Radiation is a Go!

Today Heaven got a true angel. One of my friends, KC Nordick, passed away this morning after a long, hard battle with colon cancer. He was an inspiration to everyone that knew him. He was definitely dealt a hard hand in this life and was still so positive through it all. I first met KC about four years ago, my first year of college. He was in my sociology class at Utah State and worked at the bowling alley, where I had started hanging out a lot at that year. When I first met him, he had not yet been diagnosed with cancer and was an amazing bowler. These past few months I have gotten to know KC a little better, I saw him a lot at the cancer center getting treatments the same time that my Mom was getting hers. My Mom got to know KC as well, this is been a hard day for us all. Even after he was told that his cancer was terminal, he still held his head high. He had learned to accept his fate and was ok with it. I know today that he has gone to a better place and is no longer in pain. I am truly blessed that I got to know you, rest in peace, KC!

We met with the Radiologist today at the cancer center. We will start the radiation later this month. We went over some of the pro’s and con’s of radiation therapy and the pro’s out weighed the con’s. This will most likely insure us that the cancer will not come back in the same area behind where the breast was. One of the con’s is that the radiation can cause cancer. (Chemotherapy also can cause cancer, isn’t this ironic?) This is a really low probability, 1 in 1,000 is what the Radiologist told us.  My Mom wants to make sure that she is doing everything possible so that this cancer will not return.

We will go down to McKay Dee hospital in Ogden next Friday the 13th. My Mom and I are both superstitious, we decided that we will turn this into a lucky day. She will be doing all of the radiation treatments here in Logan but they have to get a baseline CT scan before they start the radiation. When we go to McKay Dee they will take x-rays, examine my Mom’s chest and decide exactly where and how deep they will do the radiation. They will then tattoo my mom with little black dots, this will be their guide when they do the radiation. She will do radiation for at least five weeks, Monday through Friday. We are not sure yet the exact day that radiation will start but we are guessing sometime around the 20th of May.

We are also going to try and meet with an infectious disease specialist at McKay Dee so that we can get my Mom’s bone infection under control. We are going to leave her port in so that they can give her some kind of IV antibiotics to try and get rid of the infection. Bone infections may never go away but my fingers are crossed that we will get rid of the bone infection in her maxillary jaw bone.

My Mom is feeling pretty good today, she is a real trooper!!! She has worked full time through this whole process and has only missed one day of work! Can you believe it?! She has whiskers on her head, she is really excited about this. We are all curious about how her hair will grow back. Everybody says it will grow back curly and red! That would be pretty dang cool. I guess time will tell us.

Thanks again for all of the thoughts and prayers, you guys are awesome!