Lucky for us -- a passerby snapped this pic of Scott rejoicing after his clear report from the doctor!  

Yes, U of T. has done a lot with the medical center's landscaping budget since I was there in August. Amaaazing!

Nothing scary to see on the tests done at MD Anderson this week; they'll treat this round as a baseline and repeat again in three months.  Assuming that the next set is identical to this set of scans, the 'rotation' might be moved back to testing every six months. :)

We are without adequate words to explain just how much every email, every pat on the shoulder, every petition sent to our Heavenly Father on Scott's behalf means to our family.  You are not just making someone's heart melt a bit when you do these things....you're altering a life. :)

Instead of cueing the crickets to start chirping on the Malone Moment blog, ;) I really do plan on regularly maintaining the blog, so don't give up on me yet.  ;)  Thanks again for your support.

Elvis Has Left the Building (and has flown to Houston)

Scott made it to Houston no worse for the wear. Well, save that nagging emptiness he feels when he's not with me. . :) In case anyone reading is in a hurry and needs the 'cut to the chase' version, we basically won't know any test results until Friday morning. He's been able to text me throughout the day (except for right now..something or another about 'lead walls' ..eyeroll.)  :)

Wednesday was 'travel day'...the only flight w/ Conoco-Phillips a 7 a.m. flight -- which means that he had to leave our (new-to-us) home in Edmond, OK at 3:30 a.m. Today, Thursday, is 'testing' day....started at 7 a.m. and kind of paced throughout the day. He just texted me with a falsely delighted tone about the barium "smoothie" he was consuming at the time. (Just between us....why even call it a 'smoothie' and get some naive, smoothie-loving patient's hopes up? Scott, of course, knows better than to get excited about anything resembling food or drink offered during a medical test...but what about some poor kid or little lady who loves her Jamba Juices??) So far he's had bloodwork, CT of chest, abdomen, and pelvis, X-ray of chest, and now the smoothie drinking business and, yes, I think you can guess what might accompany the smoothie. He is pumped. :)

Then Friday morning he sees his physician, the oncologist who's also the head of the melonoma clinic at MD Anderson. (I hope you know me well enough to know that any 'credential dropping' in last sentence is done in an almost tear-filled tone of 'You will not believe how awesomely God did here!' And he takes a 4:50 pm flight back to Bartlesville on Friday night.

Thank you for prayers! May I ask that my prayin peeps throw it into overdrive this evening and/or tomorrow a.m. as he has to wait to talk to the dr. I'm really not fearful of these 3-month test results...it's kind of a weird combination of feelings -- nervousness partnered with thankfulness that he can even go have the tests done at all, I guess. Can't wait for him to be able to head home with a lightened heart and be able to relax in his excitement and enjoyment of our new home, etc.

I'll be back with a post tomorrow. Leave us any questions or feedback! And please forward the blog to anyone you know who's going through anything similar....or dissimilar...we're flexible. :)

What?! Back So Soon?? :)

I know. There's absolutely no excuse for my having taken soooo long to post an update!! It's shameful blogging...absolutely shameful. But don't you dare stop reading!

I confess. I selfishly chose now to get back to blogging to ask for prayers for Scott's next trip to MD Anderson. There...I admitted it. :) He leaves on Wednesday to be there for a full day of tests on Thursday; then on Friday he sees his oncologist to go over results from the previous day's tests. Sadly, he's going by his lonesome this time....just trying to pare down the cost of the trip. We're blessed again to be able to utilize Corporate Angel Flights -- http://www.corpangelnetwork.org -- they find companies willing to donate any 'unused seats' on corporate jets for folks heading to oncology appts. Conoco-Phillips is our local 'donor'....you just have to get yourself to Bartlesville, OK (about 2.5 hrs from us) and then travel in style! This was how we got to rub elbows with Ben & Jen Affleck on our last trip. Yeah, she lets me call her "Jenn" now. :)

The purpose of Scott's trip is to have tests that will reveal if any melanoma has 'popped a squat' anywhere in his body. In May of this year, we discovered that a suspect mole on his back had gone unnoticed for too long; when biopsied, the mole turned out to be the dreaded cancerous melanoma, and a peek at the nearest lymph node (in his left armpit) showed that melanoma had traveled there as well; this finding prompted the need for a "lymph node dissection", which is really just the removal of a certain group of nodes. His body had to have a chance to heal a bit between surgeries, so we had a pretty rough May through August, with surgery...recovery...surgery...recovery. Surgery..well, you get the point. ;)

