Hair regrowth in 2016

I wanted to document the different colors and lengths of my hair as it returned this year. It came back such an awful brown/grey color and I was so excited to start coloring it and trying out new styles as it grew. Since I had never had short hair it was a little tricky figuring out how to style it.

April 2016

 April 2016

April 2016 

April 2016

June 2016

June 2016

July 2016

September 2016

 October 2016

November 2016

November 2016

December 2016

Merry Christmas 2016

This year we were blessed to receive a few wonderful Christmas surprises. First, we had neighbors that did the 12 days of Christmas and we received some wonderful gifts and toys. We were also very blessed to have The Grinch come visit and bring tons of presents for the kids the week before Christmas! The kids were so excited to see all the goodies and couldn't wait to open them up.

Brynnley having her bottle at the Baths for Christmas Eve....unfortunately she was not feeling so well and was diagnosed later that night with an ear infection.

Christmas morning at our house was very quite this year. We had our own little family gift opening and then went to church at 9 and continued Christmas fun at my parents and later at Grandma Evans.

Aubrie was very excited to get Tsum Tsums from Santa. This year Elfie brought a Tsum Tsum countdown to Christmas calendar that the girls really loved.

Shopkins were the other popular toy that Aubrie asked Santa for.

The kitties enjoyed playing with the tissue and ribbon and even got their own stocking of new toys.

Heading to church on Christmas morning. Everyone was a little tired from getting up so early.

December

The Christmas season was fun this year with a 4 year old Aubrie and 18 month old Brynnley.  Aubrie was so excited to visit Santa this year and asked him for shopkins toys. Brynnley wasn't such a fan of Santa and was crying in the picture because we took away a crayon and binky from her.

Brynnley learned about Santa and would say "ho ho ho" when she saw images of him.

This year Santa would call the girls and check to see how they were behaving and if they were on the good or naughty list. They loved to hear him call! Also they loved the tradition we started of Elfie coming to visit and hiding around the house each day. Aubrie loved to see where his magic flying powers took him.

Aubrie loves little tiny toys, especially her tsum tsums. She spent quite a long time lining each one up in her Barbie car so they could all go "camping" together.

We spent time driving around seeing the lights in Draper and enjoyed a new experience called "Christmas in Color" where you drive through tunnels of lights timed to music.

The girls and I made sugar cookies for Christmas (well they ate lots of dough and I made the cookies)

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My hair has finally grown a little longer that I could play around with different styles. I had it cut into an a-line while it is still growing out. I have finally been able to get my hair color to be the same as before I lost it all.

Ugly sweater day at work....Aubs loved my kitty shirt.

MD Anderson trip and cancer update

Once I had found out that my cancer had returned, I sought out a new oncologist at Huntsman, Dr. Werner. My neighbor with ovarian cancer had been seeing her and liked her a lot. I am so glad I switched to be under her care! She is so caring and was ok with me using alternative treatments as long as they didn't interfere with my medications. She agreed to do a further workup of my cancer biopsies to see if it was high or low grade. This would make a huge difference in the choice of treatment because low grade doesn't respond to chemotherapy. I later learned through more testing that my cancer is 80% estrogen positive and low grade. I also had tumor profiling done and learned that my cancer carries 2 very rare genetic mutations. Dr. Werner wanted me to take an estrogen blocking medication called Femera (Letrozol) to see if it can slow the growth down. Of course, this medication has side effects of hot flashes, bloating, weight gain, joint pain, and bone loss.

After recovering for a few weeks from my surgery, I was finally able to travel to Houston Texas for a second opinion that I had scheduled months earlier. I had found Dr. Gershensen, who was at MD Anderson Cancer Hospital in Texas. He has specialized in low grade cancer for 40+ years and I wanted to see if he agreed with the low grade cancer diagnosis from Huntsman. He agreed with this as well as Dr. Werner's plan for further treatment. I traveled to Houston Texas with my Dad and we tried to make the best of this trip by visiting Galveston (where the beach is). We ended up getting there just as it was getting dark.

 I returned home from Texas and had yet another CT scan and a DEXA scan in December to check my bone density levels. I was very surprised to hear that in one year of being without estrogen my bones have already weakened and was diagnosed with osteopenia. I started taking Calcium and Vitamin D and continued to take classes at the gym to keep up my strength. The CT results weren't great, in fact, very shocking to me. A new cancer tumor was seen in my right psoas muscle which was a few mm. This stuff is nasty and sneaky....I have been doing everything I can to prevent more cancer from coming back and couldn't believe that 2 months after my surgery it had come back. I will continue to have CT scans every 3 months to keep an eye on things. Unfortunately, we learned that we can no longer use my CA-125 blood marker to track the cancer because it was a 12 (lowest it has ever been) when I had recurrence.

