We're still here...

Hi All!!
Wow!! It's been over a year since I updated on here.  I have decided today that I would begin blogging again.. I will use this as a means to update about Derek's health, for those of you who are not on our facebook, or for those of you who are but would like a little more insight into our thoughts, or exactly "where we are in all this" :)
I guess first things first... a quick update:
I decided instead of typing it all myself, I'll just copy and paste Derek's facebook status from February.  He says it much better than I...

"Well, met with a medical oncologist yesterday and went over the written PET scan report. So, according to man's report (short version): more tumors revealed, the cancer has spread, Dr.-"I suggest the 'standard' chemo and radiation, but it will only be to prolong life, and is not curative..." Really, that's all man can do? No thanks. I will believe in the report of the Lord, who says I am healed, ..."by His stripes!" It's time for me to son/man-up and to walk in faith, active faith, good faith. Faith will be my shield, my defense against the one who comes to steal, kill, and destroy...defying what God has said and promised me in HIS word.... and yes, that Word of God, will be my sword to severe the head of the giant(s) rising up against me. This weapon that has 'formed' ... shall NOT pass/prosper/penetrate further in the name of Jesus! We will speak to this mountain and command it to MOVE! I am highly favored of God. He sent His son, my Lord, My Jesus,My Deliverer, to CRUSH this! Jesus is SEATED. It is done. I will praise Yahweh and declare His words of truth over me. His word is life and medicine to my bones/flesh. His word will not return to Him void. It will accomplish what He says. His Spirit whom raised Jesus from the dead shall quicken my mortal body. I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Fear not, resist the devil (and his manifestations), and he will FLEE! "Fear ye not, stand still, and SEE the salvation of the Lord...for the Egyptians (the enemy who boasted said 'I will pursue, I will overtake, draw my sword, my hand shall destroy them')...ye shall see them again no more, forever." "The depths have covered them (the Egyptians): they sank into the bottom as a stone." (from Exodus 14-15) He says to me, "I am the Lord your God, I go before you now...I stand beside you, I'm all around you. Though you feel I'm far away, I'm closer than your breath, I am with you, more than you know. I am the Lord your peace, no evil will conquer you. Steady now your heart and mind, come into My rest,Oh let your faith arise, lift up your weary head, I am with you wherever you go." (lyrics from "Come to Me") Please stand with me in intercession, believing and not doubting, that healing will manifest in my body. Speak His word over me. Thank you!" ~ Derek Pressley February 18, 2012

I love him so much!!

Be expecting miracles!!!!

Misty

Answered Prayer and Questions

Answered prayer

I was asking everyone to pray for successful test results to come back from Germany. The German test results are in, and they were successful. The lab was able to harvest circulating tumor cells from Derek's blood and grow them in petri dishes, thus testing Derek's tumor with different chemo agents, as well as, a few top alternative type treatments. We have read the report, but haven't yet sat down with Dr. K to discuss, in detail, the findings. From what we could discern, the report was not written in layman terms;), there were a few chemo agents and alternative agents that were in fact very successful in killing Derek's tumor. As well, as a few that had a "neutral" effect.

After the pet scan results and reading the German test results, Derek and I are both full of questions. We have a scheduled appointment in the morning for Derek to come in on a fast in order to begin the IPT therapy. Dr. K will also go over the German test with us. We are not exactly sure, what our plan is completely until we are able to discuss our questions and concerns, etc. with Dr. Kotsanis. We want to come up with the best plan for Derek's long term success.

Questions

We have found out, that the chemo agent that had the highest kill off rate, is the same chemo agent that would be used in a typical/conventional setting against Derek's tumor. Even though this is the case, and would be covered by Derek's insurance in a typical/conventional setting, it will NOT be for IPT:/ The IPT treatments are around $1600/treatment, plus the cost (now of the uncovered) chemo agent (which I believe ranges from $25 to $50/ treatment). We are praying for provision and wisdom. We know that if this is the direction in which we are to continue that God will provide, as He has in the past.

So with that, I ask that you would continue to pray for us, and specifically for these following requests:

1. Wisdom..that we would be led by the Holy Spirit and not out of fear.

2. Peace in what God is doing.

3. Provision

4. Thankfulness for all that He has and continues to do.

As always, we thank you all so much, for taking time to read about us, your continued support, encouragement, and most especially.. YOUR PRAYERS!! He hears and He answers!!

~Misty

Good Report, Yesterday:)

Whew! What a crazy two weeks we have had! After what felt like two weeks worth of 'roadblocks', yesterday's Pet Scan was such an awesome surprise!!

At first I thought I would give an account of the two weeks worth of frustration, but instead... I'll just say .. I have been edgy. AND for two weeks it has FELT like NOTHING has fallen into place the way I THINK it should.. it's a very long story, and I promise there is a good moral lesson in it..or at least I learned something, but for blogging sake, etc.. I'm just going to get right to the good stuff. (I'm cutting down your reading time, you can thank me later :) PLUS..it is exhausting;)

THE SCAN RESULTS:

1. The tumor growing on the Parotid gland is BENIGN!! (THANK YOU, LORD!!)

2. The tumor in Derek's leg is contained there and there is "NO EVIDENCE of metastatic disease", as Dr. Chacko puts it. (I like that!)

