Preparing for surgery

I feel the need to be in touch with everyone as I go into this final week before surgery. Overall, I am doing well and the family is doing well. Helen is busy with college classes, catching up after her play. Ian is doing great–as active as ever. David is holding down the fort at church, which is struggling with some serious challenges, in addition to supporting me and the kids emotionally. I know he is drained and is looking forward to the down time we will take following surgery.

For me, there are ups and downs. Although I know fairly well what to expect from my surgery, the field has changed and advanced in significant ways. And there is the unknown of what they will find in there! In addition, I had two years to focus on my health and wholeness before my last surgery. This time, I have been a little distracted, to say the least. I have turned my focus more inward in the last few weeks so I can be in the best shape mentally, physically and spiritually that I can, but, honestly, it's a challenge. It has been a blessing to spend extra time with friends and our community continues to support us in wonderful ways.

I am looking forward to Sunday. A part of our Sunday morning service will be devoted to a time of prayer for me. I would love to gather friends near and far around me. If you can be there, no matter what your faith tradition may or may not be, please come to Community Presbyterian Church, 1407 Third St., Calistoga, at 10:30 this Sunday, Oct. 24. If you can't be there in person, I know you will be with me in spirit.

My surgery is 7:30 a.m. Tuesday, Oct. 26. David will update the blog and be sending out emails as soon as he can. We look forward to good news and a positive time of healing soon!

Thank you all for being such a blessing to me. Love, Natalie

Surgery news

David wrote a great email summing up our currents "stuff," so I'm putting it here for our blog. There is enough on our minds with that we are feeling the strain at times and have to work to deal with it all in the best way we can. Fortunately there are also blessings, like the play Helen is in at the JC, Ian's 15th birthday celebration and the gift of a tennis mentor who would just like to work with Ian for as long as he enjoys the game. Thank you again for your love and prayers. Love, Natalie

Hello All,

I want to keep everyone informed as to where things are and how things are going. The support we continue to receive throughout this time has been wonderful. Ian has fully rejoined swimming and is now taking tennis lessons and loving it! He celebrates each day of remission in his own wonderful ways.

Natalie will have her brain surgery on Tues. Oct 26 at UCSF. The Friday before she has a whole day of prep, as well as Monday the 25th. They tell us she will be in the Hospital through Friday and if all is well should come home then.

With this news of more prep and longer stay than we anticipated and what she went through last time the reality of what is coming is setting in. Overall we're both doing quite well but we both find ourselves at times standing in a room looking around going, "now what am I needing to do?"

We are confident of God's love and presence and are reminded again of the beauty and blessings of each day. But please hold us, and Ian and Helen, in your thoughts and prayers as this journey is fraught not only with bumps and bends but also many whispered fears.

Blessings,

David

BTW, our family was deeply involved this year in Relay for Life and it appears our we have raised over $43,000 in Calistoga! Great work and may they develop more cures!

Surgery Date

Hello all,

On Monday I went to UCSF for another MRI and to meet with my surgeon. As hoped and expected, the MRI shows no further growth since May. However, the difference in prior year's MRIs is still apparent and my surgeon feels surgery is still needed. He said it is not an emergency and I could chose a time that works best, although he would hope that I would not wait too long. I've chosen to have surgery sooner rather than later and not wonder when I might have symptoms. In light of Ian's 15th birthday on Sept. 25, Helen's play the first 2 weekends of Oct. and a couple of other events David is involved in, I opted to ask for a date after Oct. 25. On Thursday I learned the date will be Oct. 26. I'm confident in my surgeon, one of the best in the world, and believe all will be will.

There is the possibility I will be encouraged to follow surgery with chemotherapy or might participate in a study using a new drug that inhibits the return of low-grade tumors. I will learn more after the pathology study is done.

When David called his folks on Monday with our news, he learned his father was fighting a fever. He ended up admitted to the hospital and diagnosed with a pulmonary embolism. This was pretty scary and very likely was caused by the cancer drugs keeping his Multiple Myeloma under control. He is still in the hospital, but has been moved out of the ICU and will go home tomorrow. We are thankful!

