Dec 18-23 A couple of weeks off for good behavior, visit from W&D

Because each time I have gone in to get my blood checked, the results have good, I got to skip the blood draw on Dec 18.  So no health update for these weeks.

My parents came up to SLC for a dr's appointment for my dad at the Huntsman cancer center.  Dad has been diagnosed with prostate cancer.  We have been comparing notes on dr's appointments, scans and blood draws!  This is the first time I've seen them since before my surgery.

  I think it's a little surprising to friends and family when they see my bald head for the first time.

I wear a head covering when I'm cold, or sometimes if I go out in public, but I'm trying to be ok with how I look, and where I'm at in this journey.

Our friends son got killed on this road, and we got to go the the installation of the new street sign.

Christmas looked a little different this year.  Not all the decorations were put out.  Lucy still wanted to decorate the playroom Christmas tree. 

We found a house that went all out on their decorations!  This is on a street in South Jordan.  So fun this time of year drive around and see all the decorations!

We asked our basement renters to move out so during the cancer treatments we have room of our family to stay in our home.  It also meant better access to our hot tub, which gets used everyday now that we can just walk out the basement door to use it.

Braden got me this advent calendar that is full of fishing lures!  Everyday of December I get a new lure!  Lucy likes them just as much as I do!  Such a great gift!

 

Dec 4, off week, hair fell out, Dec 11 Chemo

So much for losing the hair gradually!

I had run my fingers through my hair before my shower so my hair wouldn't clog the drain.

I think the hot water opened my pours or something because all of a sudden the hair just came out!  There was hair everywhere!  The idea of being bald wasn't as traumatic as how fast the hair came out in the shower.

Dean trimmed it up, because there were bald spots and spots with hair, so buzzing it evened it out a little bit.

Cute headwrap from Caitlyn and James.

Jeff and Julie came up the weekend of Dec 6&7,to watch Jordan play in a volleyball tournament.  They stayed at our house, it was so fun to visit with them!

We had Jeff take pictures for our Christmas card.  It was a weird decision as to which picture to use for our tradition Christmas card.  We have had so many fun experiences this year, that had much better pictures, but we decided it would be appropriate to share what our life really looks like right now.

As I lost more hair, I had more bald spots, so we decided to buzz it a little closer to my head.

On Sunday, we took a quick trip down to check on the cabin.  I decided I needed to get some sun on my head!

Amanda come into to town on Tuesday, Dec 10, to help with Chemo round #2, which will be on Dec 11.   So great to have her here!

Our friends the Mitchell's got me a super soft Minky blanket to bring with the to the chemo treatment.

Chemo day!  

Amanda was great taking care of changing the ice packs on my hands and feet, and making me feel safe as I went through trying to get some relief of some of the symptoms.

The youth from our neighborhood came by caroling to us.  We feel so loved!

November 27 lab day

I'm going to try to give a weekly update during this journey.

This is my first week of labs.

We get to see how my body recovers from the chemo. 

 This week my counts were within the safe zone.

Grandkids came over and worked on puzzles with us. 

This was a good day.

We had a great Thanksgiving.

The week was filled with weird side effects.

Bloating, like I have never seen.

Chemo rash.  Who knew?  Legs, Arms face and chest.

My hair has started to fall out.  This started on Monday,  Dec 2nd. Day 12 after chemo.

It's gradual, each day I lose about the same amount of hair.

Chemo rash

My hair started falling out on Dec 2.  Every couple of hours I would run my fingers through my hair to get out the lose hairs so the wouldn't get on my shirt and my couch.

This happened for a couple of days, and my hair was getting kind of thin, but still had a normal looking hair cut.

Santa greets visitors reminding them to mask up and hand sanitize.

First chemo treatment is done! 11/20/2024

Here we go, first chemotherapy treatment.  8:00 a.m. 

My good friend Melissa is my nurse!  So nice to see a familiar face in a scary world.

Here we are trying out my new port.  Works great so far!

This is also a picture of me and Melisssa!

This is my view from the room I get my treatments.  I get to overlook the Salt Lake Valley.

Dean is here to help with everything, which turned out to be much more than I expected.

I decided to try using ice gloves and slippers, to try to reduce the chance of getting neuropathy.  That means for 4 hours I can't use my hands, or feet.  When I needed to get up to use the restroom, Dean had to take the ice out of the bottom of my ice slippers, and put on my real slippers, and then put it all back together again when I was done.

