A Spring of Joy

Just got back from Angie’s follow-up appointment for the surgery; they removed the dressing and checked things out, she’s healing nicely. We go back on Wednesday afternoon to remove staples. (Ugh.. I don’t really do well with blood and sharp objects inserted into the skin…) We didn’t move the appointment with the Oncologist up, the Doc affirmed that treatment won’t begin until after that, so there isn’t really any point in trying to get there earlier. Her body needs some time to heal before they start pumping her full of toxins…

We did accomplish my real goal in trying to see them earlier, which was to get further testing scheduled. Tuesday at noon she has a CT scan scheduled for pretty much her whole body. We’ll have the films to take down to our appointment on Wednesday so he can begin evaluating the possibility of spread.

We’re holding up pretty well and are very encouraged by so many who have written, called, emailed and commented here. Obviously this is hard, but we cling to a big God.

I spoke with our surgeon yesterday afternoon about the pathology report on Angie’s tumor and the lymph nodes they removed during surgery. It’s not great news. Her tumor size was 2.5 cm and they classified it as Grade 3. (Grade is a ranking how different from normal cells the tumor cells are, on a scale of 1-3. 3 is the most aggressive) Of the 20-25 lymph nodes removed during surgery, there was tumor in 8 of them.

Of course take everything ‘medical’ I write with a grain of salt, since I have no idea what I’m talking about… but all three of those numbers are higher than we want to see them. A tumor that large and aggressive with that many nodes means there is a much higher chance that the cancer has spread.

We go in tomorrow for a follow-up on her surgery and we may learn more there, but our first appointment with the oncologist was just set this morning for September 14th. (I’m going to see what I can do to move that up though..) I gather they will start out by trying to get a baseline and determine what if any spread there has been, most likely a cat-scan.

Obviously this is hard news to take, Angie isn’t doing great with it. She’s probably more scared of the treatment than the cancer itself going forward, and of what affect this will have on our children.

Please continue to pray… we still don’t know more than we do right now, but we do know that this is going to be a very long and hard road.

We’re home.. Ang is cleaned up and into some comfortable pajamas and resting on the couch. It’s nice and quiet, her Mom came up to take care of her, and the kids are still out with a babysitter until this evening, so she should get a good rest in before things get to exciting around here.

Thanks again for all of your thoughts, words, deeds, and prayers over these last few days (and weeks)… we have felt very well loved by all.

Pediatrics was good to us last night, the nursing staff up here is absolutely amazing. I slept like a rock on my little couch, for everyone who was wondering…

Angie was awake and able to communicate by 8:30 or so last night. She’s been feeling pretty good, they have had her on Percocet for the pain, and I believe they are still keeping her on some anti-nausea drugs as well. It sounds like she didn’t sleep all that well, she was still kinda jittery from the anesthesia. Tim brought over a pizza for dinner last night (for he and I of course, we couldn’t convince her to have a piece!) and we sat and hung out for a while. It was nice, a good distraction for her. I woke up this morning when I heard our surgeon come in to check on us. She’s awake and doing pretty well, she’s had some Cheerios and apple juice… All the good stuff. We hope by tomorrow afternoon the pathology report will be in and we’ll hear more. Friday will be her next follow-up appointment.

She’s getting her discharge instructions right now, no strenuous activity for the next 24 hours… Guess I won’t start her morning calisthenics up right away. Bummer.

We expect to go home later this morning, but she’ll need some time to get settled. I’ve been asked about visitors; by this evening she may be rested enough- just be sure to call me before you stop by.

I just talked to the surgeon, Angie is in recovery and should be out in an hour or so. He said she did fine, and he got everything he needed. From here the tumor goes to pathology where they will biopsy and probably have a report by wednesday. We’ll be here overnight tonight and most likely go home tomorrow. [update] Actually i just talked to the recovery room nurse and got her room number- it’s in the pedriatric wing, apparently they have a playstation. Guess I’ll be fine tonight….

That is again for your prayers, I’ll post again later after I’ve had a chance to talk to her.

She’s doing well so far, there have been some moments this morning but she’s ok. It’s all very real now that people are sticking needles into her! It was awesome to walk into a waiting room full of friends and family when we arrived this morning. A couple of doctors we know have stopped by, and the nurse who did her prep this morning is a friend from church who came in just to take care of us. (thanks Amy!)

The scan this morning wasn’t much fun of course (easy for me to say), but everything went smoothly and they found what they were looking for on the first try. We’re back upstairs now in the world’s smallest room, killing time for the next hour and a half or so- it looks like they have moved her surgery back to 1pm.

This morning we head in for surgery… Angie is doing pretty well, but it’s a scary thing to be facing. She’s been resting well tonight, I’m very thankful for that! The kids are as well prepared as they can be, when Asher got into bed tonight he told me that he couldn’t wait for tomorrow- “it’s going to be the best day of my entire life!” He’s looking forward to an entire day with a babysitter, and going fishing. Go figure.

A quick look at our day, with apologies to anyone with any medical background at all… We will be at the hospital this morning at 7:30am to start preparing for surgery. Around 9am she’ll be given a shot of some sort of radioactive dye, which they will scan for later to see where they need to be looking during surgery. (One or more lymph nodes will come out and be checked to make sure the cancer hasn’t spread. This dye process tells them which nodes they need to be looking at) Surgery will start around noon and should last about 2 hours, followed by an hour or so in recovery, then hopefully I’ll see her again around 3ish. We’re anticipating coming home sometime on Tuesday.

And a few housekeeping bits:

• We’ve “outsourced” planning for baby-sitting and meals so that we (well, ok, Angie really) don’t have to think about it. Please contact Tina Johnson about meals and Elaina Carderelli or Jackie Prather about watching our kids.
• Obviously we’re not trying to keep this a secret, but we aren’t advertising it either. If you know of someone that you think would want to know what’s going on, feel free to let them know. Pass along this website address so they can keep up with us throughout Angie’s treatment.
• Pray! It goes without saying that this is hard on us, on our kids, our family, and on our friends. For your sake and ours… please continue to pray as we start down what is likely to be a long and dark road ahead.