Chemo round #3

Good Morning!

The picture above is from a few moments ago. I'm sitting here with Ally at round #3 of her chemo treatments and she's cracking jokes with the staff and keeping the mood light! We were just talking about how she's been having more energy the last couple of days where she is able to get through full days of work...but now she has to go back to that zone where she hits the wall every day and needs all the sleep she can get. :(  However, the doctor is good at pointing out all the other side effects that she could be going through in a way that makes us feel much better about where she is at right now!

We saw the medical oncologist (chemo doc) before she headed to the infusion center and he again was VERY happy to hear and see how everything is going. Both Ally and the doctor can no longer feel the original tumor, so we couldn't be any happier than we are about that development!

Next week we'll check in with the surgical oncologist (he will handle mastectomies) and start getting the skinny on reconstruction doctors and getting all the information we need in order to prepare her for the surgery. No dates have been set yet for surgery, and we likely won't be able to schedule it until after the last round of Chemo (around St. Patty's day). Then we'll have a much better idea of our longer term timeline...

We've got a ton of people helping with meals and helping in many other ways, so thank you so much for all the help you are giving us...whether through prayer or meals or whatever. We feel truly blessed to have such loving people around us.

I'll let you know how she is doing after a couple of days once she gets through the roughest part.

Love you,

Kyle

Going Great!

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Just wanted to post an update on Allyson real quick before the day gets away from me. She is doing much better at this point after her treatment than she was doing after the last one...yea! She is still pretty tired, and has a little nausea in the mornings, but nothing compared to last time. Hopefully she continues to stay on this track.

Also, the doctor's are VERY excited about the size of the tumor considering it has shrunk considerably after just two chemo treatments. He literally said to her "This is why I do this job...patients like you and the success we are seeing is so exciting to me".

It doesn't get much better than that! Love you all, and have great days with your families!

The little ones actually let us sleep in this morning. I think it is because Sarah is here and they are wearing eachother out chasing one another everywhere. It is a beautiful thing when all the adults are sitting around waiting for the kids to come out of their bedrooms...LOL.

Kyle

Ready for Chemo Round 2

Well...Allyson is currently undergoing one more biopsy as part of the clinical trial she's on. It is the worst part about doing these trials...they need a number of samples taken throughout the treatment to track the effectiveness on the size of the tumor as time marches on...

Tomorrow morning she goes in for round 2 of chemo, so your thoughts and prayers are very much appreciated as the day wears on. Because there has been so much of the flu going around in this area we are hoping that she really did have the flu after the last treatment, and that she will be better this time around. But until she gets through it and into the middle of this week we just don't know what to expect. Christmas eve afternoon and Christmas Day will likely be the worst of it if she is going to have another bad reaction.

We do have Sean and Sarah here from Florida though, so that offers a fun distraction for the kids with someone new to play with in the house. And having Sean here means one more person to help with things around the house! Between our neighbors and friends from my gym there is a whole group of people that are signed up to bring meals to us around all of the chemo treatments, so we couldn't ask for a better situation at home. It really makes us feel so blessed!

So that is about it! I'll post updates over the next couple days so you all can check in to see how she is doing!

Merry Christmas!

1 week after first treatment - follow up exam results are in

Hey all,

Allyson had her first follow-up exam this morning with the oncologist to mark one week after the first chemo treatment. He was very upbeat and positive about the fact that he was having trouble locating the tumor beneath the hematoma that had formed after her last biopsy. The hematoma is still large enough where he couldn't get a good measurement of the tumor, but he he also explained that he wouldn't be surprised if the experimental treatment had already made large inroads on shrinking the original mass. This seems incredible to us that he would be that positive so quickly. He said it wouldn't be the first time that shrinkage occurred at that level after the first treatment...woohoo!

Allyson continues to run out of gas in the early afternoon hours, and the oncologist was surprised about this side effect as well. He hasn't really experienced anyone else having that amount of difficulty with nausea and energy with this treatment. He even suggested that she might have caught an actual flu bug versus this happening as a result of the treatment itself.  So until she goes through the second treatment we really won't know what the cause/effect is with that issue. Let's hope she gets better this week and doesn't have any further issues!

