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Well tomorrow is the first appointment I’ll have with my doctor since beginning Nexavar.  We have talked to him and his nurse practioner on the phone often, but I am anxious to see him and tell him everything that has been going on.  It’s times like these that I wish I were better at writing things down when they happen.  I’ve been having a fever every night around 5 or 6 o’clock still, and it just wipes me out.  I have a cough that doesn’t stop, and it wipes me out.  I don’t know if either of these effects are related to Nexavar at all.  I am hoping to get some huge antibiotic shot in my butt and have this all over with!  I’ll take that over these past three weeks of suffering any day!  

Hopefully tomorrow we’ll set up a CT scan for the following week to see what’s been going on behind the scenes in my body!  I want to know if this is working.  I don’t know if it’s too soon to tell, but I’d like to know.  I might have to wait another month.  

Some exciting news is that Kai went to school today in the same chonies he came home in!  🙂  No accidents today!  That’s 2 days so far!  He likes being like Dadoo – wearing chonies, standing up, keeping his chonies dry and going big poop on the potty!  He’s doing great; let’s hope it continues!  

He continues to be so full of imagination.  Yesterday all of us were characters from “Little Einsteins” all day long!  He would call us by those names, and we would go on missions.  It was so cute!  He had a pretend “batime” (baton) that he would conduct with.  So adorable.

Thank you for your prayers as I go to the doctor tomorrow.  Pray that they’ll find a solution to these bothersome effects I’ve been having (even if it’s some HUGE shot).  I am done being this sick.  Many people have been telling me that since I tolerated the other chemos well, and they didn’t work;  maybe the fact that I’m getting really sick means it’s finally working on me.  Here’s hoping in that miracle and the One who holds the miracle in His hands!  

Much Love to you all,

Monica

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I really need your prayer.  I have been feeling really down the past few days as I fight a cough that deprives me (and Sol) of sleep.  I have not had any energy, and it is really starting to bring me down.  I have been fighting one thing or another – maybe not even related to my cancer – everyday for the past three weeks.  I have seen God take away pain in miraculous ways but struggle as the battle to just feel better continues on a daily basis!  I am not eating much – Kai eats more than me these days.  I just don’t have an appetite, and so I don’t have any energy.  I don’t have the strength to pick up Kai or the energy to play with him and that breaks my heart!  I want to be a great mom to him, but find myself falling short (of my own expectations) as all I want to do is curl up in bed.  He is so great and cuddles with me.  Sol always asks me, “You ok, Love?” Kai picked up on it and the other day put his hand on my knee and asked, “You ok, Love?”  It was so sweet.  The other really sweet thing he did was go to the store with Sol to get me some Tylenol.  When they got home, he ran through the door so excited.  He couldn’t even spit out the words…”Mom, Mom.  I found you some medicine it’s gonna make you all better.”  He was all smiles!  I want to be all better so badly, if for nothing else, for that precious little child!  Sol, as you all know, is just an amazing blessing in my life.  He has really been taking care of me these past few weeks and doing everything to take care of Kai.  I’m glad he feels good taking care of me, but I feel so guilty – I know I shouldn’t, but I do.  

Anyway, I just wanted to share with you the tough time I am finding myself in right now and ask for your prayers.  I just want all this other stuff to be over and have the energy to fight this beast.  Thank you for continuing to pray for me and encourage me as I walk the road ahead.  

Monica

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Wow!  Today was such a wonderful distraction as I wait for the doctor’s appointment tomorrow.  I was able to go to the Price is Right with some of my co-workers.  It was a blast.  One of the teachers was called down.  She just about fainted.  She got down to contestants row and ended up winning a BBQ.  It was so great to see her on stage.  Then when her game came out and the prize was announced it was “A Brand New Truck”.  A Ford F150 Cherry Red!  She played a game with 7 one dollar bills…anyway, long story short…SHE WON THE TRUCK!!!  Then she was spinning to go to the Showcase Showdown and got 95 cents.  She went to the showcase and almost won another car.  She didn’t get it, but it was such a blast cheering for her and watching her priceless expressions and body language.  The episode will air on February 17th on CBS.  It was so much fun!  🙂  

On another note, Sol and I signed the agreement for the house on Magnolia!  🙂  We will open escrow tomorrow!  It is so exciting to finally be moving forward towards buying a house.  A lot can still happen, but we are started in the right direction.  Next comes the appraisal and inspection!  Hopefully the inspection finds everything hunky-dory!  😉  

Please pray as I am heading to my appointment tomorrow (Wednesday) at 9 am.  I don’t know what he’s going to say, but I think that they’ll be changing my chemo and that scared me a bit.  The last 6 months…were they all in vain?  I don’t know.  I’m sad, anxious, frightened and mad.  Today for a while I forgot about my trial and that was a blessing.  Now the real life is back, and it’s scary!  I am brought to tears all the time and know that this it is so hard for Sol to not be able to fix it.  These men of ours want to fix everything, and I think he feels helpless.  Thanks for your prayers and support for tomorrow.  I’ll post when I get a chance tomorrow. 

