Surgery Date set - 24APR15...one week from today

Hi Everyone,

Many of you have heard through the grapevine by now, but Allyson's surgery date is set for 24APR15. She's been meeting with both the surgical oncologist and reconstruction docs to get all of the information and instructions for pre and post-op care...so now we play the waiting game until next Friday.

We've got Erin and Linda flying in a couple days before surgery and they will stay through the 1st weekend. Then Erin flies out and Linda stays with us until Megan arrives the next weekend. Then Megan and Linda will depart at some point early the following week and we'll hopefully be in a position where we are ready to go it alone with her recovery. My family is ready to come down during that time, but I've given them pause so we can feel things out and see how we feel with so much traffic coming into the house. We may need a little downtime and privacy at that point, but we'll see!

Allyson is now 4 weeks after her last chemo session and is in good spirits! She's started running again and is taking good care of herself...so everything is looking good for her to go into surgery in as good health as possible.

We recently had a friend of ours here in Charlotte get diagnosed with Breast Cancer, and she is further along than Allyson was when she was diagnosed....and it has been interesting to reflect on just how quickly this whole thing has developed for us. It is good that Allyson can be there for her friend and help her get through a little better mentally because this is all so fresh for Allyson as well. But it really is surreal that almost 6 months has gone by since this all started. The stress and uncertainty has taken its toll to be certain, but we remain hopeful and optimistic about getting through this next step in the process.

Please pray for and send positive energy to Allyson over the next few weeks. The surgical oncologist will be able to determine immediately in the operating room whether cancer was more widespread than originally thought or has gone into remission.  So we SHOULD have results very quickly as well and I will relay that to you. Then we've got an appointment with the chemo oncologist 10 days after surgery to review the full pathology results and decide on the next course(s) of action post surgery. If they find more evidence of cancer during surgery it will mean that she will begin traditional approaches to the disease and start traditional chemo. If they find that the cancer is in remission or not present, then she continues with the clinical trial and what she's been going through to this point.

I'll  be posting as much as I can following surgery to keep you all updated. We love you all!

Kyle