God has a plan!

Most anybody reading this already knows that a week ago yesterday our lives were forever changed.  My sweet, wonderful husband of almost 36 years, Bill, was diagnosed with Non Hodgkin's Follicular Lymphoma...cancer.  He is ONLY 54 years old and is the picture of good health.  Bill had an enlarged lymph node in his groin that we had been watching for several months.  He saw Dr. Flattman 3 weeks ago and since it had been there a while and not gone down, he thought it needed to come out.  So, on Monday, April 5, it was removed.  We anxiously waited for the pathology report to come back hoping and praying for those great words, it's benign.  Unfortunately, that is not what happened.   On Wednesday, April 7 at about 3:00pm the door to my office opened and Bill walked in.  Of course I knew immediately that it was bad news.  I put my head down on my desk and the tears began.  He said, "it's lymphoma" and his next words were exactly what I wanted to hear..BUT it's very treatable, low grade and slow growing!  Thank you God!!
And so, our "new normal" began.

Obviously I never did finish and publish the above post.  That was written on April 15 and today is May 15.  Not sure why but I just have not been able to come back here and finish writing about Bill's cancer.  It's been a little over a month now since his diagnoses.  He has had a bone marrow biopsy, ct scan, blood work several times. a pet scan, a port put in and his first round of chemo.  And .. he stills feels good... like nothing is wrong with him.  It is hard to rationalize that you are sick and have to take a strong drug that makes you feel bad(at least for a few days) when you feel SO good!  I think probably all of you reading this know that his cancer is Stage 2 for which we are very grateful!  The only places that showed up on the pet scan were his groin where the original lymph node was removed and a few, mildly, enlarged lymph nodes in his abdomen.  Dr. Rodriguez, Bill's oncologist, is a remarkable man and doctor.  He has been so very encouraging from the first visit.  He has put Bill on a regimen of chemo with a fairly new drug called Treanda.  Bill has the chemo two days in a row and on the third day get a drug called Rituxin which is a an antibody from what I understand.  The first round 3 weeks ago only included the chemo they will add the rituxin week after next during his second round.  He will have 6 rounds of this regimen, then have radiation, then a maintenance dose of chemo every 4 months for 2 years. And then we are praying he will be done!!! We have been told that his type of cancer is one that often comes back later...but we are praying it will NEVER do that!  The first round of chemo did not make Bill very sick and we are SO thankful.  He had a little nausea and some indigestion that medicine took care of.  The worst thing was 3 days afterward his heart began to skip beats and got quite bad for awhile.  Bill had felt his heart doing this about 4 years ago and Dr. Daly had him wear a heart monitor for a few days then.  He was having whatever PVC's are and Ed said it was nothing to worry about.  He has hardly felt it all over the last 4 years.  Anyway, we think the chemo is what triggered the bad episode. So the two doctors are talking about it before his next chemo.  The heart thing was bad that Friday night and gradually improved the next few days and for the last 2 weeks he had been feeling wonderful!  We Praise God!!

Bill will have blood drawn Monday and see Dr Rodriguez Tuesday around noon and then we are headed to Destin for the Ms Bankers Convention for the rest of the week.  We are excited that Bill feels good and we are still able to be there.  We always enjoy the convention and of course I find at least a few hours to sit on "my beach!"  So we are looking forward to that. Then on Sunday, May 23rd we will head back to reality.  His next round of chemo will begin on Monday, May 24th 

Things are good with the girls and their families.  We celebrated Mother's Day at Sunny's & Bud's church having baby dedication and then going out to eat.  Sydney, Tony, Skyler and Mylie came up too, which was wonderful.  Sarah and her family had planned to be there as well but Wesley got sick with strep throat and didn't need to be around Silas or Bill.  We missed them so much!! Baby dedication was great!  Of course out of all those babies, about 13, he was the most precious!!!

We all went to a MS Braves game the night before Mothers Day and had a wonderful time.  But we missed Sarah, Jeremy, Will, Macy and Wesley.  Skyler was so sweet.. he met a MS State football player and came and told me about his, he said "Mimi, I am going to go get his autograph for Will."  and he did!! Skyler turned 12 years old the end of March...how is that possible???  He is playing baseball and I finally got to get over there Thursday night to watch a game and also see Mylie play tee ball.  Still hoping it will work out for Poppa to go over to watch them play and for us to get to Tupelo to see Will play some coach pitch, but not sure it will be possible

Well... that is just really a catch you all up and let you know what is going on post.  I will write another post soon about my feelings and how I am doing with everything soon.  Let's just say I thought I was doing pretty well but my ugly old anxiety disease reared its ugly head Friday morning with a bad panic attack... more on that later.