I know y’all have been dying for an update, so here we go!

First, let me address the elephant in the room … yes, my mom is bald. I shaved her head on Saturday. I SHAVED HER HEAD. I still can’t believe that happened. More on that later…

Round One of Kryptonite

Round one is down, and mom is on the mend! Just in time for round 2 this Friday. 🙂 She’s ready for this! We’re hoping she’ll feel okay for Sadie’s wedding next week. She leaves for Mexico next Wednesday, so she’ll probably rest a lot in the hotel until the wedding on Saturday. Luckily, my aunt Kate is on the same flight with her and will be sharing a room in Mexico, so she can keep an eye on her. 🙂

The main symptoms she had from the last round have been extreme fatigue, extreme bone aches, nausea, upset stomach, and terrible taste buds/lack of appetite. Dr. Juvvadi has given her some meds to help with a lot of that. She’s also going to decrease mom’s dose of Neulasta for round 2. If you remember the wearable injector mom got after chemo last time, Neulasta is the drug inside of it that tells her bone marrow to make white blood cells. Mom’s lab work showed that her bones made A TON of white blood cells after the injection, telling Dr. Juvvadi they should scale back the dose. A normal person’s white blood cell count is about 11,000. Mom’s was 48,000! She was in so much pain for several days. It was miserable for her. Her bones were working hard to pump out an insane amount of white blood cells. She’s looking forward to having less pain for the second round. Dr. Juvvadi also gave her stronger pain meds just in case she needs it in Mexico.

IT’S WORKING!

Within a few days after chemo, mom started noticing both her breast tumor and lymph node lumps seemed to be noticeably smaller. When we went in for the follow up appointment with the oncologist one week after the first treatment, Dr. Juvvadi felt mom’s breast tumor and lymph node and right away started talking about how it felt smaller. When I asked if that was a good sign, Dr. Juvvadi said, “That is a great sign!” She was clearly very pleased with mom’s progress. Now, just weeks after the first treatment, we can barely even find the lymph node, and y’all, it was huge before treatment. When she raised her arm, you could actually see it. It was 4 cm and was very pronounced. Now I can’t even see it! This is a great indicator of progress!!!!!!!!!!!!!! If you can’t tell, I’m so excited about this!!!!!!!!!!!! We’re hoping the tumors will all be smaller in 6.5 weeks when they do scans again.

What We’ve Been Up To

Mom’s coworkers did the Susan G Koman Race for the Cure and made a donation in her honor. They invited me to do it with them, and my mom’s parents came too! My grandmother is a survivor of stage 3 breast cancer. She was diagnosed 6 years ago and fought like a champ. It was so fun being able to be there to honor her victory and my mom’s fight. I love these brave ladies!

Mom’s sweet coworkers

Me, Mom, Grandma, and Grandpa – Grandma and Grandpa are both cancer survivors!

So back to mom being bald. Okay, she’s not really bald. She has a buzz cut and is going bald. I’m not sure if that’s better. Either way, she looks beautiful. I’d share a picture of her without a wig, but she would kill me. But trust me, she looks beautiful bald.

We had plans to meet some of her friends for brunch on Saturday. After mom got out of the shower, she went to brush through her hair, and so much of it was coming out that it matted into a ball and the end of her hair. It was impossible to salvage, so we just decided it was time to shave it. We went out on the patio, and it was time to cut. I knew this moment was coming, but I honestly didn’t think I’d be able to do it when it came. I really didn’t want to do it, but I also wanted to be the one to do it all at the same time. I was so surprised by her attitude as I cut her hair short and then began to shave her head. My mom didn’t hesitate. She didn’t cry. Actually, she laughed the whole time as her hair collected in a pile on the ground. She said she was glad her hair was falling out because it means these drugs are “bad ass” and the cancer cells must be “riding the struggle bus” right now.

