Just a note to say I'll be posting more soon. It has been a long year, sometimes I was too depressed to even write about this. But, Teresa is doing well! I'll write more soon.
Thanks for all of your prayers,
Vicki
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Friday, January 27, 2006
My Diagnostic Mammogram
I had a diagnostic mammogram today. Actually, she took several views saying her job was to make the 'spot' disappear. It didn't disappear. It's a small spot, round like a pea. I can't feel it yet, although it does hurt a bit, if I press on it long enough. Well, if I press long enough, any place will begin to hurt.
My husband is a family doctor. He came home for lunch today, after calling and not being able to get through to me: I was on the phone with my sister. I was pleased that he came home to check on me. I thought he'd forgotten about my appointment. After lunch, he talked with a General Surgeon at OU to question why it is necessary to have an ultrasound rather than go right to checking the cells to discover if they are cancerous or not. I don't remember exactly why, but the GS said that is the correct next step.
So, the waiting game begins. Next the radiologist checks today's pictures with some taken two years ago, (I missed having a mammogram last year). If it looks suspicious to him, then next will come the ultrasound. I'll hear something back from my doctor's office next week.
This really impacts life. I know I sound like a whinner, but it's hard to concentrate on regular life with something like this hanging 'out there' unsettled.
I hurt for my sister. The doctors knew immediately upon seeing her mammogram that she had cancer. It must have looked quite messy on the screen. Teresa knew she had a rather large lump in her breast for more than a year. She just never went to have it checked out. I also feel responsible for that. Perhaps if I had insisted that she 'go to the doctor now and have it looked at!' then, perhaps she would have done so. Jeff told me that is 'co-dependency' and 'sick.' Well, maybe. Except, that it's always been that way with my sister. Either mom (before she died) or me -since mom died- have had to direct her to do those sorts of things. I feel it's partially my fault that she didn't have it checked out because I didn't sound the alarm. I said things like, 'I had a benign tumor removed years ago' and 'no one in our family had breast cancer.' I was wrong. Our mother's sister had a masectomy in her 40s. We thought her doctor was just 'knife happy' and didn't know what he was doing. She didn't have to have chemo treatments and the cancer never came back. My grandfather's sister died of breast cancer in her 40s or 50s. His paternal grandmother had cancer, listed in the 1880s census report under chronic illness. And there are other's in the family with different types of cancer, mostly colon cancer, I believe.
Teresa had her 3rd chemo treatment this week. So far, she isn't as sick as she was for the last one. Do people survive cancer that moves into the lymp nodes?
I hate cancer. It feels like a personal enemy. This morning as I left the clinic, I remembered what I was doing at this same time 16 years ago: My first child was born in Chicago 16 years ago today. My mom was still alive, Teresa didn't have cancer and I was about to begin breast-feeding for the first time. Those were happier days, obviously.
My husband is a family doctor. He came home for lunch today, after calling and not being able to get through to me: I was on the phone with my sister. I was pleased that he came home to check on me. I thought he'd forgotten about my appointment. After lunch, he talked with a General Surgeon at OU to question why it is necessary to have an ultrasound rather than go right to checking the cells to discover if they are cancerous or not. I don't remember exactly why, but the GS said that is the correct next step.
So, the waiting game begins. Next the radiologist checks today's pictures with some taken two years ago, (I missed having a mammogram last year). If it looks suspicious to him, then next will come the ultrasound. I'll hear something back from my doctor's office next week.
This really impacts life. I know I sound like a whinner, but it's hard to concentrate on regular life with something like this hanging 'out there' unsettled.
