The early bird gets the worm

Last night I had Tammy convinced to get up at 4:30 am to go shopping for some great deals. When the alarm went off, she was not too enthusiastic. I still got up as it was to "recondition" my body to getting up for work. After two weeks off and sleeping in till 8 am, it was not fun. The beauty of a snooze button! I only hit it three or four times. Then it was off to Kohls at 5:30 alone! My first thought was that I would be the only guy by himself shopping that early at a clothes store.  Well there were a handful of guys looking for bargins! When I returned home just after 7 am, there was Tammy all snuggled up asleep.  I had to fight everything in me to go back to sleep.  Since I cannot do that at work, I stayed up.  Now that it is 8:30 both Tammy and Sarah are up.  Sarah asked me "what happened to 5 am?".  Needless to say she was fine with sleeping in!

Very Merry Christmas

As we celebrated the best gift of all: the birth of Jesus, Tammy made a surprise visit to church!  we snuck her in late and left early to avoid endless hugs- sorry! It was a special time of worship and a great message.  After missing several weeks of services, Tammy said how great it felt to be in God's presence with a group of other believers! We are so thankful that we can come into His presence so freely.   Sarah opened some presents before church and then finished up afterwards.

The night before I was in a bit of trouble as I could not remember where some presents were hidden! I could not even remember hiding them the night before her surgery.  So a huge apology is given to Tammy as I was convinced that she had put them somewhere and she was thinking that I had them last. The last place I looked is where they were!

Later that night we went for a drive to look at all the beautiful Christmas light displays.  We all enjoyed seeing the different set ups from none to a lot!

Off to our two favorite stores, or so we are told!

Well this is just for Lindsey as she thinks all we ever do is go to Ikea and Costco! On Saturday we did go to Ikea and Costco since they are close to each other.  Ikea was the perfect place to talk a walk for Tammy. We figured out that it has been at least 3 months since we were last there.  In fact, it was probably longer! We did score some great deals with some 50% specials since it was Christmas Eve.  Both stores were fairly quiet, which was nice! After our adventure it was home for some rest for Tammy.

Come fly with me

Sorry it has been so long since I posted!

We were off to the airport on Thursday.  We went looking for a last minute deal to someplace warm, but we could not find one.  Actually, Tammy's nephew Josh who is in the Air Force, had a 4 hour layover on his way home from Nebraska.  So we picked him up to have lunch and then drop him off again.  Last year at Christmas was the last time we saw him, so we decided to take the opportunity.

A crisp cool day for a stroll

While the weather is a wee bit chilly out with gray overcast clouds, we decided to go for a little bit further of a walk. We were a little more adventurous today by making a trip around the subdivision. It felt good to be outside until about 3/4 of the way and then it was officially getting cold with the wind picking up a little. At that point it stopped being enjoyable.  But we are thankful that we do not have any snow and the grass is still mostly green!

Awesome news today!

We just got back from the doctors office with the results of the HER2 test.  It came back negative!! Praise be to God! What a blessing.  We did find out from the pathology report that she was 98% positive for Estrogen receptors and Progesterone receptors. This basically means that both the Estrogen and Progesterone hormones in her body were feeding the cancer cells. I believe that this all means it was a very aggressive cancer.

We praise God that for the actions that He led the doctor to test, for us following through with the tests and the eventual surgery.  If we had waited a year it would have most likely spread through her body and we could have been looking at a completely different end result.

Slow Down Nelly

Since she had the drain tubes out yesterday Tammy feels a lot better.  In fact, she tried to do too much (are you surprised?) and felt it later that night.  So I had to yell at her (not really yell, more like scold) to fight every instinct to get up go crazy active! Regardless we give God praise for the healing so far.

Tammy's nephew Josh, who is serving in the Air Force, will have a 4 hour layover at O'Hare airport on Thursday.  So we are thinking of trying a short trip to see him for several hours.  But we will see how things are going.

Dr visit rescheduled

We were supposed to go see the oncologist yesterday, but the doctor was out sick so it had to be rescheduled till Thursday.

B.O, B.O. its off to the shower she finally goes

Great, great news today! We made a doctors visit to get what we thought would be two of the four drain tubes out.  Well thanks to God's healing the doctor said that things are going so well and the drainage is so little that he took out all four of the drainage tubes.  She is no longer a human christmas tree!!