What scared me the most about shaving mom’s head was that she’d look sick. I thought that now she’d look like a cancer patient, and I didn’t want to see her that way. I was afraid to see her that way. After I shaved her whole head and went to look at her, she looked up at me and smiled, and what I saw was unexpected. She didn’t look sick as I had anticipated. She looked strong and fearless and brave. It was just another affirmation to me that she can handle this. And then she threw on her wig, and we went to brunch. She is amazing.

At brunch with friends right after shaving her head!

Mom has a hat with hair attached to it. Every time I look over at her, she’s wearing it in a new position, and it is hilarious. My personal favorite is when she wears the hat to the side!

We Can Do Hard Things

My friend got mom a bracelet that has this phrase engraved on it, “I can do hard things.”

Fighting cancer is hard. It’s hard physically and emotionally. It is exhausting on so many levels for the patient, and it also takes a toll on the caregivers and loved ones. It is all so hard, but we can do hard things. Better yet, we are made to do hard things. We are created in the image of a wonderful God who has given us all of the resources we need to do hard things. Mom can do this.

Mom and her “I can do hard things.” bracelet

Mom wanted me to tell y’all that she’s doing great. She said she has better hair and has lost weight, so things are going pretty well! I’ll post another update after round 2 on Friday. And I still have a funny post in the works!

Love y’all,

Sydnie

The Diagnosis

We met with the oncologist this afternoon, and we finally know what we’re dealing with. The liver biopsy was the same type of cancer that is in mom’s breast and lymph nodes. Because the biopsy is malignant, this puts mom’s cancer at stage 4.

When you first hear your mom has stage 4 breast cancer and it’s spread to her liver, you panic. You want the doctor to assure you that your mom will be okay, and that her treatment is proven to be extremely effective, and that she will win this fight. And that is exactly what Dr. Juvvadi did. So much so that we came out of this appointment feeling strangely confident and content with what’s going to happen. We know what we’re dealing with, it’s the same type of cancer with the same receptors, and it will respond to the chemotherapy. These drugs are extremely targeted to mom’s cancer, and Dr. Juvvadi has seen a lot of success. Her cancer has a kryptonite, and they know exactly what it is. Mom has requested to call chemotherapy “cancer kryptonite” from here on out. This cancer kryptonite will heal her!

Now what?

Mom’s doctors are moving forward with the originally scheduled mediport surgery in the morning. Yay for no PICC line! The surgery only takes about an hour with an hour or two for recovery, so we will be back home by the afternoon.

Mom’s treatment will consist of 6 cycles of cancer kryptonite. They will be giving her a cocktail of three drugs: Herceptin, Perjeta, and Taxotere. Each cycle of cancer kryptonite lasts 3 weeks. That would mean she would go in for cancer kryptonite on these dates:

October 7th, 28th

November 18th

December 9th, 30th

January 20th

After 3 cycles, they will do a CT scan and look at how the cancer has responded to treatment. Dr. Juvvadi anticipates that the tumors will have shrunk. If the liver is still an issue at this point, they have a couple of options including liver resection (removing the tumor) or cryosurgery (freezing the cancer cells with liquid nitrogen to kill them). There’s a chance the liver tumor may be completely gone by that point if it responds well to treatment, so we’ll just have to wait and see.

Friday morning at 10 AM will be her first round of cancer kryptonite. We’ll meet with Dr. Juvvadi right before she starts. The treatment session will last just over four hours. Prayers that mom does not die of boredom during that time are appreciated. 😉 I don’t know if I’ve ever seen her sit still for four hours… I mean, the lady just had her liver biopsied and spent the weekend in the hospital and immediately cleaned the whole house.

When we meet with Dr. Juvvadi on Friday, we’ll also receive the results of the bone scan. We’re hoping those will come back clean. Then we’ll finally be done with the staging process and be able to move onto focusing on getting her better!

Today I am grateful for a great doctor and amazing medications that will take care of my mama. In your continued prayers for her, please thank God for blessing us with that.

Remember, we’re feeling positive and confident, and so should you! She’s going to be okay.

Love,

Sydnie

Alright. Have a seat and get comfy before you read this monster post. Today was NUTS.

