Author: sortlane1

Wow does 3 weeks go by fast!  Above are just a few pictures of what has gone on the past 3 weeks and it has been a good sabbatical from treatment.

The first week after our last treatment we laid pretty low as Val was recovering from her last treatment from the first phase of chemo.  I was traveling that week and Val’s mom and dad came to stay while I was gone.  Unfortunately during a storm one of the trees in our yard decided it didn’t want to be up any longer.  It came down and squarely landed on my in-laws van totaling it in the process.  We sustained a little house damage but nothing too big that can’t be fixed.  You can get a feel for how large the tree was in the picture of Sam with the left over stump.

The second week we were without kids as Sam was off to Band Camp and Kara off to Grace Adventures for Horse Camp.  It was a good week for all of us as the kids both had great times at their respective camps along with Val and I getting a little time alone.  We had a nice week visiting with friends, going out to eat and just generally resting.

The third week was filled with a few more activities with one of those being a trip to Chicago for a concert to see Hillsong UNITED and Lauren Daigle at the United Center.  What a great concert and wonderful time of worship!

Today we start Phase 2 of chemo treatment.  For the next 12 weeks Val will get a chemo treatment every Friday.  This Phase 2 treatment is a different drug from the first phase and our understanding is that most people handle this phase better.  As part of this treatment cycle she will get a big dose of Benadryl which will most likely make her sleepy.  She will also get the same dose of steroid as from the first phase.  As you may remember, this steroid was the thing that caused her the most challenge with keeping her motor running and having trouble sleeping.  Now that she is getting this dose weekly instead of every other week, we are a little concerned about the side effect it may have on her.

So we are off onto the next phase of treatment!  We would ask that you continue to lift us up in prayer.  Specifically that Val has very little side effects from the steroid.  Thank you so much for the love and support!  We are so very encouraged by all of you standing with us!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today is treatment number 4 of 4 for the first round of chemo.  This past week has been pretty good with her sleeping ok and feeling ok.  Val then has a three week break before starting the next round.

Today she was asked to be part of a clinical trial for the next round that is only 46 patients from across the country.  The trial is testing a new cold therapy while the chemo is given to help mitigate a side effect in the hands and feet.  She has a few days to think about if she wants to participate but she is leaning that way.

Many of you may not know, but I (Marc) have and continue to resist the urge to open up a Facebook account.  Since my wife trusts me with her password I get to troll her account every now and then.  Ok probably more now than then!  It has resulted in a few challenges like figuring out my Father’s Day gift early because she was FB messaging the family that made it for me.  Oh well….

So this past week I was trolling and found that Val had posted a response to someone else’s post about “The lie that God won’t give us more than we can handle”.  My wife is a fairly quiet person and doesn’t share what’s on her mind very often.  So when I was reading her post, it deeply moved me with thoughts I didn’t know she had worked through.  I thought you might find these words encouraging as well.

“Confronting the lie: God won’t give you more than you can handle” – Nate Pyle

Valerie Hoard Gordon I love this. As someone who has gone and currently is going through a situation that I can’t see my way out of on my own strength, God DOES give us more than we can handle. It is times like these that make us (at least in my experience) determine what we truly believe about God and our faith. It is times like these that we have to let go, because we can’t do it on our own strength, and must fully cling to and rely on God. It is times like these that others (hopefully) see the power and love and truth of God. When people say that God doesn’t give us more than we can handle, even though they mean well, it is theologically dangerous. Realistically if God doesn’t give us more than we can handle, why would we even need him? If someone wants to give me encouragement, it means so much more to get a hug from them and have them tell me that they are praying for me.

It has been two weeks since our last update and that has been a blessing since it has been a fairly boring two weeks.  We like boring….  No unexpected hospital visits, surgery, etc.

Today is a normal chemo day and we are now on dose 3 of 4 for the first phase of treatment.  We will finish up this phase on July 15th and then start the phase 2 regiment on August 5th.  Phase 2 is a different drug sequence that will be given every week for 3 months.

The “normal” chemo challenges such as nausea and generally feeling crummy has not been a big problem for Val.  What has really been a pain has been the side effect of anxiety.

Val gets a steroid as part of the chemo to help keep her system running and make the drugs more effective.  Unfortunately it has had a nasty side effect which keeps her “motor running” and she has not been sleeping and generally feeling anxious.  At times it is bad enough to almost be debilitating.  This side effect has been especially hard since she has dealt with this challenge in the past and is more easily triggered by her treatment.

We have been blessed by the verse 2 Timothy 1:7… “For God did not give us a spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.”

Would you join us in praying 2 Timothy 1:7 over Val?  We are really wanting this side effect to go away.

We did receive some good news today. We have not mentioned this to very many people, but through all of Val’s testing the doctors found something questionable with her thyroid. A biopsy showed atypical cells, which made our medical folks wonder about an additional cancer in her thyroid, and the samples were sent out for a second opinion. We finally got the results today and…….NO THYROID CANCER!!

Thank you so much for your love and support for our family!

Marc

 

 

Today Val was able to successfully start chemo again after her stay in the hospital a week ago.  The new drain that was added from her surgery last week was also able to be pulled this morning. 

With all that behind us she was able to restart chemo today to get back on her every other week schedule for the next couple of months. 

Could you be in prayer for the following:

1) That Val does well responding to this latest treatment. 

2) That we don’t experience any new set backs. 

3) That she has a good week next week, feeling good, etc. 

Thank you for your waking with us!

