"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.