Also, he kept my ice cup full and fed me crackers throughout the treatment.

Guys, hospital ice, almost makes it worth it....NOT!

We finished up around 2:30 and picked up Cafe Rio on our way home.

I was feeling pretty good with all the drugs they gave me, so Dean and I went for my regular walk.

We found this quilted heart, which was kind of sweet to find on my first scary day of Chemo.

Things were going great, until they weren't.  Almost home and the nausea hit, and stomach issues.  Luckily, the doctor knew we would have these kind of issues and had prepared us to have the meds we needed to treat the symptoms on hand.  We will get better at managing and predicting this, I'm sure.

Rough week, next round we will know what to expect.

 

Why I wear peach

 Each cancer has a color associated with it.  Uterine cancer's color is peach.  I now wear peach.

Ok, so let's start with a little background.

  I went to Juneau on June 7th and stayed thru June 26th.  I flew from Juneau to Michigan, where I met up with Dean, he flew in the same day from SLC.  Dean, Amanda and her kids, and I all flew to SLC on July 16, and when I got to SLC, I had my first sign that something may be going on, just a little bleeding, nothing too bad, and no pain or any other symptoms. 

 All our Dean and Erika family were gathering in SLC!  Cascades arrived on July 22, Mike on July 25. We had tons of things planned, reunions, birthdays, cousins meeting Mina for the first time, boating, cabining, so much fun!  We had about 48 hours with everyone in Utah!  Amanda left on July 27, the Cascades left on July 28, and Mike and kids left on Aug 5.  After everyone left, I had 2 weeks in Utah until we flew to Alaska where we had friends and family coming up to enjoy Juneau with us.  During those two weeks, I summited Timp, hiked donut falls, had a birthday, did all the things.... except make a doctors' appointment. 

We visited Mary in the care center on Sunday Aug 18, and then we flew to Juneau the morning of Aug 19.  We had a great time in Alaska with our friends the Mitchells, Aug 19-2.  Aug 23, Dean's mom Mary passed away.  Dean flew home on Aug 29, and I spent the next 5 days (Aug 28-Sept 30) with Deena and Teri up in Juneau.  The day they flew home Dean's niece and her husband, Heidi and Brian, were in Juneau, so we played with them for the day.  As you can see, I was still too busy to make a doctor's appointment.

 Caitlyn decided to fly to SLC on the same flight I was on, on Sept 5, so she could attend Mary's funeral.  I had a women's retreat I had signed up for in Heber, so from the airport I went to my retreat, and came home the next day in time for Mary's viewing.  The next morning was the funeral, and after all the family gatherings, I headed back up to my retreat.  I came home Sunday, September 8, in time to see Cailyn before she left, Amanda had already left to go home. 

 Now it was time to address my health issues.  It had been almost 2 months since the bleeding started.  I had done enough reading to know this may not be good.  Monday, Sept 9th we started making calls to OB/Gyn offices.  We were able to get an appointment for March 2025.  We just kept calling all the doctors on our insurance, and if we could get in sooner than an appointment we had already made, we would take it and cancel the other appointments.  Super disappointed, I had to take a breather from calling.  The next day we started calling again.  Dean was on the phone to a doctor's office, and they had a cancellation for the next day!  I was supposed to be on my way to Bear Lake for my annual bike ride, but I stayed and we to the doctor's appointment on Sept 11.  She told us what she thought could be the problem and would need to do an ultrasound to see if what she thought it might be was correct.  No hurry, I could just do it when I got back from my trip to Bear Lake.  Monday, Sept 16, had an ultrasound, where they found tumors in my uterus the size of tennis balls, and the uterine wall was 5 times as thick as it should be, which meant they needed to do a vaginal ultrasound.  Within about a half hour of leaving the ultrasound, the Dr, called and told us the bad news, things didn't look good, so we would need to do a biopsy.  Dean and I had a trip planned to Michigan September 21-26, so we scheduled that biopsy for Sept 30, we were told no hurry, uterine cancer is a slow growing cancer, and so we would just put it off for a couple of weeks.  Biopsy was done on Monday, and Dr. Bowman was going to be going out of town, so she would call us with the results on the following Monday when she got back in town.  Well, on Friday, Oct 4 I missed a call from Dr. Bowman while I was on another call, so I assumed it wasn't good news.  Dean was down at the cabin, and I was driving, so I waited till I got home and called Dr. Bowman back.  She apologized and told me that she had not prepared us for a third option, and that was a very aggressive uterine cancer.  Less than 10% of uterine cancers are Serous, and mine happened to be one of those cases.  This was Friday afternoon, October 4.  Braden came over and took me out to lunch at DP cheesesteak.  We got our phones out and googled all we could about Uterine Serous Adenocarcinoma.  Dean decided he needed to come home to be with me.  (good choice Dean!)  We were stunned, overwhelmed, calm, all the feels.  Dr Bowman had contacted two oncologists, and she told us get into which ever could see us first.  Monday morning, October 7, we were able to make an appointment with Dr. Hunn, a gynecologic oncologist, for that afternoon!  She scheduled me for surgery on Nov 12, which was the first available date we could get on her surgery schedule.  She told us she would work on getting that surgery moved up.  I also would need some scans and blood draws.  Monday was appt with Dr Hunn, Tuesday was mammogram, Wednesday was CT scans of my lungs and abdomen, Thursday I was leaving to go to St George to play volleyball in the Sr games.  Thursday, Oct 10, Dr Hunn's office called and said surgery was moved up to Tuesday, Oct 15.  I went to St George, played games on Friday, Saturday, spent the day with Caitlyn and Mina on Sunday, played the morning games on Monday, and then drove home Monday evening so we could have surgery on Tuesday morning. (I was supposed to play volleyball for the rest of that week)