Much love,

Monica

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I recently heard some statistics that 1 in 2 men will get cancer in his lifetime and 1 in 3 women.  That number is way too high and is almost unbelievable except that I hear about it all the time.

I am so saddened to report that on Monday night Andrew, my friend’s 18 year old son, passed away.  It is so devastating, and my heart breaks for those he left here on Earth.  His dad sent these words:  “On November 7, our son Andrew celebrated his 18th birthday. We threw him a big party at our church and he even got to perform live on stage with his band.  Last night, November 17 at 8:25pm, Andrew lost his 10 month battle with cancer. He was surrounded by family and friends in the same hospital where he bravely fought through all those months of chemo. Our joy is that he went peacefully and he is now cancer free in heaven.”   Please continue to pray for them as they will surely have some difficult times ahead and they will miss him this holiday season.

Last night I found out that a dear friend found out she has breast cancer for the second time.  Please pray for Bobbie and her family as they begin this terrible journey again.  I don’t know the details of her situation, but I pray they caught it early and she won’t have to go through chemo and radiation all again.

As for me, I am heading to chemo in about a half hour and will be having a bone scan and x-ray on Monday at 8:30 am.  Oralia, Sol’s mom, is here for my chemo and scans, and also to take Kai to Disneyland on Saturday!  He is going to be so excited when he realizes what Disneyland is.  Mickey Mouse, here we come!  🙂

I’ll post again later today – hopefully a more positive message with some pictures!

Love,

Monica

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I love free WiFi!  I am sitting here in Phoenix on my way to San Jose, Ca.  Yes, that’s correct!  I flew from Long Beach, Ca to Phoenix, Az on my way to San Jose, Ca!  So interesting!  It was the cheapest flight and is taking just as long as it would have to drive there.  The exception is that I get to do email, eat, read and sleep – all of which I wouldn’t be able to (or shouldn’t) do while  driving.  I am on my way to a friend’s wedding in Santa Cruz.  

Just to update you, on Thursday I had my CT scan.  I am SO happy to report that they were finally able to use my port at the hospital.  Sol knows a lady, Alice, who also has a Power Port.  She was the first guinea pig at this hospital, and they messed up big time causing her great pain!  She was the guinea pig again two days before me, and that one went smoothly.  She said she was doing it because she knew I had my scan coming up and she wanted mine to go well.  What a sweetheart!  My scan took a lot longer than usual because they were teaching someone how to access a Power Port.  I didn’t mind, but prayed the whole time that she would do it correctly and that nothing would go wrong.  When they were accessing my port, the teaching nurse kept saying, “On thin patients like her…”  “Because she’s thin…”  I said, “I like how you keep calling me thin!  🙂  She did a great job because if there wasn’t a warm flushing feeling throughout my body, I wouldn’t have even known the injection went into my body!  

I won’t know any results until early next week.  I am going to call on Monday to see if the report is available, if not then I’ll call until it is.  Waiting is difficult, but I have learned that finding out news is always better at the beginning of the week as opposed to right before a weekend.  I get to enjoy the weekend no matter what the scan shows.  I am still praying for great news and expecting it even!  🙂  My God is a God of miracles!  

Speaking of miracles, we need to pray for another one.  My friend’s 18 year-old son, Andrew, has testicular cancer throughout his body.  After fighting it with different drugs and more, he had a clear scan except for one tumor in his abdomen and so they scheduled surgery for 11/12 to remove the tumor.  Over the past week he began throwing up blood and was in and out of emergency.  They did a chest x-ray and found multiple new growths on his lungs and cancelled the surgery.  He has been battling this for a while and now this blow to their family is huge.   At the rate that the cancer is spreading and growing in his body, they feel they have one chance to beat it before time runs out.  Last night they had a huge celebration for Andrew’s 18th birthday party.  His band performed for the first time and there were many people there to celebrate with him.  It was a very positive time, but so hard at the same time.  Lord, we need a miracle!  

My plane is beginning to board, so I will sign off.  I just wanted to touch base before time got away from me again!

