Had xrays and the CEA markers drawn today (CA 27.29 won’t be back until Tuesday) BUT….my xrays showed no growth (more arthritis though) and my CEA went DOWN and it’s in the NORMAL range!!! :) WOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! 
Celebrating tonight and starting round 12 (or is it 13) of chemo tomorrow. Man…this Xeloda is AWESOME stuff!!!
And back to a schedule. WOW! Where did MY summer go?
Matthew started first grade on Wednesday and I was so proud of him. I did GREAT when I was at the school – very positive, happy and told him he’d have a fabulous day (the last one is a little thing between the two of us. I always say it in a funny voice). So I take Mari & Nicholas with me and we all have our pic taken:
Then I leave. Fine on the way out. Say Hi to Father Hurley and then I pull out onto Ashworth Rd. and it hits me, tears start! LOL Wednesday was a very long day for me – I felt like something was missing in our house but then Matthew came home – so excited that he talked non stop for 30 minutes so ya know what? Its all good!!!
A week ago, kids came around asking for cans for Toys for Tots and Matthew (my child who always seems to be thinking) said can I do that for the Crop for the Cure so…..here is his flyer:
My little boy is growing up and as always, is making me so proud. I love that he knows he can make a difference and seeing him collecting cans yesterday, taking to tops off and stacking them up just filled my heart. He is so excited, it’s adorable.
Well…I’m half asleep, it’s only 6:30 am but I have to be at the doctor’s by 8:30 so I better get going. I promise to get better at this blog after the crop.
Slacker…Yup…that’s me!!
Oh it’s been over a week since I’ve written and it’s been a bit crazy. On August 11, my huband turned 40!! Happy Belated bday honey!! We took him to the Iowa Fair to celebrate his big day (I had a party planned for the 13th but cancelled in after he said to me –in early July- you better NOT being having a party for me)
I LOVE the Iowa State Fair. Not like a little but I REALLY love the fair. I swear it’s how Mike got me to move to Iowa. Now my relationship with the Iowa State Fair started the year we were married as we spent our honeymoon there. Even when we were living the DC area, we came back every August (except the year Matthew was born) to spend time at the fair.
There is something about the fair that just is great for the soul. Hard to explain but people are really nice and some very friendly (it’s that Midwest thing) and the sights and sounds are awesome. It’s so hard to explain to someone who has never been before but it’s like a giant party! Food everywhere and good food (my favs are turkey leg on a stick, Greek salad, corn on the cob, pork chop on a stick and this year, I found ice cream at the dairy barn…mmmmm….yummy!!! )
Here’s a picture of Mike with Maya (Maya is the daughter of our friends Jessica and Rafael who came in for Mike’ birthday this year from DC!!!):
My friend Kim also stopped by on Sunday. She was driving back from MN to CO. I haven’t seen her in about 6 years and it was WONDERFUL to see her. She is one of those friends that no matter how long it’s been since you’ve seen each other, you just pick up where you left off and it feels like it was just yesterday since you’ve seen her last.
Here we are together – not the best pic of me but…..
Also, my sister in law and her family were in town for this past week and are right now, on a flight back to DC. We are missing them already.
Well…I’m working today on the crop (no surprise there) but have promised Matthew that he can pick what we do tomorrow (he’s starting FIRST grade on Wednesday and every time I think about my baby starting FIRST grade, I get teary eyed!!) so…I gave him the choices – zoo, movie or science center and he picked science center so that’s where we’ll be tomorrow!!
Oh and I did finish the Rabrai book. Here’s a picture of the cover:
The cool thing about this book (other than the great 7 gypsies chipboard book – man I love those) is that I used up TONS of older paper – mixed Basic Grey, Junkitz, Daisy D’s and some unknowns. Love, love, love when I can use up my stash!!!
And the first two pages (kind of hard to see):
The journaling reads:
We found out in May that Ragbrai was going by Granny & Grandpa’s house this year and the planning began that day!! We were going to stay over the night before. Daddy came up with the idea to handout free watermelon to the riders and Granny came up with the idea to put a jar out for donations to benefit Komen.
It was a WONDERFUL day and one that we will never forget. We met awesome people – Katrina and Dave who were riding through from Virginia and planning on getting married in 3 weeks, the guy who knew Worcester, MA because his friends went to Clark (my alma mater), the woman from Massachusetts who is know in graduate school in Michigan and amazingly enough, she is in pharmaceutical chemistry and is working on a drug for cancer that will destroy just the cancer cells – I was so thankful to her for choosing that profession. Our first guests of the day were the family from NJ that has been riding as a family for 10 years. And so many others…..
Lance Armstrong decided to surprise everyone by doing this part of the race. He rode by our house (with lots of cars) but didn’t stop. It was hard to see which one was him in all those yellow shirts! How amazing it was that one of my heroes drove by.
