"The wind of heaven is that which blows between a horse's ears." -Arabian Proverb

This last week has been one of our tougher weeks so far. Amanda was quite nauseous from the carboplatin.  This last Thursday when we went in to do chemo, Amanda's white blood cell count was too low to do Chemo. This happens, but Amanda feels like she loses a week of fighting the cancer. If you know Amanda you know how tough this is for her. There is not much you can do, except try to exercise and eat really well. So needless to say I am learning more about preparing organic kale than I ever wanted to know. We also have all gotten severe allergies with the spring season which is concerning with Amanda's low white cells so we are keeping a close eye on it.

We have done a lot of studying over the years about the abilities horses have to heal people physically and mentally. I know for sure the horse has the ability to connect directly to your soul if you are willing to let him. Their movement and energy give you strength and serenity. So today we are making sure Amanda rides. The cold hard fact is when Amanda is riding it is the one place that  all she can focus on is the horse, and not worry about anything else. She has worked for many years on having this ability to connect with the horse and now they are giving back to her in spades.

So it was like 30 mile an hour winds today but Amanda was determined to ride. Her horse Snowflake is interesting, cause he really had a rough time with the human when we first got him. He was very agressive. He would try to chase you out of the stall when you would feed him and would lunge at you when you did groundwork. He also would let you pet him and as soon as you quit paying attention he would try to bite you for no reason. He just couldn't deal with any kind of affection. It was really sad. Needless to say, Amanda has always had a bond with him because she saw who he was and what he could become. Which is a very trustful horse who has really come through in the clutch for us. He isn't real athletic but the gifts he has given us through his try and heart have been more than a horse owner can ask for. Amanda has always liked to ride him bareback because she feels so close and connected to him. It was a little tough with the kids today but Amanda was able to disappear for a good fifteen minutes into hoof beat heaven and give herself to Snowflake's movement.

Next Chemo session is Thursday. So hopefully the nuepogen
shots work and her white blood cells are up. Will keep our fingers and hooves crossed.

"In Sickness and in Health..."

Tomorrow is our 5th wedding anniversary. "In sickness and in health"... I had no idea five years later, I would be put to the "in sickness" test. But I am glad that I am the one going through this with her. She inspires me everyday. When I rodeoed I thought if you were a world champion cowboy you were tough. Those guys were nothing compared to these people fighting cancer.

Amanda was given a schedule of 16 weeks of chemotherapy.

The first 12 rounds she will be on the drug combination of Carboplatin and Taxol. Then 4 rounds on Adriamycin and Cytoxan.

After that will be the double mastectomy, radiation, and then reconstructive surgery.

So far, the chemo is producing amazing results. After just two treatments, the tumor had drastically started shrinking as well as the lymph nodes. 

After three treatments, the tumor measured 1 cm (from being 4 cm) and the texture of it completely changed, from hard to soft (more like tissue.) And the lymph nodes are no longer measurable. The chemo is doing its job. The oncologist was extremely impressed with the results and is confident that by the time of surgery, Amanda will have a complete pathological response to the chemo which is the ultimate goal for triple negative patients and will greatly improve the prognosis. That will mean that the chemo will have completely killed the cancer.

So we are on the sixth Chemo day with a few sessions that have been cancelled due to low white blood cell counts, which is normal. But when they are down, Amanda is more susceptible to illness so we have to be careful. Amanda and the kids don't go anywhere and a lot of antibacterial hand wash. She gets nuepogen shots for a few days to bring the white cells back up. The main thing that really sucks is the chemo is put off for another week. So we have already had 2 1/2 weeks added to the chemo treatment.

Today was a hard day for Amanda. She was real nauseous this morning. Had trouble giving blood out of her port and then found out she couldn't do treatment today.  There were some other chemo patients having a hard time and it really affected her, bringing her to tears. But once we got home she went right back to taking care of our children without missing a beat.
I am proud to be celebrating our fifth wedding anniversary in a germ free environment tomorrow.

You are my life and love.
Happy Anniversary Angel!

P.S
This picture was on our wedding day. Amanda was determined to canter in her wedding dress on our horse Snowflake. The other is just one of my favorites.

Cowboys Don't Cry....B.S!

So all I knew about chemo was what I saw from binge watching Walter White on "Breaking Bad."

The oncologist wanted to start Amanda on chemo right away instead of doing surgeries first because of the aggressive nature of the cancer.
Oh my God, what does this mean? What do I know about this? She is going to get sick, nauseous and lose her hair. Lose her hair right? I realized I had all these ideas of what chemo was and was really scared for Amanda. In the meanwhile, Amanda was obsessed with starting chemo so she knew she was doing something to fight.

We had a few hoops to jump through to start. Number one was the Port. Yeah. a port. It is a surgical procedure where they stick this round port about the size of a quarter in the muscles of her chest just under the skin to take blood and most importantly put the chemo medicine in. I guess they do this so they don't have to find veins all the time. We did an introduction class at the chemo ward where you watch a video and a nurse tells you about all of the possible side effects. Got a schedule and all the nausea medicine prepared.

The first time you walk into a chemo ward your worst fears come true. There is a bunch of older, very sick looking people wrapped up in blankets. But after a few minutes there is a beauty unlike any beauty I've ever seen. These people smile at you and have a twinkle in their eyes. It's insane what horrible things people go through and they offer their hands and hearts. It's humanity in its purest form.