She can also take her first shower since the night before the surgery. No, she has  not been stinking with no shower for 10 days. I have been giving her "baby wipe baths" every day since the surgery.  We are all very excited and thanking God for this great news!

A Walk On The Beach

Okay so it was not really a walk on the beach, but we did go for a short, slow stroll down the block and back.  It felt good for her to get out for some fresh air.

Overall a great day, even though she fell asleep listening to a preaching CD. Now she does have a valid excuse why, but I just had to give her a hard time about it!

Thank you all for your continued prayers!  We appreciate all of them, so do not stop (please).

First week completed

Yeah, she made it through her first week after surgery! It has felt like the longest week ever for her, as you can imagine.  Below is a picture of what she probably feels like.  Enjoy!

Snow and snowsuits

Okay, I just had to share these pictures of our dog Patches. He is an old bugger and deals with arthritis when it gets really cold out.  We were at Petsmart a month ago and saw this really cute dog snowsuit. Now I am not a fan of dressing these poor, helpless animals in clothing.  But, when I saw this suit I just had to get it for him. He now has "pants" for his hind legs unlike most dog coats. Add in that it was 50% off and it was a done deal.  Not to mention that it will help him.
This morning I opened the curtains to let him out and was surprised to see snow! I should not be surprised as it is December after all.  No comments about the weather from y'all down south!!! So enjoy these pictures.

The joy of being joyful

I was on a kick with the whole "the joy of . . . " posts that I wanted to add a fun post. There is such an incredible joy that comes from being in the presence of a God that loved us so much that He robed Himself in flesh in order to trade 'our' hell for 'His' heaven. Most importantly it is a free gift! Thinking about the stories from Black Friday that I heard on the radio, I am always amazed at how people can wait outside a store for DAYS in the cold, wake up early (or late depending on how you look at it) and fight others for a greatly discounted price on some gadget that will be old in a short time. Yet they will not enjoy the free lifetime joy that comes from God. I guess that I will never know the answer.

What are you going to do this year? Just a thought is all.

The joy of being a redhead

Besides the being absolutely drop dead beautiful, there are some natural issues that come with being a redhead.  These include skin that either goes from white to lobster red with sun exposure.  There is no in between shades of tan! All you that can tan very easily by thinking about sun cannot ever complain anymore!!! Also we found out that redheads are more easily affected by pain.  As a result they tend to give higher doses of anesthesia during surgery compared to other hair colors. This is of course referring to the natural color! So while there are many, many blessings to a redhead there are also a few minor drawbacks that they need to deal with.

The joy of medications

Yesterday saw more improvement overall! There is still some pain which will probably be around for the next week or two. We think one of the medications to improve blood flow has been causing her problems. Some of the side effects include nausea, vomiting and dizziness.  These are all things she has been dealing with over the last week. In fact she deposited the contents of her stomach in the toilet this morning.  Not Good. So we decided to stop taking it since the side effects are worse than the benefits. This seems so true with many medications and treatments. I wonder sometimes why people allow the "treatment" to cause more problems than they fix.

Something so simple

It is amazing that we tend to not realize that we are missing something until you cannot do it.  For example, something so simple as a hug.  I have not been able to just grab Tammy and give her a big hug this last week.  It was driving me crazy! So we had a mini hug with no pressue.  Oh how good that felt! There are some days that I can get busy and not give her a hug in the morning. We do not think twice about it though.  That is until you cannot just grab someone and hug them!
Reminds me of prayer time talking with God.  Too often we can not take the opportunity until the time we NEED it, but then we are not able.
So the goal for everyone is to go out of your way to hug the ones you love today, tomorrow, the day after and everyday after that.

A little late today, or should I say yesterday?

Sorry that I did not post anything new yesterday. It was a mostly uneventful day, which is very good!

The dogs came home from the kennel today, so that added a little excitement to the day.  Both dogs were more than willing to lounge about on the hospital bed with Tammy.  In fact, they would sometimes take up half the bed.  They are little snugglers which is a comfort when you do not feel good.

The Tammynator

This is funny but not funny at the same time.  I noticed Tammy was walking around a bit.  Each time she would turn to look at something she would turn her whole body as if she had a body cast on.  Now I know it is painful to move, but it still struck me as a bit funny!

