Today… Is Sarah’s last radiation. Join me in a sigh of relief and a high five to Sarah for making it through. Radiation had an accumulative affect on Sarah, where she has been increasingly tired with every treatment. I can’t tell you how happy I am that she will be able to rest and heal for the next 6 months before another surgery.

She will still be taking Herceptin once every 3 weeks until April, that so far has only one side effect – itching.

So let’s pray in thankfulness that He has carried her through the treatments this year. Let’s pray for her body to heal over the coming years and for cancer to never show itself again in our family. I thank God for you all, your love and prayers.

Yay Sarah you are a champion!!! I love you.

I am sorry for the absence of updates. I have been lacking words to describe what the past several weeks have been like. Even so I wanted to send a brief update as I know many of you have been wondering how we are doing.

I am thankful that the Lord has grabbed hold of me and has not let me go. I cannot imagine going through this without Him.

Radiation has not been as hard on my body as chemotherapy. I am tired but not chemo tired. I am making baby steps towards healing and even have mini ‘splurges’ of energy some days. I am thankful to be able to rest as needed and I am (still) learning to be okay with that.

The most obnoxious part of radiation is the hour and a half (or more) it takes each day to drive there, get zapped and then drive home.

My hair is slowly growing back, I joke that I look like a fledgling. The kids are enjoying rubbing my head and are fascinated with this process.

In the meantime several of you have reached out to us. The cards, the meals, the prayers, the encouraging words… all have meant so much to me. Countless times we have received a card, a text, an email or some other form of love from one of you at JUST the right moment. We have felt your prayers and your cheering, it has lifted our spirits and helped us to keep on going even when we have felt overwhelmed and too burdened to continue.

Even in this valley The Lord continues to walk with me. He has carried me in the harder moments. We are grateful.

A few pictures from the last few months—

 

On Tuesday we met with the Oncology Radiologist, a very compassionate and caring doctor. He was excited about the new pathology report and told us it means her overall prognosis is better.

Here’s where the other shoe drops. We felt the thud.

Statistically speaking, he thinks the chance of reoccurrence without radiation is about 20%. With radiation that number goes down to 5%.

What? Why?

We were kind of blunt, such was our disappointment. He said it was a common question from people who are where we are, “Why radiate if there is no cancer?” He said that the pathology did not analyze the entire mass of tissue or lymph nodes, with this type of biopsy there is no way to possibly see all of the cells.Continue Reading

WOW!

Ahhh…. My heart sings and sighs. My mind races with wonder and bewilderment.

During our visit with the surgeon on Tuesday, she read aloud Sarah’s pathology report. There was NO sign of cancer. This was the surgeon’s first reading of the report; she was shocked and celebrated with us. She has never seen this before. With 30 years experience she has never seen this before!

Sarah and I looked at each other with tears in our eyes. We did not know what to think or say or how to act.

Thoughts rush in… like water gushing over sand stone washing the worries away with it. For some reason I look for permission to celebrate. In this journey, we have found “positive bad news” proliferates our conversations with our doctors.

Later in the day we spoke with the PA at our Oncology office, her response to the report as she read it for the first time, “Wow! I have never seen a pathology like this!…wow! Wow, wow, wow,…wow. ” She must have said wow no less than 15 times. She congratulated me and said this was cause for celebration.

Waves of emotion move through me. I feel as if a serpent has had my heart constricted and now new air is entering in and my body is trying to release and relax. Fear tries to re-enter, but the truth stands. Amazingly cautious and energized we moved through the rest of our day. I wanted to shout it from the rooftops!

What a freaking ride, what’s next?! What does this mean for the next step, radiation? Will her radiology team be just as surprised? Will they change perspective and change treatment? There is no remaining cancer, none found in all of the tissue and the 13 lymph nodes they removed…I think this is an exceptional case warranting a second look at the protocol.

Thank you for celebrating with us. We are thankful, amazed and just… wow.

We started our day with a beautiful sunrise and a sense that God is with us.

The words “God has got this!” continued to come to mind. They also continued to come from you all who have  faithfully supported us. There hasn’t hardly been any doubt that He has her in His arms.

