cruising

Remember that time I went on an awesome cruise?

Yeah, me neither. But this time next week I will!

For the next week, the Memphis half of my family will be sailing around the Caribbean on the Disney Fantasy! (Sidenote: all five of us will be staying in one stateroom. Pray we don't kill each other.)

Those fireworks are for us. They got really excited when they heard we were coming.

star pupil

Great news! Mom's scan was read as "stable", meaning there's been no progress of her disease since her scan in April. The only thing that shows up as possible cancer are those enlarged lymph nodes in her chest that we've been watching for almost a year now - they remain unchanged. The node that tested positive for breast cancer in Mom's abdomen didn't show up on the CT scan at all!

Dr. Tauer called Mom his "star pupil" and wants her to continue with the Tykerb/Herceptin combo for at least three more months - maybe forever. We'd rather get rid of the Tykerb at some point due to the unpleasant side effects, but Trish can definitely live with them if she has to! She will have another CT scan in three months. We gave Dr. T some goodies from our garden (sweet pickles and cucumber apple rings) so he'll have more incentive to keep Trish around for a few more summers. ;-)

While waiting for her scan, Mom met two other amazing cancer-fighting women - a 92-year-old who "fast walks" 2.5 miles five days a week and another woman who's headed back to Haiti on Monday to continue her work with World Vision. I hope their news today was as good as ours! Praise God for "sick" women who don't let cancer run their lives!

We are so grateful for all of our faithful prayer warriors and for the ways that God has answered our prayers!


"Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good!" -1 Chronicles 16:34


p.s. Sorry I'm so late in getting this update posted - I literally fell asleep mid-post last night!

prayer request for Team Tricia!

Y'all still praying for Tricia on Mondays? If not, today's a good day to start back! She has a CT scan TOMORROW!

This is Mom's every-three-months check-up scan to see if her current treatment is still keeping her breast cancer under control and to look for any signs of pancreatic cancer recurrence (and let's be real here - we're keeping an eye out for other stuff, too . . . there's no telling what could happen with this woman). Mom's most recent cancer activity has been metastatic breast cancer in a lymph node in her abdomen, and her last scan (at the end of April) showed much improvement. I'm hoping and praying that there will be no signs of any type of cancer on tomorrow's scan!

Trish is still doing great overall. She still has good days and bad days, and every once in while she'll have a day or two that makes me start to worry, but, for the most part, she's living a totally normal life. If you spent a day with her, you'd probably never know she was sick (well, except for all her pill-popping). That doesn't mean the fear of bad news isn't still there when Mom has appointments like this, but we continue to trust that God will be faithful just as he's always been, regardless of whether tomorrow's results are good or bad. It is our prayer (and hopefully yours) that his name will be glorified through every step of this journey.

I'll update tomorrow!

 p.s. The above photo is of Trix and Madison (aka Little P) at Madison's birthday party a few weeks ago. Love. :-)

what I've been up to lately

Gardening,

 

gardening,

 

gardening,

gardening,

 and more gardening.

 The garden that was once Paw Paw's . . . and then mine and Mom's and Paw Paw's . . . has now become mine and Mom's and our friend Cindi's. And we are spending a lot of time there . . . growing such wonderful things as okra, tomatoes (regular, cherry, and roma), yellow squash, zucchini, cucumbers (so many cucumbers!), peppers, eggplant, watermelon, cantaloupe, sunflowers, zinnias, and some accidental peas. Actually, we have no idea if eggplants are wonderful or not . . . we don't know what we're going to do with them, but we're growing them anyway . . . just because we can.
  

Oh yes, and we've also been doing some eating lately. 

Lots and lots of eating.

Have I mentioned I love summertime?