November Blog Challenge and Life Update

My November blog challenge ended up not being too successful, as you can clearly see.  I often joke that I'm a "slacker" and this failed challenge indeed confirms this.  ;-)  I had the best of intentions when I decided to complete the November blog challenge.  I wanted to make November a month where I really took good note of my life.  This year has been such a whirlwind and unfortunately I didn't write down all of my emotions and happenings as much as I would have liked to.  But life gets busy.  Days turn into weeks and weeks into months.  I want to apologize for not accomplishing all the written tasks in the November challenge, but let me tell you- this month has been absolutely amazing!

Yesterday, I received the FANTASTIC news from my MRI that there is no re-growth of the cancer and the scan looked the same as the one three months ago.  Because of how well I'm responding to the chemo and to go along with research trends, my Oncologist Dr. Hohl decided we should do another four months of Temodar, my chemotherapy pills.  That means I will have done a total of ten months of five nights on,twenty three days off (on top of the two months of five nights on, two nights off) when I'm completely done.  Four more months means I will be done in February.  That will be a wonderful year mark of my cancer discovery!!

God is SO good, let me tell you!  I can't express enough how amazing this journey has been and continues to be.  As Travis, Mom, and I waited for the pharmacist to finish filling my Temodar prescription yesterday, we met a couple sets of really neat people that I will not forget anytime soon.  The gentleman and his wife whom I sparked a conversation with (imagine that... me talking to strangers...) were so friendly and filled with the Spirit that we quickly hit it off.  I ended up putting my hands on his shoulder and praying for him to feel God's presence and peace in his life.  This man was given a 12 week life expectancy due to pancreatic cancer, but he had an attitude like I've never seen- he was so positive and inspiring and he really made an impact on me.  While speaking about our love of Christ and our cancer situations, a young woman sitting on the other side of us interrupted and asked if she heard correctly that I have brain cancer.

This family turned out to be quite the opposite of my new optimistic friend.  She was around my age; 25 I would guess.  Her mother, who looked worn and weak, was sitting in the wheelchair next to her with the young lady's aunt.  Come to find out, this young lady's mom was diagnosed with the exact same tumor as mine 24 years ago.  She made it through with flying colors 24 years ago with no issues.  Since then, she had a pacemaker put in and could no longer have an MRI to follow up yearly with her brain cancer screenings.  A very large tumor re-showed itself this year- 24 YEARS LATER!  She had a really rough surgery and was in a coma for awhile afterwards.  She had to re-learn how to walk and talk and her personality has forever been different, reported her daughter, Megan.  I will never forget the sad look in this worried and worn daughter's eyes.  I prayed for her right there, but knew that if the family and her Mom wouldn't change their negative attitudes and pessimism, there might be little hope.  I gave Megan a huge hug and told her that God was with her and loved her, as she walked away with tears in her eyes.  I pray that I made an impact in her life, at least a much as that family made in mine.

You see, if I can be fortunate enough to make it another 24 years without the re-appearance of another brain tumor, I will be overjoyed and full of praise to our amazing God!  Don't get me wrong, if one chooses to appear before then, I will still continue to be thankful for the life I have been blessed with and the joy God provides.  God used this experience with this pessimistic family to remind me how important it is to maintain my faith and positive attitude through this trial.  Without my full faith in His Power, I am relying on nothing more than a medical miracle.  Without an attitude of thanksgiving, I will soon become weak and no longer able to see all the good that God has provided despite the trials.

I was so blessed to meet both of these families.  Each trip I make to Iowa City seems to get better.  Every time I make that drive, I am reminded how blessed I am.  Here we are, almost ten months since my diagnosis, alive and well.  Content and joyful with the wake up call that this cancer has proved to be in my life.

I have more exciting news to share; As I have told ya'll before, God has been tugging me to venture into the arena of Women's Ministry for awhile and I had given Him a huge "no" as my answer before.  Through this 'great awakening' of mine, I have decided to never tell God "no" again.  A dear friend of mine has set me up to speak at a local church to a group of women about 'Craving God Now'.  This will be my first 'Women's Ministry' speech and will be taking place at Harmony Bible Church in Danville, IA on December 11th at 7:00pm.   Feel free to join us for this exciting moment in my saying YES to God!  Please pray for God to speak through me and for my words to be from Him in order to make a difference in these ladies' lives!

