Wednesday, March 31, 2010

HOME!

Well as of 4:30pm Mom was finally home. I think she is relieved to be in her own clothes, no lines, tubes, wires coming out of her. Rocky (our dog) was so excited to see her, he has not been the same since she went into the hosptial.

Another benefit will to not be woken up every two hours, she may actually get more rest here than in the Hospital.

She has loved being home and seeing the flowers that have been sent, the cards, the presents. She really feels the love of everyone. What a blessing to have all the people come around and support her.

Things Mom is looking forward to: Being able to stand up straight, staples out (the 5th). Things that are going to happen regardless if we look forward to them: Chemo. It is set to start on the 12th.

Emmie and Andy came into town yesterday, although Andy will have to leave on Monday. Emmie is here now to help Mom, and home school the boys. I will be leaving early friday morning.

Right now we are trying to put a Calendar together for who will be here when to take care of the boys, cook, take care of the house, and help mom, etc. Eventually Emmie will have to head back to Missouri to have her BABY!! (Yay Baby Eloise!) Miah and Lindsay should be coming to visit sometime in May or June, Baby Noah is due in just 3 weeks! Mom is so excited to become a Grandma!!

I will keep this blog up to date even after I go home. If you have any questions, comments, anything feel free to comment!

Thank you for your prayers! Through God anything is possible.

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Still Waiting...

Mom is still in the hospital, and we are still waiting for her to get out. Uncle Chris and Aunt Ella go home tomorrow, Emmie and Andy got into town today. So we are doing a lot of switching.

I am praying mom gets out tomorrow or Thursday (prefereably tomorrow) since I leave for Cleveland early Friday morning.

We appreciate everyones's prayers. We are going to need thme as we transfere mom back to the house, and help her keep recovering before they start Chemo.

Monday, March 29, 2010

Not Today

Well Mom will not be discharged today. She started running a fever yesterday and they started her on some antibiotics, so we will see what today brings. There is still a chance she will get out sometime tomorrow, but we will have to see how today goes.

I stayed with her in the hospital for the second time last night. I am pretty sure she only has rough nights when I stay with her. She's doing some breathing treatments and the medicine made her sick to her stomach at about 2:30 am. This morning she took a little bit too big of a bite of toast and choked herself. Trying to cough when they've just taken your insides out is not a good thing. But other than that she is dong ok.

We are going to see if they will let me push her around the hospital in a wheelchair just so she can get a different view than these 4 walls and walking around the Nurses station up here. She has to do 5 walks today as well, so we will see how that all goes.

I am sure there is more to updated, but I can't quite remember, my brain is working on 2 and a half hours of sleep.

Keep up the prayers for moms recovery!!

Saturday, March 27, 2010

Keep on Moving UP!

So today is Saturday. In some ways this week seems like a year, and in others it has flown by.
Mom is still at the hospital. It looks like she will probably get discharged on Monday. Right now we are doing a wonderful balancing act of switching spots at the hospital, with the boys, and other things that need to get done. It's like ... well orchestrated chaos. There are small things that we having been missing like... buying toilet paper. But don't worry everyone we finally got it yesterday, we are good to go! I think the boys have been having fun on their spring break. We (Carl and I) took them to NASA yesterday. They got to see mission control, where the astronauts train for their missions, how they learn to get around. Plus we went to "Missile" Park. Joseph wants you all to know that we saw "Saturn V" Which is the Rocket ship that helped out with a lot of the Apollo Missions. He thought it was HUGE! They got to eat space ice cream, and get a picture that made them look like they were floating in space.
The boys also got to go see Mom for the first time yesterday. They got to see her twice which was nice. In the morning I think they were a little more scared, but when we came back in the afternoon they were much more comfortable. Joseph thinks that her "zipper" (scar with staples) was the weirdest part. He says that the best part about seeing Mom was being able to give Mom hugs and kisses. (Joseph is sitting here as I type this spell checking for me haha).
Mom was able to sit up in a chair for a while yesterday, and took a couple of walks around her floor at the hospital. She was also finally able to pee on her own which is an answer to prayer. When we came back in the afternoon we were able to meet with her Dr. who had been out of town for a few days. She thought Mom looked great and was doing really well, which was encouraging. They haven't decided a for sure date for Chemo to start, but it looks like two weeks from Monday. It all depends on her recovery from the Surgery. So right now our focus is on getting her better. Last night when we left they were talking about letting her start to eat some solids, which would hopefully bring back a lot of her strength. Today they were probably going to take her off of her pain pump and work on controlling her pain through pills so that they can get it managed before she goes home.
So I think that is all there is to update. We really appreciate all of your prayers. We can definitely feel them.

