Hello All,

Been a little while since my last post so here is an update for you all.

First off, I have realized that I have not acknowledged what a loving, caring, supportive, and amazing husband I have. I am so lucky and blessed to have Darrell as my husband and best friend. He has been amazing through thick and thin and good and bad. I know that this has been as much of an emotional/mental roller coaster for Darrell as it has been for me. He has been an amazing pillar of strength for me individually as well as for us as a family. He works very hard at his "paying" job and then works very hard at being such an amazing husband and father. While I often feel and think this way, I have not expressed it enough to him or others how great he truly is (don't want it to go to his head). But in honesty, I don't think I could imagine a better partner to experience this with (but wish we did not need this challenge to acknowledge our love and commitment to one another). Darrell adjusts his work schedule as much as possible to attend important doctor appointments, specialized tests, surgeries, and taking care of us after surgeries. Not a lot of 30 (age at 1st dx) and 33-year-old (age at 2nd dx) men would embrace a challenge with such grace as he has. For this, I am truly grateful.

O.K. now about medical stuff....

I am healing well after my surgery and feeling really well with a little fatigue. I have my post-op doctor's appointment tomorrow. Will find out the pathology tomorrow but am thinking that no news is good news. The exploratory portion of the surgery went well and we were told that everything looked really good with the exception of endometriosis. I am experiencing frequent hot flashes and night sweats...they are miserable but tolerable. Hopefully they will someday go away (have been told it may take years or they may never go away...here's hoping they go away and sooner than later).

So, you guys are never going to believe this but we finally received the HERMARK results. Here's the BUT...the results unfortunately have not provided any more clarity for us. The results came back EQUIVOCAL. Yep, I am equally HER2 (+) and HER2 (-). This puts both us and my health care professionals in a uncertain position on how to appropriately treat me. We are connecting with Dana Farber and my original doctor in N. VA to see what their opinion is. This is not common unfortunately. I would have really appreciated the results to be more cut and dry.

Last Thursday, I had a PET Scan. We received the results during treatment last Friday. The PET Scan looked really good. My oncologist believes that the PET Scan no longer shows the 4 additional lesions and the uptake that shows up in the L5 could be dead tissue. This is really positive because it looks like a pretty "clean" PET Scan, which leaves us extremely hopeful and optimistic that we are on the "right" track for treatment and complete healing.

I also had an MRI (for the L5) on Friday before tx. Unfortunately, the MRI was done incorrectly and I have to have it re-done tomorrow. Will keep you all posted.

This past w/e was beautiful here. Weather was in 50-60's. Today was snowy and I realized how ready I really am for spring.

Well this is all for today. I will work on filling you all in on my new acupuncturist and Dr. Emonds (orthomolecular medicine) and anything else I remember to share.

Hope all is well, happy, and healthy with you all.

Take Care,

xoxoxoxo
Lisa