Faithfully Fighting

Today was a busy day.  I was scheduled to have surgery to insert a mediport into my chest.  For those of you (that would have included me 6 weeks ago) who don’t know what a mediport is, it is a device inserted under the skin of my chest that allows medical personnel to insert IV treatments, draw blood and, with the model I have received with “power injectable ports”, allow contrast injections for CT scans.  No one will be able to see the port under my skin after it heals, but it will prevent me from having individual sticks every time I need an IV.

It sounded like a great idea when my doctor suggested I get it done a week ago.  I had already endured a week of IV antibiotic treatments in the only arm available (my left) and was facing another week of sticks.  But as the day loomed this morning I deeply dreaded the thought of walking into the hospital for another surgery.  As Pete arrived to take me at 9:45 this morning I was in melt down mode.  One of my devotions this morning was basing the lesson on Philippians 4:6 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your request me made know to God.  As you can imagine I knew God was talking to me, again.  But I couldn’t seem to pull myself up to his Word.  I called the surgeons office to say I changed my mind.  My surgeon got on the phone and talked until I agreed to show up.  By the time we reached the AM surgery I had calmed down and Pete and I had prayed together. 

I am deeply ashamed of myself now.  As He promised, the Lord walked me through, once again.  I wasn’t really asleep during the surgery, just drugged enough to actually give my doctor a hard time and make the entire room laugh.  I can’t remember what I said (the drugs) or I’d let you in on the joke, but she did threaten “Alright you, that’s enough or I’m going to have them put you to sleep.”  The surgery was swift and before I knew it I was in the recovery area.  That’s where the Lord really touched me, once again.  I had a nurse, Laura.  I am almost certain she was an angel sent from the Lord.  I was feeling very well, but had to wait for a chest X-ray to confirm placement of the device.  Instead of leaving me (which would have been very acceptable) she sat by me and we just talked.  She asked me about myself and I told her my story (briefly).  She was honestly interested and continued to ask more indebth questions.  She talked about my support system and was encouraging about my faithful friends and loved ones and prayer and worship.  She reminded me, with her admiration of my story, how truly blessed I was, every day.  When she brought me back to the outpatient area she thanked me for blessing her and said she would pray for me!  I told her that I was thankful for her time with me and how much it meant to me.

I cannot doubt the Lord’s hand in my life every day.  I am always humbled that He would reach out to me, who am I to deserve that?  I must spend more time striving to do more for Him. 

I had a good meeting with my doctor yesterday.  I am torn about how much information you guys really want to have, but here goes.  The new diagnosis is officially Stage IV Metastastic Breast Cancer.  He said our new goals are quantity and quality of life.  I will be finishing up the IV Antibiotics on Sunday (by the way the infection really looks all cleared up).  Next Tuesday I have a minor surgery to put in my medi-port for easier IVs.  Next Thursday I will have another chemo treatment.  My treatment is changing.  I will be getting the chemo drug Taxol as well as the biologic response modifier Herceptin.  These drugs work together to suppress the cancer.  Herceptin is relatively new, but has shown excellent suppression in Her-2 positive cancers, which mine is.   I will get the chemo every week for 12 weeks.  I will have another CT scan in about 2 months to see how the liver spots are responding.  We will pray for shrinking or disappearing (that would be a wonderful miracle).

Questions some people have asked me:

Surgery:  They cannot do surgery on the liver.  It isn’t possible because there are 5 spot  (the largest being 2cm-pretty small) and they are in different lobes.

Second Opinion:  My doctor is very happy for me to get a second opinion on my treatment options.  He even volunteered to call Johns Hopkins and set it up for me. He doesn’t think it will change anything but he often happily works with other major oncology hospitals on treatments for local residence.  He told me to just give him the word.  I on the other hand don’t really feel like traipsing all over the place to get similar, or the same information I’m getting from my doctor.  I feel confident in his knowledge, even though he’s only been in this practice 5 years he did his residency at the Mayo Clinic.  He is going to Hopkins next weekend to a Breast Cancer symposium, 2 months ago he was in California meeting with the top oncologists in the field of Breast Cancer (I know that because he called to check on me after my surgery before he left).  He isn’t a one way guy, he talks about lots of choices and if this doesn’t respond we’ll do this.  I’m comfortable with him right now, if that changes I’ll let you know.

I’m sorry I’m not funny or upbeat today.  I will confess that the last two weeks have been hard on me and I am weary.  The Lord is good and his words comfort me, but when we are together in prayer I sometimes express my frustrations to Him.  My earthly self is angry and confused and although I try to separate myself from that and look to the Lord, I haven’t always succeeded this week.  His plan is elusive to me right now and I am trying to move past my selfishness to walk in His way, but failing miserably at this moment.

Hopefully this will be a marathon, not a sprint and I will reach my comfortable stride.  I think it is just because of the infection throwing in the curve and my daily trips to the hospital without a break that I’m feeling overwhelmed.  Once the treatment and real life starts to settle into a pattern I think my emotional responses will settle too.   I miss Katie here for more than 2 hours, I miss church, I miss work, and I miss going through the day without looking through a benadryl haze. 

Wow, this is a depressing blog.  I’m so sorry!!  I’ll stop writing now.

God Bless,

Lynn

For some reason the last post is not allowing comments to be posted, so I'm trying this test post to see if it works.  If you would like to post comments to the Liver Word please try them at this post.

 I will be submitting an update on treatment information either this afternoon or tomorrow.  I meet with my doctor later this morning.

 Love to All!  Lynn

Well, I saw my plastic surgeon yesterday.  He called me his problem child!  I told him I was fine until everyone started poking at me.  He told me he was continuing the IV antibiotic therapy until Monday, then we would have to see if the infection returned.  It’s looking really good right now, so hopefully it will be gone for good.

Yesterday, during my IV treatment, my oncologist came up to me with my liver biopsy results.  I have a new diagnosis, Metastatic breast cancer.  That means the spots they found on the liver were cancer.  I have an appointment with my doctor on Thursday to go over details of the new treatment regiment.  Our conversation yesterday mostly consisted of a pep talk.  I could tell he doesn’t want me to get down.  I’ve got a bit of a battle ahead of me and he wanted me to understand that we are moving forward aggressively attacking the cancer.  What this really means is that the word “cure” probably won’t be coming up again.  We will be hunting for “remission”.  I’ll get more details on Thursday.  He did talk about another patient he has, similar in age to me, and other factors (he mentioned her having school age children, and similar “religious” views-his words) with almost identical diagnosis, that he would like to introduce me to.  He thought we would be a good support system for each other, in addition to our current friends and family.  He had already talked to her and she was willing, so he wants me to thing about that.  I thought that was very thoughtful of him.

So, in the meantime, I’m still hooking up to IVs every day and starting to feel like a pin cushion.  I am talking to the surgeon today about getting a Medi-port (that’s a semi-permanent port under the skin for them to take blood and attach IVs without poking veins).  I won’t have chemo this week as previously scheduled, but will probably start my new regiment next week.  I’m hoping to get back to work some next week too.  This every day to the hospital is making me feel sicker than I am.  I’ll update everyone after my appointment on Thursday.  Thanks for the prayers, keep up the work, Love you guys.

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