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

Josh Wilson - Before The Morning (Official Music Video)

~Psalm 30:5 .... there may be weeping in the night, but JOY comes in the morning.
I know that something bigger than ourselves will be birthed out of this experience. I feel it, deep within my spirit...that this dark chapter in our lives is part of a much bigger plan. He holds us in the palms of His hands. He is literally the One holding us together. I know that ALL things work together for the good of those who love the Lord. He holds our future, and we have a future full of hope. He has our best interest at heart...ALWAYS. Even when I can't see it..I can trust it. We are here for His glory and His purposes...it's not about us. We are not here for ourselves, but to bring glory to Him is our highest purpose. Someday, this all WILL be a memory, and we will look back and say, "Look what the Lord has done!!"
~hope this song blesses you,
Misty

Jessica Potter Photography

You may have noticed the updates to our blog..including all the new pictures:) All these photos were shot by Jessica Potter. We enjoyed Jessica so much... she is friendly, fun, bubbly, creative and super with the kids! I have to tell you this is the first time, in a long while, that we went to take family photos and Derek and I didn't walk away frustrated (sweating, grumbling unsavory words..you parents know what I'm talking about)!!! In fact, we all loaded back up into our van and drove off with smiles still on our faces..it was completely relaxed!! What I love most about these pictures...she really did capture my kids!!! Little gestures and mannerisms that I see everyday, that a photographer who was 'posing' them could never get!! I think this is the difference..rather than posing us, she just told us where she wanted us and then it really felt more like we were just hanging out. When Selah would move out of place, Jessica just kept taking pictures. Welll... I have been trying and trying to post a link to a slideshow or post a slideshow...to no avail!! Anyway, I posted a few on here, I hope you enjoy!!

Thanks for looking:)
Misty