Category: Carrie-Anne (Page 1 of 9)

One down, fifteen to go.

Carrie-Anne endured her first round of chemo yesterday at the Allison Cancer Center here in Midland and I’m posting here mainly to keep everybody up to speed with her treatments. I don’t really have any deep theological thoughts on this thing yet. We’re flooding Carrie-Anne’s blood and bones and organs with a mix of poisons that kills all fast-growing cells – the healthy ones and the harmful ones, the cancer cells that are hurting her body and the normal cells that are supposed to grow quickly – in the hopes that the cancer cells will die and never come back and her good cells will withstand the torture and be okay. Naturally, we’ve got mixed feelings about all that. It’s troubling and complicated.

The first infusion was set to last 90-minutes, but it’s not just sitting in a chair and watching the clock. We’re using what are called “Cold Caps” during her treatments in an effort to save her hair. The caps are made out of a weird gel that must be kept at 35-degrees below zero and tightened onto her scalp with a series of Velcro straps. So on the morning of the treatment, I wheel my Igloo ice chest into the Market Street grocery store, load up with 50-pounds of dry ice, and pack the caps inside. During her treatment, we change out the caps every 25-minutes and continue it for five hours at home after the infusion. On top of that, we’re also rotating frozen gloves and slippers – not quite as cold as the caps – every 30-minutes in an attempt to save her fingernails and toenails. Needless to say, there is no relaxing during the chemo. We roll two ice-chests, an electric blanket, and a whole duffel bag full of accessories into the fusion room, set up shop, and work hard together for a little over two hours. It takes almost five minutes to get a cap out of the ice chest and onto her head, five minutes to get the cap off her head and repacked and, during the fifteen minutes while she’s wearing the cap, I’m rotating out the gloves and slippers. It got easier and better as we went along, but it was a stressful couple hours. More math.

Twenty minutes into the chemotherapy, Carrie-Anne did have a scary reaction. She began experiencing severe chest pains and couldn’t take a deep breath. She described it as stabbing pains through her chest and into her back, through her entire body, and she wasn’t breathing very well. They stopped the infusion, checked her vitals, and shot some steroids into her port. Her oxygen levels and pulse stayed good through the whole thing, but it was a little scary. They contacted our oncologist, gave her Benadryl and Pepcid through her port, waited about 20-minutes, and began the chemo again at a slower pace. Things calmed down, we finished out, and got home at 1:00 in the afternoon.

So far, she’s handled the whole thing really well. No nausea, no pains, no bone soreness. She slept almost ten hours last night and feels a little tired and run down this morning, but she seems to have come through okay. The encouraging thing is that the first treatment is supposed to be the most difficult one. Her body will supposedly get used to these treatments over the coming Fridays and each one will be easier. If that’s the case, we’re in really good shape.

We feel like we’re in really good hands with Texas Oncology and we’re overall very confident in the plan. Earlier this week, Carrie-Anne and I had a serious conversation about going forward with the chemo and came to the quick conclusion that it’s silly to talk about second opinions. We’re with M.D. Anderson! Who are we going to call? We’re also trying to temper our expectations with the hair. The results are mixed and the medical opinions are varied as to the effectiveness of these Cold Caps. If it works, if she only loses 30-percent of her hair, which is the goal, then it will have been worth it. If she loses her hair, we will know we did everything we could to save it. And it will grow back. It always grows back. They can’t guarantee it’ll grow back the same color, but it will grow back.

And, again, we are overwhelmed by the love and generosity we are receiving from our brothers and sisters in the Body of Christ. Our church family at GCR is simply unbelievable in blowing way past our expectations as they take care of my wife. Food, cards, phone calls, flowers, texts, visits, prayers – it’s over the top. We’re hearing from Amarillo, Mesquite, Fort Worth, and Marble Falls; we feel so much love and are so grateful to God for the wonderful friends he’s given us over so many years.

By God’s grace, we’re in a good place today. Thank you for your love for my wife and our family.

