As I said I am back to work full time and have been for several months, it is good to be back, but every day is a challenge.  I have been extremely tired and in constant pain, but God is good and I choose JOY, so I just keep on plugging along.  I love my job and have a wonderful friend/employer, wonderful employees and the best customers on the planet.  That definately make it easier to go to work each day, although I will admit that after 4 1/2 years of going in before the sun rises is getting a little old–or maybe I am getting a little old–hmmmmm    

    The kids and Darrell are doing well,  Darrell does not have alot of work at all right now(which is another reason I keep working)   but we trust that God will provide just as he has in the past.  The kids are nearing the end of the school year, which means Megan will be graduating!  YIKES!  I am not ready for her to go, but I trust that God will take care of her just as he promises to-and knowing that make it a teensy-tiney bit easier to let her go.  We are planning her open house for May 29th so we are busy getting stuff in order for that, even we have absolutly no idea what we are doing–haha!  Megan, Natalie and Olivia are playing girls soccer, it is the first year that our school has had girls soccer, so it is  a learning year to be sure.  They have done well at the first 3 matches, have not won any yet, but they played really well.  Megan is also running track and Natalie is in the spring play–Seussical the Musical–she is really enjoying it alot.  Natalie also competed at the state level in solo and ensamble competion yesterday–she sang by herself and also sang with her best friend Kaci–they did awesome and we are very proud of them.  Paige is in middle school and continues to love life and her friends–she however is not doing any sports at the time.

      I have had several follow-up dr appts and all is good,  I still have a couple more coming up, but I am thinking that will be a constant thing for the next several years.  I am dealing with alot of after effects of everything—tiredness, pain, loss of feeling in my fingers which might be a side effect of the chemo, from the lymphedema or carpal tunnel–I have a carpal tunnel test next week . I also have ringing in my ear, again could be effect of chemo or I may be losing my hearing,  I have a hearing test next month-sigh-sometimes i feel like it will never end.  I have also just finished physical therapy and am now doing a program on my own–I was going to PT for the lymphedema, which we are hoping is under control(i go back in 2 weeks to find out) and I have a pool program to do several days a week for my sore joints–which again could be effect of chemo or arthritisl.  So for now I exercise when I can and how I can,  I struggle with my weight and get frustrated when I can’t do what I want to–my mind is willing but the body is still weak–but as i am reminded, I had ALOT of junk pumped into me last year,  4 chemos(2 different drugs) steroids, 25 radiation treatments, 5 surgeries with one being 12 hours long(that is alot of anesthia)  it is going to take some time to get all that junk out of me–so when I keep that in the front of my mind and keep things realistic I do better, otherwise I get down on myself and that is a very bad thing!  I focus on God and the joy in my life and I am better–the pain is less, my energy is better and my overall well being is improved.  God is good!

      So please continue to pray for me and the family as we continue to adjust to the new me–with the lymphedema there are alot of things to be careful of and to continually think about so it doesnt get worse.  Pray that I can continue to heal and grow stronger.  I have thought about doing a 5k memorial day, but now realize that is a little unrealistic,  hmmmmm, maybe labor day would be better.  I would be happy just to be able to walk that far and not feel like I am about to die–lol! 

     I will do my best to keep things up to date–today was easy to do because I am home today,  It seems I am fighting a cold of some sort and have strict orders from Darrell and Francie (my friend and boss) to rest this weekend and get better, it seems they think I dont rest enough-hmmm–they both know me really well and are probably right!  lol 

      So in closing, I am thankful for all the blessings in my life, I praise God every day for all that He has carried me thru and I trust that He will never let me go–There is a song by Matt Redman titled “You never let go” (and forgive me if I have shared it with you before) it goes like this:

Even though I walk thru the valley of the shadow of death–your perfect love is casting out fear–And even when I’m caught in the middle of the storms of this life I wont turn back–I know you are near–And I will fear no evil–for my God is with me–and if my God is with me—whom then shall I fear?–Whom then shall I fear?

