Boo Hoo! I was so looking forward to putting this treatment (#8) behind me but the Lord has other plans. My platelets were too low to proceed today so I am on hold until next Monday. Good news is my white blood count is good. I will not dwell on it but rather embrace this week and live life to the fullest. I miss Brooke already and it has been less than 12 hours since she has left. She sure is a pistol but she has a huge heart and can be so sweet when she wants to be. I guess she reminds me of me. I also miss my mom but have talked to her everyday since she left for Hawaii. If I had the money I would catch a plane out tonight and join her! We might go see Wall*E tomorrow. It looks cute and Troy has been so anxious for it to come to the theater. He asked us "what day is it?" everyday while we were camping and finally on Friday he said Wall*E came out today. Then Saturday he said Wall*E came out yesterday...too cute! We heard from our property manager that someone is interested in renting one of our houses so we will see what happens with that....Praise God!

My laptop froze up last week so it went to the repair shop. Let's get caught up on the last two weeks. The Neulasta shot that was given to me to boost my white blood cell counts wasn't as bad as I had heard. My legs were sore like I ran a marathon (daily) and my knees were achy for about 8 days. Kelly did well preparing for her procedure and we received the results last week from her colonoscopy and all findings were normal-Praise God! Jim started his three weeks of vacation last Monday. We spent two days running errands (Kelly got her braces off and now is in a (Gator's) retainer) and getting the camper ready for a trip. I found a place to camp in Ormond Beach called Tomoka State Park. Jim and the kids took Mema to the airport on Wednesday were she flew to Hawaii to meet up with my step-brother Tom and his family. We finished packing when they got back and left for our camping adventure. We just got back yesterday. We all had a good time camping, canoeing, fishing and swimming. We went to the beach a couple of times and took a trip to De Leon Spring State Park for breakfast and a day of swimming in the cool water of the springs. That is a nice place. There is an old sugar mill that has been turned into a restaurant. The tables have an electric griddle build into the table tops where you make your own pancakes. The kids had a blast making their own creations. The chocolate chips were their favorite kind of pancakes to make and I enjoyed the blueberry ones. Brooke leaves today for a week. She is going with our church youth group to a christian camp. This will be her second year going and she really enjoys it. Kelly will be going to camp in two weeks. Last year was her first year going to camp also. Even though she was excited about spending a week with her friends she had a hard time leaving but once she was there she was fine. Today is chemo treatment number 8 out of 12. I woke up yesterday with a sore throat and still have it this morning. I have managed to keep the germs and sickies away this whole time so I pray this too will pass. I probably just over did it the last couple of days. We are still praying for the rentals to rent or sell. Thank you Cindy for getting my kids to VBS the week I had chemo and thanks to all the ladies that provided us meals.

Here's that latest update. I went for chemo yesterday and after checking my blood they found "something funky" said the lab lady. The Dr in the office wanted to look at it on a slide. After reviewing everything a call was made to my Oncologist to discuss a course of treatment because again my numbers were too low. One of the counts were up but the other were not. They decided to go ahead with treatment (I guess the funky thing was nothing???) and add Neulasta to my treatment so we can hopefully have no more delays in my treatments. It is a shot that I will receive when I get my pump disconnected. After checking out the website on the shot and talking to others that have had it the main complaint is pain in your joints (all of them!). Some info I got off the Internet about low white blood counts is...the fewer number of white blood cells you have and the longer you remain without enough, the more at risk you become for developing a potentially life-threatening infection, potentially resulting in hospitalization and administration of IV antibiotic therapy. I pray that I will not experience the joint pain and all will go well with my next 5 treatments. We have scheduled a little family camping trip next week and the kids are so excited. With everything that has gone on this year we have not really done or gone anywhere. Jim is on vacation for three week starting next week. That was the time we were supposed to go to California but after receiving the big C news we had to cancel the trip. Hopefully next year we can go see all the sites of my home state with the kids. I have not been back since Kelly who just turned 13 was 6 months old. Wow, how time flys! Please continue to pray for our family during this time and also for our finances due to the rentals being unrented. We are praying for a mighty miracle from God by the end of the month. We got word that one of them maybe rented so we will see if that pans out. Much love, Melissa

I saw my Oncologist yesterday and he decided to reduce one of the chemo drugs that they give me. It will be reduced by only 10-15% and should help my counts not to get so low and hopefully get me through treatment on track. I'm reading Barbara Johnson's book "Laughter from Heaven". I have to share a story from the book! The first mammogram is the worst. Especially when the machine catches on fire. That's what happened to me. The technician, Gail, positioned me exactly as she wanted me (think a really complicated game of Twister-right hand on the blue, left shoulder on the yellow, right breast as far away as humanly possible from the rest of your body). Then she clamps the machine down so tight, I think my breast actually turned inside out.... Suddenly there was a loud popping noise. I looked down at my right breast to make sure it hadn't exploded. Nope, it was still flat as a pancake and still attached to my body. Oh, no!" Gail said loudly. These are, perhaps, the words you least want to hear from any health professional. Suddenly she came flying past me, her lab coat whipping behind her, on her way out the door. She yelled over her shoulder, "The machine's on fire. I'm going to get help!" Okay, I was wrong. "The machine's on fire" are the worst words you can hear from a health professional. Especially if you're all alone and semi-permanently attached to a machine and don't know if it's the machine in question. I struggled for a few seconds trying to get free, but even Houdini couldn't have escaped. I decided to go to plan B: yelling at the top of my lung (the one that was still working). I hadn't see anything on fire, so my panic hadn't quite reached epic proportions. But then I started to smell smoke coming from behind the partition. This is ridiculous, I thought. I can't die like this. What would they put in my obituary? Cause of death: breast entrapment? I may have inhaled some fumes because I started to hallucinate. An imaginary fireman rushed in with a water hose and a hatchet. "Howdy, ma'am" he said. " What happened here?" he asked , averting his eyes. "My breasts were too hot for the machine," I quipped as my imaginary fireman ran out of the room again. "This is gonna take the Jaws of Life!" he yelled. In reality, Gail returned with a fire extinguisher and put out the fire. She gave me a big smile and released me from the machine. "That's the first time that's ever happened. Why don't you take a few minutes to relax before we finish up?" At least I think that's what she said. I was running across the parking lot in my backless paper gown at the time. After I'd relaxed for a few years, I figured I night go back. But I was bringing my own extinguisher.

Well God is not trying to rush me through this process because again my counts were to low for them to administer the chemo. You have to very careful when your immune system is suppressed because you are very susceptible to infections, etc. So I will enjoy another week off of chemo and try to rest up (HA-HA) before next Monday. We are supposed to have rain everyday this week. My Dad took us to the movies today to see Kung Fu Panda. It was ok. I had to reschedule most of the appointments I had scheduled for next week due to it now being my chemo week so the kids and myself have 5 appointments tomorrow. Did I mention resting???? Maybe another day. Thanks to all my prayer warriors and friends and family for you willingness to help when and where needed. I love you! Hugs, Melissa