We met the nicest people and had such a good time and at the same time, raised almost $50 for Komen. One of the best memories that I have of the day is when one of you children would yell out “Another dollar for THE CURE Mommy”!
This book can’t even sum up all the great people we met that day and the feeling that was in the air. It was an amazing day.
I know this isn’t all that interesting today but at least I updated, right??? I’ll try to get more pics up this week and will try to update everyone more on the Crop event later this week (and of course, I’ll tell you how his first day of school goes…sniff….sniff…..)
Happy Monday everyone!!!!
9 years ago today, Mike and I were married. It was one of the best things I ever did. He’s amazing - through all that I’ve been through, he’s been there every step of the way. I asked him about it one day, and he said “it’s my job - I promised in my vows, in sickness and in health” Anyways, he’s great. Don’t worry - he’s still a typical guy - like when there are sports on the TV, I swear all he hears from me is blah, blah, blah!!
Here’s a picture of us at our wedding.
This was the very end during our last dance which was to Come Rain or Come Shine by Ray Charles.
During our wedding ceremony, Father Bafaro at Our Lady of Mount Carmel, did the coolest things. He asked me to put my hands in Mike’s and then said:
These hands you hold on your wedding day are the hands of your best friend, tender and sincere and vibrant with love.
These are the hands that will work along side yours, as together you build your future, as together you laugh and cry, and together you share your innermost secrets and dreams.
These are the hands you will place with expectant joy against you, until he too, feels his child stir within you.
These are the hands that will countless times wipe the tears from your eyes: tears of sorrow and tears of laughter and joy.
These are the hands that will comfort you in illness, and hold you when you are grieving.
These are that hands that will passionately love you and cherish you through the years, for a lifetime of happiness, as he promises his love and commitment to you, all the days of his life.
Then he asked Mike to put his hands in mine and said:
These hands you hold on your wedding day are the hands of your best friend, gentle and passionate, and vibrant with love.
These are the hands that will give you support as you both chase down your dreams. Together as a team, everything you wish for can be realized.
These are the hands that will hold you in joy and excitement and hope, each time she tells you that you have together created a new life.
These are the hands that will hold you tight as you struggle through difficult times and through joyous times.
These are the hands that will comfort you when you are sick, or console you when you are grieving.
They are the hands that will passionately love you and cherish you through the years, for a lifetime of happiness, as she promises her love and commitment to you all the days of her life.
Happy Anniversary Honey (not sure if you’ll even read this) but I love you with all my heart. In 9 years, we’ve had:
9 years of love
8 visits to the IA state Fair (yup..it’s where we spent our HONEYMOON!!! )
7 years of raising children
6 trips to the ER
5 new jobs
4 houses and 4 new schools
3 beatiful, wonderful children
2 new cars
1 dog
WOW! What a great time it’s been with you Mike. I’m looking forward to many many more!! How are we celebrating? Well…Mike is taking the kids to the IA State Fair parade and I’m staying home to get things done!!! We’ll celebrate later.
Ok…I’m back. A little problem with cable modem yesterday and hoping we finally figured it out last night. Plus the chemo is getting to me this week. I took a few weeks off due to an infection and well..I guess it’s taking my body a few extra days to get used to it again but it WORKS so it’s ALL GOOD!!!
So…are you wondering how the speech went? I walked into the room and was terrified- I’m not sure what I expected but it was HUGE – 290 in attendance!! Anyways, it went great and yes, there were a few tears (which I did NOT expect) and also a standing ovation which I didn’t expect. It’s so funny. I was SO focused on finishing the speech that it didn’t even occur to me how people would receive it. I just wanted to get through it without making a mistake!! And not faint or something!!
I was really nervous in the beginning but then after the first page, I loosened up. People laughed at the right times and Mike said I even to a laugh which I didn’t expect (when I said the first thing on my beat cancer plan was to find a new doctor) – the weird thing is I didn’t even HEAR the laugh that’s HOW focused I was on getting through the speech. Thanks to Marilyn and Patty for driving TWO hours to hear the speech – you know, I think you guys are nuts, right???
I’m off to work on thank you notes today for the crop and to work on our Ragbrai book. For those of you not familiar with Ragbrai it’s a bike ride through the state of Iowa (www.ragbrai.org). This year, it went right past my inlaws house so we decided to go watch it. Mike came up with the idea to let the kids hand out watermelon and my mother in-law thought it would be a good idea to put a bucket out for donations to benefit Komen. My kids were thrilled. They raised almost $50 for Komen and throughout the day, you’d hear them yell “Mommy, another dollar for THE CURE!!! “
Also speaking of biking, a HUGE congrats to my brother, Don who finished the pan- massachusetts challenge. He spent the weekend on a bike riding the entire Cape. What a gorgeous ride that probably was. As many of you know, Cape Cod is one of my FAVORITE places. He raised $3900+ for Dana Farber cancer institute. I’m so impressed that he finished especially with the heat wave the East coast has been experiencing. You can find out more about what he did here:
www.pmc.org/mypmc/profiles.asp?Section=story&eGiftID=DM0237
Ok…I’m off to work but I’ll try to post pics later of my book.
