The post in which I cannot think of a title...

If you’ve known me for more than 2 minutes, you know that I do not have the ability to beat around the bush.  It’s just not in me.  So here it is, I HAVE BREAST CANCER. I am 35 years old and have (with exception to bedrest and newborn days of having no sleep) been a physically active person.  I haven’t worn store brand deodorant for the past 5 years b/c it makes my pits feel weird.  I eat pretty well, but also love burgers, fries and pizza. And I’ve recently been switching over my household and beauty products to toxin-free alternatives.

All that said, cancer doesn’t care.  Every new care provider I meet says “OH, you are so young”.  Yes, I am.  But I’m also learning of more and more twenty-somethings that are also experiencing this. Again, cancer just DOES NOT CARE! 

How I found the lump:  I was not great at doing self exams monthly.  However, in early June I was carrying someone on my back in a baby carrier and the buckle was twisted and kept digging into my under arm area.  It made it quite tender and caused me to feel around and inspect the bruise.  As a result of that, I found my lump.  I waited 4-5 weeks before calling the doctor though b/c I knew that small lumps could be the result of where you are in your menstrual cycle OR too much caffeine (and I had been loading up on so much caffeine!).  So after the 4-5 week wait time, the mass didn’t go away so I called my gyn.  I went in for an exam and she sent me to the St John Breast Center for a mammogram and ultrasound.  As I was waiting, I had a really bad feeling just wash over me.  It was the same feeling that came when I had my first miscarriage.  It felt exactly the same, no denying it.  It wasn’t that I was being negative, it just felt familiar.  It was awful and stuck with me during the procedures.  It didn’t get any better when they needed to repeat a “special” mammogram on my left side. And it felt even worse when they spent extra time imaging my lymph nodes under my right armpit. So obviously, it was no surprise when the radiologist came in and said I needed to get some sites biopsied. Sparing details of how a breast biopsy works, I’ll skip to the results.  The left side was just microcalcifications but the right side and lymph node came back as cancerous, and they labeled it as “aggressive”. 

Here is what we know so far: I have a 1.6cm x 1.5cm x 1.4cm (give or take some millimeters) tumor in my right breast, there is also lymph node involvement.  By MRI, only one lymph node seems to be affected.  The tumor is NOT estrogen, progesterone or HER2 (human epidermal growth factor receptor 2) receptive, so therefore it is called TRIPLE NEGATIVE BREAST CANCER.  (here’s an info link for anyone who wants to know more https://tnbcfoundation.org/understanding-triple-negative-breast-cancer/ ).  I have also done the genetic testing and I do NOT have the BRCA genetic mutation (http://ww5.komen.org/BreastCancer/InheritedGeneticMutations.html ).  This is great news for my girls!!!!!

Here’s what is still to come:  Monday August 28^th I will have a port placed and Wednesday August 30^th I will have  PET scan to find out if the cancer has spread anywhere else besides the 2 known locations.  Sandwiched between those appointments, I will meet with my dietitian to go over my food sensitivity test, micronutrient test and MTHFR test. Chemo will start sometime the week after Labor Day, although exact day has not been decided yet.  For 8 weeks (4 sessions, every two weeks) I will receive a combination of Adriamycin and Cytoxan. After that, for 12 weeks (one treatment per week) I will receive Taxol (possibly in combination with Carboplatin, but that is still to be determined).  After all the chemo is over, I will receive a 4-6 week break and then have surgery.  Given my negative BRCA results, then I do not have to have a double mastectomy.  As treatment progresses, we will asses whether a lumpectomy can be performed or if a mastectomy is needed.  The main reason they want to do chemo first is due to the location.  The tumor is abutting my chest muscle.  If they were to do surgery right now, the surgeon would need to take some muscle tissue in order to have clear margins (http://www.breastcancer.org/symptoms/diagnosis/margins ).  The hope is that chemo will shrink the tumor enough that the surgeon can get clear margins WITHOUT having to cut into the chest muscle.  Following chemo and surgery, I will most likely have radiation.  But that is so far into the future (next spring), that I’m not really focusing on that right now.

Here’s what I need: First and foremost, I need you to NOT say anything to my children before next week.  We are traveling to Kansas this weekend and plan to tell them while we are driving (captive audience is the best audience?).  But really, they should not really ever be the ones who have to field the questions about how I am feeling. I do not want them to carry the burden of my diagnosis.  My kids have not made a negative association with the word cancer yet, and I do not plan to use the word around them a lot.  We will tell them it is indeed breast cancer, but I imagine in day to day we will probably talk more about my “sickness”.  I think they understand the word “sick” a bit better than “cancer” anyway.  Also in relation to the kids, I need you to keep up a confident face when we talk and the kids are present.  I do not want to mislead them, but I want us all to remain positive and confident! I've got so much to live for. God has guided my life from the time I was an infant, and I know that there's more that he wants me to do on this Earth. Right now I'm feeling very positive. But, I know there will be times when my attitude and outlook sink pretty low…and that’s where you step in!

