Bye Bye Boobies

Today Mom will be having her double mastectomy. Currently we are at the MD Anderson Cancer center waiting for her surgery. Although we are glad she doesn't have to wait allll day for surgery to start (thus being starving all day)... waking up at 3:45am to get ready to be here by 5:15am is tiring! But we are so glad to be here, to be taking this step, to be moving forward.

Mom is all checked in. Her and Dad are currently in the back getting ready for surgery, with iv's, cute hospital gowns and all the trimmings. I am staked out in the waiting room holding our "good seats". Although it's sad to some, we've figured out the system. We know how to get the good seats in the waiting room, the best place to sit, and we know not to leave our good seats once we get them! So we will play the switching game all day. One will stay with the stuff, one will do what needs to be done. All until Mom is out of surgery.

So your prayers are needed as she goes into surgery around 7am central time. We pray for the doctors, nurses, techs, and everyone else she will encounter today will be on top of their game. Praying for her comfort. Praying for her anxiety. Praying for recovery.

Praying for Dad, and his anxiety. He has seen my Mom go through a lot in the last year, A LOT. But it's still hard to watch your soul mate, the person who makes you who you are go under surgery again. And yeah... he is probably sad about the boobies too. :) But don't worry there will be replacements.

So farewell to the Ta-Tas. Thanks for visiting, for being Moms companions for the last 40 some years. For feeding her 5 kids. For being there through thick and thin. But now you are too much of a risk and libaility. We will take the fake ones over the ones that could cause cancer again. Ta-Ta to the Ta-Tas. Bye Bye to the Boobies. Farewell Ladies. Coming soon to a Kim near you.... the new girls in town.

Excellent News

On Friday Mom went in to have a CT Scan and blood work so they can assess where she is at. And She had to wait all weekend for the results...

But the tests came back this morning and they are CLEAR! There is no noticeable signs of cancer. She doesn't have to go back for more tests for 3 months!

Thank you all for your prayers! I cannot believe we are at this day. 6 months ago I couldn't even imagine this day. As a matter of fact, almost 6 months ago to the day we found out about the cancer.

So thank you again for all of your prayers. GOOD BYE CANCER!! Please continue to pray for Mom as she regains her energy (and her hair! :) ).

3 months until another test. Thank you Lord!

ONE MORE TO GO!!

Well... we are past Monday. Mom finished this round of chemo and is feeling well. ONLY ONE MORE TREATMENT TO GO. I am so so proud of her.

Her numbers are still looking awesome. After we are done with Chemo it is these numbers that they will look at to evaluate how she is doing, if they change at all, then they will do a cat scan.

I am so excited for her to be done with this treatment. To celebrate her being a survivor. My Mom is so brave, a fighter, a survivor, a warrior. One more to go, one more.

My oh my how our lives have changed in the past five months. But mostly, it's just brought us closer together.

Mark your calendars... August 30th is celebration day. The last day of chemo!!

2/3rds the way done!!!!

Well it's Wednesday, two days after Chemo. Completing this weeks chemo meant that mom is now 2/3 of the way done, and actually only has 2 chemo treatments left. (Her last one will be on August 30th.)

Her numbers looked great this week. They also prescribed some more medications so that hopefully her side effects this week won't be as bad as last time. So we pray that it helps her a lot.

This last weekend she also shaved her head as her hair falling out got to be too much, too many bald spots, so she just shaved it. She looks, beautiful. My Dad shaved his head to show his support for her during this time (but who are we kidding, he was already pretty much bald. ;) love you daddy) I am hoping to get a good picture of them together.

My Mom is truly incredible. Watching her go through this entire journey has been a great witness to me and many others. When she is finished with this journey we can call her many things, survivor, fighter, amazing, powerful, brave, etc. But I think the best word to describe her is Warrior.

war·ri·or (wôr-r, wr-)
n.
1. One who is engaged in or experienced in battle.
2. One who is engaged aggressively or energetically in an activity, cause, or conflict

My Mom is a warrior in every sense of the word. She is engaged in a battle, and even when the battle appears to be over, she will still be fighting every day. She aggressively and energetically threw herself into this fight and is giving it all. She is a warrior for herself, for her family, for her friends.

What Cancer cannot do:
"Cancer is so Limited….
It cannot cripple love, nor shatter hope…
It cannot silence courage nor can it invade the soul…
It cannot corrode faith, nor destroy peace…
It cannot destroy confidence, kill friendship or shut out memories…
It cannot steal eternal life, and it cannot conquer the spirit." (unknown

What week are we at?!

