We had the greatest time at Disneyland.  Kai has been watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, so he knew all the characters and was so excited to see all of them.  Disneyland is such a different experience through the eyes of a child.  We ended up getting annual passes so that we could go back all year long.  It was such an awesome blessing to have the hotel.  I was able to go lay down (before Kai) when I got worn out.  Then Kai had his naptime and was ready to go again.  We even watched the fireworks from the hotel room!   We spent some time in Downtown Disney – Kai was a big hit dancing up a storm in front of a live band.  He was busting out all sorts of moves I’ve never seen him do before – break dancing being one of them!   It was the cutest thing.  As we were getting in the car to come home from 2 days at Disneyland, he says, “I want to go to Shamu’s house.”  Is this kid spoiled or what?  😉

Check out these moves!

As for chemo, it keeps going.  I have been getting more and more tired with each one and spending time resting.  However, I have been able to enjoy my family and time with friends.  The eating has been taking center stage.  It has not been easy, but I feel better about what is going into my body.  Whenever I want to eat something I know I shouldn’t, it’s easier to resist because I know I’m not doing this to lose weight but to save my life.  When I put it that way, time with my family is way more important than that donut!

On Sunday, we went to the memorial service for Andy Caldera – 18 year-old who passed away from testicular cancer.  Our hearts break for his family.  It was a very difficult service to go to being in the midst of my own battle with recurrent cancer – a little too close to home.

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with the Torres family.  Kai loved being around all the kids, and we had a great time hanging out with everyone – eating way too much, checking the sale adds, watching football and playing games.  My plate didn’t look much like Thanksgiving dinner.  I had a huge salad with some turkey on top.  It was actually quite tasty, but definitely not the traditional Thanksgiving flavor.  I tried to make cauliflower mashed potatoes, but they were the worst tasting thing I’ve ever made.  The texture was perfect (thanks to the vitamix), but we wanted to keep them raw – not the best idea.  Make sure you steam them first (loses nutrients, but surely tastes better!).  It was nasty!  🙂  We tossed them and went without!

On the way home, we bought Kai a new car seat today.  Whenever he falls asleep in the car, he wakes up complaining “My butt!” or “My legs!” – with good reason.  We didn’t realize how hard his chair was, and we think his legs hit the chair at a weird angle making them fall asleep, so they’re painful when he wakes up.  Now that he’s in pull-ups (yay for potty training!) there’s not as much padding on his bottom.  We splurged for the car seat with the luxury foam!  So cushy!  I’m jealous!  Hopefully, no more “My butt hurts!”

I am waiting for the results of my bone scan and x-rays.  I was kind of glad to not have them before the long weekend, but am anxious to find out what they showed/didn’t show.

Tomorrow we are going to look at more houses.  It is exciting, and I hope we find something that we really
love and can afford!  🙂

Next week, I don’t have chemo!  It’s my week “off”.  Yay!  I’ll be reading all about nutrition and maybe going to therapy for my arm.  It keeps swelling and going down and then swelling again.  In order to get a compression sleeve, I have to go through two weeks of therapy first.  We’ll see if that gets started this week or not.

Well, I’ve got to get to bed now.  I’m up past my bedtime again!

Take Care and I hope you had a very Happy Thanksgiving!

Monica

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Yesterday, I went to the school and was asked to stop by the office before going home. When I went into the office, I was given a huge basket of goodies – flowers, slippers, tons of gift cards, magazines, pajamas, a robe, Burt’s Bees, a necklace, and so much more! It was so amazing and overwhelming as I was in my livingroom opening the basket! Thank you so much to my Dexter Family. Not only did they bring meals from March to November (when I changed my diet), but they’ve provided house cleaning and gifts throughout the past year. What an amazingly sacrificial group. They have blessed me with all they’ve done! Thanks!

While I was sitting there opening my goody basket, the doorbell rang. It was a wonderful bouquet of flowers from a team of teachers at my school – thanks Harvard! I am really enjoying the fresh arrangement on my kitchen table! It’s beautiful!

Then I went and checked the mail – another team at Dexter had sent gift cards to Whole Foods! Thanks Duke! You are definitely helping me choose a healthier diet! Thanks so much!

My son’s daycare – Lad ‘n Lassie – deserves a huge thank you as well. They give Kai special love and have blessed our family in ways we couldn’t imagine a business would do. Thank you and God bless you guys!

Jackie – thanks for all the meals that you have brought over on chemo days. She said the only things I’m getting from now on are chicken and fish! 😉 She’s so cute. She says she comes to see Kai, not me! 😉

A new friend, Jill, took home huge stacks of paperwork from school and sorted them by student name – 33 student names.  She has been cleaning my classroom weekly for a while to keep all of those germs away.  Thanks for all the help.  She even accompanied me to chemo at the last minute!  What a treasure!  Thanks!

We got news today that a friend from long ago heard that we were going to be heading to Disneyland and has set up for us to stay two nights at the Disneyland Hotel – tomorrow and Saturday nights for free! Lupe – you’ll never know how special that is going to be!