Chorus:   Oh no you never let go–thru the calm and thru the storm–oh no you never let go in every high and every low–oh no you never let go –Lord you never let go of me

And I can see a light that is coming for the heart that holds on–A glorious light beyond all compare–and there will be and end to these troubles–but until that day comes–we’ll live to know you hear on the earth

Chorus

yes I can see a light that is coming for the heart that holds on–and there will be an end to these troubles–but until that day comes–STILL I WILL PRAISE YOU, STILL I WILL PRAISE YOU!

CHORUS

This song was played for me shortly after recieving the diagnosis and has become very dear to my heart—thanks Francie for “giving” me this song!

    I pray that all who read this may be blessed,  focus on the JOY in life as I continue to do–hearts and hugs to all

     Just to give you an update on my health—I had a PET scan in november and was told that there is NO CANCER!!  EVERYONE SHOUT PRAISE THE LORD!!!   some of you may have heard that already, but I just love repeating it.  When the dr told us that, we could hardly believe it.  Darrell asked me to call and ask them again–but I got a copy of the report and read it for myself!  What a wonderful Thanksgiving we had, and now we are enjoy the Christmas season with renewed energy.  I have had many dr appts and follow ups and most everthing is great.  I am having a huge flare up of my Crohns disease–and my potassium is constantly low,  my blood pressure is high as well, but we are working on these things.  I am currently fighting the cold of all colds, but am starting to finally feel better.  I usually never call in sick to work,but this week I was home sick 3 days–not fun!  I thank God for the drs and the meds that can help me deal with all these things.  Overall my health is good–still working on the stamina and energy, but that too is getting better all the time.   I am working myy full time hours each week and loving my job–I love the work, the people I work with and the customers that I serve each day.  I am even able to make it thru some days without a nap, so that is just one of the signs that my body is getting stronger.  I tend to push myself a little too hard–but am realizing that I need to continue to follow the leads my body gives me as to how much I am able to do.  Patience is a virtue and I am still working on that–

       The girls continue to be busy–we do not currently have anyone playing sports, although they go to every basketball game that they can.  We usually have a houseful of kids after school and I love it.  I am grateful that we are able to do that, God has blessed us and we want to share that blessing with others.  Megan has finished her college search process and has decided she will be attending Trinity Christian college in Palos Heights IL a suberb of Chicago.  She will be studying pre-physical therapy.  We are excited for her but we also have a great deal of nervousness when we think about sending our oldest off to college.  Where in the world does the time go?  We do have reassurance that she will be attending a Christian college, as well as the fact that she will be close to family and friends.  Darrell’s family and my sister and her family all live in the Chicago area.  So she has been coming here her whole life, is familiar with the area and will have a church family already in place.  Once again God is good!!   The other kids are doing good too–growing up way too fast, but we cherish each moment we have.  Lots of fun times filled with lots of giggles, we are truely blessed! 

    Darrell has been busy thru this year, but as usual it is starting to slow down,  we continue to trust that God will provide for us.  He knows what we need and has always been there for us.  I ask you to join me in prayer that he may continue to have work come in and that he will remain busy.  God hears the prayers of his people this I know for sure!!

     So I think that brings you up to speed and I apologize for the delay–Once again I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and I pray you will have a blessed New Year,  continue to Choose Joy in every situation.  The attitude of our head and hearts affects our entire outlook on life!!   Choose JOY!!

    Reason number one–there hasn’t been too much to tell in the last few weeks medically speaking.  I have had a couple follow up visits with the plastic surgeon and am healing really well.  I have to see him again in about 4 or 5 weeks just for more follow up. 