So I have to fully and profusely apologize for not updating this as often as I should. I could say life gets busy but that seems like a lame excuse.

Mom is doing well. She is a rock-star throughout this whole ordeal. She had surgery over a week ago to do some minor fixes, and is feel well after. Sadly because of this surgery she is no longer eligible for the study treatment. I guess having surgery alters their findings. I like to say she got kicked out of the study, much more hard core. Shes too cool for that now.

So with being removed from the study they have had to reevaluate where we go from here. Right now she was doing Chemo every week, but they still counted as rounds every three weeks. In total she must have 18 weeks of Chemo regardless of how many times a week she gets it. SO.. if that isn't confusing and I haven't lost you, I think we have decided to doing Chemo once every three weeks. So basically the first week of every round she will get chemo. The bad news? This will probably make that first week suck. It's a lot more chemo in one setting. Vs. when she was getting it every week and it was broken up a little more. The good news? She should have two good weeks in between the bad. vs. feeling sick every week. The amount of steroids and other medications that you have to take with Chemo really take a toll on your body, so it will be nice to not have to take as many of those. Because of the small surgery she wasn't able to have chemo for two weeks, so that puts us behind by two weeks. Her last round of Chemo should be near Aug. 30th. (that is the first week of the last round).

Anyway I know that was confusing, but the best way I could explain everything going on.

All I know is my Mom is one amazing woman!! She has really be an incredible witness to those of us watching her go through this. Heck she was getting Chemo every week and still home schooling my brothers. Today is my little brothers last day of Home school for the year. They will go on Summer Break until August. (I hear they have a lot of field trips to Disney next year to make up for their absence this year.... haha)
I know we are all looking forward to the end of Aug... to the end of Chemo, so the return to some sort of normalcy. But really... will there ever be normalcy again? Probably not, but since when have the France's done anything "normal"?

I continue to thank you all for your prayers, your comfort, bringing meals, playing with my brothers, whatever it may be. There is no way we could go down this Journey alone and I thank you for all of your support.

God is amazing, and has really guided our Family in this situation. We continue to grow in him, and show faith in his plan.

For those of you wonder on other family matters.

The boys are good, they will be 7 in a month!! I am not sure how that is possible.

Miah, Lindsay and Noah are well as well. Noah is now 2 and a half months old (if I am counting correctly.)

Emmie, Andy and baby to be are also doing awesome. Only 2 weeks until Emmies due date! Yay for Eloise, come out baby!

Caitie and Carl... engagement is going!! We've both been busy traveling and other stuff so it has been nice to spend some time together this week!!


Thanks again for all of your prayers. I promise to stop sucking at updating this. Please leave comments so Mom can read them!! :)

Round 2... Week 1.. .DONE!

Mom has successfully finished round 2... week 1! Every three weeks she completes a round, so if you are counting weeks and not rounds it would be completion of week 4. Only 14 weeks to go! (or 4 rounds and 2 weeks... confused yet?)

The great thing about completing this week is that they have successfully put all the drugs they will be using on board. We had to wait until the start of Round 2 for them to add the final drug. Very excited to see how this all turns out, how she handles all the medicines being on board.

In other news, her blood levels were good this week, and she is still feeling pretty well. Thursdays are pretty much her rough days, but considering all she is going through, that is amazing!!

We are continually blessed by everyone's prayers, those bringing meals, and in general just helping my family out in any way possible. Words cannot describe how thankful we are. It's hard for me to be up here, and not be helping, but I am at peace by the amount of people who are willing to be there and help my family out. So thank you.

And since I was a slacker on updating this blog in the past two weeks... I will attach some photos of my trip to Houston to see Mom.

(Oh and for those of you wondering... she still has her hair!)

Still Going Strong...

Well Mom has completed round 2 of chemo and is doing well!!

She seems to be handling all the medications well, the biggest trouble being sleep. But even that seems to get much better after the first night.

We are so blessed to see her doing so well. Other than a lot of weight loss, she really seems like her old self again!

I am excited that I will be heading to Houston tomorrow night. Excited to hang out with Mom, Dad, the boys, Emmie, Andy, Grandma, Uncle Chris, Miah, Lindsay and Baby NOAH!

Hopefully having all of her kids under one roof will be great encouragement to her as she moves into round 3 of chemo.

2 down, 16 to go!

Thanks for your prayers.