The First Month

Over spring break we found out that Jess did not have a fluid fill cyst in her breast as we were hoping, but instead it was cancer. The doctor also knew that it had spread to the lymph nodes under her arm. The next step was getting a PET scan. Jess was a little surprised when they took her outside into the parking lot and into an 18 wheeler for the scan. It turns out the machine used is so expensive that several hospitals share it and they need the trailer so it can mobile. She said it was a little like Knight Rider when she stepped into the big rig and saw a complete lab. The results from the scan were disheartening: there were lots of little black dors on the slide showing where there was cancer. The biggest areas of concern other than the ones we already knew about were the tumors on her kidneys, liver, and spine. We were shocked that we had gone from a possible stage 2 in our minds to stage 4 in less than a week. The medical oncologist told us that Jess's cancer was very treatable but not cureable. We think that God has a different plan. We are praying that the cancer will be gone in a year. Jess had her first round of chemo last Tuesday almost a week ago. The day of chemo was really long-- we were there for about seven hours and most of that was spent getting the chemo (perhaps 6 and half hours). Jess spent most of the time writing thank you notes-- even two weeks into this we had a lot of people to thank! Jess was sleepy the day after chemo, her back hurt the next day from the shot that boosted her white blood count, and the next few days she felt really, really cruddy. By the weekend I was feeling that way too. It was almost overwhelming with me trying to do a lot of stuff that Jess normally does, plus my stuff, and then on top of that thinking about Jess's cancer. There has been a lot of stress as we totally change our lifestyle. However, Jess is starting to feel less exhausted and I am feeling less stressed. Our three girls are doing remarkably well. Katelyn who is ten has struggled to get her homework done (not a normal thing for our straight A student) and Jadyn (3) and Bryn (2 on the 26th) have been a little more irritable-- but that's about it.