Love,

Monica

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Numero Uno…we didn’t get the house.  We are ok with that because we were praying that if it was meant to be then we’d get it and if not, then we wouldn’t.  We have peace about it.  They are keeping our offer as a back-up offer, but we’ll continue to look at houses for now.

Numero Dos…I have some sort of sinus thing.  Tuesday I woke up with no voice which made teaching interesting, and my nose has been dripping constantly.  I walk around my classroom with my box of Puffs under my arm.  My kids have been great, but I need to be well for chemo on Friday.  They drew blood today, so hopefully my white count is ok and I get better by Friday.

Numero Tres…Sol and I aren’t sleeping very well.  Neither of us has had a good night’s sleep in over a week.  It is very frustrating as we are both so exhausted.  The praise is that Kai is sleeping beautifully! 🙂

Prayer Requests:

1. We have plans this weekend to go to the UCLA v. Fresno State football game at the Rose Bowl.  Please pray that I feel well enough to go and that if I don’t, I’ll be smart enough to stay home!  I tend to overdo it at times!

2. Chemo is on Friday, and I need to be healthy before they hit my immune system again!

3. Sleep for the weary.  Sol and I both need to get some sleep soon.

Well, that’s the short of it all.  I am heading off to bed right now, hoping/wishing for a full night’s rest!  Talk to you all later!

Thanks for everything!

Love,

Monica

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Please pray for us as we are struggling with our health today.  The three of us have some sort of fluish type thing.  Kai had it on Saturday, but we thought it was just a Milk allergy.  Then last night, Sol was up and down who knows how many times.  This morning I woke up and was hit with the bug.  I really am praying that the 15 or so people who were over last night do not get it!  I had to go into work because I did not have any sub plans written for today, but then I came home and slept for a couple of hours, then went back to work in the afternoon to model a lesson in a classroom, then home for a couple more hours in bed before picking up Kai at daycare.  He seems to be over it, but Sol and I are still having a hard time.  Sol stayed home from work today and worked on stuff from here.

Pray that everyone gets better before my scheduled chemo this Friday.  They will be drawing blood on Wednesday afternoon, and I CAN’T be sick!  I will be calling the doctor’s office tomorrow (Tuesday) to find out the results of the CT scan.  Then on Friday, I have an appointment at 11:15 and Chemo at 1:45 pending a good outcome on the CT scan.

Thank you so much for all the encouragement I received and prayers written to us about tomorrow’s results.  I think since we didn’t get too much sleep last night, I should have no problem sleeping tonight.  Hopefully it’s not my turn to get up and down all night!

Love,
Monica

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Since school has started, life here has been crazy!  I find myself stretched in all different directions.  I apologize for not updating sooner.  Usually that means I’m out and about and feeling ok! 😉

Thank you for praying for my students.  So far, they are wonderful!  I have enjoyed getting to know them and being back in the classroom.  Being out of the classroom for a year, it has been hard getting back in the groove of teaching.  The piles of papers are beginning to pile up around my classroom as I try to figure out how to balance two jobs at the school.  I am teaching three periods, and I have three periods of literacy coaching.  So far the second half of my job has been distributing supplies and trying to find things that seems to be missing.  Amazingly, it has really kept me busy!  Soon I will be going into classrooms and helping teachers with Language Arts needs!  It will be both fun and challenging.

Last Friday, I had chemo, and it seems to have gone very well.  I didn’t have many side-effects, mainly just fatigue.  As I was having chemo, I signed papers on an offer on a house.  It was really kind of exciting, but I’ll tell you more about that later.  At the end of chemo, my parents, sister and niece, Athailia, came through the door.  They were here all weekend.  Sol and I had already planned to go to the Hollywood Bowl on Saturday and happened to have 2 extra tickets, so my parents were able to go with us while my sister, cousin, Rachyl, and her boyfriend, Jonathan watched Kai.  It was a fun evening of music from the L.A. Philharmonic, a fireworks show, and two crazy bus rides!  🙂  It was really nice to have my family here, even though I wasn’t feeling my best.  Althailia has changed so much in 2 months, and Kai loved having her here.  🙂 

About the house, we made an offer and are waiting to hear from the bank.  It is a short-sale, and we’ve always heard that those take a while, but this seems to be moving pretty fast.  Our agent said that we should hear by the end of the week whether or not the bank accepted our offer or will be countering.  It is exciting to think that we could be in a home by the holidays!   🙂 

This Friday is my CT scan to see if the chemo has been working.  When this all started again in July, this CT scan is as far as the doctor told me the plan.  He said 8 weeks of chemo and then a CT scan to check the tumors.  I don’t know exactly what the next steps are, but I think that if chemo appears to be working, then we’ll continue with this chemo, and if it doesn’t, then we’ll try something else.  I am really praying that the scans come back clean, and they find no trace of cancer in any of my organs!  I believe God performs miracles, and he is in control of everything.  He is the great physician and can heal me if He chooses to do so!  I am living my life one day at a time and doing what I can to live with no regrets, because none of us is promised tomorrow. 