Marc

Boy has it been a long week!  Thank you so much again for your prayers and words of encouragement as we battled this week. 

Late yesterday Val had surgery to remove the infected expander. That surgery went well and last night she recovered nicely. 

This morning we were uncertain if she would be discharged as there are four different docs who all needed to agree she was ready to go. Early this afternoon we were given word that all was good for discharge and she would be going home on an oral antibiotic. 

Then it took about another two hours to get all the paperwork together. Once that was all done we had an anticlimactic walk together off the floor and to the car. 

Val has a follow up appointment with her plastic surgeon on Wednesday and then hopefully she can restart chemo next Friday. 

We are grateful that she is home!

Marc

Val’s culture came back from the fluid around the expander showing infection. For the medical folks specifically “gram negative rods”.  This particular infection is a little bugger and very difficult to get cleaned off the expander. 

With that news, we made the decision with her docs to pull the expander. It will be permanently removed and we will restart the reconstruction process after the chemo treatments are all completed. 

Val and I are doing good with the decision and have peace having some specific next steps. We are definitely learning to look at the path forward but only take one step at a time, leaning hard on our Lord. 

The kids are doing good with having Mom gone but we are all ready for her to be home.  It may be possible we get discharged tomorrow!

We had the kids up last night for several hours, getting some finals studying done along with some bill paying. It was good being together just doing normal stuff. 

So we are on now night #5 of hanging out at Spectrum. Val continues to be an “interesting case”.  Back in 2003 when we had our last medical experience with Val and it dragged on, one of her doctors said she was an interesting case and that you don’t want a doc to use that description of you. 

Well she continues to be am interesting case with this cancer. Her fever is down and has stayed down since Sunday. On Sunday afternoon we noticed the skin around one of her expanders was warm and red. This pursisted and got worse. 

They did an ultrasound and found some fluid on the expander. It took yesterday to get the medical team all up to speed and a consensus of what to do next. 

So this morning they went in and put a new drain at that site and got some jiffy looking fluid. That fluid now is being tested to see if it grows anything. At this point we are expecting it to grow something. 

Tonight her main doc gave us the challenging news that she is not going to be going home anytime soon. They need to come up with a treatment plan and this also will delay the next chemo treatment that was supposed to be this Friday. 

To put it mildly, we are both discouraged. We are not sure what or how to pray. Thank you for praying for us when we don’t know how. 

Marc

Val had her first chemo treatment a week ago last Friday and had a pretty good week until this Friday. 

Late on Friday afternoon she spiked a quick fever that got fairly high. In addition, the lab work she had done earlier that morning showed her white blood cell count was way low. 

As a precaution, she was hospitalized on Friday evening. They have taken various cultures and are working to see if she grows anything interesting. The cultures take up to 48 hours to grow, so we have been hanging out at Spectrum this weekend.  

Her fever has been up and down so I am glad they are not taking any chances. She has kept her sense of humor though because as we were getting checked in last night she says to me “we had been talking about having a weekend away”…… Not my idea of a romantic weekend 😄

Val successfully started chemo treatment on Friday and it  went very well.  Because we had a delay in getting the chemo cycle started, the schedule of oncology nurses got a little messed up.  This is the main nurse who will administer chemo and help keep track of us through this process.

Arriving on Friday morning we got a chance to learn the whole process of how a chemo treatment goes.  First there is the labs to check blood counts, then we get moved over to the “infusion room” where we get a chance to get comfy and settled.  Each chemo treatment takes about 4 hours from start to finish.

We get settled in on Friday and our oncology nurse comes up and introduces herself as Tara.  Since this is the first time we met, the first question was if she would be the nurse who was going to be with us through the entire 5 month process.  She answered yes which then started a whole new line of questions….

Whenever I am a little nervous I can get “chatty”, which sometimes gets on Val’s nerves 🙂  Anyway, I go into full blown chatty mode and start peppering her with one question after another.  Tara (and Val) handled me pretty good :).

As we talked I recognized her last name but couldn’t place from where.  We started talking about mutual people or places we may know but were unsuccessful in nailing the connection to her last name.

Tara left for a little while as Val’s first drug started to run and I started to look through my contact list for that last name.  It took me about 3 seconds, and I figured out we had an engineering intern working for us by that name a few years back.

As she comes up to check on us I casually ask, “is your husband’s name David”?  She pauses with a stunned look on her face and answers yes!  That started a whole new line of conversation and she did awesome with us!

As I sat there on Friday, I texted my boss (who is visiting Disney with his grand kids) that I had a cool “small world” story to share with him when he gets back.  In an even more ironic twist, he texts back, “Funny.  I’m in line at the Small World ride right now”!!

The biggest thing about all this is that Val is very comfortable with Tara and is very happy she will be following us and be part of the team.  As a husband, that is such a reassurance.  As we drove home, Val looks over at me and says “maybe that is why we were delayed in getting started”.  Pretty cool to see how the Lord orders our steps!

Over the last few days Val had been feeling pretty good.  She has had enough strength to go out and buy planters for the porch and get ice cream to celebrate Memorial day.  She has had a few bouts of icky stomach and being tired, but overall she has handled the last three days really well.

We now get into a groove of labs every Friday to check blood counts and then a chemo treatment every other Friday for this first phase.

Once again, it is hard to express the gratitude for all the prayers, love and support being shown us.  It is great to see the body of Christ working so well.  We have been blessed with meals, cards and notes of encouragement at just the right time.  Kinda of like starting this chemo journey at “just the right time”.

Marc