This is the fun team I left for them to finish the tournament, and me to head home for surgery.

This is what we came home to.  Braden and Hanna and made this cute (?) banner for all the neighbors to see!  It actually was super sweet, seeing all the cute notes from our friends.

There were peach ribbons all down the street, on our house, and back deck.  I sure felt loved and cared for.

October 15, I had a robotic hysterectomy, where Dr Hunn removed ovaries, fallopian tubes, uterus, and cervix, and some lymph nodes.  She also did an abdominal wash to check for any cancer cells in my abdomen.   I went home the same day as surgery.  We had an appointment for 3 weeks after surgery where we would find out results.  Amanda came out on Wednesday, Oct 16, and stayed for a week to help out.

Recovery went great, except for the waiting to hear from Dr. Hunn as to if my cancer had spread, and what our follow-up treatments might be.

November 4, Dr. Hunn gave us the news that there had been no signs of cancer in the lymph nodes, nor the abdomen.  There was a tumor on one of the ovaries, but it was removed during the surgery, so no worries there.  It appears as though all the cancer has been removed.

Dr Hunn suggest that we do chemotherapy, she didn't think that radiation would be a good choice for my body type.  Dr. Hunn referred us to a chemo doctor.  We got an appointment with that doctor for Nov 7.  Dean needed to be in Michigan, so Braden went to that doctor's appointment with me.  (Side note, that doctor didn't have great reviews, so Dean started finding doctors on his own, and found one with good reviews, and had my referral sent there also,) The first doctor we met with was super nice, and very comfortable to be around, but he told us no chemo, that we needed to do radiation only.  Exact opposite of what Dr. Hunn had said.   Several hours after my appointment, the first chemo doctor called me and told me he hadn't noticed what kind of cancer I had and was giving me recommendations for the normal kind of uterine cancer, not my kind.  He thought that I would need a combination of chemo and radiation.  My confidence in that doctor went out the window!  Didn't notice what kind of cancer I had?!   Dean had called and set up an appointment with the doctor with good reviews, so Braden and I are meeting with a second chemo doctor, Dr. Borrero, on November 12.  I'm hoping to have a good feeling, about her, and her suggestions as to what treatment we should have.

The meeting with Dr Borrero went great, and my friend Melissa is the nurse at the clinic! Dr Borrero suggested we do chemo and radiation....and start right away!  I thought we would wait until after Thanksgiving to start treatments, but that was not the case.  Things got moved along quickly!

We had a chemo class on November 13.  Braden and Hanna attended it with me, and Amanda, Caitlyn and Dean were all listening in on phone calls.

November 14, the port was placed.  We had to rush to get that in place so it could heal before we started our first chemo treatment.  American Fork Hospital could fit me in to get the port placed, so we drove down there.

November 19 we met with radiation doctor, Dr Grant.  He was great, and recommended radiation 3 to 4 weeks after we finish our last round of chemo, which so be on March 5.  So, radiation maybe first of April, once a week for 3 weeks.

November 20, we start chemo.

Wow, that was a lot.