Road trip

Okay it was a road trip to see the doctor! A great report with everything looking as good as possible! The doctor said that he will probably remove two of the drain tubes on Monday and the last two just before Christmas.  Oh yeah, she has these drain tubes with bulbs (similar to the bulb on turkey baster) that are squeezed which then suction out the fluids.  They are pinned to her surgical bra.  With her shirt off she looks sort of like a human christmas tree!

Just before we left for the doctors office, she took some pain medication. On the ride home she started to feel very queazy.  I had a plastic bag in the car, similar to the ones you get from Walmart.  In case we did not make it home in time, I told her to use the bag.  Sure enough we did not make it home and to come to a screeching halt on the side of the road.  As she proceeded to empty her stomach into the bag without a drop going into the car.  We are thankful for the small things! When I handed the bag to her it reminded me of the scene from Waynes World when the one guy hands someone else one of paper cones for water and tells them "if you are going to spew, spew in here." Oh the funny images that can come to our minds.

Other than the adventure tonight, she has been just resting and trying to heal today.

Shower of blessings

We both wanted to thank everyone for the shower of blessings that have been poured out. We have been overwhelmed with great food, beautiful flowers and an edible arrangement of fruit! We covet most of all your prayers. Your prayers have under girded us when we need them the most.

Thank you to our families for their support and love.  Thank you to all our other friends and church family.  We could not get through this without the love of everyone.  We are so blessed it just blows us away.

No more nausea

Very good news that she has not had any nausea all day! This is another step forward. She has been feeling a little better so she was up and about the house a little more than she should have, which forced her to rest some more this afternoon. She even took a small nap. I told her to rest even if she does not like it.  We will see how that one goes!!

A Little Surprise

Well we received a call from Dr Ahn this morning with results from the pathology report.  As the doctor stated it, there was "a little surprise".  We were immediately thinking that they did not find anything.  Once again it was not what we were thinking.  The pathology report came back that the cancer had actually been an early stage 1, which means that the cancer had broke through the milk glands was in the process of spreading.  The good news is that the route we were led down by God was the correct route! Also during surgery they completed a biopsy of the sentinel lymph node, which was negative for cancer.  This all means that nothing has spread beyond the breast tissue, which is now gone!
The removed tissue is being tested for HER2, which is a protein that the cancer cells feed on.  The results of this test will determine what happens next.  We have an oncology appointment on Monday and will find out more.

For now, we are asking everyone to pray that it is NOT positive for HER2!

This is a little twist in the road, but we know that God is in control.  I told Pastor Boettcher that I have become very good at figuring exactly a plan for things to work out that God should follow. So far I am batting zero on that!!! He must be teaching us to just trust Him.

We truly serve an awesome God!!!!

A snoring we will go, a snoring we will go

A very good night of rest and most importantly sleep! She was sawing down some redwoods last night.

Tammy still has a very low level of nausea and is eating some small meals.  This is great news so she can take pain meds.  She says that when she is laying down the pain is fine, but when she gets up it becomes a lot more painful.

Each day is a little improvement.

Central Dupage Hospital and Spa

I just had to share with everyone how awesome all the staff at the hospital were.  Some moments it felt like a spa!  If you ever need to be in the hospital, this is the place to go!

Sarah's handy work

Sarah spent a little time with her Grandpa decorating a gingerbread house and a mega large gingerbread man.  Below are some pics. Sarah has been quite the trooper through everything.

One small step for Tammy's tummy

Praise God as the nausea is much, much better! She is feeling much better.  In fact, she had me order a large pizza, get a Big Mac with Large fries and an apple fritter. Okay not quite but she did eat some her daddy's homemade chicken noodle soup!

Visitors

I just wanted to thank everyone again for their prayers, meals and concern for Tammy!

We just want to remind everyone that we are asking for no visitors during this week and probably next week to allow her to relax and heal.

After all, you know she cannot just sit and relax. How many times has she tried to wash someones dishes or clean up or something!!!

Thank you again. We love all of you!

Acupressure

My mom sent several articles to try acupressure to help provide relief from the nausea.  We are going to try them to see if that helps.

This morning when I read the emails while half asleep, I thought she meant acupuncture.  So my first thought was to go grab some sewing needles and start  poking away. Then the scene from Kung Fu Panda popped into my mind when they are trying acupuncture on Panda.  Specifically when they poke him and he freezes with a goofy face.  Just picture Tammy with all those needles and a goofy face.  Reality is that my face would be like that after the first needle I insert cause she would give me "five of these" with a knuckle sandwich!!!  Too funny.