       There is however something new that popped up last week–I have seen a new oncologist.  My oncologist would come to cadillac every month so people didn’t have to travel to Grand Rapids to see him, but now he is not doing that.  Cadillac cancer care where I have my follow up visits has a new young doctor coming from Grand Rapids.  He works with Lacks cancer center, Lemmon-Holton cancer center in GR and has done some training as M.D. Anderson Cancer clinic in Houston TX.  I have always trusted the Lord’s leading thru all this and even though I was nervous about seeing someone new, I also was slightly excited.  I had my first appointment with him and I am really excited about having him on my team.  He is young, fresh and up to date.  Not to say that my other oncologist wasn’t, but sometimes a fresh pair of eyes sees things that others might overlook.  He looked over my chart and chatted with me for quite awhile and here is what came out of the appt.  I already knew I was at a risk for osteoporosis due to having my ovaries out and was already on a med for that–but he is ordering a bone density scan I guess just to give us a baseline scan to use in the future.  I have that tomorrow(Monday).  He also put me on a med to completely dry up  the rest of the estrogen in my body–which is still being produced by the adrenal glands and all my lovly fluffly cells.  As I have said before we have to KILL the estrogen in my body, before it kills me!!  He also talked to me about genetic testing–even though I had one genetic test done and it came back gene negative.  Which was always confusing to me–if there is no breast cancer gene, then why my mom once and me twice?  He didn’t buy that either–he believes that I have a much less common genetic mutation–not just the usual one they look for–and he is going to order a more shall I say in-depth/complete genetic study.  We need to find this out, due to the fact that genetic mutations can put you at risk for other cancers–plus for my siblings and my 4 DAUGHTERS!!  He also is going to check some other levels in the blood in a few months–I believe he said they have found a connection between vit D and cancer–not sure exactly what it is–but I was very intriqued by that.   I also have been having some pain in my hip, and he is ordering a bone scan.  I have had pain in this hip many years ago, but it is the same hip they examined closer earlier in the year and the pain has gotten worse and is ALL  the time.  So I have a bone scan on Thursday of this week. I left the appt with mixed emotions,  wow! I really liked him and am glad he is following up on things that might have been dropped before and oh no!  what if something else shows up?!  But once again the Spirit of the Lord said to me, shhhhh, be still my child for I am with you always–I lead you hear, and I will take care of you!   God is so cool and knows just how to calm me down     I will trust and choose joy no matter what happens.  I anticipate that things will all be ok, but once you have been down this road before your mind tends to mess with you.  Cancer is DEFINATELY a mental, physical and emotional battle–and just because you have beaten cancer–it is NEVER completely out of your mind!!

  Enough about the medical stuff–the second reason for the long pause in the blog is because I have been BUSY!! 

     First of all I have been working 5 days a week–but haven’t been to full hours yet–I will be trying to work my full hours this coming week, so we shall see how it goes.  For those of you who don’t know I manage a Cadillac Java hear in Cadillac–I go into work 5:30am 2 days a week and 6am 3 days a week, I work til noon each day(those are my normal hours)  I haven’t been able to do this completely yet as I still get REALLY, REALLY tired.  About 9-9:30 each morning I kinda hit a wall, but I am a fighter and just dig deep and keep going.  I collapse on the couch when I get home, and consequently the house work has not been a priority–but eventually it all gets done–just takes me alot longer    I LOVE my job, everything about it–the amazing people I work for-the Lord has blessed my life with them–I love my employees and my customers too–we are one big family.  I have had people cry, laugh, high-five me and give me great big hugs when they saw I was back–people have left with huge smiles on their faces and told me I made their day when they saw me–so many of them have been praying for me thru this all and I can truely call them friends!    God has again blessed me in soooo many ways, each of you reading this have been a blessing in my life–I thank God for you all each day!

     It has also been volleyball season–and having 4 daughters in the volleyball program keeps me busy–the older 3 play in High school and the youngest is the manager for 7th grade team.  We usually have 12-18 kids here several nights a week, inbetween school and the games—it is loud and crazy, but I am happy to be able to do it–I love each of these kids like my own and am thankful that my kids have such good friends that have helped them thru this journey!  Last tuesday night the 2 mcBain school held a “dig pink” volleyball fundraiser–the whole gym was filled with pink–pink uniforms, whistles, volleyball, socks, ribbons in hair, lines on the court, ties on the coaches, and that was just the team    the stands were filled with a see of pink as well–they raised $ that half went to the side-out foundation for breast cancer research and funding and the other half went to help a family in their battle–I just want to say thank-you to all of you who were involved in that event–It meant the world to us–I am again blessed to be part of such an awesome community!!  Thanks everyone!!