We are also thankful Ian is back to swimming, increasing his energy and appetite! We will both walk the survivors' lap in tomorrow's Relay For Life and he will be giving a speech during the lighting of the luminaria as the Relay's Honorary co-chair. Helen is doing well, focusing on theater classes, the play, and French this fall.

We are thankful, too, for all of you and pray you are well, even as you pray for us.

In love, Natalie

Remission!

We just arrived home from Stanford where Ian's Oncology Drs. gave us the results of the scans taken Aug. 23. The news is very good. The CT scan was completely clean and PET CT scan only shows a small highlight that is very likely not related to the cancer. The Drs. feel very good about how Ian is doing and even gave him the go ahead to swim with his swim team in the late afternoons even though the sun is still out. Technically he's supposed to stay out of the sun for 3 months after radiation because that area is very sensitive.

Ian also had a chest x-ray today because he has a bad chest cough from a cold he came down with more than a week ago at the homeschool camp Aug. 24-31. But, the x-ray was clean, so we are also thankful for that! Hopefully, our next check up will be in 2 months (protocol through the first year) unless the radiation Dr. wants to see Ian sooner.

Ian did have a wonderful time at camp and we are so grateful he was able to attend with everything he's been through this year. The week before camp our entire family enjoyed a family reunion in New Mexico, another wonderful respite from our crazy year. (See photos above.)

David is very involved in our local American Cancer Society Relay for Life, which is coming up Sept. 18. One of the ways he raises money is by doing his own swim-a-thon. He did his swim yesterday and swam 7000 yards, which is 4 miles! He has nearly raised $2000! If you would like to put him over the top, please join him.

Ian will also have a significant role in this year's Relay. He is Honorary Chair and will be giving one of the opening speeches! And we will walk the survivor lap together, the thought of which brings tears to my eyes already.

My news is that I will have another MRI and see my surgeon Mon., Sept. 13. It would be wonderful if the MRI showed nothing growing after all, but I expect we will set a surgery date at that time. Meanwhile, I am feeling an almost desperate need to clear the clutter out of my life and have a lots of stuff set aside for a garage sale this Sat. There's so much to do to get ready, I'm not sure how I'll manage. But, whatever happens, I will get rid of a some of the clutter in my life. Yeah!

Please also keep my 22 month old nephew, Teo, in your prayers. (Teo and his Mommy and Daddy are with Ian and I in a photo above.) He is in the hospital with a nasty viral infection that caused such a bad fever he had a seizure. On top of that, my sister-in-law Pinar twisted her ankle badly before he got sick and they are in Turkey while my brother Melborne is back here in the US. It's so hard to be separated when needs and worries are so great!

Thank you all for keeping us in your hearts. You are a blessing to us! Love, Natalie

Make a Wish ~ Mythbusters

I promised a blog post when we went to Ian's Make a Wish event, so that's what this is. Friday, August 6, our Make a Wish friends came to present Ian's wish. They had a cake with the Mythbusters' picture on it and surprised us with the news that a limousine would be picking us up on Monday morning! Ian had already been getting excited about his wish and this made it even more exciting.
We did have a very exciting day on Monday, even though the limo was delayed in picking us up. ;-) I am providing a link to Ian's post so you can see what he wrote - which shares his view quite well. You can see he's a fun-loving, goofy kid - and very lovable!
We are not allowed to post pictures from inside M5 or any of the Mythbusters, so you'll have to trust us that we were really there or come see us to view pics! There were 6 families there fulfilling their wishes. All of the guys were really nice. If you are familiar with the show, you'll know one of the hosts is a woman, Kari, but she was on location with a project, so we didn't get to meet her. The workshop is very cool, with lots of items they have created for the show and movies they have done work for every where. Basically we got to meet 4 of the hosts, Jamie gave us a tour of the shop, and there was a photo op and signing time for each family. Ian would have loved to do some experimenting with them, but that wasn't in the cards. They don't normally give tours of M5, so we are very fortunate to have done what we did!
After our event, the limo took us to the a hotel near the Oakland airport so we could fly out very early Tuesday morning to go to my folks place in New Mexico for a family reunion. That's where we are now, enjoying the view and family. Both of my Grandmother's are here. My youngest brother Melborne and his wife Pinar and almost 2 year old son Teoman are also here. Teo is great entertainment! My brother Michael will also be coming with his family, so we will all be together for the first time in a long time. This weekend there will be a large gathering, especially in honor of my maternal grandmother who will turn 90 this year. I am so grateful to be doing these wonderful things before tackling more medical stuff. It's a nice break. ;-)

We're home!