Slow and Steady wins the race

Well after she was home, things were still very rough with the nausea.  Her parents, Ed and Joan, are in town to help watch Sarah and help out.  They went to our Christmas candle light service last night to watch Sarah perform a signing song.  There are cookies and fellowship afterwards.  While they were gone, Tammy ended up vomiting again. This helped to settle her stomach a little bit. I finally crashed around 11 pm and she was able to actually get some sleep. She was sleeping deep enough that her snoring woke me up!! That is a good thing!

Another "Tammy" thing happened last night.  Here she is not feeling good, but just has to add another blank to cover me as I am sleeping. What a silly girl she is! But I love her so much and this is a good sign.

I told her we will look for improvement everyday.  Not huge jumps forward, but as the story goes, "slow and steady wins the race".

Please pray

I am asking everyone to pray specifically that the nausea goes away! She cannot take any pain meds or eat as it just comes right back up.

More importantly she is becoming very frustrated dealing with it.  She ate half a banana and so far it has stayed down!

Headed Home!!!

 It is 2:12 and we are just getting ready to pack up and head home.  She is still fighting the nausea, but we figure it would be more relaxing to fight it at home.  Even the fresh air might help some to.

Thank you to everyone has been praying for her recovery. We covet all the prayers as she goes through the healing process.  We love and appreciate you all.

Dr visit this morning

The doctor made a visit to replace all the bandages this morning. Praise God, he said everything is as good as it can be after surgery!!! Some great news is always helpful when there is a little hiccup in the road.

I was able to get her walking some more as she graduated to the big girl walking lap.  We started doing laps in her room last night after each trip to the restroom, so today we moved up to taking a longer lap outside her room in the corridor! She wanted to try to take a walk around the pond outside, but I limited her to the big girl track only.

Update from last night

Last night was a little more interesting.  Tammy has had some lingering affects from the anesthesia with a high degree of nausea. One of the nurses said that Red Heads tend to react more to medications.  Oh her lucky day!! Last night they tried 3 different anti-nausea medications all with no relief.  Unfortunately she was unable to take any pain medication from yesterday around lunch until Sunday morning around 2 am. We all know how horrible it feels when you feel like you want to just throw up.  She has been getting up about every 30 minutes to use the restroom, which is a good thing.  I am able to wake up and unhook the air tubes for some pads that go around her ankles to prevent a blood clot from forming in her legs.  It makes me thankful that I am able to be here to help her.

Led to a skilled doctor

I just had to share how we found the plastic surgeon, Dr. Ghaderi.  We were referred to Dr. Ghaderi and another surgeon in the area.  We went an visited the other guy first, but did not have a warm fuzzy feeling about it.  The first guy was in our insurance network, which means all costs would be covered by insurance.  Dr. Ghaderi is considered "out of network" which means lots more money out of pocket.  The reviews for him were all 5 star! We made an appointment with him and we both knew he was the correct surgeon.
This has been proven in so many ways in the last two weeks.  Between his office visits, his staff and what staff at the hospital has said just confirms how meticulous he is.  On our first office visit, as he came into the room there was a small piece of paper on the floor.  He stopped to pick it up and throw it away. All the nurses and aids have said how meticulous he is with his orders, instructions and how he operates. Everyone says what great work he does.
After all, this is something that will have life long impact if it is done wrong.  So we decided to pay the extra ourselves and do not regret this decision one bit.

God at work through this process

It was neat to see how God uses events in our life to allow us to cross paths with certain people. We met Maria today for the first time, who is Tammy's nurses aid. She is a great care giver and she is looking for a "new church." So of course the next words of out Tammy's mouth were to invite her to the Candle light service this sunday.
We are excited to see all the mighty things that God has in store through this process.

Bringing the hospital bed home

Tammy has fallen in love with the hospital bed with the self adjusting mattress, power head lift and foot lift that I had to get for her at home for the next two weeks. Here I thought she loved her sleep number bed.

We were able to rent an electric bed, which they delivered today.  Insurance would not cover it, but it was so cheap that it is worth the small cost.  Tammy even said today that she is glad we decided to go with it.

Thank you again to everyone for their prayers, words of encouragement and prayers.