I think this novel is long enough for now.  I’ll be updating via my FB (and perhaps copy to the ole blog) in the future, I think that will just be the easiest.  I wish I could have told each one of you personally, but there’s gonna come a time when we meet in the grocery store and I’m not going to have hair and you’re going to notice my really weird flat spot on the back of my head.  And then I’ll tell you the story, and then I might have to repeat it again 3 times in the same day. And while I don’t mind sharing my story, it gets exhausting.  

Our lives have been in running at 10,000rpm’s here lately. Know that if I’ve dropped the ball on anything, I’m extremely sorry.  I’m learning that for the next year of my life I will need to shift my priorities significantly.  I have to start putting myself first…and it feels so weird (anyone who has ever been a caretaker to any age of dependent knows this feeling!).  But I know it is vital for complete healing.

I’m terrible at asking for help, and if someone says “just let me know how I can help”, I will probably never ask! It’s not that I don’t want your help, it’s just that I feel like I’m putting you out. I came across this article the other day and it has a list (some applicable to me, some may not be) of some great things that I might need in the future. I know I wish I would have thought of these things when a friend of mine was going through treatments.  I’m also going to attach an article from Jet Hatmaker that I just found interesting and completely applicable. 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elana-miller-md/living-with-cancer_b_5660514.html

http://jenhatmaker.com/blog/2015/06/02/our-family-cancer-manifesto

PS: Congrats if you've made it this far :)

Evelyn {10 Months}

So the problems with backposting these updates with a 3rd child is

1) My memory doesn't go past 5 minutes ago

2) My memory is all that I've got b/c I have failed miserably at putting pen to paper and documenting Evelyn's first year.  Sorry kid.

Eat: Every day is a bit different at school, but we nurse in the morning and then she takes around 15-20 ounces at school. She essentially eats everything that we eat.  We never did baby food and went to large chunks of food around 6.5-7 months, now we are able to cut it up into bite size pieces.

Sleep: Nothing has changed here- Hmm, again- you never know with this girl.  She's almost always asleep by 630pm and wakes by 630-645. Since Evelyn's naps at school aren't so great, we try to get her to bed early, sometimes as even early as 545. Most days she has one 1-1.5 hour nap or two 30-45 minute naps. On a bad nap day, she might fall asleep on the way home from school. At home she will take ~2hr morning nap(2 hours after waking) and an ~1.5 hour afternoon nap (3 hours after waking from 1st nap)

Shoes: Size 2-3 but we never wear them

Clothes: 12 months+
Diapers: Size 4's and 5's.  I like the 5s better for night time

Trips: We did Easter up at my parents.

Likes: throat gurgling, standing at the window by the door at school so that she can see out the hallway, waving hi and bye, babababababababa all the way home, walking along the fireplace (neither of the older girls did this...ever!), eating dum-dums

Dislikes: sleeping through the night, when Emmy picks her up with a choke hold, wearing sunglasses or shoes
Milestones: lots of crawling to an object and then pulling herself up, waving, just starting to cruise along objects

Health: Another ear infection, imagine that. Saw the ENT on 4/23 and had tubes put in that next morning.  Isn't our ENT awesome?  She failed her hearing test miserably..as in, if she were an adult- she would need hearing aids.

Other: Her nose is always snotty, her ears are always full, her daytime sleep tank is always empty- but this girl is happy.  We are so blessed by this little smiley.  The big girls love her so much and even though their approach isn't always the most effective, they want to be helping/entertaining her all the time!

Evelyn {9 Months}

Eat: Every day is a bit different at school, but we nurse in the morning and then she takes around 15-20 ounces at school. We also feed her any and all table food (as long as it's not loaded with dairy).  Some of her favorites include toast, Chick Fil A waffle fries (carbs of any kind really) and really just everything!  I know she will get pickier later in life, so I am enjoying this phase.

Sleep: Nothing has changed here- Hmm, again- you never know with this girl.  She's almost always asleep by 630pm and wakes by 630-645. Since Evelyn's naps at school aren't so great, we try to get her to bed early, sometimes as even early as 545. Most days she has one 1-1.5 hour nap or two 30-45 minute naps. On a bad nap day, she might fall asleep on the way home from school. At home she will take ~1hr morning nap, ~1.5 hour afternoon nap and occasionally a 30 min catpnap in the late afternoon.

Shoes: Size 2-3 but we never wear them

Clothes: 9-12 months
Diapers: Size 4 (we sometimes use Nora's size 5 and those work fine too)

Trips: No trips this month!!!