Ian had his final radiation treatment this morning and we are home! It's amazing that we are already finished with all 17 treatments, it's gone so quickly.

We spent the last 2 nights in the Ronald McDonald house again, and even enjoyed a larger room with a kitchenette. ;-) I took peaches from our peach tree and ingredients for peach cobbler with us. It was fun to make something to share with the other families in our wing.

Ian did art with the other teens on Monday night and we met Joseph, a 16 year old fighting Leukemia. Tuesday evening a volunteer came to play Bingo with us and another family. We had a small group, so everybody won! I got a Starbuck's card and Ian got an iTunes card. Pretty cool. Later we played Settlers of Catan with Maddi, Lindsey and Margaret. We really need to get this game - it's very fun and I'm thankful for our new friends who introduced it to us! We are praying 15 yo Maddi and her Mom Margaret hear good news tomorrow and they get to go home after their 100 days near the hospital due to stem cell transplant. Please join us!

Ian delighted his radiation therapists by showing up to many of his treatments wearing a clown nose or a silly hat. Yesterday he wore a scary Halloween mask with a pirate hat. He had nurses coming in just to take pictures of him! Then he had to figure out some way to top that for his final day. So, he wore the same mask and hat but put his red pillow case over the top so they would think it was just the pillowcase and surprise them again. It was a success. Need I say he endeared himself to his therapists? They even gave him a certificate of completion that says he completed his radiation therapy with "High Honors in courage, determination and good spirit." ;-)

We have been getting free 15 minute chair massages at the Cancer Center every day when we go for treatments, so we did our last ones today and left with hugs and good wishes. At least we have something to look forward to when we go back for Ian's scans on Aug. 23.

One thing I'm taking with me is a desire to register as a stem cell donor. There is such a need. I hope to connect a registration drive with our local Relay For Life in September, so watch for that and get registered!

I probably won't post again for a few weeks. I get a week at home, then I'm off for some singing conference time. Yeah! I get back, have a couple of days, then we have Ian's Make A Wish event - a day with Discovery Channels Mythbusters! Ian (and the rest of the family, too!) is very excited about that, so I'll probably post something about it. Then we fly to New Mexico for a family reunion! Whew, makes my tired thinking about it all, but it's all good stuff! THEN, I'll be looking at getting my MRI and addressing whatever comes next. ;-)

Blessings to everyone, Thanks for reading, praying, thinking of us, supporting us! Love, Natalie

Only 4 treatments left

We are finished with all but 4 radiation treatments and it looks like the last one will be next Wed., as planned, so we will only be here 2 nights next week. Ian and I are getting to know a few people better this week at the Ronald McDonald House and he has had board game players to enjoy. ;-) We'll even bring home a couple of titles we will want to pick up sometime! There are actually 3 teens in our part of the house right now, which is great.

Our day in SF yesterday was great. We really enjoyed the Academy of Sciences - it's quite a place! - and visiting with our friends was a wonderful treat.

We did see our Drs. on Mon. and Tues. this week. Basically, Ian will be considered in remission once his radiation treatments are finished - Whoo, hoo! We will do PET and CT scans Aug. 23 to confirm that he is truly clear of disease. Once again, the timing is working out so we have that the day before he leaves for a homeschooling camp for teens that he has been looking forward to all year. Thank goodness!

Some of you have asked how I'm doing. I am fine, although I get overwhelmed pretty easily these days. Every once in a while "my cup overflows" with stress and I do some freaking out. BUT, I have no symptoms from my tumor and we are just getting through Ian's treatments before we worry about my stuff. I will have another MRI sometime in the last half of August and then we'll decide on a surgery date. I'm really not focused on that right now, which is good.

I plan to keep updating, and probably backdating for a while, this blog. So, following this should be a good way to keep up with us.

Once again, thank you for all your thoughts, prayers and all you do.

Blessings, Natalie