Blog 64... Praying for Remission..Elf on the Shelf and The Tooth Fairy....

Another oncology appointment today....just had my  blood work done  and I met with the PA. Everything with my blood was excellent she said. My white cell count is normal. She ordered another cancer marker today, so hopefully Monday I will get the results back.  I anticipate a large drop in the number since we have gotten all the tumors that were left. I guess I can't expect them to be normal.... but with my disease and success nothing is impossible! I have learned to expect the unexpected. 

Things are good with me. I am up and out and about. I get a little tired and I can't do all the things that I use to do, but that isn't long term. I am healing and in healing you have to take things as they come. To be honest... I am just so glad that I can get up and be out doing most of the things I want to be doing. 

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and I have spent the day thinking about how special this Thanksgiving really  is .. How 10 months ago I wasn't sure that I would make it to this point. How doctor after doctor told me I would be dead within 12 months. I think about the path that I have traveled through this disease:

Being told at the ER  I had Stage 4 liver cancer 2/6/2014...Worst day of my life! 

Meeting with the first oncologist that referred me to the hospital for a biopsy

Biopsy one and two being told they were  benign 

Getting the call back that I had cancer and it was bad

First Pet Scan stating I had cancer in my liver, bones, and lung

Going to Emory for a second opinion and being told to take chemo and expect 12 months

Going to Piedmont and being optimistic but not reassuring about my disease and being told not to do the Y90 that it is the last resort

Flying out to MD Anderson and bone scan confirmed I did not have bone cancer and said I could live a while with chemo

Flying to AZ for a alternative medicine opinion on treatment 

Coming home to Atlanta and doing 6 weeks of alternative medicine 

Follow up with Oncologist (at the time) ordered CT Scan 

Oncologist reviewing scan and telling me I am now much more progressed in the disease and telling me I was in denial of the disease.

Taking the scan to Dr. Chamsuddin to review and discuss Y90 option once again 

First testing to see if I was a candidate for the Y90... I was and only on the right side.

One Y90 treatment 

Second Y90 Treatment 

One, two, three, four procedures to burn the tumors on the right side 

Pet scan shows 98% of the cancer in my liver is gone

Chemoemoblization of the tumor near my heart on my liver

Procedure to burn the tumor on my lung 

CT Scans, sonograms, and X-rays in between all of this to guide the success of my recovery 

This all has been in 10 months. 10 months that have been the longest 10 months of my life. But the most valuable 10 months I could have ever asked for....

I was so confused when I was trying to make the right decision. I had reservations doing the Y90 at the hospital... because they told me I didn't have cancer not just once but twice. I trusted Chamsuddin but I was not sure about the pathology department there and I felt that maybe that was not the place I was suppose to be. I ran from what I knew was my only hope and I felt that was justified. I kept calling Dr. Chamsuddin and following up with him about where I was on my path. He didn't always answer the phone when I called but he always called me back. He never pushed me into making the decision to do the Y90, I don't know why he didn't tell me what an idiot I was.... but he let me come back to him and he allowed me to make the decision to save my life, and I am so glad I did. 

We sometimes have to see things for ourselves. We have to go and search for what we hope is a better alternative and then when we are ready to make the decision to do what we should have done long before ....then you realize how foolish you've been. 


I was telling my brother today, I pray to God it's all gone and there is nothing left for us to treat now. I have my Pet Scan set for 12.11.2014 at Emory. I will be taking the disc to Newton Hospital and hoping that Dr. Chamsuddin will read it again while he is off and we can celebrate a remission. That is all I want for Christmas, but if we aren't finished with this round....  I am ready to start kicking ass again.

I'm excited tonight our elf of the shelf "Elfie" comes back and also may daughter has lost her second tooth, so I anticipate a visit from the tooth fairy. It's going to be a very exciting Thanksgiving morning to wake up to at my house.  Elfie left her this letter....



I hope each and every one of you has an amazing Thanksgiving.