I hurt for my sister. The doctors knew immediately upon seeing her mammogram that she had cancer. It must have looked quite messy on the screen. Teresa knew she had a rather large lump in her breast for more than a year. She just never went to have it checked out. I also feel responsible for that. Perhaps if I had insisted that she 'go to the doctor now and have it looked at!' then, perhaps she would have done so. Jeff told me that is 'co-dependency' and 'sick.' Well, maybe. Except, that it's always been that way with my sister. Either mom (before she died) or me -since mom died- have had to direct her to do those sorts of things. I feel it's partially my fault that she didn't have it checked out because I didn't sound the alarm. I said things like, 'I had a benign tumor removed years ago' and 'no one in our family had breast cancer.' I was wrong. Our mother's sister had a masectomy in her 40s. We thought her doctor was just 'knife happy' and didn't know what he was doing. She didn't have to have chemo treatments and the cancer never came back. My grandfather's sister died of breast cancer in her 40s or 50s. His paternal grandmother had cancer, listed in the 1880s census report under chronic illness. And there are other's in the family with different types of cancer, mostly colon cancer, I believe.
Teresa had her 3rd chemo treatment this week. So far, she isn't as sick as she was for the last one. Do people survive cancer that moves into the lymp nodes?
I hate cancer. It feels like a personal enemy. This morning as I left the clinic, I remembered what I was doing at this same time 16 years ago: My first child was born in Chicago 16 years ago today. My mom was still alive, Teresa didn't have cancer and I was about to begin breast-feeding for the first time. Those were happier days, obviously.
Thursday, January 26, 2006
Mammograms, American Cancer Society, and other Blessings
At New Year's, I drove 11 hours to spend a few days with Teresa. We went to the American Cancer Society's Huntsville, Al office, to find a wig for her. What wonderful people the American Cancer Society people are. The office was closed, since we were there Friday of New Year's weekend. But, when I called them from a nearby intersection, lost, the woman who'd come in just to finish some paper work, invited us to come ahead and select a wig. She spent time with my sister, helping her try on wigs, and she was so patient and kind toward her. Of course we were an imposition, because we'd just shown up during the holidays! But, she didn't treat us that way. She was wonderfully kind to us. Teresa chose a short, curly blonde wig which looked alot like her own hair, and she felt so pretty in it! She also chose a hat, AND, how could I forget that she was able to get a prostesis and a bra for it? All without any cost to my sister. What a blessing the American Cancer Society is!
Teresa got very sick after her last chemo treatment. She became dehydrated and her blood pressure dropped. Her way of handling it was to take a sleeping pill and try to sleep until she was better. Since I'm a worrier, and calling her several times per day (I live 11 hours away) I called the clinic and told them about it. They had her go in and gave her fluids and anti-nausea meds intravenously. It made her feel better for less than 24 hours, and she had to have it repeated. That helped alot and she felt better for the next week.
She called me on her birthday, January 17th, to say that she really felt good. She had gone out and put new dishes and flatware on the lay-a-way at Walmart. My first thought was 'why did you waste money like that?" She's on Social Security disability, her only income. But, thankfully the Lord held my tongue and I didn't blurt it out. I realized that this is her way of showing that she has hope for the future and she's going to meet that hope with new dishes and flatware!
I've also decided that only God decides who lives and who dies--and it's not a matter of beating the odds. "I've decided", how prideful that sounds. No, I haven't decided, I have learned through God's grace that this is the case, and it is my responsibility to trust Him with her life, my life, etc., etc, and expect life- not death.
After my sister was diagnosed with breast cancer, I made an appointment to have a mammogram. I've been sporadic with those, at beast, although I have been better at checking myself. I had the mamogram a couple of weeks ago, and then yesterday, my doctor's nurse called me to say that it had come back with a problem with one, and I was to call to have another mammogram as soon as possible. I have an appointment for this Friday.
How unnerving this is. I hate to be melodramatic, but even this has caused me to rethink my priorites: I am going to love and enjoy my children for whom and what they are, and not stress out over their performance-or lack of performance at school. It's too easy to get caught up in parental competition with other's over a child's abilities and successes. I'm done with that.
Teresa got very sick after her last chemo treatment. She became dehydrated and her blood pressure dropped. Her way of handling it was to take a sleeping pill and try to sleep until she was better. Since I'm a worrier, and calling her several times per day (I live 11 hours away) I called the clinic and told them about it. They had her go in and gave her fluids and anti-nausea meds intravenously. It made her feel better for less than 24 hours, and she had to have it repeated. That helped alot and she felt better for the next week.
