Friday the 28th of September

Today's chemotherapy went extremely well. Mom was a little scared anticipating what very well could have been a very difficult procedure. After a few hours of waiting she was nicely surprised to feel nothing at all when the chemotherapy was administered. The only complaint of discomfort came after they attached the port for the IV fluids to her chest. Geisinger Hospital has a very comfortable facility and the nurses and physician assistants that took care of us were incredibly comforting and pleasant. After our second unfortunate run in with the local CVS pharmacy (who truly needs to get their act together) mom received a few doses of the Tarseva drug previously mentioned. So far there have been no side effects from the chemotherapy. Please pray for mom's comfort and healing. We cannot see the effect the chemo is having on the cancer but we pray that God will use the chemo to get rid of the cancer. Please pray to that end. Also pray for mom's comfort through all of this and you can also pray that her blood count would remain high enough to continue treatments without interruption.

If you have a transmittable disease or infection (such as a cold, the flu, a virus of some sort) please call the house before visiting. If mom's blood count is too low, it will be easier for her to "catch something" which could potentially interrupt her treatment. The visits have been a great comfort to our mom. Keep them coming.

Friday the 27th of September

Today, Friday (this is being posted thursday night) mom will go for her 1st chemotherapy treatment at Geisinger. The chemotherapy apointment is for 1:30. Please pray for this treatment that will last at least 1 and a half hours. Pray that mom's body will react in a possitive way and that the chemo would shrink and even eliminate the cancer.

Wednesday the 26th of September

We received word from MGH in Boston. They agree with our other doctors and said that mom's treatment plan of aggresive chemotherapy is what we need to be doing right now. Chemotherapy will begin Friday as opposed to Monday. We will be sending test results to John Hopkins in the upcomming days.

Mom also met with a nutritionist today who has added some supplimentation to promote organ health and to help her body attack the cancer naturally.

Please continue to pray that the chemotharapy will shrink, even eliminate the cancer. Thank you all for your ongoing prayers and support.

Tuesday the 25th of September

Today we received word from Thomas Jefferson Hospital. After reviewing the test results they agreed with our current treatment plan set up by Dr. Sheldon and Dr. White. We will continue to pursue an opinion from MGH in Boston and we will begin seeking an opinion from Johns Hopkins in Maryland.

Monday the 24th of September

Today we met with Dr. White our Chemotherapy doctor. He was very nice and has a gentle and loving spirit about him. He has set mom on a treatment plan which includes Gemsar (the chemo) once a week for two 3 month cycles with Tarseva which is a fairly new drug taken once a day orally. Tarseva has been shown to help Gemsar attack pancreatic cancer. Because this is a fairly new drug the Dr.'s office has a health insurance specialist working on getting mom this drug. We should hear from this specialist Tuesday and he will let us know how to procede in aquiring the drug. Please pray that there will not be any snags in getting the Tarseva in a timely manner. We were under the assumption that the actualy Gemsar treatment would begin today. That assumption was wrong. It is scheduled for next monday and the treatment will repeat every monday for the next 3 months as long as mom's blood count allows. Both Dr. White, Dr. Sheldon and our nurses assure us that waiting a few more days to begin this treatment will not have any affect on the outcome. We are so thankful for Dr. Sheldon who has given us his cell phone, taken calls from Matt and has answered our many questions. We have another appointment with him the 10th of October and he has suggested we request a CT-Scan about half way into treatments (about 6 weeks). Please continue to pray that the cancer would respond to this treatment and keep the encouragemment comming!

Monday the 23rd of September

Monday begins the chemo treatment at Geisinger. Please pray for our appointment with Dr. Sheldon and then our appointment with Dr. White who will be in charge of my mother's chemotherapy. The chemotherapy appointment begins at 2:00 pm and may last a couple of hours (at this point we do not know how long the treatment will take). Please commit to praying for my mom between 2 and 4 pm. Pray that God would use the chemotherapy to push back and eliminate the cancer cells. Pray that her healthy cells would remain strong and that she would heal as only the hand of God can heal. Also pray that the side-effects would be minimal if not abscent.