We were given tickets to Disneyland and California Adventure a while ago and will finally be using them this Saturday! We are so excited! Kai is the perfect age. Not only is he free :), but he is really into Mickey Mouse Clubhouse right now! He’s going to be so adorable all day long! I can’t wait. Thanks for the tickets WW! 🙂

I did have chemo this morning. Everything went smoothly and really quite fast. I am starting to feel a little weird, but that’s to be expected! I am going to bed soon, but wanted to send this note out before time gets away again!

Before I go, there are a few more thanks – Nana – you came through today helping me at the laundry mat with 9 loads of laundry! Wow! Do we really have that many clothes? Thanks for sweating it out washing, drying and folding so much laundry! That would have taken forever here at home with one washer! 😉

My friend, Sunshine, came over and made fajitas for us tonight as our kids played together. Thanks, Sunshine for all that you do for us! You are so thoughtful!

There are soooooooo many more of you who need thanks and I’m sorry that I’m not mentioning you by name! You have all touched me with your encouraging words, hugs, emails, cards, books, phone calls, lunch dates, journals, and so much more. Each day I am blessed by someone through various means! I can’t even tell you how much it means to have you all in my life reminding me that I have so much to fight for. I feel so loved and lifted up. You are a huge reason I walk around with a smile on my face! Thank you!

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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Today at chemo I guess there was good news. My doctor went and looked at the scan at the hospital and after comparing the largest tumor, found no change. That was what he was hoping to find (that or shrinkage). He says that it is not out of the ordinary to see a scan that shows good shrinkage and then a stable one. He thinks that the growth shown on the smaller tumors could be human or imaging error and not to worry about it. It was good to hear, but I’m still unsure. The one that showed up on the spine was not imaged in the July scan or the September scan. They didn’t go that low. It is new since March, but so is everything else.

I think that Sol and I might make an appointment with another oncologist just for a second opinion. Sol’s boss says that this other oncologist is known for being “creative” in pursuing treatments. Another thing we will do is send my scans to two facilities for further review and 2nd opinions. None of this could be bad to do.

As for our eating change. It’s going well for me, but last night was quite eventful. After playing video games at a friend’s house, Sol came home presenting symptoms of diabetic shock. He was shaking, cold to the touch, about to faint, vomiting, and much more. His temperature was only 92 degrees. Sol woke me up (it was about 11:30 pm), and I called a nurse’s hotline. She said to call 911. I gave Sol some pedialite and M & Ms. When the paramedics got here, he looked and felt like a different man. He was doing much better. They tested his sugars and said they were fine, and they did an EKG and said he was ok. Since he wasn’t presenting those symptoms anymore, they said if it came on again that I should just drive him to the hospital. So about 10 minutes later, he started feeling bad again. So we called a friend, Sunshine, to come stay with the sleeping Kai and went to the hospital. They ran a bunch of tests and started a saline iv. It turns out that it was a very bad case of dehydration. After two liters of saline, Sol was feeling much better. All the blood tests and x-rays came back normal, so we came home about 4 am. We’ll take turns sleeping today. Since Sol was in the hospital, he goes first!

I am tired, but know that I’ll have my turn sleeping soon!

Love to you all,

Monica

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Sol went with me to my doctor’s at 11:00 today (waited an hour and half to see him) and here is basically what he said.

He said that he is not convinced that the chemo isn’t working. The growth that is mentioned is so minimal (between 1 and 3 millimeters), he said, that it could just be the difference in people reading the scan or instrument error. He did not have a chance to see the scan for himself before we met with him, so he’s still going to look at it and see for himself what’s going on. The largest tumor, which is in my liver, was not even mentioned in the report. The doctor said that it will tell more of what chemo is doing, so he wants to see it before making any changes in treatment. As for the legion on my spine, it is very low in my back, and that area wasn’t even scanned in the September scan, so there is nothing to compare it to. The doctor is going to look at the scan from July and see if that area was scanned back then. So basically they don’t know for sure if this is actually new growth or if it was there all along. He will try to see. It didn’t show up on the March scan, but none of what is there now did.

So for now, I will continue to do chemo (tomorrow at 11:15). He is also having me do a bone scan and x-ray next week. The bone scan is a nuclear test. I had one when I was first diagnosed. I won’t be able to hold Kai for longer than a few seconds for two to three days after that test. 🙁 He wants to see if the bone scan will show more of what this legion is or is not. We will just wait to hear from him and call him if we don’t get word quickly.  I will also be going to a lymphedema therapist as my arm continues to swell and that worries me.  Those appointments are daily for 2 weeks, so my schedule will be FULL!

Another big thing to report is that I have stopped working to focus on getting better. Yesterday was my last day working at least until January. We don’t know what’s ahead, but Sol and I are going to drastically change our eating habits (isn’t he sweet to be doing this with me?). We are going to focus on juicing every day and eating more raw vegetables and fruit. It is going to be difficult, but we want to know that we did EVERYTHING we could to make this go away.