3. Not ONLY is the tumor still contained in the leg, BUT ALSO the SUV values have gone down... DRASTICALLY. ( I so wish I you could hear my voice, etc. as I hear how this sounds in my head).. Last time we were in for a scan in October, the suv values were up to 7.7 at the highest/hottest spots. The 'hot spots' which are now, much smaller in size, have suv values with a range of 4. (something) to 5.3 (at the hottest!!). Most of the tumor is below a 4! (Remembering that anything with an suv value of 5 and above is considered cancerous.)

~While we are not finished, by any means, and still have a battle ahead...this is all REALLY GREAT news, especially considering that we have been off of any consistent treatment since November. In fact, I was really preparing myself for a more negative type report (Oh ye of little faith!!). Here are some of the phrases that Dr. Chacko used while talking to us regarding the scan results:

"Your immune system must be holding it off, keeping the cancer in check."

"You have been off of the DMSO treatment since November? I have nothing to attribute these results to...it is almost , I don't know what to say..I almost want to say this is miraculous!"

"Maybe we should make a serum using your blood."

My confession:

1. I am going to say, I have NO IDEA what God is up to, but He is definitely up to something ..and any time I get to thinking I know ANYTHING, things change and I realize I KNOW NOTHING and..

2. I have NO (zero, zilch, zippo) control over ANYTHING!! (perceived 'roadblocks'!)

3. I have had a really bad attitude because I thought I knew, (see #1).. I thought, that at some point things should start getting better (last scan wasn't good results) and I was thinking we should be moving forward; the tumor in Derek's neck FELT like we were moving backwards. I just felt like, "Dang it!! Why are we having to deal with this too?" God forgive me and my lack of faith!! and....

4. What I perceive as limitations (roadblocks, see #2), are nothing, completely non-factors to God.

5. He has His timing (see #2 and #4) and it IS perfect and I have mine...and they are not the same;)

Our next steps:

This Thursday, tomorrow, Derek has a doctor's appointment with our family practice doctor in order to get on blood pressure medications, so that we can get his blood pressure down before beginning IPT treatments on Monday, March 14th. (I will post soon, giving information about IPT)

Updated prayer request:

1. Thank Him!! Join us in thanking Him for the super encouraging report yesterday, that can only be attributed to Him!

2. Wisdom...there are still decisions to be made regarding treatment from here.. we are at a good place, however, we don't want to lose any of the ground that we have gained. Although, at this point we are feeling very very confident..we are on the winning team!

3. Derek's continued health.

4. His continued provision, both financially and otherwise.

Thank you all for the love, support, and above all prayers!

Love always,

Misty

The Power Port is in Place

HI all!
The port placement procedure went well. We spent Wednesday night with family, which was awesome.. as we were literally less than a five minute drive from the hospital! I was able to leave the kids sleeping, while I took Derek to the hospital at 7:30am. I stayed with him until they took him away for the surgery. I then went and woke the kids, made sure everyone ate, loaded the van and back up to the hospital we all went. We were not there long, at all, before the nurse called me back to speak with the surgeon and to see Derek in recovery. When I walked past the curtain, Derek was sitting up and looked great. The nurse brought him something to eat and allowed the kids back to see their Daddy. We stayed in recovery for about two hours. Here is a picture of Derek eating in recovery. He wanted me to take a picture with my cell phone so that he could see what it looked like.

Our next step..

Monday, Derek will have another appointment with Dr. Kotsanis. That evening, Derek and I will travel to Oklahoma City, for another pet scan to take place on Tuesday morning. We will be staying the night in the Hyatt..thanks to a dear friend who not only booked our room (God bless you, Jennifer!! Thank you so much!!) I will update, as soon as I am able, after Tuesday's scan.

Other than that, we are scheduled to begin treatment (IPT/chemo), March 14th. For the first few weeks, Derek will receive two a week, then will drop down to only one treatment per week (I believe). I will give a more detailed account about this particular treatment soon.

Updated prayer requests:

1. Benign tumor on the parotid gland.

2. Successful German testing (cell/markers found and harvested, and an effective agent against Derek's tumor)

3. Traveling mercies.

4. Wisdom.

5. Finances.

6. *Above all.. God to be glorified!*

7. Thankfulness that He is.. our sustainer, comforter, provider and so much more .. Thank you, Lord that you are MORE THAN ENOUGH!!!

God bless you, Friends!

~Misty

Andrew Peterson - Dancing in the Minefields (Official Video)

Be sure to scroll to the very bottom of the blog page to pause the music player before playing the video.

Blood draws and meeting Dr. Meyers

Tuesday, February 22, we met again with Dr. Kotsanis for more blood draws/lab stuff and then that afternoon we met Dr. Meyers, the Ear/Nose/Throat dr. We really like them both.