Peace,

Allan

Kickoff is set for February 3, two weeks from this Friday, and the plan is to completely eradicate this cancer thing.

Carrie-Anne and I met today with our oncologist here at the Midland Allison Cancer Center to work out the treatments and the time frames for her chemotherapy. Dr. Manny Mangat didn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know, but he certainly assured us that what M.D. Anderson is prescribing is the right thing and he’ll do it for us exactly as prescribed.

It’s a six month process – once  every three weeks for three months and then once a week for the next three months. The infusions will be on Fridays, to give C-A a couple of days to rest before she goes back to work. (Yes, she intends to work through this. Have you met my wife?) Each infusion will last between 60-90 minutes and we’ll get to do them all at the Allison Center, less than three miles from our house.

Between now and February 3, she’ll have an echo-cardiogram, some blood work, an outpatient procedure to install her port, and a one-time orientation class for those about to undergo chemotherapy. We also have one more  trip to Houston January 26-27 for an adjustment to her reconstruction they wanted to accomplish before the chemo begins.

It felt a little different today. Walking alone from the front door of the hospital to the car in the parking garage, it felt really heavy. Talking to the oncologist about side effects and risks and hair loss, seeing the rooms where it’s going to happen, finalizing the dates – it felt/feels more real than maybe it has since we got the news 12-days ago. Definitely different. Carrie-Anne felt it, too. We both had tears in our eyes when I pulled the car up to get her at the door.

This is happening. And it’s okay. It’s not what either of us would have chosen, not at all. But it’s where we are and we’re doing it together with our Lord. He is with us. He is asking us to walk faithfully through a difficult trial and to lean on him and to point others to him. His desire is to use this season in our lives to grow in relationship with him and with each other, and that’s what we intend to do. We will be open to what he says to us along this journey and we will pay attention to what he shows us. We are confident. And he is faithful.

May our God’s holy will be done in and through my beautiful wife just as it is in heaven to his eternal glory and praise.

Peace,

Allan

Well, we are a long way from where we were five days ago. We have gone from “It’ll be a significant surgery and a tough four or five weeks but you’ll be completely done and cancer-free,” to “Six months of chemotherapy and regular scans and check-ups for five years.”

My beautiful wife, Carrie-Anne, is being prescribed multiple rounds of fairly aggressive chemotherapy because the cancer she has is fairly aggressive. It’s classified as a “triple-negative breast cancer,” a fairly uncommon form found only in ten-percent of women who have breast cancer, and typically in African American women and other women 40-years-old and younger. That’s not my wife; but here we are. We’re doing our best to arrange the chemo infusions through Texas Oncology in Midland – it looks very promising. It’ll be once every three weeks for three months and then once a week for three more months, hopefully beginning in the next ten days or so. When it’s over, in June, they’re saying we’ve got a 92% chance of the cancer not returning. Then M.D. Anderson will see her here in Houston every quarter for scans and checkups for two years, and then twice a year for three more years. If she stays cancer-free for the whole five years, then they believe we will be totally in the clear. We have learned over the past week there is no such thing as 100% when you’re dealing with cancer.

So we’ve moved from recovering from soreness and three or four trips to Houston for reconstruction to a five-year journey of chemotherapy and constantly looking over our shoulders. That’s a different deal than what we were initially told.

We have our final follow-up appointment with the plastic surgeon today at 11:30 – we’re not really sure how the chemo is going to impact her reconstruction, but we do know her final two drains are being removed – and then we’re heading home to Midland. We’re hoping to arrive at Stanglin Manor before 11:00pm, where our middle daughter, Valerie, will be waiting on us. She arrives in Midland later today and will stay with us through Monday morning.

The last four or five days have been an emotional roller coaster for us. The pathology report Friday was a gut punch in many respects and the meeting with the oncologist yesterday signaled lots of changes in plans and expectations and lifestyle for us. But we’re in good hands all the way around. And our Lord is faithful. We are sure of that.

Peace,

Allan