These last few months contained a blur of events ranging from family celebrations to our big move and culminating with scans showing continued reduction of the cancer areas. We celebrated Elizabeth’s graduation in early June with visits from several family members. It was a great time of reunion, and everyone was so understanding that our house was in transition with packing boxes and materials everywhere. We transitioned from the graduation festivities into hard-core packing frenzy in preparation for the moving company to arrive on June 21 to take the heavy items to the remodeled house. It was a big job (both packing up and distributing my parents’ belongings in the remodel house and packing up our house), but with a lot of effort from everyone and help from countless friends, we were ready! Then, we experienced the adventure of “living in two houses” for the next few weeks while the contractor finished the final few details (like counters and floors) in the remodel house. That’s not an “adventure” I recommend for anyone, nor one I’d care to repeat...enough said. We also threw in a celebration of Elizabeth’s 18th birthday/graduation and Open House among the chaos of June, but it was a great reprieve from the move.
Thanks to our amazing realtor, we were able to get our home on the market just before the July 4th holiday weekend and had multiple offers to consider before the weekend was over. We accepted an offer and embarked down the homestretch of getting our last items out of the house before the early August closing date. It has been challenging, but we love the remodeled home and now it feels great to be getting a little more settled. We really miss our neighbors-they were the best-but our new neighbors are also great, so we are excited about being in our new place.
I had scans in early August, which continue to show progress eliminating the cancer. My surgical oncologist has moved my TVEC (every other week) injections to the lymph node on the right size of my neck since it is much bigger than the one they have been injecting on the left side. Even though the one in the right didn’t change in size since the May scans, and appears stable, it also has not reduced in size. The goal is reduction in size. There is one area in my right groin that the radiologist read as a “new area” in the August scan when he compared the images with my May scan, which was a puzzle to both Dr. G and Dr. B. (because everything else has reduced in size). Dr. B doesn’t think the right groin area that the radiologist read as “new” in the scans is actually new. She compared that image to my PET scan from October 2020 and thinks it is the same area that “lit up” then and is now actually smaller. The collective tumor board (all the area Melanoma doctors & PA’s) looked at my scans and they also concur with that assessment. So, my treatment will stay the same and I’ll scan again 3 months from those early August scans.
In the meantime, I just plan on slowing down every other Thursday when I get my TVEC injections and continue to pray that God helps my immune system identify and kill the cancer cells as they pop up. Immunotherapy really is an amazing creation God has allowed mankind to develop and I’m so grateful to be living in a time when we have made so many advances in this area!
This week I’m meditating on the names of God and the most recent name is Jehovah – Shammah which means “The Lord is There”. One of the quotes in the devotional I read pretty much sums up the reason for the hope I hold onto in challenging times.
“The God who made us walks beside us in the highest and lowest points of life, and even in death. Ultimately, this is God’s greatest promise and one of His most precious names, because experiencing the reality of His presence with us is our most profound need.”
~One Year Book of Hope by Nancy Guthrie
Praise God for:
- Encouraging scan results!
- No Pembrolizumab side-effects so far.
- Manageable TVEC side effects.
- A relatively problem-free move.
- Being able to take the commuter train to some of my treatments and the ability to have some others at the local Layton hospital.
Pray for:
- My medical oncologist is moving on, so I will be transitioning to a “new Dr. G”. Pray for wisdom for him as he takes on supervising my immunotherapy treatment.
- God's continued peace and my contentment.
- All my interactions with hospital staff and others as I spend more time in treatment.
- If it's God's will, that He would eradicate every cancer cell with my immunotherapy treatment.
- That God would be glorified in everything that is going on.
