THE MASK OF THE RED DEVIL

There was a small cowboy town in Texas in the late 1800's named "Hope Spring," and there was a rumor going around that the outlaw nicknamed "The Red Devil" was in the territory. In the meanwhile, this little town was already run by hooligans, thieves and opportunists. But the core of "Hope Springs" was a band of settlers who worked hard and were good church going folks, but they were scared to walk down the streets and now were really scared the Red Devil was near by. The settlers were growing tired of worrying and were getting ready to pack their wagons up and head further West.
On this one hot summer day, the local riff raf decided to wreak havoc on this little town. What were the settlers to do but pull up stakes and run.
Then out of nowhere, a man on a horse came blowing through "Hope Spring" guns a blazing. He wore a black hat and a red bandana over his face. He rode a big powerful steed. The settlers couldn't believe their luck, it wasn't bad enough with all the chaos, but now the Red Devil has come to town. All was lost.
Except what they didn't notice, was the Red Devil was roping and dragging all the bad guys out of town. One by one, he got rid of all of the men that caused this little town despair. When he was done, he rode right up to the settlers, didn't say a word, tipped his hat and reared his horse. Then turned and rode away into the sunset.

Okay, so back to reality. Amanda started her new regimen of chemo yesterday of Adriamycin and Cytoxan. The Adriamycin is nicknamed the Red Devil. We haven't been looking forward to it because everyone says how hard it can be on the patient.
A day later, Amanda is doing okay. Pretty nauseous, but still able to take care of the kids. We will just have to wait and see how she handles it. She has 3 more rounds of these, every two weeks and then she will be done with chemo if no problems arise. As best we know, it is around three weeks after that she would have surgery.

We did get some very exciting news last week. Amanda had her first mammogram and ultrasound since she was diagnosed. Nothing at all could be seen in her breast or lymph nodes! That was a big day for us. They won't know till they do the surgery if it is officially all gone, but these are all great signs.


We did a group riding lesson this last week and taught clients beginning western jumping. After the lesson, our client Candace asked Amanda if she wanted to ride her big pretty Arabian that had been with us for training. Amanda kept eyeballing the jump, so she went over it a few times. She loves to jump so this was pretty cool. Thank you Candace.

Amanda and I continue to meet these beautiful strong people at the cancer center that inspire us to be postitive and keep fighting. There are people that go through such horrible things in this world and we are blessed for every day and moment we have. Our prayers and thoughts go out to all of our new friends out there.