Please continue to pray for Andrew and his family. They received some really terrible news and are trying to deal with it as best they can.

Thanks for all the emails and Facebook messages! We love you guys!

Monica

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It’s late already, so I’ll make this short for now.  Monica’s CT scan showed that the tumors are growing.  The growth wasn’t as aggressive as we’ve seen in the past, but the tumors in the lungs and liver are bigger than they were two months ago.  On top of that, there is a new growth in her spine in the lower back area.  This is very disconcerting as bone metastasis tends to be the most symptomatic and painful form of cancer.  We aren’t sure what the next few steps will be, but she has an appointment with her oncologist on Thursday.

We’re not giving up and are ready to keep fighting, but we were definitely devastated by the news.  Thanks in advance for your continued prayers and support.

-Sol

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I am sitting in the airport, and just wanted to let you know that I haven’t heard anything yet about the scan.  I’ll call again tomorrow morning.

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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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 Wow!  Busy, busy, busy is all I can say!  I am so thankful that I have been feeling well enough to spend time traveling and visiting with people I haven’t seen in quite a while. 

Thank you for your prayers as I went up north the day after having chemo.  I didn’t have any side effects while I was there – except for fatigue.  I was able to hang out with my girlfriends, and the house we rented worked out perfectly!  We were able to put all 12 kids to bed and spend time hanging out!  There were 27 of us  all together!  One night was especially moving as we all talked and caught up on life – sharing heart issues and being real with each other.  As we talked, we all reflected on how special this group of friends is and how rare it is to have such a group in our lives.  I miss them already!  Let’s not wait 4 more years to see each other!

Also, while we were in Redding, my parents and sister (with baby) came and took us to the pumpkin patch.  We rode the train, saw pig races, rode in a canoe, and took some silly pictures.  It was a fun time with family.

The trip back from that weekend wasn’t so fun!  We missed our connection in San Francisco due to fog and had to keep Kai entertained at the airport for 6 hours.  We finally caught a flight to Santa Ana where a friend picked us up, but our luggage went to LAX.  We finally got our luggage late on Monday.  On Monday, I went home from work with a fever of 101.  I spent the whole day in bed and woke up the next morning with diarrhea.  It was no fun, but I was glad it didn’t happen over the weekend (or on the plane)!

I continued chemo on Friday, and then drove with the family to Monterey where my sister, Karen, had been all week for work.  She arranged to stay there for a few extra days so we could see her.  She lives in D.C. so we don’t get that chance all that often.  It was a fun weekend, a long drive, but a fun weekend.  We went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium and had a great time watching Kai discover new things.  He loves to explore and learn!  🙂  We dropped Karen off at the airport, and Kai threw a fit becuase he wanted to go on the airplane, too!  Karen actually made it home to D.C. before we made it to L.A.  So not fair!  I was so happy to be able to spend that time with her and to once again be feeling good enough to do it.

My chemo continued this past Friday (Halloween).  We took Kai trick-or-treating and boy do kids pick up the idea of spouting off a phrase when you get candy in return.  He had a great time.  He was dressed up as Batman.  He had a plastic mask that he just would not take off.  He pretty much wore it all day (he even ate dinner with it on).  He was in the parade at school waving at everyone.  Neither of us were there to see him, but our friend took some pictures and said that he just kept waving the whole time trying to see out of his mask.  It would slide down, but instead of pushing it up, he would just tilt his head back trying to see everyone!   The first thing he said to me on Saturday when I went to get him out of bed was, “My Candy?”  He made out like a bandit! 

Last night was our Sunday School ‘s annual Halloween party.  We had a potluck and played games.  It was a lot of fun!  I am so thankful that I have felt as well as I have to participate in all of the fun stuff.  Today, however, I am feeling pretty bad.  I slept in, went to church, and then came home and laid in bed for about 5 hours.  I just have a yucky feeling in my stomach and that chemo taste and texture in my mouth.  It’s a typical feeling after chemo, but sometimes it’s worse than others.

The next thing for me is a CT scan on Thursday (Nov 6th).  I don’t have chemo this week, but the CT scan effects are sometimes worse than the chemo effects.  I’ll be out of commission for the evening – staying close to the restroom!  We are hoping and praying that the scan shows continued shrinkage of the tumors – evidence that the chemo is working.  On the last CT scan, they said that the tumors had all shrunk by half, but that there was one new one showing up.  Our prayer is that this one is also shrinking and not growing.  I won’t have any report until the following week.  I have a doctor’s appointment on Friday (Nov. 14th), but will call earlier in the week (maybe Tuesday) to find out the results. 

Thank you for your faithful prayers and support even when you don’t hear from me!   One other prayer request that I have is that I have my teaching evaluation this Friday.  The Vice-Principal will be coming to observe me teaching a lesson.  I pray that my students are engaged and their behavior is top notch.  Parent conferences were last week, so there were some difficult conversations that will hopefully turn things around for some of those kids!  🙂

Thanks again,

Love,

Monica

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