This last Tuesday as we were waiting for chemo to start, we had a rather humbling, and in some ways frightening, conversation with "J". (For her privacy I won't disclose her name, although I don't think any of you will know here!)We see J every chemo trip. She is on the same chemo regime as Kent, for colon cancer. When we have spoken before we have shared ideas on how to overcome side effects, or even just empathizing together over feeling sick and miserable together. However, this time we talked more about the actual circumstances of what brought them here. We talked about how Kent is a stage 2, maybe 3, but because of complications they couldn't sit around and wait to officially determine. We had collectively decided to move ahead with chemotherapy instead of waiting to find out. As J shared her story, my heart broke for her. 10 years ago she had breast cancer. Fortunately it wasn't advanced enough to require chemo. She had surgery and was done. She said she had come in every year to be checked and had been clean. Her last check up was supposed to be her 10 year appointment and, at some point in that check up, she found out she had stage 4 colon cancer. My heart broke at this point. It is hard enough seeing all of these people so sick, but to hear her whole story was so sad. She said, even after all of that, she wishes she could take Kent's cancer from him. She said she would rather go through cancer a 3rd time then for Kent, as young as he is, to ever have to have experienced it. She has a daughter the same age as Kent and she said it makes her think of her kids when she sees Kent. She said just the night before she had spoken with her daughter and told her how heartbreaking it is to see "the sweet boy in the black sweatshirt and his cute little wife every week". Anyways, she said it was really sad that her last appointment ended up being the start of many more to come. My heart broke for her, and I am praying for her to recover quickly. The conversation also made me even more aware of where we stand. They have warned us and told us that it can come back, but I guess it was easier to think that he just won't get it again. It was a bit of a reality check for me that it is a very real possibility that it can come back, but I pray it won't. I am grateful for the knowledge though that Heavenly Father has a plan, and His plan is perfect, so if it comes back I am so grateful for the knowledge that the Lord will again help us work through it and we will be stronger in the end.
Back to Round 5: they are concerned about 2 things:
1. He has had some temporary loss of muscle function. They are doing some tests to find out what it is so they can fix that.
2. He has been having some severe abdominal pain around his surgical site. They are pretty concerned about this, especially because there is the possibility that he didn't heal properly which would be bad. He is scheduled for a CT scan next week to check, and we hope they can find the answer.
Other then that things are going fairly smoothly, for which we are EXTREMELY appreciative. The blessings keep pouring in. We are especially grateful for the wonderful doctors and nurses who are helping us through this. I am grateful they had the patience and ability to go through all that schooling so that they could know how to help my husband, along with countless other people, overcome this kind of trial.
*A quick update on Kennedy because we have been asked for one! :) He is doing really well. The "seizures" or whatever they are have slowed down quite a bit. For the most part he is having one a day, or less, which is really good. We are waiting to talk to our neurologist for further information on what the EEG showed, but we are pretty optimistic for him! It is another example of the many blessings we have received during this hard time.
I read this quote and just LOVED it! It clearly states a lot of what we have experienced so far this year.
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