Author: sortlane1

Here is a quick update on Val.  We both rested a little fitfully on and off last night but overall did well.  She was discharged from the hospital early this afternoon and got home a little after 2pm.

Overall for recovery from surgery she is doing well.  Her pain level has been manageable with meds and she is resting good.  To help you gauge her progress, she has gone into “full mother mode” making sure we have lunches made, laundry done, and the house running well.  She is doing good letting us do these activities with her calling the shots.

Our first doctor appointment after surgery is scheduled for Friday April 22nd with her plastic surgeon.  For the recover from surgery, the plastic surgeon (Dr. Shannon Armstrong) is the guy who is leading that part of the process with pain meds, etc.  We look forward to receiving news on the full pathology report from her surgery which we should be getting mid-next week from her breast surgeon (Dr. Jessica Keto).  From that point we will be able to flesh out the timing and specific next treatment steps.

Overall we are doing well.  Working through the disappointment of needing to have chemo, but overall we are doing ok.  Val‘s parents are staying with us until Saturday afternoon and have been a great help with the house and kids.  A meal program through our church has started and I am probably going to gain 10lbs over this event in our lives….

Thank you again for upholding us in prayer, having words of encouragement and acts of service.  We truly feel loved and are glad to have such a great support group.

Our continued prayer is that The Lord is Glorified and His name praised through this process.

Marc

You can not imagine the amount of love and support we have had today!  It has been awesome to hear from you throughout the day.  We also had a wonderful time of prayer with the Deacon’s and their wives from our Church last night.

Val‘s surgery today was a long process but went well.  The surgeons were happy with their work and optimistic for good healing.  We just got settled into our room at about 8pm tonight.  She is doing good and working on getting settled in for the night.  I will be sticking around for the night as well.

In regards to results from surgery, it will be a week or so before we hear back all the official pathology report.  During surgery they did look at her sentinel lymph nodes and found that one of the three they pulled did show cancer cells….. so not the news we were hoping for but its ok.

In talking with her doctor most likely route is chemotherapy.  Once again just to make sure I am clear, the full treatment program won’t be known until the pathology report is back and a full plan put together.

Thank you again for all the love and support you been showing us!  We have truly felt God’s peace and it is cool to see how the Body of Christ comes together!

Please continue to pray for us, for peace, for a great treatment plan and that all the cancer cells leave her body!

Our continued prayer is that The Lord is Glorified and His name praised through this process.

With much appreciation!

Marc

Thank you again for your continued prayers for Val and our family.  Here is some updated information to help keep you in the loop.

We met with the plastic surgeon yesterday and had a good meeting.  He is a good fit for us and the appointment went well.  We have made the decision to go ahead and have a full bi-lateral mastectomy to reduce the changes of cancer showing up again.  The down side is that recovery will be tough but on a good note, Val gets to go in for a “tune-up” as she gets older to help keep things looking good.

Surgery has been scheduled for noon on Wednesday 4/13 at Lack’s Cancer Center.  Val will need to be in the hospital overnight and should be able to come home sometime on Thursday 4/14.  From then on it will be 6 to 8 weeks of recovery from surgery.  During that time we are also going to be finalizing the treatment plan with hopefully having that complete picture together by the first part of May.  Our hope and prayer is that the only cancer treatment necessary will be an oral drug called tamoxifen.

Currently we are doing very well.  The Lord has provided us peace that is hard to describe and it is good to have the surgery scheduled and have that piece of the puzzle put into place.

Here are things to continue to pray for specifically:

1. Praise that our medical team is wonderful and we get along well with them.
2. Praise that surgery has been scheduled
3. Continue to pray that the cancer has not spread.
4. Continue to pray that the genetic testing we are conducting comes back with the good news!
5. Continue to pray for peace for our family and patience as we are still uncertain as to the long term treatment plan.

Thank you all again for walking with us along this journey.  Our trust is in the Lord and that His name be praised!

Thank you so much for your prayers since we let you know about Val‘s cancer.  We are working out a game plan to keep folks in the loop and don’t have that all figured out yet but thought a quick email would be good on what we learned today.

Today we had an extensive meeting with Val‘s surgeon, Dr. Jessica Keto.  She has come highly recommended to us and we really like her a lot!  We talked through all the decision points and what goes into making the final treatment plan.  My sister Jodi, who is a breast cancer survivor, was able to attend the appointment with us which was a great help!

Tomorrow we have a short “Team Meeting” with all the Surgeon, Oncology Dr., etc.  This will be a meet and greet so to speak and get everyone else in the loop on the plan.  Being a Project Manager type, I like this team meeting idea a lot!

Right now it is not able to be determined the full treatment plan, we just know what decisions will need to be made and the information that goes into those decisions.  For sure our next step is surgery which we are working on getting scheduled.  That will probably be 2 to 3 weeks out with about 6 to 8 weeks recovery afterward.

The bottom line is that all the news we heard today was as good as you could ask for considering the circumstances.  Our medical team is top notch and we are very peaceful about where the Lord has us right now.

If you could be praying for some specific things:

1.) That the cancer has not spread at all to the lymph nodes.  That is one of the pieces of information we will get from surgery.

2.) That the genetic testing they are going to be doing gives us good news..

3.) That our kids and us continue to rest in the Lord and for patience as we wait for these various steps to be completed.  It is hard waiting!

Thank you all for walking with us along this journey.  Our trust is in the Lord and that His name be praised!

Marc