November 25, 2007

Well, November has been an interesting month! I'll start with the fun stuff first. We (Mike, mom, and I) left for a trip to Las Vegas for my nephew's wedding on November 8th. What can I say?! What a wonderful trip. Mike and I stayed at Fiesta Henderson and mom stayed with Debbie. Our room was very nice and best of all it was FREE! We did a little bit of gambling, but not much. Most of our time was spent participating in all of the various wedding festivities.

Friday night we attended the rehearsal dinner/party hosted by my best friend and soul sister, Debbie. The food was fantastic and so was the company. What can I say about Debbie -- just about everything! I don't know what I would do without her in my life. She has helped me out SO many times and she is always there for me. Our entire family owes her a debt of gratitude for all that she has been to Tony -- and all he has become because of her. She helped him grow into the fine adult that he is today. Debbie...thank you from the bottom of my heart!

Saturday was the wedding itself. We had never attended a Jewish wedding before and it was very interesting and quite beautiful. I have included a picture of me, mom, and Debbie with this post. The reception...WOW! The food, the atmosphere, the companionship were all superb! Thank you, Tony and Rachel, for letting us be a part of this.

Sunday was the wedding brunch held at the Bali Hai Golf Club at the south end of "The Strip". What a beautiful place! Once again, the food and fellowship were fantastic! After the brunch Mike and I headed down to spend two nights at Four Queens located on Fremont Street in downtown Las Vegas. The light shows were great! The U.S. Air Force has an entertainment group called "Tops In Blue". There was a free show on Sunday night on Fremont St. This group is absolutely fantastic! We couldn't stay for the entire show, though, as I guess me leg finally decided it had had enough and we had to call it a night. We did a little bit of gambling on Sunday and Monday, though not much. This was a wedding trip!

We returned home on Tuesday night. My leg held up real well during the entire trip (except for Sunday night) and I was "moving right along" keeping up with Mike and mom in the airport! The flight home was pretty scary, though, as there was a lot of turbulence on the plane for a while. I was wondering if we were going to end up in heaven!

Thursday morning Mike and I headed to the oncologist's office to find out the results of my CT scan. They were not what I had hoped, although the oncologist assured me that they were not bad and it was nothing to worry about (easy for him to say). The two tumors in my liver are stable, meaning there was no growth that could be measured. He said the tumor in my lung had grown from .5 cm to 1.4 cm. This came as quite a shock to me as the doctor had never told me before that I even had a tumor in my lung. I was really hoping for some better news as I really could use a break from chemotherapy. It has been nearly a year now since I started chemotherapy.

Starting this past Friday (the day after Thanksgiving), they have added Avastin to my current regimen of Xeloda pills. Avastin is not chemotherapy (Xeloda is). Avastin is a drug that is infused into your port which goes directly to the tumors and cuts off the blood supply so, ideally, the tumors will not grow and will die. I will go for the Avastin treatments every 2 weeks and will have a repeat CT scan in January.

In addition, my knee has been giving me a lot of problems since we returned. I called my primary care physician last Monday just to be sure he didn't want me to have an xray done. It is slowly getting better, though I am still walking with a cane so I can be less weightbearing on that leg.

We were able to have Thanksgiving here again this year, which has become our family tradition. I had hoped to do all of the cooking, but my knee kept me from doing it all. I called on family members (Julie and family, Jeff and Nancy) to help and their immediate response was "No problem. What time do you want us there?" Isn't family great?!

I have been suffering on and off with minor bouts of "the blues" due in part to the results of my CT scan, along with the pain in my knee and the fact that we saw the sun for the first time on Thursday since our return from vacation.

I would still ask for your prayers for me. I'm still determined to beat this disease and claim this miracle in full! It's hard for me to remember sometimes, though, that all of this is in God's timing and only He holds the answers to this journey I am on. So...specificially my prayer requests are for (1) that the next scan in late January would be CLEAN, and (2) that I would not get these minor cases of "the blues".

Please feel free to come and visit me. Company is a good thing. I'm usually at home during the day, but call first.