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. 

Blog #53... Lord.. I hope this day is good

Just a quick note. I am doing pretty good. Chemo last Wednesday was really rough  over the weekend and put me in the bed for several days . I missed out on the movie's with some good friends. But, I got my sister to come over and lay in the bed with me and watch Lifetime Movies all day and it totally lifted my spirits....

I wasn't able to get out of bed until Tuesday and I only worked half a day. I work wherever I am and I come into my office when I feel good enough to get out and about.  I saw the oncologist yesterday and talked him out of chemo for this week. I was just not feeling good and I know my body and what it could take and another round of chemo this week just wasn't an option. So next week we are back on the treatments again. In the meantime I am trying to rebuild my energy and be ready for the next round of whatever is in store for me. 

I have a CT Scan at Newton Medical planned for Monday at 9:00. It will show us how well the last procedure did  getting those 6 out of the 7 fractions of a tumor left. Hoping it got them all. I know for sure I have one more procedure to get the one that was left behind my liver and the other left on my lung. I was hoping that the chemo would get that one on my lung but after 5 months of treatment it hasn't gotten it at all. It's okay it will be gone soon enough. I'm so ready to hear what Dr. Chamsuddin has to say about the results. 

Tonight, I meet with my liver cancer working group. I am excited. We have had conference calls but tonight we all get to meet in person and I am looking forward to it. Anything I can do to help make a difference in the life of someone else with this horrible disease is what I want to be doing. I've had several people say I should worry about getting myself healed, I have been doing that for 8 months and I feel I am called to a higher understanding and giving for other people. Some people follow their hearts and some are just to busy worrying about themselves. I have a story of hope that most people facing liver cancer don't have and I want my story to be heard. It can make all the difference in the lives of other people and it gives me that warm and fuzzy feeling of stepping out and making my own difference in the world. 

Last week Evan (my 6 year old) came home and told me that her and her friends sit in the grass at recess and look for me a 4 leaf clover. It melted my heart.  Then several days later she said (so and so) said that even if we find a 4 leaf clover that it would not help your mama.Made me so mad. What is wrong with kids these days? I wonder if that little girl ever got a single day of nurturing in her life, because she has been so hateful for the last 2 years. Then... last night Evan came into my bedroom with a homemade card she had made and asking me how to spell best friends.  I looked at her and asked if the card was for me... She said "no, it is for so and so" I love Evan's sweet, caring, and forgiving spirit, she had long since forgotten how that little so and so hurt her feelings, but not this  mama! 

I have so many things to teach my daughter, I have so much left to say and do to help her live a long and happy life, and that is one of the main reasons I get up every day and fight this little monster that's been living inside of me. I want my daughter to be strong, secure, and confident in the person she is. She struggles sometimes and I know that is because it's so confusing with me being sick and she doesn't know how to express herself at times but to lash out and be mean to me. I laugh because I don't think that she even realizes how many times I have been through hateful attitudes in my lifetime. 

Things are moving forward. I got fluids yesterday and today I am feeling pretty good. Not great ...but good and hey, I will take that. It's so much better than feeling bad that is for sure! So my next blog post will be with posted results from the CT Scan. Praying for the best news possible. One of the hardest parts about being a cancer patient is seeing others with this horrible disease lose their battles. Each time it breaks my heart a little more. It's like we're in a club. We have the same fears, we get one another, and most times I have not met these people... it's just a bond that I could never put into words. We share our journey's with one another. The good and bad days of this diseases. It's painful to see others and to hear about them suffering. I could for that reason alone never be in the medical field.. no matter how much I would want to heal someone the pain of seeing or hearing about them losing their lives would be way to much for me to handle .....I wish I could put into words how much pain this disease has caused me. I don't know that I have ever hurt as much in my life, it hurt when I lost my mother 17 years ago. I see things so differently now. How the stupid things that use to hurt my feelings and would tear me down, don't really even hurt me anymore. I have become a selfish person through fighting this disease. I have become more dependent. I have lost so much of my independence. I have to have someone take care of me when I am down and out or I wouldn't be able to eat or have someone there to take care of Evan... It's tough it's tougher than tough,... I had no idea how painful mentally this disease could be until I got it. When I am free of it's chains I am going to be the person I have always wanted to be ... I have found comfort in some people and I have been beyond disappointed in others. I have heard more excuses in the last 8 months of why this and why that ... until I just want to burst out laughing in people's faces when they start that crap.  We do what we want to do. We are there for the people we want to be there for. We give to whom we want to give too. No one walks in this life alone and sometimes when you are faced with the things in life that hurt you, you understand what things should have meant to you in the times that they you were needed.  People come and go in life.  I can tell you in this time of my life the true and caring friends have stood out when I have needed them. Anytime I am having anything done they are there not leaving that hospital until the surgery is over and they know I am okay. I don't even think I tell those people enough how much I appreciate and love them. It feels good to know someone is out there waiting for me to wake up and they can see my face before moving on with their day. I don't know many people that would do that but I know the handful that do it every single time.  

I wish I could say when you get sick all you have to focus on is getting better, life doesn't work that way. Life still goes on and there are just a lot more things that need to be done to make sure the ship keeps sailing. 

I have had this song attached on my heart this week... I hope you will listen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWKJJplYfNM

Don't cry for me Pray for me.. I believe... I am a miracle and I believe I can be the testimony for other peoples miracles in the future.