Sometimes we have tried to make it more complicated than it needs to be, but it is simple. He wants to remove from Sarah’s body that which could destroy her.

So today she started another phase of the race; she had surgery to remove her left breast. This was done to ensure there was no breast tissue for these bad cells to grow in again.

We arrived at 8:45, she started surgery at 10:22, and we rejoined in the hospital room around 2.

It has been a long day, and she is super tired from all the pain management medicine. Dr. Morrison said the surgery was routine and we will have results of any biopsies by Friday.

We have enjoyed good care today. Our doctor is great, and the nurses caring for her are super nice and careful. Amazingly like minded.

We have appreciated all the prayers and encouraging words.

From a deeply grateful heart, Thank you – James

As you know, a huge part of this journey is behind Sarah, and we celebrate with her! However, she still has a few mountains in front of her, and we foresee some increasing needs as a result.

This morning, Wednesday, Sept 24th at 8:45, Sarah will go into surgery. She’d appreciate your prayers for herself and her family.

We know there are SO many of you who love Sarah and the whole Denman family, and who would want to know what the needs are and how you can help. So, below are a few ideas. . .

MEALS

With her surgery today and radiation to start not long after that, it would be wonderful to have a steady stream of meals for the Denmans! Frozen meals work great, but if you have a special “fresh” meal you want to make, we will make sure it gets to them ASAP!

We have a few people ready to receive and collect meals who will then deliver to the Denmans as needed. Please note that our “points of contact” to whom you can bring your meals have changed slightly:

LCRA folks – Chris Phillips
South Austin area – Sonya Dalrymple and Ann

If you could check the CareCalendar and sign up there if you plan to do a meal, that will help us keep meals spaced out evenly. Contact information for Ann and Sonya D. is listed there as well.

(Please note: the meals don’t have to be prepared/delivered on a Wednesday, we basically have 5 meals a week listed, and just put the list on Wednesday’s space. In fact, Mondays would be a great day to have a meal ready, because several of us are in town and able to tag-team with kids and errands, etc. and it would be relatively easy for us to pick up as many meals as are ready!)

GROCERY GIFT CARDS

Sarah is tackling this cancer from every angle she can, and with the help of a great nutritional specialist, she is eating the foods that will give her body the best energy and capability for healing! However, this food is very expensive. So, if you’d like to help defray the cost of this expense, a helpful item would be a gift card to HEB or Whole Foods. You can either mail the gift card directly to the Denmans or hand off to one of the meal delivery contacts if you would rather not send in the mail.

RAISING FUNDS TO FINISH THE FIGHT

Fighting cancer is expensive. And when you combine the series of procedures and medicines that are around the corner with the changes in healthcare coverage that are about to take effect, the funds to finish this fight is significant!

We so appreciated everyone’s help with the garage sale for the Denmans, and through that experience, we saw that many of you want to help financially. So, we have set up a donation account for the Denmans at the LCRA credit union. Instructions for donating are below. Also, if you have any other ideas for fundraisers, please contact Kristin at KristinPmom@gmail.com.

For people outside of LCRA that wish to donate to the account, they can mail a check or money order (with “James Denman donation account” on the Memo line) to:

LCRA Credit Union
P.O. Box 5310
Austin, TX 78763

Others may choose to drop off cash, check or money order.

The instrument provided should reference “ James Denman donation account”.

Those within LCRA may choose to come in and transfer money from their account with LCRA Credit Union into the donation account or drop off cash, check or money order. If the donor wishes to remain anonymous he/she must inform us of such.

The LCRA CU is open at the Service Center on Mon, Wed, and Fri from 7:00 am -11:00 am and 11:30 am-2:30 pm.

The main office on Lake Austin Blvd. (next to the dam) is open Mon-Fri 9:00 am-4:30 pm.

The branch at FPP is open 8:00 am-12:30 pm and 1:00 pm-3:30pm.

If anyone has questions regarding donating to this donation account, you may contact the credit union directly memberservices@lcracu.org or 512-474-1562.

Thanks for all of your help – from Sarah’s Friends 🙂