The mornings appointment was mostly lab stuff.. Dr. Kotsanis's office set up an appointment for Thursday (one week from today, March 3.) a port placement surgery..this will be a day surgery. I'm not sure of the doctors name, yet, who will be performing this, but it is pretty standard, this doctor performs these daily. It's a small procedure. The port will is similar to the Picc line that Derek has had previously. He will receive intravenous treatments through the port. Nurses have such a difficult time locating Derek's veins, so this will be the best solution, not to have to dig around weekly to begin IV's. We will not have the German test back, in order to know what chemo to begin, so for now, they will begin other treatments, such as high dose vitamin c through the port. This Dr. Kotsanis is a mover.. we will begin treatments ASAP!! We discussed another PET scan, to have a baseline as to where we are beginning.. again;) Derek is due one, it's been a little over 3 months since our last one in October. So we will be traveling to Oklahoma City for that ASAP:)

Next, we met Dr. Meyers for the first time, and we really like him. He is friendly and warm..very different from most of our doctors:) He is alos considered THE GUY for the parotid gland. He looked Derek over and asked a series of questions. After examining Derek and asking his questions, he explained to us that 1. All the 'red flags' that he would look for that would point to the tumor in Derek's neck as being malignant where not there! (WHEW!), however, Derek does have a rather large malignancy in his leg, so we need to be sure. 2.) He isn't going to go in there and remove it with out knowing what it is. SO.... we need a PET Scan.

All of Derek's previous scans have been from the neck down, I beleive. I know in the past they have looked at this lungs, spleen, and various other organs where liposarcomas like to travel. Up to this point all of those areas have been clean, and we are not expecting anything other than clean scans this go around with the exception of Derek's leg, obviously. This scan however, will include Derek's head in order to look at the tumor growing on the parotid gland. We are praying for that tumor to be benign. We are trying to scedule that scan for this coming Tuesday, March 1.

I will update more as I have information. So for now...

Please agree with us in prayer:

1. We are able to get into the Pet scan on Tuesday.

2. A good plan for the kids and traveling, etc.

3. THAT THE TUMOR GROWING ON THE PAROTID GLAND BE BENIGN!!! ***

4. Easy day surgery on Thursday for Derek.

5. Traveling mercies.. if all this falls into place right, we will be traveling to OKC Monday evening and back home Tuesday evening, then traveling to Grapevine Wednesday evening and back home Thursday after the procedure. (Shuffling kids during the process)

6. That they have a successful testing of Derek's blood in Germany #1. that they are able to harvest tumor cells from his blood and #2 that they are able to find an effective treatment.

Thank you~God bless,
Misty:)

Update/Prayer requests

**This is actually a post I made on Facebook last week, we have now been to both of these appointments and I will update soon for those:)**

Whoa.. I don't know where to begin.. we met Dr. Kotsanis this past Wednesday, and there is so much information that we received. For now, I will just try to hit the most important things that are happening right now..and maybe fill in the blanks as we go w/details and such. First thing, I suppose.. Derek had blood draws and some lab work that we could here, in Sherman yesterday. We go back to Dr. Kotsanis this Tuesday for more labs, blood draws, etc. One of the draws that day, will be sent to a lab in Germany. The lab there will harvest cancer cells from the blood, grow them in about 40 different petri dishes, then inject each with different chemo agents, as well as, the top alternative treatments in order to find which treatment is most effective agains Derek's particular cancer. (I will have better detailed information concerning this after Tuesday.) I had a question concerning this..I wasn't so sure that I wanted cancer cells to be found in Derek's blood. However, this test is extrememly EXPENSIVE and is NOT covered by insurance.. WE REALLY WANT TO FIND A TREATMENT THAT IS EFFECTIVE! So.. please be in prayer that they are able to find those "markers" or whatever, so that they can find an effective treatment. We were told that this test takes anywhere from two to three and a half weeks, in the meantime, Dr. Kotsanis told us that we will not just be sitting here, waiting.. we would begin a treatment plan. On Tuesday, we will also be meeting with an Ear, Nose, and Throat doctor, Dr. Meyers at UT Southwestern. He is supposed to be one of the best of the best. His area of expertise is the parotid gland (this is the gland, which the tumor in Derek's neck is growing). Dr. Kotsanis did say that at this time, it is his belief that the tumor is benign. He felt 90% sure.. we will go with that. I will update more about this, as we find out information, but at this time..that is all we have.

With all that being said, here are our specific prayer requests at this time:

1. That the tumor in Derek's neck is benign.

2. That they are able to find those "markers" or cells needed to grow Derek's tumor in petri dishes.

3. That once they harvest those and grow them..that the tumor does respond to a treatment.

**successful testing***

4. My kids. Everyone is really anxious around here and we are leaving them a lot with family and friends, and will be for a while. It's tough. I know a lot of kids have been through much worse, but it's still tough.

5. Finances, we will be going back and forth to Grapevine for a while, and whatever insurance doesn't cover comes out of pocket.. it gets expensive, but I know that God provides.

6. Wisdom for the doctors.



God bless,

Misty