Cancer rears it ugly face again

October was one of the most difficult months for me this year. Earlier in the summer (August 18th) was when recurrence of my Ovarian cancer was discovered. It was initially re-discovered during my surgery in August by Dr. Hancey. I had wanted to remove a massive lipoma that had grown on my low back because it had been giving me more pain and I was almost unable to lay flat on my back. I met with Dr. Hancey, a plastic surgeon at Alta View and also discussed an abdominoplasty to fix my diastase recti (which ended up being a 4 inch gap!) During that 6 hour surgery, Dr. Hancey found 2 abnormal masses that were on top of my left abdominal muscles.  He thought it was just abnormal tissue and sent them off for biopsy. A week after surgery, I found out that they tested positive for metastatic ovarian cancer.

When I first heard this news, I was in shock as I had not had any pain or symptoms! It actually took quite a while for this to sink in. For the first few weeks after this news, I wasn't too concerned and figured all of the cancer was removed now. I healed quite well from the surgery with no complications and only took 2 weeks off work. A month after surgery I was told to go in for a PET scan, which is more sensitive to picking up new growths. This scan showed that I had more tumors in my body. I was told by Dr. Zempolich that I would need to undergo exploratory surgery ASAP to remove more cancer. I was devastated as I had just finally healed and able to lift things again and would be starting all over again! I was also concerned because she would have to re-open my abdominal muscles that were just sewed back together a few weeks earlier!

On October 4th I had surgery at St. Marks Hospital. Dr. Karen Zempolich along with my plastic surgeon, Dr. Hancey performed a 7 hour surgery to remove more sneaky cancer.
   
During the surgery with Dr. Zempolich, cancer was discovered on my liver, my left abdominal muscles, left groin- which was wrapped around my nerve and blood vessels in the femoral triangle (which was the area I had complained about pain earlier in the year), along with a shocking huge mass that had perforated my sigmoid colon, which 12 inches of bowel were removed.

 This surgery was a very difficult recovery for me. I stayed in the hospital almost a week due to complications following surgery including a blood clot in my lungs, low oxygen saturation, and poor wound healing.  My parents took turns staying the night at the hospital taking care of me while Jeff took care of the kids at home. I was finally discharged home with a wheelchair and on 3 liters of oxygen that I had to wear all day and night. I was able to wean off the oxygen within the next week and was sure glad to have that cannula out of my nostrils! Along with the side effects from surgery, I lost 20 lbs from not being able to eat for almost a month. I was placed on a no fiber diet for 3 weeks and couldn't eat any raw fruits or veggies (which is primarily what I had been eating before).  I had a lot of difficulty getting my bowels to work since a foot of them had just been removed. I was also restricted for quite a while on any lifting due to a large piece of abdominal muscle removed and having my abs pulled back together for the second time.  I remember sitting at home just wishing I could have my normal day to day life back and go to work and take care of my children. I also ended up having difficulty battling more depression from the recurrence of the cancer and the stress that Jeff brought on, as he was unable to handle taking care of all my needs at home.

The evening I returned home, I was really out of it still and was having difficulty keeping my oxygen sats up. My parents got me settled at home and left Jeff in charge to care for me. About 20 minutes later, I was having a lot of difficulty breathing and in tremendous pain. My parents came back to help take care of me at my house. The events that followed that night ended up being a nightmare! My dad came into our house and was very frustrated with Jeff's inability to watch my oxygen levels for 20 min and Jeff started yelling at him. Next thing I know, I was in my dad's truck and was heading back to the hospital due to my poor condition. Unfortunately, things just got worse and I never ended up going where I really needed to! I told my mom to call for help because Jeff was getting out of control and I was worried he was going to hurt somebody. I was afraid for my life...he wouldn't allow my parents to help me and was blocking them and me from my own home while I sat helpless on oxygen, in a wheelchair, and inability to move without pain. I along with the kids, got into the truck attempting to return to the hospital and be in a safer environment. Then I look out the truck window and 3 or 4 police officers show up at the house. To make a long story short, Jeff's family members came over and were out of control! His brother yelled at my parents while the police officers were questioning everyone. Jeff called over the newly called Bishop (who he thought would "talk sense" into us) but ended up standing there watching everything. How embarrassing for us! The kids were buckled up in their car seats in my Dad's truck until Jeff attempted to pull them out, which just made things worse. I was told by an officer that I was being charged because I had scratched Jeff! Which I never recall doing! I was in shock! How could I go from trying to recover peacefully after a huge surgery to now getting a court date for "domestic abuse!" while trying to get back to the hospital.  Jeff and I were unable to talk to each other until our court hearing a few days later, on our anniversary! Emotions were quite high and communication was not handled well during this incident. I have forgiven the terrible words and actions of Jeff and his family at this time and will not allow their negativity to pull me down! I had to stay positive and strong to fight this cancer so I can be here for my family and beautiful daughters!
Due to the complications and slow healing, I didn't return back to work for a month.