Have a great day.
Deb
Ok…after much peer pressure…here it is. MY blog!! I’m still too sure about this? I don’t think my life is THAT interesting for others to read but I’ll give it a try.
So…here’s a bit about me – I’m a business owner, a wife, a mom, a scrapbooker and a survivor. I now devote a lot of time and energy to educating other women on the fact that breast cancer CAN and DOES happen even to those of us without a family history.
So today is speech day and I’m terrified. Not just like a little bit of butterflies but seriously terrified. I was up until 1 am this morning reading and it and rehearsing. If you know me, I think you’d realize how funny this is. I’m usually VERY outgoing and can talk to just about anyone/anything but get me in front of the class and UGH! Junior High ALL over again!!! But I MUST do it…I made the commitment!!
Want to read it?? Here it is:
First let me start by thanking you Rhonda for setting up this event to raise awareness and also to you Dr. Behrens for giving us the information we need and providing HOPE to us. And thanks to all of you out there that gave up a Sunday afternoon to raise money for such a great cause.
Every survivor I’ve met has a story and like them, I have one as well. On September 15th, 2003, my life changed. At approximately 3 pm in the afternoon, I got a call from Pam at Katzman to tell me that my fear had come true. I had breast cancer. That moment is etched in my mind. I was 37 years old and had a 4 year old and 1 year old twins at that point and I couldn’t believe the news. I was healthy, thin and had a fairly healthy life style. How could this happen to me?
My story actually starts two months prior to that date. I found my lump by doing a self exam on July 2nd. It took me two doctors and nine weeks to get a mammogram. Both doctors told me that there was no way it could be cancer and that I should go home and wait six months to see if there were any changes. I knew in my gut though that they were wrong. I demanded a mammogram. I can guarantee you that both of those doctors have the words, difficult and demanding on my chart but that’s fine because if I had listened to them, I wouldn’t be here today.
I learned a lot about mammograms, I did not know that when they ask for more pictures, that it’s a bad sign or when they schedule an ultra sound for the very next morning, that something is probably wrong but…..I did see the radiologists face during that ultrasound and I demanded to know what was wrong. She told me it looked like cancer and to thank her for telling me, I fainted on her!!
I left Des Moines to seek treatment at the University of Iowa. I was told I found it early and I would be fine after surgery and chemo. Unfortunately, that was not true in my case. Within 3 months of ending chemo, I was having difficulty walking and picking up my children so after much complaining, they gave into doing a MRI and a 10 cm tumor was found in my hip. I went to that appointment that day alone because they told that it was only muscular and that there was no way it could be cancer. It was hard telling my husband on the phone but I think that God knew what he was doing. I firmly believe that everything happens for a reason. That ride home from Iowa city gave me the time I needed to figure out my game plan. After a few calls, I started thinking. When I went into business, I developed a business plan – why would I not have a plan to beat cancer. I went home that night and wrote out my plan to beat cancer – my plan involves a new doctor, diet (no sugar or white products), journaling, scrapbooking and making every moment count. It included lots of research (as I’m sure Doctor Behrens will tell you) and lots of faith and hope.
I now live every day with bone mets but then again….I ONLY have bone mets. Although, many of you probably think I’m nuts right now by being happy that it’s ONLY in my bones – bone mets is not life threatening – it’s when it enters an organ that things get tricky. I’ve been on chemo three times in three years and I’m currently on chemo now. My tumor markers are back to normal and I’m so, so thankful to Dr. Behrens and my medical team for helping me to reach these results.
Has my life changed? Absolutely. Has it changed for the better? In many ways it has. Again, I’m a firm believer in everything happens for a reason. I feel that by getting cancer, God has a plan for me to get the word out to women. Yes, it can happen to you and yes, doing a monthly exam ESPECIALLY under the age of 40 is so very important. If I had waited until I was 40 to get my first mammogram, I wouldn’t be here right now.
