Page 6, seems odd to know that I only have 6 pages left to cover two years, it just doesn't seem like enough time.

This was a very bittersweet period for the entire family. She got to come home and was given a very enthusiastic prognosis for the future. We were so relieved for that to be over and were ready for the healing to begin so we could put all that behind us, sadly as has been the case through this entire journey, that was just quite never meant to be.

OK this covers the Staph infection she got from one of her drains not working properly. It delayed her getting the Radiation/Chemo by almost an entire month. So again, one can't help but wonder if this was enough time for some of the leftover cancer cells to move to the other places in her body where they wound up, but one never knows. They could have already have been there and too small to detect at the time as the cancer has spread to her Lymph system before the cancer was even caught to begin with.

*sigh* Just like the old cliché, hindsight is always 20 /20.

I had uploaded page 8 of this last night but It's not here now, I'm not sure what happened. Anyway, the surgery well so well it surprised everyone how fast she bounced back. Sadly one of the drains, (right side) had a mind of it's own and caused allot of problems that delayed her from starting her Radiation on time. I will always wonder if that delay let the remaining cancer cells spread to her bones like they did. I will always wonder if she had gotten to start her treatments on time if she would still be here, or if it would have just prolonged the entire thing. I know I can't live the rest of my days wondering what if, so it is what it is, but you can't help but wonder you know?

From what I can remember from this part of the Chemo she had up and down days but overall she did OK through most of it. It did make her pretty weak though and when she felt like going out somewhere she couldn't walk far or stay out for too long. I don't think any complications started coming up until later in her treatment but it's so hard to remember now, everything was such a blur then, it was almost surreal.

And as always, the outpouring of support was second to none. I remember smiling as I wrote the remarks about the nipple tattoo's. I was quite serious and was determined to try to talk her into it. I would have failed miserably, but not from a lack of trying!

I'd like to note that yes, she did find and fully embraced her newfound inner strength, and it saw her through the entire ordeal from the day we found out she had cancer and decided to fight back, until the day she had no fight left and finally passed away. It was a hell of a fight, a good fight, and I will always be proud of the strength she showed each and every day. She stared the biggest monster know to modern man straight in the eye with dignity. She rarely complained and no matter how bad she felt, no matter what her mood was that day, she always put on that glorious smile for anyone that saw her.

I remember our initial fear when this all started. She was venturing into such uncharted territory, was it too late? Would the Chemo work? How sick will she get? Will she lose her hair? Somewhere someone had given her something called "The Chemo Diet" which was basically a variant of The Gerson Therapy diet. Her mother had died of cancer in the 90's and they tried something similar as a last ditch effort with her so they already had a really nice masticating juicer, so we used that and bought a cold press to go along with it (it was highly recommended to use with the diet). The trick was not using the juicing attachment that came with the juicer, but to rather use it to grind up all the fruits and veggies into a pulp, then cold press it like olives or grapes to extract the juices from it to get a "super juice" loaded with way more of the vitamins and enzymes needed that anyone could possibly get by eating them alone. It was a cumbersome process and fairly expensive as you had to only use organics and had to vigorously clean each item before it was masticated and pressed. The juice was only good for about 2 days and it took a great deal of items just to make one batch. Was it worth it? I honestly think it did help, but the diet itself was designed specifically to help her body cope with and tolerate the Chemo, and to help flush the bad chemicals from her body quicker, and I honestly think it did, if only a little. Though she did have some complications she tolerated the Chemo fairly well, and I would have no problem recommending it to someone else in the same situation. As far as the full Gerson Method goes, I can't give much of an opinion, but there are allot of compelling stories out there so it could be worth looking into if you find yourself in this situation and wish to explore alternative therapies.

As soon as she started losing her hair she made the decision to just have me shave it off, (I still have her ponytail that I cut off before I began). We recorded it for some reason but I can't bring myself to watch it, at least not yet.

The support from my clan mates was immediate and heart warming. I couldn't have asked for a better group of friends, thank you all so much!

This was right after she was first diagnosed as we moved pretty quickly in deciding what she should do, (the doctors around here are notoriously bad, more on that shortly). Jenny's sister just happened to work at the exact cancer center that she received the majority of her treatment and lived 20 minutes from there, it was a true blessing. Later on we found out that her sister was very unhappy at this job and really wanted to move on to something else, but something kept telling her to stay. While my wife was there receiving treatment another job opportunity came along at the perfect time and she was then able to move on. Now I'm not a religious person at all, but that just seems like it was meant to be.


The reason the cancer was found is a bitter sweet sore spot for me. She had been diagnosed with fibroid cysts a few years prior to this and was put on a program called Every Woman's Life where they kept a closer eye on here, (multiple mammograms every year) because she was much higher risk for Cancer due to the cysts. While this program was a key part in her cancer being found, the very poor judgment of one of the doctors the health department used caused the delay we took in seeking further testing, and by that time the Cancer had fully developed into Stage 3 tumors and had spread to her Lymph nodes. They had found something on one of her scans and whenever they did, (which was a few times before) they would send her for a consult with a doctor to determine if they thought she needed further testing, (MRI's and whatnot). This...doctor, this inconsiderate piece of S*** was actually annoyed that they had sent her to him, said that he didn't know why they kept wasting his time with little things like that and that it was nothing. She left his office that day humiliated and almost in tears. Now here's where we went wrong, we let it go and assumed it was just another flare up. They did occur commonly and the lumps would go down in time so we actually took his worthless word for it and just went home. We waited and waited for the lumps to do down, but they didn't. Then they started getting bigger and concern set in so we went and got a second opinion. They sent her for an MRI and the rest is history. Did she already have cancer? Probably. BUT it clearly hadn't progressed very far at that point, so I strongly believe had he not just ignored her symptoms and she had gotten early treatment she could very well still be alive today. I had allot of anger about this at first and seriously considered taking action, (in many different forms, some legal, some not so much). But either way it would have accomplished nothing, and she would still be gone. Yes, he was in the wrong and I will never forgive him for what he did, but hindsight is always 20/20 and there is no way to know for sure that if he had sent her for scans that she would have been cured.

Such is life...