Angie's Battle, God's Victory!

Angie is doing well this week at healing from her surgery. She went yesterday for her post-surgery check and received a great report. She still is restricted with certain activities over the next week but she can start walking for exercise again soon, but she still needs to takes it easy. She did have a mild reaction to the antibiotics but after stopping the medication it has resolved. Thank you all for your prayers, meals, and words of encouragement! We are all so thankful 💗

Update 2/21/22 @ 8:38AM Angie   is out of surgery. It went well. She will be heading to recovery and home later today. No drain was necessary. Thank you for praying!  ——————————————————————- Today Angie is currently scheduled for surgery at 7:30AM to finish the reconstruction surgery and remove the port. She has been looking forward to having this part completed. The port has been in a while too so it will be a nice change.  She has been feeling well the past couple weeks and feels strong and ready to start recovering. In the past week she has met with her surgeon and the radiation doctor and reports good visits and recovery. We are thankful her skin has healed well from radiation and she can have the surgery now. She is still experiencing neuropathy but we hope it will start to lessen over time. Please pray the surgery and recovery process goes well. We will update this afternoon.  Thank you! 

Met with the oncologist today and he said we should stop chemo pill due to the increasing neuropathy.  He said to be happy with the treatments I was able to do.  I got to ring the gong signifying I’m done with treatments.  Lots of clapping and cheering. Soon we will meet with the surgeon to determine when that date will be scheduled and how the skin is healing after the radiation.  But we are cheering for a huge triumph today! It was evident God has been providing wisdom each step in this difficult battle. Today close’s an important chapter-done with chemo therapy x 2!  Thank you for your support and encouragement through this journey. 

Angie is currently in the process of completing round 2 of chemo. It was a slight delay due to weather-related closure to hear from the doctor. Thankfully she was able to get in touch the following day and received a good report on her bloodwork. Due to some of the symptoms and neuropathy increasing they both agreed to take a slightly lower dose this round to observe if this helps. So far, she is tolerating the symptoms well and has adapted good practices that have kept her comfortable. The biggest issue is the increased neuropathy or numbness, which is increasing in her hands and feet.  We will be meeting with the oncologist on February 7th to discuss what to do next.  Please pray for wisdom and clarity for both Angie and Jim as well as the doctor advising her. Pray also that any side effects will resolve eventually.  Thank you for continuing to read this blog, pray, encourage, and support us all during this fight! We are all grateful for each of you! (Angie, Jim, and Julie!) 

Angie finished her first round of the chemo pill with very little side effects, however, this week she had 3 straight days of bouts with diarrhea (a side effects of the chemo pills), even though she stopped her last pill on Sunday the 2nd.  The rest of the week has brought relief but her system is still not back to normal and she has had some fatigue.   Please pray that this will be a better week with fewer side effects.  She have blood work done tomorrow and the tentative date to resume chemo pill is the 17th.

I started taking the chemo pill on Monday, the 21st.  It was a little disappointing that I had nausea after the first dose but it lessened after a few hours.  Since then the nausea has been very little and definitely tolerable, for this I am very grateful.😌  The typical chemo schedule will continue for 7 cycles (2 weeks of chemo and 1 week off) and approximately 5 months but it will depend on future surgery and how I tolerate the chemo side effects  After my meeting with the oncologist on Monday the plan is to take the pills for two weeks and then take two weeks off to do blood work this time since I’ll be out of the state. If everything checks out I will begin the pills again on January 17th.  The doctor also said it would be fine to make our annual trip to Florida.  Please pray that symptoms will continue to be very minimal and that the trip to Florida goes well.  I continue to be extremely grateful for your prayers and support.🙏❤️