First posting and background to date....

For those of you who have not been in the loop, I'll add a little background here. I was diagnosed with breast cancer July 28 and had a meeting with a surgeon July 31. The decision from that meeting was a mastectomy, which was done Aug. 18. As you can tell from the dates, I was swept into a 'different stream' of the river of life and faced with decisons and experiences that were shocking. However, God met me and gave me His assurance that He would be with me in this experience. The day after I found out that the lump was malignant - and not a cyst as I was expecting - the verse of the day in my devotional book was "I am the Lord your God who holds your right hand and I tell you, 'Don't be afraid; I will help you'." That has certainly proved to be the case - the help has come from many different hands and many prayers have been offered on my behalf, providing a strength and a peace of mind that have sustained me through this and continue to do so.

The next step was to get assigned to an oncologist, at either the London Regional Cancer Centre or the Windsor one. I asked to be submitted to both and to request a specific doctor in Windsor whose name kept popping up in various places. When I went to see my surgeon for the follow-up appointment on Sept. 2, the news was not good - tumour was 4.3 cm, Grade 3, and they had removed 27 lymph nodes, 24 of which were 'positive'. I heard later that afternoon that I had an appointment in London on Sept. 30 (with another good oncologist) but I asked them to keep trying with Windsor. Two days later I received a call telling me I had an appointment in Windsor the next Monday, Sept. 8, with the doctor I had requested. I felt that that was another answer to prayer.

And so, my new life began...when I went to see the doctor in Windsor, she laid out a schedule of chemo to be delivered every two weeks instead of the usual three. In order to be able to keep to this schedule, I would also need a shot to keep my white blood cell count up. In addition, I was offered a chance to apply to be part of a clinical trial for a new drug because of the type of tumour that I had - triple negative (not poisitive for either of two hormone receptors or HER2/neu) - lots of new terms to learn ! This chemo schedule would be followed by 6 weeks of radiation. This is a very aggressive plan, because of the number of positive lymph nodes I had and because of the grade of the tumour; I was staged at IIIC. Scary - but those verses kept coming - Sept. 4 - "He is my defender: I will not be defeated" and "Remain calm; the Lord will fight for you". Also, I felt better and better as I recovered from the mastectomy surgery - having the tumour out of my body (and all those lymph nodes !) - seemed to be a very good thing - I could feel myself improving to the point where I felt I was almost lying about having cancer. My sister had the best line - "she's not sick; she just has cancer." And that's pretty well how I felt, too.

Then the various tests began - phone rings - "You are scheduled for a *** at ***" - no question of whether or not it is convenient - one day we had to be at the Chatham hospital for 7:30 for a heart scan then at the first Windsor hospital for 11:00 to sign papers to be admitted to the clinical trial and at a second Windsor hospital for 12:30 to have my 'port' installed for the delivery of my chemo (no IV needed). Left that hospital at 5:00 and went straight to Red Lobster for a restorative supper.

So that brings the story up to date for this past week and that will be another entry.