Amanda also had a Pet scan done that showed no other cancer other than in her breast and the two lymph nodes. Amanda had been so anxious and scared for weeks about finding out if it had spread. Once she got those results, she felt a weight had been lifted off of her and she had a new found determination and confidence about beating this.

She also had to take a genetics test to see if she had the breast cancer gene. Yes, the same thing Angelina Jolie has. It came back positive. Which means Amanda had up to an 80% risk of developing breast cancer at some point in her life.
This also means she will have to get a double mastectomy with breast reconstruction. She will also have to get her ovaries removed as she has a 55% risk of getting ovarian cancer. We are so blessed to have just had our two children.

I use to hear the saying "Cowboys don't cry." I believe it is ok to cry once in a while, as long as you are fighting back while you are doing it.

I have been so proud of Amanda hitting this face forward. She is Determined like never before.

Don't worry about falling, the ground will always catch you.

When we found out Amanda's results were positive, we wanted of course to find the best doctor, "oncologist" in the area. Which we did and our insurance that was giving us the run around said she was covered, along with the breast surgeon. The day we were going to meet her, the insurance company told us they made a mistake and we needed to look for another doctor.

We decided to go meet her anyways. She was very thorough in explaining the type of cancer Amanda had and how aggressive it is and explained that they needed to be aggressive with the treatment right away. Amanda would also need a Pet scan to make sure the cancer wasn't anywhere else. The reality had kicked in. I grew extremely more nervous in the room and finally blurted out, "Is Amanda going to get through this?" The doctor replied with a story of another patient that had. Not what I wanted to hear. Needless to say, we got her report so we could give it to the next oncologist the insurance was going to cover.

What ever you do- don't read the report the doctor writes up about your wife fighting breast cancer.

The words blew up all over the page POOR PROGNOSIS. When I got home, I went outside to pick up manure and my mind went to horrible places. Meanwhile, inside Amanda was trying to find a new Oncologist, taking care of business like she always does. When I came in I watched her jumping through hoops with the insurance company and seeing the worry on her face get worse. The next appointment she could get was for a doctor 90 miles away and was half a week away. I said "screw it, we don't have time for this. I have no idea how we are going to pay for chemo but set up an appointment with this amazing doctor we met."

A few days later, I was putting the first rides on some colts at a client's place.
With all Amanda had been through, she was out there helping me as we do sometimes. She will help drive the horses around from the ground while I am on their back. The funny thing was this day, right in the process of getting this colt to move forward, her phone rang. It was the president of a charity group called Careity who Amanda randomly new a lady who worked there. They are a charity group in the Fort Worth area specializing in breast cancer patients. The cool thing is that their big annual fundraiser is a celebrity cutting horse event. Amanda's breast surgeon, Dr. Amelia Gunter competes in the celebrity cutting.

While I am trying to stay on this young horse, Amanda was half way paying attention to me and talking to this lady.  I tried to leave her alone and keep my seat at the same time. Needless to say, Careity payed for her first chemo session and an echocardiogram she needed done. We got our insurance stuff worked out and now everything is covered. Careity is a true gift to breast cancer patients and we will be forever grateful to them.

A famous cowboy told me once when I was getting on my first bucking horse at a rodeo,"Don't worry, the ground will always catch you."

Wild horses are a lot easier than Triple Negative Breast Cancer

When you get a wild horse to train, you can build a step by step foundation to put riding him for the first time in your favor. When you find out your Beautiful wife has Triple Negative Breast Cancer, you feel like there is nothing left in your favor.

That's right. On February 17, 2014 we found out after 5 years of marriage and an 11 year relationship, my beautiful wife had been diagnosed with Stage 2b Triple Negative Breast Cancer. A 4 centimeter tumor in her left Breast and 2 lymph nodes were infected with cancer. Call me naive, but I thought this stuff happened to other people, not a healthy 34 year old woman who had just 5 months prior given birth to our second child, Violet Rose. The doctor said that the cancer had been growing for a while and had probably started before the birth of our first child Ryder James. These two children are the picture of health. How could this be.

Amanda and I just moved back to Texas from Southern California to have a fresh start with our Horse Training business and to raise our children in the country. We have dedicated are life to helping the horse and the people that choose to work with them. I can tell you a million facts about horses but when it comes to cancer and words like carboplatin and neutrophil count, I am dumb founded.

It might sound silly but this all started how a lot of cancers are found. While Amanda was breast feeding she felt a little lump. She had in the past had some dense tissue issues and would worry her self sick, then nothing was wrong with her. So this time I blew it off and embarrassingly so was annoyed with her worry. Amanda decided to wait a few weeks thinking it might be related to the breast feeding and we were in between insurance policies at the time so we waited another month till we had our new insurance. By the time she saw her OB/GYN it had been about two months since she originally felt the lump.

Our wonderful doctor who delivered  both our children said it was probably breast feeding related but regardless he wanted her to get a biopsy. After a fine needle aspiration biopsy didn't get a clear reading, a core needle biopsy was done and we got the results.....

So this blog is about our journey in life with our children, horses and fighting breast cancer.