Long long a go, in a land far away, there lived two young princesses

Myself and my older sister Jacque.  We married brothers so that makes our children double cousins. Her three daughters, their spouses and their children are all here in this photo.  This week they received the news no family wants to hear.  This morning Jacque shared her news with the rest of our huge family.  This is the e-mail I found when I checked my computer this morning.

Life's what happens while you're making other plans, eh? 

My grandkids don't know this and I want to be the one to tell them when I have more answers next weekend. I won't have an opportunity to tell Ian until week after next. Please honor my wishes to tell them myself. Lanne has offered to be question answerer but don't post anything to her fb wall, please!

According to Dr Shamila Ahmed, a lovely young oncologist at Pac Med, I have a stage three carcinoma - two lumps (5cm and 1.5cm in diameter) in the upper lobe of my left lung and at least six or seven lymph nodes, some on the left side and some on the right side. That it's on both sides makes it stage three.

This showed up on a CAT scan I had Monday. To clarify the issue and pinpoint treatment needs, I will have a bracheoscopy with biopsy on Monday. Tuesday, I will begin the diet needed to make the PET scan work on Thursday. Wednesday, I will have an MRI and my daughters and I will meet with Dr Ahmed on Friday and the pulmonologist, Dr Oohlut on the third to decide on and schedule treatment probably beginning the next week. At some point, I will meet with my primary care physician and my naturopath.

The tumors are in a place that forbids surgery, so treatment will be an aggressive schedule of radiation and chemo. I'm planning to get a short haircut before chemo begins so I can donate all this long, healthy hair to Locks of Love and, when it all falls out, Celeste and I are planning another henna party here!

The tumors are what's squeezing the recurrent laryngeal nerve and paralyzing my left vocal chord and making my voice funny.

The good news is that otherwise, I'm in excellent health - strong, robust, energetic. I think it's also a very positive sign of my own body's ickiness fighting that these tumors have been there for something more than two years (how long my voice has been out of whack) and have grown no bigger than that and spread no further. That's your cue that there's no need to treat me as if I'm delicate or fragile, OK? XO

I'm scheduling lots of activities every day so I don't sit around and mope and am as always more than happy for company. I don't know if I'll actually save the world from democracy now but I'll keep trying ;-)

As I told the girls Thursday, thirty years from now, I'll still be the worst mom in the world!

It's my job.

Jacque

Like everyone else, I know we do not live forever.  I know the Truth.  Sadly, my sister rejects the Truth and prayers are in order for her.  I do not know what the outcome will be, but I know it is not God's desire for any one to perish.