Joseph wants you to know that he and Jacob have been good about sending Mom cards and gifts when they weren't able to visit her. They even sent her emails that Dad read to her. Yesterday they brought her gifts from the Space Center. They are sweet boys.

Joseph want to type something to everyone. (Remember he is 6 so please excuse spelling or grammatical errors... who am I kidding he spells better than me)

Mom is doing well. She will be better in 7 months. She will look a little like Dad for awhile so we will have to find her hats.

(none of that was dictated, he typed it, and thought it)

We hope everyone has a great Saturday, we will check in with you all soon.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

REAL updated

So first I apologize that I did not give the update that many were waiting for after surgery yesterday. We wanted to be able to get mom out of the recovery room and also be able to talk to her first.

When they removed the tumors yesterday there were 2 on the ovaries (one each), 3 in the abdomen, and had to scrape the diaphragmatic lining. The tumors were malignant. She has stage III ovarian cancer. I do want to warn you though to remember a few things; Everything you read on Internet is not true. Also remember that the numbers found on the Internet are for the entire age bracket, so it is not entirely accurate for my mom. That covers woman age 40-99 years old. Obviously a woman who is over 70 is going to have a harder time going through the treatments my mom will. Heck a woman over the age 60 would have a harder time than my mom. She is a fighter. The number also won't show the faith in God my mom has, or the fact that she is a fighter. She is going to beat this thing.

Further treatment will be chemo. Mom will be trying out a new form of Chemotherapy that is supposed to work really well for ovarian cancer. They have put a port directly into her abdomen. She will be on a 21 day cycle for the Chemotherapy for 6 cycles (18 weeks). Day one is the IV chemotherepy, Day 2 is IP (Chemo put directly into her abdomen) These two days she will stay over night for these two days, Day 8 is the IP, this will not be an overnight stay. The port into her abdomen is definitely newer, but an exciting development. It will maker her sicker (that's a lot of poison)... but man I have never been more thankful for poison in my life.

As we move into this next phase of our lives, of Mom's treatment we have a lot to be thankful for. We are so blessed by the power of prayer of the people we know in our lives. To say that Mom has been prayed for on every coast is an understatement. I KNOW she's been prayed for in at least 15 states, probably more. Shes been prayed for in London, and Spain. What can I say, she gets around. We are so blessed that surgery went so well yesterday. That they were able to get everything. That it was not in any other organs. We are so blessed by our Lord above. And Mom is a fighter, and she has God on her side.

Prayer requests for today would include that she will keep up her recovery. Right now we are wanting her to take deep breaths because it opens up her lungs and keeps pneumonia. Because they had to scrape her diaphragm it is much harder to breathe and hurts a lot more. We also pray that her bladder loosens up so she is able to use the restroom on her own (sorry weird, but a true fact of recovery). We pray that she will be able to get some sleep in the hospital, and more than just sleep but some actual rest. We pray that as she starts to move and walk around that she is able to walk around more that her shortness of breathe will go away.

The good news is her spirits are high, she is doing great, and I completely admire her.

Again I apologize that we waited until this evening to give you this information about the tumors, the cancer, and the treatment plan from her on out.

Thank you all for your support. Keep writing comments, my mom loves to hear them. They are great encouragement as we sit in hospital.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Surgery Updated

We haven't gotten to see her yet, but I did want everyone to know that they were able to take out both tumors, one was the size of a squash and one was the size of a baseball. All I can say is OUCH! The recovery is going to be very painful for the next few days. She will be in the hospital here at MD Anderson in Houston until Sunday or Monday depending on her recovery.

