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!