   But as you can see, between DR. appts., work and volleyball, there isn’t much time for other things, but I am soooo glad that I can do everything that I am.  The cadillac evening news also did a story on me that was in the October 13 edition–there is also a link to a video documentary on you-tube that I am in as well–Go to the Cadillac evening news website and check it out I think the title of the article was “surviving breast cancer—twice”   also on October 21st in the same paper there was a write up about the dig pink event–they interviewed my daughter Megan for that story–I think the title is “promoting pink”  check them out.

    Thanks again for you support and prayers–keep choosing joy–trust me when I say I know it is really tought some day–but you will feel so much better when you focus on the JOY that God brings to each day!!!

   We stayed at Hope lodge again on Tuesday night, Hope Lodge is the American Cancer Society’s hospitality house.  It is a beautiful facility and we are blessed to be able to stay there.  We had to be at the hospital at 6:30 am for surgery to start at 8:30 am on Wednesday morning.  There was some delay, as the order to remove my Chemotherapy port was not on my chart anywhere, so we had to wait for the DR. to get there and add that.  Once that was all squared away–off I went to lala land.  I don’t remember much after that, except that goofy feeling of going under anesthia.  The doc first removed a thing from my back, then took my port out and after that finished up the reconstruction.  It has been explained as taking the tissue expanders out and slipping the actual implants in, but there is much more involved than that!! The surgery was scheduled to be 3 1/2 hours long and ended up being 6 hours long. At least that is what the nurses told me when I asked them as I was waking up.  Everything went well, but I am not sure why it took so much longer.  I was then in recovery for quite sometime, and we finally left the hospital between 8 and 8:30pm–we arrived home about 10:30pm and crashed into bed, well Darrell and the girls went to bed, but I slept in the chair.  I slept well, and have been up and around today quite abit, maybe even a little too much.    Overall I am doing good–little uncomfortable, but in the grand scope of things I am well. 

     I thank you all for your prayers and support,  without prayer, friends and family and most inportantly God on my side, I could not have made it this far.  I have always tried to focus on the JOY in the journey, and somedays like today I will admit it is hard to do!  But I have a great faith in my heavenly Father and that gives me hope for the future and that gives me great JOY!  I will continue to focus on the JOY of the LORD being my strength, cause without HIS strength to carry me I could not have gotten this far.  Praise the Lord for His wonderous deeds that He has done! 

    I choose Joy!  will you please join me in doing the same?

I just received a phone call from my parents a few minutes ago to let me know that Kim was in recovery following surgery.

There is not many details to share with you at this point, but they said that surgery was pushed back an hour due to the paperwork that was needed to have Kim’s port taken out. Once surgery got underway, it was 5 1/2 hours rather than the expected 3 1/2 hours. Everything went as planned and she is now in recovery.

The initial plan was that they would be home tonight, but they might stay in Grand Rapids tonight.

Thank you once again for your prayers and encouragement!

I’m sure the next post will be from Kim.

     I am trying to adjust to the “new normal” in my life–the body I have now is definately not the same one I had 8 months ago–It is wounded and scarred from the battle and it is not as strong as it once was.  I trust in my heavenly Father’s perfect plan for me and I know that one day I will have a new body that will be beyond anything I can imagine, but for now we pray for strength and continued healing.  We focus on the JOY that is in each day–all the wonders of His creation.  Please focus on the Joy in the everyday things of life–take nothing for granted, but see it as God’s gift to you! 

    Choosing JOY!

     I am still struggling with my throat/voice.  My voice is still weak and my throat hurts like crazy all the time.  Swallowing food is extremely painful–I have a follow up appt. with the Ear,nose throat doctor on the 11th –but we have also discovered that all this could be from the radiation.  Part of my esophagus and trachea are both getting some radiation and all the pain and lack of voice could be from the burn created by radiation.  We won’t know if that is what it is from unless it starts to get better now that treatments are done.  The radiation is sooo powerful that even though they radiated the area near my collarbone in the front and the skin is burned–I also have a matching burn on my back, directly behind the burned area on the front.  The radiation went thru my entire body front to back–powerful stuff!  hopefully it killed any cancer cells inbetween!