Thankfully, that particular group of nodes is as far as the melanoma got, and brain and PET scans showed that no other organs were involved. The involvement of an original tumor along with any lymph involvement placed him at what's called "Stage IIIa"; if he'd had any other organ involvement, the stage would be considered IIIb, and survival rates become a bit grim. Melanoma is the kind of cancer that, when caught early, can be very easily treated and has very high survival rates. It's when it hits a lymph node that it can turn into a monster. A very scary monster. Treatment options quickly disappear once melanoma has metasticized at all; no chemo, no radiation, as a rule...the only FDA-approved treatment for "metasticized melanoma" are a couple that are considered "immunotheraphy" drugs, which really are geared to lower the recurrence rate. However, these treatments haven't proven very 'exciting' because recurrence rates are just lowered by 10-15%. Well, that and the "high toxicity" that makes life juuust about unbearable for the patient undergoing treatment. It gave me a chance to see firsthand what 'quality of life' really means when deciding on the treatment of an illness. And it's the patient, and the patient alone, who earns the right to make this call. 'Nuff said.

So, now that everyone's up to speed, we'd appreciate prayers for 'negative' tests on Thursday, Nov. 11th. Scott is now under the care of the head physician at MD Anderson's melanoma clinic. (MD Anderson is the U. of Texas's teaching hospital devoted solely to cancer and cancer research...located in Houston, TX.) As an absolute curiosity, we checked to see if our insurance might cover Scott's care there....and voila...it did! We traveled together in early August to get him established as a patient, and until further notice, he'll be seen every 3 months for testing to make sure he's still cancer-free.

Neither of us can adequately verbalize the feeling of 'aaahhh' when we walked into a huge, bustling clinic (w/in the huge, bustling cancer hospital) devoted solely to Scott's type of cancer and clinical trials for his kind of cancer. He went from being 1 of 3 stage III melanoma patients at a (pretty big) oncology practice here OKC to one of hundreds...and a hub for research. There's nothing like the terrifying realization that, especially when the cancer is 'rare' at all, there's really no one knocking down your door to be your advocate....if you don't do it and absolutely dig for information until your hands are bloody....it ain't gonna happen. Correction: dig for info AND hit your knees praying that God will reveal what questions to even search for. It's great to have an oncologist who's patient and willing to answer any questions you have, but if you don't even know the questions to ask, the result isn't much different than having an impatient, unwilling-to-field-questions oncologist.

Here's my long-winded point to this entire post: God has given me a gift..or at least wired me to be a teacher; I know w/out a doubt that in His eternally beautiful way of working all things for the good, God will use this year's nightmare, along with the power of the blogosphere, to allow the knowledge we've collected to bring peace to someone with a new diagnosis, or to prompt someone to get something checked out a little earlier. No, it's not knowledge that he or I ever had any desire to collect, but I've already seen God work through it. So please feel free to forward this blog to anyone you feel who might benefit from our journey...I know it'll end up where it's supposed to.

I commit to blogging frequently again...and I will update with news from Scott's Houston trip that starts on Wednesday. Thank you for your prayers...and please let us know of your needs too. Don't hesitate to leave a comment with news about your life...we want to hear! Let's use this blogosphere, baby!

Hmm...Should I try this on Scott? :)

Home Sweet Home - but oh, that hotel bed was heavenly!

I typed a bit during our flight home...and then finished it just a minute ago:
In the skies above Texas as I type. Noticing that if I worked in the oil industry, it’d be very similar to the tech industry...80% male. Not complaining. Just noticing. It was news to me that private flights had flight attendants. I’m tellin ya…this is the way to go – no dilly dallying – if everyone’s present, then the plane takes off and away you go!  No celebrities this time, darnit. Ben/Jen would be hard to top, celebrity speaking…hmmm….Branjelina, maybe? I’ll promise to get a pick with Brad if that happens. That way I won’t have any of you squawkin about the picture next time. ;)

Our experience with MD Anderson was as great as people said it would be. It’s an overwhelming place, but they operate like a well-oiled machine. But not well-oiled just for the sake of being well-oiled. I think we’ve all experienced being on the consumer end – medical, commercial, whatever -- where operations can silently take precedence over all else, and an occasional-to-frequent ‘stepping on of souls’ is tolerated or even mundane. Every employee (at least the ones we encountered) were what I’d call a ‘quality’ individual…even down to hotel staff. People are just pretty friendly in general there – even on the streets. Sorry, Northerner friends, but the south can’t be beat for its hospitality. ;)