Thank you for all of your encouragement and love you continue to shower me with!  Praise God and Him alone for the difference I am able to make in people's lives; I am simply His instrument.  :-)

Much love,
Alicia

Surgery 6 Month Mark!

Exactly six months ago, I was sitting in a hotel lobby fretting and praying about my surgery the next day.  You can read all about that experience here.  Yes that's right, tomorrow, August 27th marks 6 months since my brain surgery!  I can't believe how quickly time has passed!  With God as my strength, I was able to come through the hardest adversity of my life thus far, with a smile on my face and a heart full of gladness, peace, and joy!

My prayer through this whole difficulty has been that Christ would be glorified and His light would shine through me.  I continue to strive everyday to be the best example of Christ's love and grace I can be.  I don't follow a set of rules.  I'm not perfect.  I don't worry about crossing out tasks on a Christian to-do list.  I have a passionate love relationship with Jesus Christ and I am alive to serve His people, as He did when he was on this earth!

Friends, that's all being a Christian is all about: Love God, Love Others.  If you don't know Jesus Christ on a deep, personal level and need someone to talk to, I'm here for you.  Know that I care about you; I care about you for all of eternity!  Give up all of your struggles.  This life is hard; it knocks you down and you're just not strong enough to make it through alone.  But we don't have to; we have a Father who wants to take away our pain.  We just have to give up control to Him!

Big Decision

We went to Iowa City yesterday to meet with our team of specialists.  I love my radiation doctor!  He explained the process so clearly and answered all of my questions.  I will start radiation probably the last week Monday of March.  It will last 7 weeks and I will go Monday-Friday to Iowa City.  I choose to complete this at Iowa City instead of Burlington, because the machines are much different; the one in Iowa City is more precise and targeted, hopefully causing less damage to healthy cells.  My Grandpa and Grandma Phillips, who have experience with the Iowa City Cancer Center due to her having cancer, have offered to take me to treatments 2-3 days per week.  This takes a large burden off of us, because it is going to get expensive to drive to Iowa City each day.  I'm super excited that they will be taking me some, too, because growing up we weren't all that close.  This will be such a wonderful opportunity to get closer to them!  So, I will work on getting a schedule made up, with who will fill in the gaps on the other days of the week.  I'm hoping we can find friends and family to drive me up in my vehicle the other days. 

After that wonderful appointment with radiation, we met with an older doctor in Chemotherapy.  With my type of brain cancer (anaplastic astrocytoma grade 3), there is not a great deal of research that's been done in the field.  For a grade 4 cancer of the same type, doctors have a very clear cut action plan, but not so much with my grade 3.  After the doctor tried explaining the cancer and the research (in a way that was way above our heads), we almost left the appointment more confused than we entered.  But we asked to talk to the nurse and she really cleared up lots of our fears and questions.  The downfalls to doing them simultaneously is that it may lower my immune system, so we would need to be more careful about keeping me healthy and it may cause some issues with low blood platelet counts.  The main reason to do chemo, in conjunction with radiation is: They were able to remove 95% of the tumor during surgery, but there is around 5% left and the cells may choose to divide quickly, causing another tumor to form.  The chemo may help kill these extra cancer cells before they split.  If I choose to go the chemo route, as well, I would start on the first day of radiation.  It involves just taking one chemo pill per night before bed, at the same time.  I would do chemo all throughout radiation, so for 7 weeks.  And then for another 6 months after radiation. 

This chemotherapy plan is better than some, in my opinion, because at least I get to take it at home and if I start feeling bad, at least I would be home and comfortable.  The more I think and pray about it and do my own research, the more I lean towards just doing it and tackling this cancer with everything we've got! 

Have a wonderful weekend, friends!  Please continue to pray for God to be glorified through this situation!