Raised from the bed

Tammy got out of the bed for the first time since surgery! First she sleeps in till 11, then sits around in the chair being waited on hand and foot. Okay, I am joking of course!!

She is definitely feeling a little better as she has been saying "sorry" to every doctor, nurse and nurses aid this morning! Again if you know her at all that is just  her.

The IV pain meds have been removed and she is taking oral pain meds.  The plan is to have her sit in the chair for a little, then try walking a little, then tonight jog around the courtyard and Sunday run a 1/2 marathon.  Sorry, she will be skipping the jog and marathon for now.

A good night

Praise God, Tammy had a chance for some rest last night and this morning. She can press the "happy button" every ten minutes for IV morphine.  Sometimes she would wake up, press the button and off to sleep again.

I was able to spend the night in the room, so that was a comfort to me. Did I mention that this room is like a spa resort. This morning I took some pictures that I will post later.

Sweet blissful drug enduced sleep

Well I had a report from an unnamed, highly reliable source that The drugs finally kicked in to allow her some pain relief and needed sleep. She was even caught snoring! Yes I know I am in trouble again, but it is a good sign.

In the room

Tammy made it to her room around 5 pm or so.  This was the first time I had a chance to see her since they wheeled her away this morning.  It is so hard to she someone you love so greatly in pain. She is resting and they are pumping medication in her every 10 minutes.  I had to leave about 6:15 to make it to Sarah's homeschool group Christmas party.  Sarah is part of a shadow puppet play of the nutcracker.  Leaving her alone was the most difficult thing I have had to do in a long time.

If you are planning to make a visit tomorrow, please come but also try to keep visits reasonable.  Your continued prayers are needed, welcomed and felt!!

A funny note (we just need to laugh)

All right, I am going to tell everyone this, so if I disappear afterwards you will know that Tammy disposed of my body quickly!!

I know this is probably toooo much info, but I am sure all you ladies are thinking this and do not want to ask.  So here ya go:

Before she went into surgery, Dr Ghaderi made a joke about me slipping him $5 to increase her to a "DD" size.  I told Tammy the truth that it was only $4 and a "D" would be great. All jokes aside, I did not say to go for a "D" size! But he is going to throw in a little extra for free!  Oh the little blessings that come from certain events in our lives. What a free perk!

So, everyone PLEASE do NOT mention that I wrote this!

Out of Surgery!!!

Tammy just came out of surgery about 15 minutes ago.  She will be in recovery for about 2 hours and then to a room.  Unfortunately I cannot see her until she is in the room.

I met briefly with Dr. Ghaderi, the plastic surgeon who did the reconstruction.  He said she did great, no problems and nothing to really report.  I told him that no excitement is great news!!

It is amazing how small the world really is.  While waiting for the doctor, Jane Sumner walked by, paused and said hello.  She is a nurse and saw Tammy's name in the surgery center.

Praise be to God for His hand of protection.  I have to admit that for the last 20 minutes I was starting to get a little worried as I thought she would have been done an hour before. But God's kept whispering in my ear "peace, be still."

Next surgery update

Praise God! Dr Ahn, who performed the mastectomy, stopped by to tell us she was finished with her portion of the operation. Things are going really well and that Dr. Ghaderi should be done in an hour or so. I will keep everyone posted!

Surgery update

I just heard that the test on one lymph node came back negative! Everything else is going well!

Headed into the OR

It is Friday Dec 9th and she just went into surgery around 9 am.  We arrived at  the hospital at 5:15 am! When we walked outside this morning, there was a beautiful coating of fresh snow! Nothing is more beautiful than seeing the first snow fall than the last of it melting away. Thank you for everyone that braved the early morning temp (25 degrees) to come and pray with her!
God is already at work through this whole process. There was a couple waiting for surgery this morning.  They know a lady from our church that has told them about other miracles God has done recently.  Pastor Boettcher and Pastor Goff had an opportunity to pray with them before went into pre-op! They will be visiting the church soon!!  It is just neat to see the many ways God is at work.

Thank You

This is to keep everyone updated on the status of the Tammy's surgery and recovery.

First I want to thank everyone for their prayers! I give God glory for His peace that has just flooded both Tammy and myself over the last few weeks. We continue to ask for your prayers in the weeks ahead.

Please feel free to leave bits of encouragement or whatever comes to your mind.

Thank you,

Bryan