26 October - More Good News

Earlier this week, we got test results that showed that Sarah does not have the BRCA1/2 genetic mutations linked to breast cancer. If the test had been positive, then this would have meant surgical removal of her ovaries and possibly another mastectomy later on. So, this is quite a relief for us! Sarah continues to recover from radiation - still some fatigue lingering, which is not unusual.
We're now getting excited about going to Germany next week. It'll be quite an adventure traveling overseas with the kids. Although we did it when we returned from China last year, Sam is now much more active (and moody when tired)! But, I expect that we'll muddle through the plane travel part and have a great time on vacation together. Otherwise, things are going well. We'll have the Huttenbachs staying with us this weekend for a visit & we have some weekend fun planned with them.

14 Oct - Dad and Son Camp-out

Ben and I joined the local Indian Guides program (now called Native Sons of Algonquin...) and went to a camp-out that was lots of fun. We did many new activites together at a great YMCA camp here in the Chicago area. Also gave Mom a little bit of a break - Sarah continues to recover well from radiation. We expect that she'll get her next CAT scan just before Christmas. Next week we'll be meeting with her oncologist to talk through treatment options from this point - ovaries shutdown is the biggest question (when/how). Sarah's situation is probably as "stable" as it has ever been since her diagnosis in May - and I think that is giving us a chance to recharge our emotional batteries a bit.

12 Oct - First Snow!

Wow - this came fast! It was actually coming down pretty good for most of the day, but melted pretty quickly.

Huge Smile

Sarah caught a big cheesy smile of Sam's on film and I just had to post it...

8 Oct - Done with Radiation

Sarah's last day of radiation treatment was this past Friday. Yeah! She was very happy to finish this up - both because of the effects and also because of the time it took to go daily treatments. We celebrated by going to a nice dinner on Friday and even the kids liked it! This is a picture of Sarah (notice the big smile) with the boys before we headed out. Was a great weekend & Ben and I "camped" in the basement on Sat night, which he got a big kick out of.

1 Oct - Nice Weekend

It was a really busy week for us with me traveling to New York Tues & Wed and my parents leaving on Friday. We went to a Disney on Ice performance of Monsters Inc. on Saturday with the Kurbats and the kids loved it, although at first Sam was a bit freaked out - here's a pic of some of the monsters. Pretty well-done show with great costumes.
Elizabeth also came for a visit today on her way to Wisconsin. The kids were thrilled to see her (as were we) - they've been pretty spoiled with attention over the past two weeks!
Sarah is doing well. Skin is pretty burned, but she says not very painful. Six more radiation treatments to go! Looks like she can do them in the next five days by doubling one up at the end. I think she's really ready to be done with that & we hope it is effective in preventing a local re-occurence at her mastectomy site. After this, the plan is to do Herceptin, Tamoxifen and Zometa unless test future tests show a need for additional treatments. These three drugs should have fairly minor side effects compared with what has gone before. There's really no way to know how effective the radiation was or how well the Herc/Tamox/Zom will work except to hope future CAT scans keep showing no new activity. We're in a relatively good place with this for now, but we continue to be thankful for every day we can spend with each other. Life is too unpredictable to be taken for granted!