Thank you all for your prayers!

Friday the 21st of September

Today's biopsy results confirmed that the pancreatic cancer has spread, so the treatment plan will follow the path discussed at the last appointment over a week ago. We will start chemo monday. Please pray with us that the Chemo would shrink and even wipe out all of the cancer that has spread and that the chemo would start to shrink the tumor in mom's pancreas making it operable.

Dr. Sheldon remained hopeful, saying that mom is in great health (except for this bout with cancer), seems physically up to the challenge and is younger than most people who go through this kind of cancer and treatment.

Dr. Sheldon hands us off to Dr. White, our new chemotherapy doctor, on monday. Please pray that the chemo treatment will go well and that it will start to shrink the cancer imediately.

Thank you so much for all of your support, comments, cards, gifts and visits. Please continue the flow of support and prayer, it has been a great encouragement to our Mom and our entire family.

If you would like to order a wristband (to show your support for mom, help with her medical bills and remind you to pray for her) please email Josh or send a check for two dollars to his home address with a return address so that we can, mail one (or more than one) back to you.
Or just bump into him somewhere and he can hand you one. We have lots of these things so don't be shy ;)

Friday the 21st of September

Surgery started at 7:30 this morning and is expected to last 2 hours.

Mom came through surgery well. I will update the details from today's tests later tonight. Chemo starts MONDAY thanks to Dr. Sheldon our very good doctor from geisinger who ordered the chemo a week ago after the initial meeting with my mother!!!!!! Pray for these treatments to have the desired effects.

Thursday the 20th of September

Mom's appointment at Geisinger is scheduled for 6:15 am - tomorow (Friday the 21st). This procedure will include placing a stent into my mother for the distribution of the chemotherapy and a biopsy of the two spots on the liver. Please pray for some good news tomorrow!

Monday the 17th of September.

Mom went to Geisinger for her preop today. This has been a significant day for my mom's fight. We were in contact with Dr. Yeo from Thomas Jeffeferson Univ. Hospital. They have requested to see our cat-scans and other reports, it will take Dr. Yeo two days to review the reports, once they arrive at Jefferson and then he will meet with my mom the thursday after he has been able to review all of the information to discuss the possibilities of surgery. Dr. Yeo and his department are highly experienced with pancreatic cancer and is one of the best pancreatic cancer surgeons in the world. Please pray for that appointment. We have also decided on a third step that we will begin to persue if we need another opinion on overall treatment. Thank you so much for all of your suggestions and concerns regarding the treatment of our mother's cancer. We have persued and are persuing the best programs in the US and have been made aware of all of the wonderful doctors that have done so much to fight pancreatic cancer. Keep praying.

Wednseday the 12th of September

It was a rough report today. The surgeon at Geisinger Hospital met with mom today to review the biopsy results. After reviewing the results they took another more detailed catscan. This catscan revieled that the tumor is pushed up against a major artery that goes into her pancreas. Unfortunately this means, according to this surgeon, the tumor is inoperabole until its size can be reduced through chemo and radiation. The ct-scan also revealed two small but suspicious spots on her liver and one small spot on her lung. If the spots on her liver are cancerous then radiation can not be used. We need the chemo to have a strong affect on both the spots on the liver and the pancreas. If the liver spots can be reduced to nothing then radiation can be added to the treatment of the tumor in her pancreas. It will be a hard road ahead, but mom has promissed to fight and we have promised to fight right along side of her. Monday mom goes for preop at Geisinger, Danvil. Friday mom will have the liver biopsied and will have a stent put in so the newest chemo treatment can be administered directly where it needs to go. Keep praying and thanks for all the love so many of you have shown our family.

In His Hands.

Monday the 10th of September

We found out that mom has pancreatic cancer. The initial tests showed that the tumor in her pancreas was cancerous and she has a suspicious lymph node. Test results on these biopsys will come back Wed.