Barium Sulfate 

… Is the WORST. We woke up at 5 AM so my mom could drink the Barium. Turns out “vanilla smoothie” actually means “liquid drywall”. She threw up twice just trying to get it down.

*Barium Sulfate is a contrast liquid used to coat the walls of the intestines so they can see what’s going on during the CT scans.*

So after chugging two bottles of that drink from hell, we get to the hospital and they give her an injection of radioactive material so that they can see her bones really well on the bone scan they were also scheduled to do today. After the injection, mom asked when the CT scan is, and they say 12:45. We were told it was at 7 AM!

I was furious. Apparently she wasn’t supposed to drink the barium until 10:45, but we were told wrong by the pharmacist. To make a long story short, she had to chug more barium and reschedule the bone scan for Monday morning. So frustrating.

First Oncology Appointment

We met with Dr. Juvvadi at 12. As we started talking with her, Dr. Clifford, mom’s surgeon called mom. I answered and handed the phone to mom. Dr. Clifford then asked to talk to Dr. Juvvadi. As we waited, we could hear Dr. Juvvadi say, “The ER. I’ll make sure she gets there now.” Or something like that. She then told us that the CT scan results came back, and that there is a large blood clot in mom’s lung and she needed to go to the ER right away. I got mom in a wheelchair (she’s not supposed to move with the clot) and wheeled her straight to the ER.

Apparently blood clots are extremely serious, especially when in a lung. Mom is having no symptoms from this clot (shocking to everyone), so if this had not been caught today … we wouldn’t have known. I can’t even talk about that. I began thinking about that while in the ER as they ran tests, and then something unfamiliar hit me: overwhelming gratitude that my mom has cancer. If not for this stupid, frustrating, terrible illness, we would not have even known and it could have been fatal. Crazy how life works, huh? That gratitude was cut a little short when we were told the cancer is what caused the clot, but then again of course it is. Hence the “ish” in the title of this post… Still SO grateful that they found the clot.

We’re now in the hospital for a few days and mom’s on blood thinner meds so the clot can dissolve. She feels totally fine, so being on 100% bed rest is frustrating and feels silly, but I’m making sure she stays put. 😉 Sadie and her fiancé are on their way here from Tulsa, so we’ll watch movies and hang out all weekend. We’re also so grateful that mom’s parents came into town and were able to come be with us at the hospital. She’s so loved!

The CT Results

As if that wasn’t enough drama, as we were about to leave Dr. Juvvadi’s office, she informed us that they found a tiny spot on mom’s lung. This spot is so small that they can’t even biopsy it, and Dr. Juvvadi isn’t even worried about it. If it is cancerous, chemo will easily take care of it.

They also found a spot on the liver. That mass measures about 2.7 cm. Dr. Juvvadi wants to biopsy this mass to determine if it’s malignant or not, but that can’t be done until this whole blood clot mess is stabilized, so we have to wait to know. We’re clinging to the possibility that it is benign. There are many explanations of what it could be other than cancer. Regardless of what the biopsy tells us, treatment with chemotherapy will not change. Please pray it is benign. PLEASE.

The Worst Part

Today was hard. So. Dang. Hard.

Just when you think you have a hold on things and you can finally wrap your head around the situation, it changes. When the doctor said that cancer was no longer priority and now we had to push that aside to focus on a new challenge, I was so confused. How do you “put a pin” in cancer? How is that not the top priority? How could there possibly be more we need to be afraid of? How can we know something was seen in her liver on that CT scan and not know if it should terrify us? But not knowing is so terrifying.

The Best Part

My mom is alive. Not only is she alive, but she feels good and she is positive and happy and awesome. I’m so grateful for that. If it hadn’t been for that scan today, today could have been devastating and horrible. So we will take hard days over that any day. She’s got this.

Phew… Sorry that got a little heavy towards the end. This day has just worn on me a little, but we’re feeling good and grateful and above everything, we love our Father in Heaven and His Son. I really felt Him carrying us through today.

As always, I’ll keep you posted! Thank you for the love and support. It is so very appreciated. ♥️

Love y’all,

Sydnie