Likes: playing with toes, pulling up on everything, fake coughing, sitting at the table at school in a real, big girl chair, and holding her bottle while on the bottle,

Dislikes: THESE ARE ALL REPEATS FROM LAST MONTH! long sleeps at school, sleeping through the night for more than 2 nights in a row, getting in her carseat (but then she's fine as soon as you hand her a toy), Nora yelling in her face and Emmy constantly right on top of her
Milestones: going from crawling to sitting to standing back down to sitting and crawling again, just this past week she slept through the night for a whole week!!! (but that ended abruptly from an ear infection- diagnosed at her 9 month appointment)

Health: Another ear infection, imagine that. Setting up an appointment with the ENT

Other: Evelyn survived her first tornado!  It hit Sand Springs and traveled north of downtown. We were at dance and she snoozed right through it in the Tula.  Evelyn continues to be our happy, smiley little baby.  I just wish she slept better :(

Evelyn {8 Months}

Time to play a little catch up!  This is so cliche, but seriously- time has flown by.  Evelyn is 9.5 months old and I swear it feels like she was just a little slug baby that we were dragging around to swim lessons in the heat of the summer.  What happened?  

Eat: Every day is a bit different at school, but we nurse in the morning and then she takes around 15-20 ounces at school. We also feed her any and all table food (as long as it's not loaded with dairy).  Some of her favorites include cheerios, puffs, roasted broccoli, strawberries...actually, anything, the girl loves to eat.  She's not really holding her own bottle yet, though.
Sleep: Hmm, again- you never know with this girl.  She's almost always asleep by 630pm and wakes by 630-645. Since Evelyn's naps at school aren't so great, we try to get her to bed early, sometimes as even early as 545. 

Naps: Most days she has one 1-1.5 hour nap or two 30-45 minute naps. On a bad nap day, she might fall asleep on the way home from school. At home she will take ~1hr morning nap, ~1.5 hour afternoon nap and occasionally a 30 min catpnap in the late afternoon.

Shoes: Size 2

Clothes: Pretty much 9 Months or larger
Diapers: Size 4 (we sometimes use Nora's size 5 and those work fine too)

Trips: True to what I said on last month's updated, we have decided to take 2 cars when traveling to my parents.  This month, we had Hays and Hollis' birthday party.  I went up with Emmy and Evelyn on Friday night and Chris and Nora met us at the party Saturday morning.  The trip was MUCH better.

Likes: Going from all fours to sitting, putting anything and everything in her mouth, nursing to sleep, laying on her belly and flapping arms and legs at the same time like she's flying, 
Dislikes: THESE ARE ALL REPEATS FROM LAST MONTH! long sleeps at school, sleeping through the night for more than 2 nights in a row, getting in her carseat (but then she's fine as soon as you hand her a toy), Nora yelling in her face
Milestones: Took a world record nap of 3 hr and 45 minutes on 2/15/15! Lower right central incisor came in on 2/15.  On 2/22 she was able to go from her belly to sitting and on 2/28 she started CRAWLING!  She is by far my earliest crawler.  She's making "baaa", "muh" and "yeah" sounds.  She loves playing with her toes and does a really good down dog.

Health: Another ear infection, imagine that.

Other: We had family pictures taken this month and also had Evelyn's dedication at church.  It was a family thing so our whole clan was up at the front.  Emmy and Nora did well.  Emmy stayed right by us and Nora climbed up the steps and just watched herself on the side screens.  We had a nice Valentine's day.  We also had enough snow to actually play and sled in it!

Evelyn {7 months}

Eat: Every day is a bit different at school, but we nurse in the morning and then she takes around 15-20 ounces at school.  We she has also tasted some apples, broccoli, saltine crackers and a few baby food squeezies (we are mainly doing baby led weaning)
Sleep: Hmm, again- you never know with this girl.  She's almost always asleep by 630pm and wakes by 630-645. Since Evelyn's naps at school aren't so great, we try to get her to bed early, sometimes as even early as 545.

Naps: Most days she has about two or three 30-45 minute naps. At home she will take ~1hr morning nap, ~1.5 hour afternoon nap and a 30 min catpnap around 4.

Shoes: Haven't even tried.

Clothes: Pretty much 9 Months or larger
Diapers: Size 4

Trips: We went up to TFL to see my family in early January.  We went in the truck and it was AWFUL.  Nora would scream just to keep everyone awake, Evelyn had a terrible meltdown b/c she just wanted to sleep.  We vowed that until Nora gets better in the car, we are taking 2 cars.
Likes: baths, trying to get up on all fours, rolling over whenever she's supposed to be on her back, her teachers at b'nai, looking at her sisters, licking boogers, still LVOES the doorway jumper
Dislikes: long sleeps at school, sleeping through the night for more than 2 nights in a row, getting in her carseat (but then she's fine as soon as you hand her a toy), Nora yelling in her face
Milestones: Can sit alone, cut lower left central incisor on her 7 month birthday (the other one is really close), can get up on all fours, is starting to push herself backwards on tummy time.

Health: Reflux is being managed well and we are still going to OMT appointments.  Ear infection recently that we decided to treat since she had been coughing/wheezing/stuffy nose for over 2 weeks.

Other: The months are going by too fast, the sisters are still getting used to us being a family of 5 and they are still adjusting to sharing a room (more on that later).  Nora cries most days at drop off and Emmy is backtalking quite a bit.  Chris still enjoys work and I just survived layoffs at work (lost 20% of our workforce).  Life is busy but we are so blessed.