Thank you for your support and you prayers.  Here are a few specifics:

Pray for the CT scan on Friday at 4:00.  I am very anxious about it and will have to wait until Tuesday for the results.

Please pray for Kai and for us.  He has been acting out aggressively recently at school and home.  He was sent to the office two days in a row now for biting.  Yesterday he bit a friend, and today he bit himself! 

Pray for me in terms of balancing my life – the two parts of my job, my family, Bible study, chemo and doctor’s appointments.  It is all feeling overwhelming! 

Pray for our house hunting, that we would be guided to the right house and that the offer would go through only if it’s right for our family.

Finally, our renters in Fresno just gave their 30-day notice.  Please pray that we will be able to find renters by October.  We already have a few leads and are hoping that one of them works out!

Thank you and I’m so sorry it took me so long to update! 

Love,

Monica

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Well, it is time for me to go to bed, but I just wanted to let you all know that tomorrow is the first day of school for us here in Whittier.  I am nervous, as usual, but I will get over it once the routine begins.  I feel less prepared being out of the classroom for a year but am excited about being around the kids.

Please pray for me as kids come that they will be understanding and compassionate.  Pray that I would not get sick from them and that we would have a great year together.

On Thursday morning, I have my blood drawn.  Then on Friday, I have chemo.  Please pray for no side-effects.  I will be having the 2 drugs this time and then next Friday a CT scan to see if they are working.  If it’s working, I’ll continue with the current set-up; if it’s not working, they’ll try something else.  So either way, chemo continues.  I don’t know for how long and what the next step might be.  I really don’t think I want to know that far ahead.  I just want to live right now one day at a time.

Some fun news…My parents, sister (Janelle) and baby Athailia are coming on Friday to hang out for the weekend.  Sol and I are taking my parents to the Hollywood Bowl for a fireworks extravaganza on Saturday night!  It will be the first time there for most of us!  I can’t wait.  I just hope I feel good enough to go!  Janelle will stay home and hang out with my cousin, Rachyl, and her boyfriend, Jonathan, as they watch Kai!  Thanks guys!  You’re the best.  It will be a fun time.  Then on Sunday we are all going to go see my grandma in Santa Ana.  She’ll get to see the baby!  🙂

A few last prayer requests…Kai’s little friend Madison is having some problems with her white blood count and her kidney levels are off.  They don’t know what’s wrong and might have to test her bone marrow.  My friend, Sheri, who is walking in the Susan G. Komen walk, is having some serious knee pain and is really bummed about maybe having to miss the walk.  My cousin, Heather, is in Costa Rica at language school.  When she is done she’ll be heading to the Dominican Republic for 2 years!

Thanks for all your prayers.  I am headed off to bed for a good night’s sleep before starting the new school-year!

Love,

Monica

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Well, today I had chemo.  Usually it’s on Thursday, but tomorrow they’re having some sort of meeting.  Before I had chemo, I met with the doctor.  He said that my white count was good and that I wouldn’t need any shots this time!  Yay, I am so relieved!  I had the two drugs today and they went in smoothly.  usually I have an easy time on chemo day but feel pretty bad the following day.  Last chemo, I had an easy time with side-effects.  Today I have had some “flushing”, a rush of heat to areas of my body.  It is such a strange feeling!   I have already taken some anti-nausea drugs and hope to keep the “horse in the barn” as one of my friends says!  We’ll see how tonight and tomorrow fare, but for now, I feel pretty good.  Tired, but good.

Some fun news…Kai has been peeing in the potty at school and he even pooped in it today!  He comes home very proud of his stickers and smiley faces!  🙂   He’s also peed at home, and continues to be more interested in earning stickers for his chart.

Tomorrow we are meeting to get pre-approved for a home loan.  Please pray that we get a low rate and can start making offers on houses!  It is really exciting and scary at the same time.

Thanks for “listening” to me and checking in.  Things here keep moving along.  Many days it’s really hard to even think that I have a disease in my body because I look and feel fine.  I have been getting sad and depressed some days and would really appreciate your prayers as I begin to seek help for this.

Kai is calling and I need to go.  Sol had an emergency come up at work and had to take off.  He said it could take between 5 minutes and 5 hours.  With computers…you never know.

Love,

Monica

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