Everyone is in good spirits here...Grayson is just about recovered from his tonsillectomy, and Avery brings home new words and phrases every day...They are the perfect age for us right now because they still need help enough to keep us very busy. But aside from their teasing one another, they are nothing but sunshine, rainbows, and wonderment. Add in the fact that we have the Christmas season and the joys of that come along with it....and you couldn't ask for better distractions during tough times.

Linda tells us that she is finished nesting in our guest bedroom upstairs. She has truly turned it into her little "retreat", as she calls it. A new desk in there that looks great, side table, lamps, new bedding, etc. She wants to show it off to every neighbor that walks in the door! LOL.

Anyway, I hope everyone enjoys their week, and I'll continue to post updates as they occur.

Love you all,

Kyle

36 hours after first treatment

Thought I would post a quick update before I hit the rack for the night...She's doing ok!

She gets pushed two different groups of drugs during her chemo treatments, and because she's in the clinical trial and because she was going through her very first treatment they have/had to add in some extra steps.  The first push consisted of the experimental drugs that have proven to work so effectively in the first phases of the trial. Allyson seemed to do just fine with that part and showed no ill effects...

The second push of drugs came on stronger though (these are the more traditional chemo drugs), and she immediately got very tired and described it "like getting hit by a truck" after it was over. It was a long day at the hospital from 8AM-4:30PM, but the emotional victory of making it onto the experimental arm of the trial and the realization that she likely wouldn't be losing her hair made the day much easier to bear.

She was obviously tired last night, but got a pretty good night of rest and woke up nauseous and with blood shot eyes. She's a trooper though, and went to work like the strong woman she is and felt pretty good until about mid-afternoon when she hit the wall for the day. She came home and took a nap and was very tired all evening. We had friends that made us dinner tonight, so thank you Zeke and Jenelle for that!

Linda has been a "Godsend" to us as Grayson took a major turn for the worse Sunday night. His throat got very sensitive and the doctor said it would be bad again starting around 5 or 6 days after surgery. We kept  him home both Monday and today because he just wasn't ready to go back to school, but tomorrow is a new ball game and the kid is going to rejoin reality! Linda really stepped up and took care of Gray all day BOTH days so we could be at the hospital together and then so we could both go back to work after the long holiday last week. We can't thank you enough for being here Linda... Love you!

That's about it for now...I'll post more as it comes in.

Take care!

Kyle

Good news to share!

She got into the experimental arm of the clinical trial! Yea! This means she will experience significantly less side effects from the chemo and most likely will not lose her hair! We found out on the phone just before we got to the hospital.

She's sitting in the chair next to me just about to start her first round of chemo, but so far a great way to start the day/week/month...

Thanks for your thoughts and prayers!

Kyle

Here we go...

Monday (tomorrow) is the first day of chemo...Unfortunately we still don't know which arm of the clinical trial she will be on, and we won't know until we go in tomorrow to begin treatment. This is mostly due to the Thanksgiving holiday...so while the Germans worked at the end of the week last week, we Americans did not....We were hoping to hear something at least on Friday, but it did not work out like that.

The Thanksgiving holiday was great, however. Megs and Trip made the trip back to Charlotte after just being here the the previous weekend, and we, of course, had Linda and the kids with us. We had a number of neighbors and friends stop by to bring food and desserts, even though we didn't need anymore. We fried one turkey, and smoked another just to ensure that we had plenty of leftovers for the coming week. Guess what...we are already almost out of turkey... so we only made it through one weekend of leftovers!

We are thankful for all of the sweet messages you've been sending, and we are thankful to be able to spend the holidays with people that don't just want to be together, but need to be together. So maybe we cry here and there and confuse our children/grandchildren, but for the most part we are laughing and telling stories and starting to remember more of the good times that we collected over time, rather than the bad ones at the end...

The coming weeks hold much uncertainty, but we are not uncertain about the love and support that surrounds us. We are truly blessed to go into this battle not wanting anything other than to fight a good fight, and win in the end.

I'll let you all know how she's doing tomorrow after her first treatment. Love you,

Kyle & Allyson