Rising Up: In the Spirit!

Welcome!

This is totally an experiment. I know about blogs, I've read blogs, and I can write, but I have never attempted to blog myself. I guess I've never really felt like I had a compelling enough story. Well, I'm not sure I would use "compelling" to describe our story now, but I do know that since my diagnosis of cancer, Jon and I have been overwhelmed at the outpouring of love from family and friends all over the world. Many of you have questions and like to know what's going on in our world - medically and otherwise, and we are happy to share. Welcome to the "Rising Up" blog of the JOWT Friesen family!

Saturday, November 27, 2010

In the Spirit!

So, a trip to Camrose today was just the thing to kick-start the Christmas spirit in my house. (Especially because most of my Christmas music was erased off of my computer earlier this fall and I've just made that grisly discovery.)

Mom and I took Owen to Camrose for the annual Festival of Trees. I've never been, and I had imagined that William would be less likely to enjoy what they had to offer. (I might have been wrong - he would have enjoyed much of it, but he would have missed his naps as well.) We had a chance to walk through the vendor area and pick up some fun things, and then we met Cindy, Luke, and Jonas for some kid fun. The boys decorated (and ate) their own cookies, pet bunnies, goats, guinea pigs, and wallabees at the petting zoo, got their faces painted, had pictures with Santa, and then made their own snowman craft. We finished our trip with a visit to McD's for lunch. It was a great day but I think we're all pooped. (Owen didn't even get out of bed ONCE to announce that he had a "sticky in his nose" and Mom is sound asleep on the chair next to me.)

Lots of positive thinking today. Hope to keep it that way. And it doesn't hurt that Mom and I finished off the day with a hot glass of spiced apple cider. Yum.

3 comments:

CindyNovember 27, 2010 at 10:35 PM
So glad to be part of a positive experience, and Next Saturday will be even better! I was so glad to be with you today. Still "holding up" my Hand for you...
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KimNovember 27, 2010 at 11:42 PM
I think it's fun that the kids decorated and ate pet bunnies, goats, guinea pigs, and wallabees! ;-) Really though, I'm glad you and mom had a fun day. Love you SO much!
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triciadeeNovember 28, 2010 at 6:20 AM
Righto - seeing my error now, Kim. Nice job picking it out. I guess I can be sure between you, Dad, and Melanie to have any grammatical mistakes brought to my attention (in a playful and loving way, of course).
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A Bit of Our Melanoma Story

A spot on my left forearm grew from a freckle into a raised mole the size of a pencil eraser. It started changing when I was pregnant with William (early 2009), and didn't cause much concern because doctors will tell you that pregnancy does strange stuff like that. Anyway, after pregnancy it started to pinch itself off, and eventually it ripped off (and BLED!) in February 2010.
It grew back within months with a darkish rim around it. I assumed the darkness was just from where the skin had been ripped. In June of 2010 my mother (again) requested that I get it checked out (again), so I did. In July, my doctor decided that another doctor should remove it. That doctor was not available until September 2010. They removed it and performed a biopsy, and we received the results in the first week of October. Malignant Melanoma. The mole was 3.8 mms deep (Breslow's measuring stick) and was ulcerated. This in itself put me at a stage IIB.
Things have just been happening so quickly since then - we have had many appointments with our melanoma specialist, Dr. Salopek at the UofA, and our surgeon, Dr. Dabbs at the Misericordia.
On November 9th they performed a Wide Local Excision and a Sentinel Lymph Node Biopsy. The WLE is simply them making sure they got all the tumour the first time by taking a 2cm radius around the mole. It has resulted in a 6 inch scar. The SLNB is a biopsy of a couple of prominent lymph nodes in my underarm to see if the cancer had spread from its original site. Our results came back in on Monday, November 22 - lymph nodes did in fact have cancer in them. That means we are now awaiting another surgery - a Radical Axillary Lymph Node Dissection - to remove the rest of the lymph nodes under that arm. It also means I have been moved to stage III cancer.
I have a CT scan on Dec 1 to double check that the xrays and ultrasounds from last month were accurate - that I do NOT have any growths elsewhere in my body at this point. After this next surgery I will be starting a drug treatment called Intron. I have lots to learn about what this drug will actually do. I think that gets us caught up!