She called me on her birthday, January 17th, to say that she really felt good. She had gone out and put new dishes and flatware on the lay-a-way at Walmart. My first thought was 'why did you waste money like that?" She's on Social Security disability, her only income. But, thankfully the Lord held my tongue and I didn't blurt it out. I realized that this is her way of showing that she has hope for the future and she's going to meet that hope with new dishes and flatware!
I've also decided that only God decides who lives and who dies--and it's not a matter of beating the odds. "I've decided", how prideful that sounds. No, I haven't decided, I have learned through God's grace that this is the case, and it is my responsibility to trust Him with her life, my life, etc., etc, and expect life- not death.
After my sister was diagnosed with breast cancer, I made an appointment to have a mammogram. I've been sporadic with those, at beast, although I have been better at checking myself. I had the mamogram a couple of weeks ago, and then yesterday, my doctor's nurse called me to say that it had come back with a problem with one, and I was to call to have another mammogram as soon as possible. I have an appointment for this Friday.
How unnerving this is. I hate to be melodramatic, but even this has caused me to rethink my priorites: I am going to love and enjoy my children for whom and what they are, and not stress out over their performance-or lack of performance at school. It's too easy to get caught up in parental competition with other's over a child's abilities and successes. I'm done with that.
Thursday, December 15, 2005
Seeking God's Presence
My sister began chemotherapy yesterday. She will be treated with six, three-hour sessions of chemo given through a porta cath, one session about every 21 days. Afterwards, she will begin six weeks of radiation treatments on two tumors found on the left breast, and on the new 'hot spot' found through a scan of the area surrounding her right breast, a portion not removed by the masectomy. It seems harsh to have undergone the violence of a masectomy and then have spots show up on the breast tissue not removed, which could be cancerous.
My first reaction, not spoken to my sister, was she must have had an incompetent surgeon. But, on further reading of others' experiences, I am learning that cancer behaves this way. The surgeon isn't the culprit. Cancer is the enemy. While her body is pumped full of poison to kill cancer cells, I am seeking spiritual tools to combat our mutual enemy (cancer is only one of his weapons) through a book that teaches about prayer, "Prayer, Finding the Heart's True Home" by Richard J. Foster.
Perhaps 'combat' isn't the correct word for prayer. After spending time with God, I don't feel combative at all. I feel comforted. I came away from time spent with Him feeling that He is in control and that nothing happens to a child of God without it first being filtered through Him. Even cancer.
I found this statement by Thomas Merton, in the chapter about Contemplative prayer comforting: 'The message of hope the contemplative (prayer) offers you is not that you need to find your way through the jungle of language and problems that today surround (the task of seeking) God: but that....God loves you, is present in you, lives in you, dwells in you, calls you, saves you, and offers you an understanding and light which are nothing you ever found in books or heard in sermons.'
I need to feel His Real Presence. Thankfully, He said that when we 'seek him with our whole heart, he will be found.'
My first reaction, not spoken to my sister, was she must have had an incompetent surgeon. But, on further reading of others' experiences, I am learning that cancer behaves this way. The surgeon isn't the culprit. Cancer is the enemy. While her body is pumped full of poison to kill cancer cells, I am seeking spiritual tools to combat our mutual enemy (cancer is only one of his weapons) through a book that teaches about prayer, "Prayer, Finding the Heart's True Home" by Richard J. Foster.
Perhaps 'combat' isn't the correct word for prayer. After spending time with God, I don't feel combative at all. I feel comforted. I came away from time spent with Him feeling that He is in control and that nothing happens to a child of God without it first being filtered through Him. Even cancer.
I found this statement by Thomas Merton, in the chapter about Contemplative prayer comforting: 'The message of hope the contemplative (prayer) offers you is not that you need to find your way through the jungle of language and problems that today surround (the task of seeking) God: but that....God loves you, is present in you, lives in you, dwells in you, calls you, saves you, and offers you an understanding and light which are nothing you ever found in books or heard in sermons.'
