mom that "the Lord's been all over this since the beginning." And there's nothing hard to read about that. :-)

On to the prayer requests . . .

• Pray for total and complete healing from all types of cancer and anything else that might be going on in my mother's very abnormal body! It's Monday, by the way. ;-)
• In two weeks (August 16th), Mom goes for her normal herceptin treatment, and we plan on asking for tumor markers (both BC and PC) to be drawn again. Pray that both of these will be normal!
• Mom's follow-up CT scan will be August 30th. Pray for a real all clear! Pray for whatever's going on in Mom's lymph nodes to completely resolved by then.
• Pray for Dr. T as he plans Mom's care and that of his other patients.
• Pray for our friend Karen and her family. Karen went through a round with breast cancer three years ago and has recently been diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. She's been in the hospital for the last two weeks going through some pretty intense chemo. She has a second bone marrow biopsy coming up soon.
• Pray for Kathy and her family. Kathy has recently been diagnosed with stage IV pancreatic cancer and has a PET scan tomorrow. She should start chemo sometime this week.
• Pray that each of us will feel God's peace and presence and that we will trust Him always.
• Pray that God will continue to reveal His glory throughout every twist and turn of this roller coaster. Pray that we, as well others, will come to know Him more and love Him better because of this experience.

Ten years ago this week, my mom found a lump in her breast. Our family has been through a crazy ride with many highs and lows over the last decade, and God has been faithful through it all. We never could've imagined the challenges He would allow us to face and the blessings that He would shower upon us along the way. We're still riding. And we still serve a God who is always faithful. My cup runneth over.


P.S. I know there was a lot of medical info in this post. If I forgot to address something or if you have a question, feel free to leave a comment and I'll do my best to answer.