     What is next?  On August 13th we meet with the plastic surgeon to discuss the next step in the reconstruction process.  I really don’t know much about what needs to be done, how long it will take and the recovery time–but I am sure we will get these answers on the 13th.  I also will have more fluid drawn off my back on that day too–that hasn’t been done for the last 6 weeks or so and there is alot of fluid–very uncomfortable!

       So for now I thank you for your prayers, please continue to pray.  We may be done with treatments, but we have surgery and lots of follow up visits.  I am sure I will be anxious everytime they draw blood or do a scan–but like I have said so many times before–God is in control and He is bigger than anything that I have to deal with.   So I will keep giving my worries over to HIM and I will CHOOSE JOY!

      On Friday evening I was able to go to the Relay for LIfe–It is always such a moving/powerful thing.  After the luminary ceremony they had everyone that was there walk a lap together, I walked hand in hand with Darrell and our girls–they have all taken such good care of me and have given up so much to help me fight.  They are the reason I fought and will continue to fight so hard.  It was amazing!

      I continue to recieve treatments–I only have 6 more radiations left which is very exciting and scary at the same time.  After that we will see the plastic surgeon again and discuss when the next part of the reconstruction will be.  I suspect it will be the end of August or the first of september.  But we will know more on that in the next few weeks.

      I will continue to Choose JOY!  and give Praise to God, for if I had to do this without God on my side,  I would have quit along time ago–He gave me the strength to get thru it–I was/am way to weak to do it on my own!  Praise be to God!   Find the JOY in everything you do and thank God for it!

      I am doing well,  my skin is a little pink in the areas they are radiating, but nothing too awful so far.  I do get really tired by the end of the week–but is it the radiation, the driving to and from Traverse City each day or the fact that I have a very busy family–and I still have to do my job as mom and wife.  But overall I am doing good.  

     I have been having some troubles with my voice and went to my primary care doctor this am.  She is referring me to a ear,nose and throat doctor to see if they can tell what is going on.  I have a feeling of something stuck in my throat when I swallow and my voice has been very weak and hoarse–it gets alot worse the more I talk.  But I am not to worried about it–just annoyed that I have to deal with one more thing.  Could be scar tissue, could be damage to vocal cords or possibly a nodule on a vocal cord–we shall see.

     I hope that you are having a great summer–the weather hasn’t been that great, but I hope that everyone is taking time to enjoy family and friends.   I pray that you will take the time to see the blessings of each day–God has great blessings He gives us each day, please take the time to thank Him for them.    He has truely blessed me–and I will continue to sing praises to Him for all He has done!  I live each day with a joyful heart–there is JOY in all we do!

    Anyway, surgery went well, lasted less than an hour, and was laproscopic.  We were home by early afternoon, and I slept most of the rest of the day–this morning I am feeling some better, but still have some pain, but nothing a little pain meds won’t take care of –so for the next couple days I will just be resting/recovering and getting ready for radiation to start on monday.

     I have to say how blessed I was yesterday, we had to be there at 5:45am with surgery at 7:45 am–which means we had to leave the house at 4:30am-(surgery was at Munson hosp in Traverse City)-now Darrell has a hard time waking up that early, but of course he did it–when we got there and I had the most amazing medical team—the pre-op nurse was super sweet, another nurse Julie from Mcbain was working and popped her head in to say hello, my Doctor is amazing and very compassionate, and my recovery nurse was awesome.  My friend Lori–who also happens to be my radiation tech and works across the street from the hosp–came to see me and pray with us before she went to work.  We met last time I had radiation and have been in touch ever since.  So I say thank you Lord for blessing me/us with wonderful doctors and nurses and amazing friends and family that have helped me on this dreaded journey!!  I trust in the Lord with all my heart and lean not on my own understanding–I trust He has lead me to the right decisions thru all this and that He has healed my body of the horrible aweful disease called cancer!!