I need to feel His Real Presence. Thankfully, He said that when we 'seek him with our whole heart, he will be found.'
Thursday, October 13, 2005
Praying the Prayer of Relinquishment
Teresa had a masectomy. Her surgeon and a pathologist completed a biopsy of breast tissue and cervical tissue. They removed several polyps by D and C, which were clear of cancer. However, they found cancer in the breast and removed it along with lymp nodes.
Teresa is in good spirits. She placed herself in God's hands through this whole period of worry and waiting, and she is grateful that the cancer seems to have been contained to just the breast, at least as far as we now know.
Her friend, Cathy, has stayed by her side reading to her, bringing her French fries along with a care bag. I am thankful for Cathy. We are hoping to make arrangements for me to go be with her for the first week after she leaves the hospital.
Her medical bills will be prohibitive for her, considering that she is on disability Social Security as it is. Medicare pays 80 percent, but that leaves 20 percent for her....She was barely getting by before this.
I have to keep putting these worries back into God's hands. He provides the seed for the sower. . . He has seed for my sister.
Today His message for me is "Be still and know that I am God." How wonderfully comforting that is. I meditated on the verse, saying it over and over to myself. Each time a new 'distraction' (worry) popped into my head, I placed that worry into God's hands. It felt so wonderful to feel His presence. Many things are too big for me to handle, but nothing is too big for God.
He taught me a lot today--the day I truly sought His presence: I have to let go--of demanding love and fairness, not just for myself but for those I love, also. I have to cease judging the hearts of others--Everyone else is God's business, not mine. How releasing that is to know that I don't have to play the 'fairness cop' in my family. I am responsible only for my own relationship within the family, not for anyone else's.
As for my sister, she belongs to God. She is God's business. Her cancer is God's business. Her relationships are God's business. It is only my business that I love her. God provides the seed for the sower. He will supply me with everything that I need in order to love her. That is all that I am responsible for. Relinquishment. How freeing that is.
I have to find that Catherine Marshall book, I remember her chapters on the different types of prayer, and the prayer of relinquishment was one. I remember the first time I prayed the prayer of relinquishment. I was in my teens and had applied for a job in Atlanta. But, it was given to someone else. I had wanted it very badly, but I relinquished it to God. The next day the manager called to say the woman told him the seat at her station was too hard, and she quit. She obviously hadn't needed the job. It seemed the whole episode had been orchestrated by God to teach me to 'relinquish' the desires of my heart to Him. Well, it was a first step. There have been many, far more serious things to relinquish to Him over the last thirty years. . . , the lives of my parents, the life of a small baby girl, the births and lives of my children. . . , so many things and now Teresa. I feel peaceful about what the future holds for us, for my family.
Teresa is in good spirits. She placed herself in God's hands through this whole period of worry and waiting, and she is grateful that the cancer seems to have been contained to just the breast, at least as far as we now know.
Her friend, Cathy, has stayed by her side reading to her, bringing her French fries along with a care bag. I am thankful for Cathy. We are hoping to make arrangements for me to go be with her for the first week after she leaves the hospital.
Her medical bills will be prohibitive for her, considering that she is on disability Social Security as it is. Medicare pays 80 percent, but that leaves 20 percent for her....She was barely getting by before this.
I have to keep putting these worries back into God's hands. He provides the seed for the sower. . . He has seed for my sister.
Today His message for me is "Be still and know that I am God." How wonderfully comforting that is. I meditated on the verse, saying it over and over to myself. Each time a new 'distraction' (worry) popped into my head, I placed that worry into God's hands. It felt so wonderful to feel His presence. Many things are too big for me to handle, but nothing is too big for God.
He taught me a lot today--the day I truly sought His presence: I have to let go--of demanding love and fairness, not just for myself but for those I love, also. I have to cease judging the hearts of others--Everyone else is God's business, not mine. How releasing that is to know that I don't have to play the 'fairness cop' in my family. I am responsible only for my own relationship within the family, not for anyone else's.
