Updates, Game Plans, and Coffee Enemas

Greetings Friends,

It's time for your favorite cancer update.....

I met with my oncologist team earlier this week and we had some great chats. We looked at my labs and talked about how low they still are. My white blood cell count is in the 2.5 range which is yucky and explains why I am so tired, but it is high enough to keep doing chemo. In August it dropped under 1 and that is when we pulled the plug on the last 2 treatments. This is good news. My doctor is impressed that my body has handled these treatments so well and I FEEL LIKE CRAP! It was good hearing that he is happy with everything, because I have been struggling lately. Struggling with how bad I feel ALL THE TIME. Honestly, I have wanted to quit. On a side note, I need to give a shout out to God for protecting our family's health over this year. I have a weak immune system and with 3 little kids should have gotten sick many MANY times, but we have had ZERO sickness. It has been incredible.

"Your liver looks like a 80 year old alcoholic". My doctor thought that that was funny, I was quite horrified. But he reassured me that my liver will bounce back. And that my liver is not cancer-sick it is chemo-sick. Does that sound better? Cause it is. It means my liver is struggling because of the treatments, pain pills, and other drugs. NOT because cancer is spreading. GOOD NEWS! It also means that I get to start a new "fun" regime. *Disclaimer: If you have a weak stomach go ahead and skip to the next paragraph. Two words my friends: Coffee enema. It is exactly what you think it is, and it is going to save my liver. Who knew??!!!

The end is near. After looking at labs and chatting about coffee up my bum, we decided that my body is starting to just "BE DONE". So we are going to finish with chemo AUGUST 1st!!!! Which is beyond awesome! Stage 3 Melanoma is a mean cancer and has a high chance of spreading again (60-70% reoccurrence rate) which is why we have been doing this treatment for a YEAR! We are praying that every cancer cell in my body is destroyed and DOES NOT GROW AGAIN!

On October 3rd we are do a big MRI, the kind where you lay in a plastic tube for a couple hours. On October 8th we'll go over the results. Hopefully that day we will hear the phrase NED, which means NO EVIDENCE of DISEASE. Which means I still have cancer, but it is NOT alive in my body. We talked about this for awhile. Apparently cancer survivors really struggle with the "after" treatment. I have been in "fight-mode" for over a year and then on October 8th, I just what? stop? Nope, cause I am still fighting, but it will be more of a mental battle not the physical one. Every headache, sneeze, restless night of sleep will be a struggle. "Is the cancer back?" "Has it spread again?" That will be a struggle and I am sure I will write about it more later.

So only 9 more weeks to go.....

I want to give a shout out to everyone who has prayed with us over this last year. I have felt every prayer and needed EVERY single one of them. We couldn't have done this journey without of prayer community. You guys rock!