Happy Birthday Beautiful Girl!

Today we celebrated Madison's 11th birthday.  Grandma Jean made yummy cake, we played kickball in the backyard, and we enjoyed the gorgeous weather and dinner out at Madison's choice restaurant, Genghis Grill - Yum!  

We are so proud of the young lady Madison is becoming - so compassionate, thoughtful, loving, funny, well we could go on forever and ever.  We love you beautiful!



Madison's new shoes with her
photo on them - so fun!



The Very Hungry Caterpillar

We have had a very busy week with doctor appointments...

On Monday, we visited with the plastic surgeon, all good on the "boobie" front.  Healing nicely and looks good (of course a male doctor would say that :)

On Tuesday, we visited with the oncologist.  Baffling is how he described Lori's tumor.  He called for many other opinions from breast specialists/oncologists in New York, Texas, New Mexico and Tucson to come up with my regimen. It's so great to see he is willing to humble himself and get many opinions, we feel very confident and reassured by this (and it doesn't hurt that he was listed as the #1 doc in Phoenix Magazine we found out yesterday). 

The great news is although Lori's chemo will be more aggressive, right now it's looking like it will only last 20 weeks instead of the full year as originally planned.

On Thursday, Lori woke up looking like a Cabbage Patch Doll!  Her face was so swollen!  We're not sure what caused this, nor do the doctors (maybe an allergic reaction to something), so in additon to the chemo, Lori is also on benadryl and high doses of steroids - not sure if we'll have to peel her out of bed or off the ceiling!

On Friday comes the Neulasta shot, which boosts up the white blood cells.  It must have worked great last time because all counts were very good for chemo yesterday. 


Sounds a little like The Very Hungry Caterpillar (leave it to a teacher to make this analogy! :)  Hope you enjoy reading the blog as much as the book!

Happy 40th Birthday Babe!

Happy Birthday to my husband and best friend! 

It's so hard to believe that we've been together 24 years - it's crazy because I still feel like we're 18 years  old!  I am so lucky to have married my best friend, and we've had such an amazing adventure.  The years have gone so fast!  Although we wouldn't always have chosen some of the journey we've been on, I am so lucky to have traveled this with you and I wouldn't change it for the world!  Not to overuse the saying, but "you regret the things you don't try" and I can say without thought that I have no regrets.  You've encouraged me to take risks, have fun and not worry about some of the little things and I'm the luckiest girl in the world to be so loved and so taken care of by you.  I love you with all my heart and more than words can even begin to say! 

The Answers Today are Yes!

Ask and you shall receive...right?  Well, sometimes the answer is yes, sometimes no and sometimes...wait. 

We are so thrilled to say we've have two yes answers to our prayers recently! 

One, Lori's BRCA 1 & 2 testing (the genetic tests that links breast, ovarian, pancreatic among other cancers) came back negative.  What a blessing for her parents, brothers and our children to not have to worry about this highly increased risk of those cancers!

Two, after Lori's chemo treatment this past Thursday, she has felt great.  Other than a slight headache and some clutziness (which many of you know Lori wasn't exactly the most graceful girl on the planet to begin with!  Ha!! :) things have been going great...no nausea, hair loss yet, etc...  The nurses say the truck should be hitting around day 5,6 or 7 but we're determined to miss this truck!

First Chemo

After a nice breakfast with just the two of us, Lori went in for her first Chemo treatment yesterday.  Everything went great!  The meds all went in with no allergic reactions and only a very slight and very manageable headache.  Although going to bed early last night (probably because we stayed up until 1 am the night before!) she's feeling great today and just took the kids to school this morning. 

All of the nurses were phenominal and spent lots of time with us (maybe because we were the only ones under the age of 80!  Ha! Ha!).  We also met another gal going through breast cancer who had lots of good advice.  It's always nice to hear other's success stories!

 

Happy Easter!

 



Evidently swim goggles help with egg coloring.
Now all she needs is a lab coat...



Lori is not "normal"

For those of you that don't already know, Lori is not "normal".  Ha!

After three pathology test runs on the tumor, our doctor has labeled this tumor as "odd".  The first biopsy showed a full Her-2 positive testing, however after further testing of the entire tumor, the tumor is presenting only 5% Her-2 positive so.... given this new information the doctor has decided to change Lori's chemotherapy regimen.  They will be following a regimen for Her-2 negative patients, but then the final 3 months of  treatment, will administer the Herceptin to kill any Her-2 positive cells that may be present. 

Glad to see they are covering all of the bases, but it's always a little scary when your case is labeled as an "odd" or "not a typical" case.  Our doctor told us he even consulted with various doctors around the state and on the east coast to get the regimen right!  We never realized how far reaching Lori could be! 

On this new plan, Lori will be receiving chemo every 2 weeks for 4 cycles, then 1x/week for 12 cycles beginning April 12th.  After that it's a little unknown - waiting to hear more from the oncology nurse.   

Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy...

Lori went in for port surgery at 5:30 am, surgery at 7, then home by 10 am.  That's the way to do it! 

Lori's port surgery went off without a hitch.  They placed it on the right side just below the collarbone.    The doctor made a small incision, then inserted a small port.  It's a little odd having a foreign object under the skin that you can feel and see (the outline of it anyway).  The port will be used to administer all of the chemotherapy medications and blood draws.  This avoids having to start an IV for each visit.

On a fun note, my cousin Teri, Madison and I went to see the movie Hunger Games...not sure if Madison watched much of it since she plugged her ears and closed her eyes during a lot of the movie :)  It was an interesting movie - like a violent Survivorman.  Although a little gruesome, had an intriguing storyline.  It was very nice to get out of the house - made me feel human again! 

We've set up our revolving doors again, Teri went to visit family in Las Vegas and California, then will head back home to Annapolis Easter Sunday. James' mom, Jean flew in Monday night to help for the month of April.  We are so appreciative of all of the help!