As I’d mentioned before, MD has its own melanoma clinic. We didn’t see anyone below an R.N. rank (no offense to my LPN/MA friends o’ course…jus sayin). First we saw the doctor’s RN, then a ‘fellow’ M.D. (also melanoma specialist) who did the bulk of the physical exam, then dr., who's also the head of the melanoma dept. (Everyone under the age of mmm...33, I'd guess. ;) We are officially on the 'watch and wait' path now.  His Houston oncologist agreed that interferon was not a good fit for Scott.  The only other option of proactive things 'to do' to lesson chances of recurrence was the possibility of getting in to a clinical trial for one of the vaccines.  This was a 'no' answer.  We already knew that he had missed one trial because of not knowing about it...needed to be certain amnt of weeks from first surgery.  Other possibility was a 'no' because Scott is not technically "interferon naive".  This one doesn't allow a candidate to have had any interferon treatment - and Scott's one day makes him no longer 'interferon naive'. (low growl.)  That would've been nice to know...definitely would have been a factor in the whole interferon decision.  So my heartfelt suggestion would be to anyone dealing with an aggressive cancer diagnosis:  Get your second opinion at some kind of teaching hospital, with a clinic that has a specialty in what you're dealing with, if at all possible.  And if you're not sure where that would be, email me and I'll help you research it.  Seriously. :)

So we're moving forward with just keeping a super vigilant eye on Scott.  (Can you believe the Houston docs were the first ones to give him a head-to-toe skin exam?)  We'll need to find a dermatologist here in town, and then we go back to Houston for whole-body scans again in three months....(and at 3-month intervals after that.)  The Houston oncologist is considered 'his doctor' until further notice.

So overall, it was priceless to have Scott leave with the lifted spirits of feeling very confident and 'taken care of' by the new doctors.  I don't know if you've ever seen it, but MD Anderson's logo is genius -- and it's on every white coat you see in the building.   It's their name -- M.D. Anderson Cancer Center -- with the word "cancer" crossed out.  Fabulous idea!!

Thank you to every single one of you for just reading this blog, for your prayers, for financial help, for meals, for hotel points.....we are so thankful for every single thing.  I'll keep you posted!

My Ben Pic :)

What is this…the‘Make a Wish flight?

Just had a totally surreal experience.  (Besides the fact that I’m traveling to MD Anderson for cancer reasons with my 41 year old hubby.) 

 We arrived at the ‘terminal’ for our corporate jet-setting…arrived about half hour early and we were first travelers there.  It’s just an itsy bitsy airport in the middle of almost nowhere… self-standing building…very nicely appointed, mind you…definitely the way to travel…all of two employees.  It was just Scott and I and an older couple in the little waiting room at this point;  I look up to see a tall handsome guy in sunglasses (tshirt, skinny jeans, boots….he’s pretty thin…not in a bad way) who looks a ton like Ben Affleck, especially after sunglasses are off.  He is asking a question of the one employee, an older gentleman (also ‘head of security’) some questions about a flight.  I looked at him again…and flicked my eyes over Scott, telepathically asking him “Are you thinking the same thing I am?...that that guy looks just like Ben Affleck?’ and Scott telepathically answers ‘yep…but please don’t embarrass me.’  So I stroll across the room, pretending to get another coke at the refreshment station, and position myself where I can be out of “Ben’s” eyeshot and telepathically exclaim to my husb and, ‘What on earth is he doing here??’  Scott shrugs his shoulders, and Ben thanks the employee and walks out to his black suv and pulls around to where you can drive on the tarmac and pulls up to a jet that’s landed.   (in the meantime, the employee, whom I’ve befriended by now has verified that it is him.)  

 Off a nearby jet on the tarmac comes…no way….Jennifer Garner and two blonde kids…and they hug and he hugs his kiddos like any normal daddy…and then he puts the car seats in the suv, like any normal daddy.  He thanked the crew that had flown his family.  They were probably on the tarmac for about 10 mins….with just me and a 60  year old woman taking pictures....we were far enough down on the tarmac that I tried to tell myself I might not look like a freak.  And then off the little Bennifer family drove….who knows why in OK??  Not worth my husband having to deal with melanoma, of course, but still cool.  

Keep in mind....this is Bartlesville, OK....teeny tiny private airport with his whole family....so surreal. Scott said his boots were really muddy and someone else thought they'd heard of 'film locale scouting' being done somewhere in the area.  I honestly hated to cut in to their family's privacy and hated to instantly FB it, but I did wait til they were gone.  teehee :)  

Now back to reality....the flight was perfect...and we had volunteers from a sister organization (of Corporate Angel Network) pick us up at the terminal and drive us to to the front door of our hotel.  Which is beautiful!  We're in the heart of downtown Houston, connected to the Texas Med Center.  When we checked in, the lovely girl behind the counter asks with a smile, "And will the 17th floor be satisfactory?"  Oh, I guess.  It is beyond fabulous....and if you know my friend Schmissy, please give her a loud smack right on the cheek for me.  A kiss, not a slap.  And on her face..not..oh stop it.!

Love to all and I'll update as we go.  Oh, dr's appt was at 9 am and they called to bump it to 1 pm.  Yea...get to sleep in!  God is good. :)