Your prayers are being felt! We know we are surrounded in God's grace and mercy. His love is so evident in our lives. Keep praying for my mom, for her recovery and as we move on to the next phase of treatment.

SURGERY DONE

Mom is offically out of surgery. They are keeping her in post-op for one hour before we are allowd to see her. More updates to come. But Praise God she is out!

Update

Mom has been in surgery since 8:09am central time. At 10:00 am they indicated that the ovaries were removed and being examined. We should hopefully get another update in an hour (noon central time) Everything seems to be going well from all we know. We can feel your prayers! Keep the prayers up!

Monday, March 22, 2010

Surgery Time

We finally have a surgery time for tomorrow. 7am Central time. Mom will have to head to the hospital around 4:30am so that they can get checked in and prepped. Hopefully the surgery will be done around noon or one. We will keep you updated as the day goes on. Please pray that God is the guide to the surgeon's hands and eyes.

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Update

There are some words that can change your entire life in a heart beat. For my mom a few of these have been, "Will you marry me", "It's a boy", "It's a girl", "It's a girl", "It's twins", and most important; "Jesus". These words have a certain, life changing aspect to them, for the better.

And then there are some words that have a life changing effect to them in a different way, for my mom this was; "You may have ovarian cancer".

It starts off simple enough, slight pain in the abdomen. The pain increases, your doctor sends you to get a CT Scan to check for some possibilities, including appendicitis. But the results come back different than you could imagine.

It's no surprise that these words sent our family into a little bit of a frenzy. There were appointments to set up, family to contact, decisions to be made. My parents decided to stick with the appointment her primary care doctor had set up, but to also call MD Anderson to see if they could get an appointment with them. What a blessing that they live in Houston where MD Anderson is, one of the best cancer hospitals in the country. I flew in to town Friday night to help with the boys, and we tried to waste time all weekend until their meeting with the doctor.
Fortunately their meeting with MD Anderson went very well, and they have decided to cancel with the other doctors and stick with MD Anderson.

The course of treatment right now is to perform surgery next Tuesday (March 23rd). The surgery will take somewhere between 4-5 hours. They will remove the tumors, ovaries and all other things they deem necessary. They will be as aggressive as possible. During the surgery the pathology lab will also be looking into the tumors to see what we are dealing with. The recovery from surgery will take a few days, and then they will make decisions on how to move forward in terms of Chemotherapy.

To answer your questions... we are dealing the all of this the only way we know how. Through full trust in God, and a lot of sarcastic humor.

We are going to use this blog to update family and friends on the situation. I (Caitie) will be updating it for my mom, so that it is not one more thing on her plate. We figure this is the best way to get mass updates and prayer requests out, especially in the chaos of surgery and recovery.

We appreciate all the prayers, and please feel to leave comments and we will work at responding to them. The more prayer the better! We thank you for your support, thoughts, and love.

Please listen to "I praise you in this storm" by Casting Crowns if you are curious where the blog title comes from. What a powerful message, and a great reminder to us of the awesome power of God, and his mercy.

Praise You in this Storm

I was sure by now,God, that You would have reached down
and wiped our tears away,
stepped in and saved the day.
But once again, I say amen
and it's still raining
as the thunder rolls
I barely hear You whisper through the rain,
"I'm with you"
and as Your mercy falls
I raise my hands and praise
the God who gives and takes away.

Chorus:
And I'll praise you in this storm
and I will lift my hands
for You are who You are
no matter where I am
and every tear I've cried
You hold in your hand
You never left my side
and though my heart is torn
I will praise You in this storm

I remember when I stumbled in the wind
You heard my cry to You
and raised me up again
my strength is almost gone how can I carry on
if I can't find You
and as the thunder rolls
I barely hear You whisper through the rain
"I'm with you"
and as Your mercy falls
I raise my hands and praise
the God who gives and takes away

Chorus

I lift my eyes onto the hills
where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth
I lift my eyes onto the hills
where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth

Chorus