On the Road to Recovery

Following a mastectomy, a trip to AZ and a marriage for Katies sister, packing up our house and moving to a new location, the world shutting down that weekend, an earthquake the following week, a job reassignment, and the start of radiation treatment for Katie… I’m not sure how many times I wanted to write my thoughts down but did not know where to begin. So many events and life altering changes have happened recently. And in the middle of it, Katie continues to fight on. I think I will work backwards.

Katie is currently in the middle of radiation treatments. We are overjoyed that the last scan continues to show no cancer growth present. However, since the microscopic cells cannot be detected by an external scan, it was decided that the safest course of action for Katie right now was to proceed with the radiation treatments. This is now more precautionary than anything so that any possible missed cells can be eradicated and she will have a much smaller chance of any relapses in tumor growth. She is 2 weeks in to a 5 week treatment of radiation on a daily basis. Katie drives in to the hospital every afternoon for a 30 min appointment where she receives a dose of radiation in the affected areas. They gave her a few marks to pinpoint the exact area where to administer the radiation so that only that area would be affected protecting the more vital areas and organs. These marks are merely small tattoos that help pinpoint the machine to give controlled dosages of radiation. I still think it is fun that she has tattoos 🙂 She seems to be responding to the treatments just fine, the areas will continue to become very sore and tender throughout the treatment, creating a very annoying “sunburn like” sore, but that Arizona gal has had years of skin preparation 🙂

We are excited that following the radiation treatments, the only thing left for her to finish hopefully will be her hormonal treatment infusions, which should wrap up around September sometime. We should hope to see a significant drop in hospital visits after that point…again if all continues to go well.

Katie is feeling much better than she has in a long time. Nothing in all of the treatments compares to the pain and debilitation of the chemotherapy. We are glad to have that phase in our rear view mirror. Recently we have been discussing how miraculous the medical care that Katie received was. There has been an entire team of doctors working around Katie that have helped her to get to this point. Starting with our family practitioner, who first treated Katie and decided to push for a life saving scan to detect the cancer. And then to a most amazing Oncologist, Breast Surgeon, and Plastic Surgeon who continue to give her amazing personalized care, and recommend the best treatments possible for her situation. Chemotherapy was horrible, agonizing and took a toll on our family, but we can confidently say that chemotherapy saved Katie’s life. Along with every other procedure that provided her a path to cure. We are amazed at the miracle of modern medicine. Now we also recognize that there are many who receive the same modes of care that Katie did, and it does not always work out the way they hope. I couldn’t imagine having to go through all of this only to go through it again and again in hopes that eventually it would lead to a cure. I also know that there are some who may receive other forms of treatment and find a path to cure through possible other means. To me, it makes our journey even more amazing that Katie was able to receive the treatment that she needed in the way and timing that it was intended so that she was able to receive the best results.

A blessing for our family has been this Covid craziness. We were unsure how radiation treatments and childcare would work on a daily basis. Since I now teach from home, we have counted this as a very well timed blessing for our family. It has been wonderful to not have daily commuting schedules be a burden on our family while trying to work in radiation treatments. We are continuing to recognize the blessing of circumstance that appears when needed.

Timing has been one of the greatest miracles we have seen in this whole process. There is too much to mention. It has been amazing to see how everything has happened in a timeline that created a path for us to accomplish what needed to be done and in the way and time that it needed to happen. It’s hard when you are looking forward to the unknown, but now in hindsight, it is a wonder how everything perfectly fell in to place. We moved into this home on Friday March 13th, the weekend when everything shut down. If we would have waited another week or two, it may have been a little more difficult for us to get the help and resources we needed. We are also grateful that her chemo and mastectomy were performed and completed less than a month before all of this Covid stuff hit. We couldn’t imagine getting through it all without the constant help of people coming over to lend a hand during that time. If we would have had to social distance ourselves from everyone, that would have been tough.

We love our new home, and the chance to be together in it for these past two months has been an unexpected blessing. It was hard at first to get everyone settled, and find how to fit school, work, and daily needs around a house full of 8 people and 5 separate school curriculums, but it has finally started to work itself out.

Katie is healing wonderfully. We are excited as we come up to her year mark of being diagnosed in July that we might see signs of putting all of this behind us soon. If the worst happens, and one day the cancer decides to show back up, well we will be ready for it, more than ever. It has been fun to see her get her strength back, feel more normal, and even start to grow some hair! One fun moment was a week or so ago when she woke up and was excited to finally have bed head again! It’s the little things that make us smile the most now.