As for my sister, she belongs to God. She is God's business. Her cancer is God's business. Her relationships are God's business. It is only my business that I love her. God provides the seed for the sower. He will supply me with everything that I need in order to love her. That is all that I am responsible for. Relinquishment. How freeing that is.
I have to find that Catherine Marshall book, I remember her chapters on the different types of prayer, and the prayer of relinquishment was one. I remember the first time I prayed the prayer of relinquishment. I was in my teens and had applied for a job in Atlanta. But, it was given to someone else. I had wanted it very badly, but I relinquished it to God. The next day the manager called to say the woman told him the seat at her station was too hard, and she quit. She obviously hadn't needed the job. It seemed the whole episode had been orchestrated by God to teach me to 'relinquish' the desires of my heart to Him. Well, it was a first step. There have been many, far more serious things to relinquish to Him over the last thirty years. . . , the lives of my parents, the life of a small baby girl, the births and lives of my children. . . , so many things and now Teresa. I feel peaceful about what the future holds for us, for my family.
Monday, October 10, 2005
Checking for Breast Cancer Now.
Teresa had an appointment this morning with the surgeon, who was the doc who operated on my grandmother for cancer in 1969. Dr. Walker believes Teresa has pelvic fibroid tumors-- which will be taken care of later. The more pressing issue is the lump (s) found on her breast. He thinks it could be cancer. He is putting her in the hospital tomorrow morning for a biopsy, but he said if it looks cancerous, then he will surgically remove it (it= the breast or just the tumor?) She said that the surgeon doesn't think she will need to have a complete mastectomy.
Treatment: Assessing the Options (PDR Health) Click the heading to read more at PDR Health.
Prompt treatment is essential. Without surgery, radiation, or chemotherapy, a woman who has breast cancer will almost surely die. Fortunately, the chances for long-term survival—and cure—are excellent if the cancer is caught early enough.
Once the physician has determined the type of breast cancer, the size and location of the primary tumor, and the extent of the disease, it's time to discuss the various treatment options. The doctor will recommend the course of treatment that he or she believes will provide the best results with the fewest disabling side effects.
The goal of the therapy is to prevent the spread of cancer if the disease is confined to the breast and to minimize the possibility of a recurrence of cancer in the future. For women whose cancer has already spread, the physician will develop a treatment plan that eases any pain or other symptoms. This is called palliative therapy.
Partial or total mastectomy (surgical removal of the breast) offer a good chance of a cure for Stage I and II breast cancers. Surgery may also be successful for some Stage III cancers if they have not invaded other parts of the body. Women with Stage IV breast cancer receive palliative treatment.
Treatment: Assessing the Options (PDR Health) Click the heading to read more at PDR Health.
Prompt treatment is essential. Without surgery, radiation, or chemotherapy, a woman who has breast cancer will almost surely die. Fortunately, the chances for long-term survival—and cure—are excellent if the cancer is caught early enough.
Once the physician has determined the type of breast cancer, the size and location of the primary tumor, and the extent of the disease, it's time to discuss the various treatment options. The doctor will recommend the course of treatment that he or she believes will provide the best results with the fewest disabling side effects.
The goal of the therapy is to prevent the spread of cancer if the disease is confined to the breast and to minimize the possibility of a recurrence of cancer in the future. For women whose cancer has already spread, the physician will develop a treatment plan that eases any pain or other symptoms. This is called palliative therapy.
Partial or total mastectomy (surgical removal of the breast) offer a good chance of a cure for Stage I and II breast cancers. Surgery may also be successful for some Stage III cancers if they have not invaded other parts of the body. Women with Stage IV breast cancer receive palliative treatment.
Friday, October 07, 2005
Good News
Teresa's OB/GYN thinks that the masses in her uterus may be only fibroid tumors. He referred her to a general surgeon to check out the lumps found by her mammogram. He said after that is taken care of he will address the tumors in the pelvic area. We are both very relieved. Perhaps life can return to normal.
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