So many things have come of this diagnosis. I have an incredible network – from my husband to my children, from my doctor to some people I have never met. My husband and I are closer because of all that we have gone through together. Our 9th anniversary is in a few days and there is no way that we had any idea that this would be our life together but he has been there every step of the way – he’s cheered me up, cried with me and had to pick up the slack around the house. I couldn’t have asked for a better husband honey. My children have also been so important in my recovery. During the first round of chemo when I lost my hair, I had a really rough night when it was falling out so I took my four year old son Matthew aside and explained that I was losing my hair. I had kind of briefed him before on the fact that this would happen. I asked him if he was scared and he said, no Mommy it just means you are getting better. He’s so smart that one!! We had tons of hat parties with lots of laughter. The best was when my 1 year old son, Nicholas, put my wig on! I know that having cancer isn’t funny but you have to laugh or you’ll cry and we did a lot of laughing in my house and we still do.
My children continue to pray for me and help me and at first, I thought this is too much for a child to handle but I’ve realized recently that I’ve taught them compassion. A few weeks ago, we got great news in that my tumor markers have returned to normal and when I told the kids about the news, my four year old daughter Marianna said…Mommy, my prayers for you are making you better.
I had a feeling that I was sick and I had a feeling every time it comes back but I don’t have the feeling that I’m going to die from this. At least not right now. I know that every day I survive is one day to them closer to finding a cure.
So what is my message to you – First, trust your body and your gut. I’m not telling you not to listen to your doctor but I am telling you to push if you feel something is wrong. I have the perfect relationship with Dr. Behrens. He listens to me – I’m not always right but I’ve been more right than wrong with my symptoms. I think the best doctor is the one that listens, tells you your options and then respects your wishes. I personally have always chosen to be very aggressive. I know I can beat this.
I’m also telling you that -Yes, a cancer diagnosis is hard and if God forbid, it should happen to you, you CAN survive it. There is so much HOPE out there for breast cancer as well as other cancers and it is no longer a death sentence. And oh yes, please feel free to call me if you need ANYTHING!
I’d like to also take this opportunity to tell you about two other survivors and what they are doing. Glenna was diagnosed while she was pregnant and has created a poster for OB/GYN offices so that woman are aware that it is possible during pregnancy especially with all that estrogen in your system. The posters are available for a $30 donation to Komen. If anyone is interested in getting more information on what she does, please let me know. Also, Kathy is getting information out about the sister study. I don’t have any sisters but if you are a survivor and do have a sister, please let me know so I can get you information.
In closing, I’d like to read you a letter that I wrote to my daughter a year after diagnosis. I wrote it about a year after diagnosis and put it on a scrapbook page, it sums up my feelings at the time:
My Dearest Mari-
It’s taken me a year to put my thoughts down on paper for you.. I was diagnosed with breast cancer on September 15, 2003 and although I was upset that day, the worst day for me was the following morning when I woke up at 6:00 am and my first thought was that I had passed on an increased risk to you.
Some day when you are a Mommy you’ll find that you are more afraid of things happening to your children than yourself. I knew I could handle any challenges that came my way and I know you can too but the thought that you might have to because of me was so upsetting.
I want you to know all the good that has come out of my diagnosis and yes, there has been so much that I would have never known if I wasn’t diagnosed. In the past year and a half through all that this family has gone through, we have had a tremendous amount of support from others. Some we expected but so many others have rushed to our side and we never anticipated that. We’ve heard from old friends who heard the news through the grapevine and gotten back in touch as well as family and even family members of some of our friends. We’ve also received support from our church, our neighbors, my online scrapbook groups and even clerks at the insurance company. The response has been truly overwhelming. We feel truly blessed by everyone who has helped us and we know that God’s hand has been in this every step of the way.
I have learned so much by going through this journey. I have learned that people are good and are so caring if you give them the chance. I have learned that HOPE is one of the best gifts you can ever receive. I have learned that being a MOM is the best job I have ever had and that just by reading you and your brothers a book or coloring with you, my day seems to be so much brighter. I have learned that I can conquer things I never thought possible before. I have learned to live each day to the fullest and not to put things off. I have learned that my family is the most important thing to me and that when all else fails, it’s my family that will get me through it.
I hope you never have to learn all these things the way I did but I know if you should have to go through this when you are older, that you will prevail.
You are truly my daughter in so many ways as we are so alike. You are outgoing, funny, compassionate and no matter what your brothers are doing, you jump right in determined to keep up with them. You have a spirit for living life that I hope you never lose.
As I continue to fight the battle to overcome breast cancer, I keep in mind all the good that has come out of it and I truly fight every day because of you, your brothers and your daddy.
I love you from the bottom of my heart. You are so precious to me in so many ways.
Love,
Mommy
Thank you again for allowing me to share my story. If you get anything from my story, please know that there is nothing like HOPE and as Dr. Love has often said….”if there is just one person that has survived the odds, there is nothing stopping you from being the second!”
So, so what do you think? Would you be yawning during this one???
Here are the pages with the letter to Mari on it for those of you who scrapbook out there:
Ok…enough playing today. I gotta go get ready to speak.
Have a great day and remember “Those that say it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it.” (Chinese proverb)