Praises + Prayers (7/6)

Praises

Last week we experienced so many blessings! I'll try to summarize a few of the key praises we have:

+ All last week the tumors seemed to be getting bigger- not the response you would hope for when pouring chemo into your bloodstream. Then literally overnight last night things got a ton better to where it was 1 or 2 weeks ago. Seriously an answer to prayer there. The tumors aren't a ton smaller but a lot of the other symptoms are starting to go away. Chemo is so cool!!! Thank you to everyone who was specifically praying for this!

+ I've had essentially no symptoms from chemo yet. Zero nausea (those anti-nausea meds must be rockin'). I took naps every day this week except one (and then everyone including me regretted me not getting my nap- sorry family for melting down on you!). Last time when I was 36 weeks pregnant I wanted to take naps everyday then too, so no big deal. Only one day was I really fatigued (which is the main symptom from this particular flavor of chemo). I got up and did my hair/makeup (for the first time this week) and then suddenly felt woozy. I was so tired I couldn't even stand up. So that day I just laid around in bed and Brad took care of Noah. If that is the main symptom of these drugs, keep 'em coming! 

+ Had a logistics chat with my boss at work and the head of benefits. It looks like everything is going to work out with regards to short term and potentially long term disability. Not having to worry about medical benefits on top of all the getting rid of cancer stuff is a huge blessing. It sounds like DPSG is going to be awesome through all this. Everyone drink more Dr Pepper and Snapple!

+ The encouragement from family and friends has been astounding. I can't even begin to tell you how amazing the response and support has been from everyone. The countless emails and facebook messages have been so uplifting. The best is when I've gotten notes from people I don't even know telling me they are praying for me AND they are telling their family and friends to pray for me too- incredible!! If you have sent me a message and I haven't responded, know that I am so grateful for your message and have probably read it multiple times but just haven't had a chance to respond yet. Thank you, thank you, thank you! Keep those prayers and encouraging words coming!

Speaking of Prayers...here are some specific requests for this week:

+ Brad and I are driving to Houston for the MD Anderson visit this week. Please pray that the trip is uneventful and that I will not go into labor between the two cities. If you've ever checked out a map of Texas there aren't many tier 1 hospitals between here and there so it would not be good if I went into labor!

+ Pray that we would have a productive meeting with Dr. Valero (sooo excited about meeting him! He is kind of a big deal in the IBC world). Pray that he provides us with good direction, information, and hope.

+ Please pray that my white blood cell counts would come back up quickly this week (they go down as the chemo kills all the good and bad cells, and increase my risk of infection). Once the counts are up to a level my drs are comfortable with, they will induce me and hopefully have a safe delivery and then a BABY! yayay!!!

+ Safe delivery (preferably not a c-section) with a healthy baby once my counts are back up

+ Finally, once the baby is delivered, we will start doing all the scans to see if cancer has spread and do the official “staging” (where they categorize how bad the cancer is in your body). PLEASE continue to pray that the cancer has not and will not spread to other organs/lymph nodes and that I will be Stage 3B or 3C. Also, I think once I'm staged it will make all the % prognoses much more real. Please pray that I will be able to emotionally deal with such high probabilities of death in less than 24 months (eek!).

So this post ended up being quite a bit longer than I intended. I'll try and keep future ones more to the point. There are just a lot of praises and prayers going on right now. Thanks again for everyone keeping up with our journey and for the prayers. We need a miracle but know that God can provide!