August 2024 Update

Hey Friends!

Well I finally sat down to write this update to post about 3 months later than I was originally planning to, but...life!  And my oh my have we learned a little bit about the unpredictability of life these last few months. At this point, I think it might be easiest to share some updates as a month by month review so I can attempt to recall everything we've had going on, including things that went well and some of the challenges we faced too. It's been a wild ride to say the least! There are still no words to express just how grateful we've been for our support system because we couldn't walk out this cancer journey without these people in our lives - you know who you are and how much we love you.

April

Let's begin with a quick review shall we? My last update was shared just a couple days following my first surgery - a total knee replacement with a lower femur implant to replace the section of bone where the tumor had to be removed. The good news I don't believe I had shared at that point is when pathology analyzed the tumor after removing it during surgery, the results came back showing the tumor was 84% dead from the two cycles/rounds of chemo I had before surgery. My doctors were pleased with these results and we felt reassured to know the chemo was already doing its job! Praise God. Now to face the final four cycles of chemo to begin only a few weeks after recovering (somewhat) from major surgery.

Things that went well in April

Only two weeks after surgery, I felt good enough to put on some fancy clothes, do my hair (cute wig) and makeup (thanks again Felicia!!!), and get out of the house for a fun 40TH BIRTHDAY dinner for my awesome hubby, Ben. I was determined to NOT skip this milestone birthday just because cancer and surgery and blah, blah blah...and man was I grateful that a nice dinner out with our families happened and we all enjoyed our time together! Major highlight of that month.

I have the MOST amazing, supportive work team that made it possible for me to head into April and surgery recovery without any worries about my work responsibilities. I mean let's be real, I still worried and had completely unrealistic expectations about how quickly I would be recovered from this surgery and back to a small amount of work engagement - ha! Thank you to my Top Tier Home Team family, I love you all and can't wait to be back with you SOON. ;)

My hair started to grow back! Since I had a fairly long break from chemo by mid-April, it seems like I woke up one morning to darkish hair coming in on my scalp along with some thicker eyebrows and eyelashes again. This was a welcomed sight, even though I knew it was temporary with my return to chemo coming up at the very end of April/beginning of May.

I started physical therapy and the long road to getting my new knee bending and moving!

Challenges in April

The first few weeks following surgery felt pretty long because it's the most time I've ever spent sitting and feeling stuck to a chair! Since I wasn't able to put more than 20% weight on my right leg (don't ask me how I gauged that percentage ha ha) for the first six weeks, I was pretty limited with moving around much. Not to mention adjusting to how much upper body strength and using my left leg to get around with a walker and eventually crutches wore me out! I was definitely NOT mentally and emotionally prepared for that, and for sure not physically prepared for it after a few months of chemo still lingering in my body.

For most of April, Ben still had to balance continuing to work while taking care of me at home and getting our girls to school each morning since I could no longer help drive them. Thankfully we knew he had plans to take a month off in May when I returned to chemo and we were concerned life would get even more difficult for awhile, but that just meant having to "survive" April as best as we could with him still working and me needing a LOT more help - something I continue to be humbled by,  but this hit an all time high after a surgery that impacted my ability to walk, drive, help with groceries, cooking meals, laundry, cleaning, take our girls to activities like a million soccer games every Saturday and so much more. What a crazy experience!

May

Well...remember when I just said we were concerned life might get more difficult in May? Unfortunately that was the understatement of the year. It's now August, and I still have days when I think back to May and wonder how we survived that month. So here we go!

Things that went well in May

NOTHING! Kidding, ha ha. There is always good to look for in this life, and more importantly - good to acknowledge and remember because being intentional in this way leads to reassurance, encouragement and HOPE. I've shared before where my family and I find our hope, and that is in God. Even after a rough month and several days when I felt hopeless, I still knew God was near and in control. I felt it in the way my doctors cared for me that month, showing human compassion and not just medical professionalism. We felt it when our friends reached out to show support and say they were praying for me. And finally the way God worked through my parents jumping in to help with our girls and anything else we needed at a moment's notice so Ben could just focus on me. None of this was by accident, my friends. Often times it's hard to see the way God works when you're in the middle of crisis, chaos, and pain - I felt that in May. Then June came, and life settled a bit so I was able to reflect back and see more clearly when and how God showed up. I'm so thankful for these opportunities to reflect on life circumstances in this way. It's worth taking the time to slow down and do it, trust me!

Challenges in May

As I mentioned before, I returned to chemo after a six week break (a few weeks before and after surgery) and was feeling mostly good heading into it. This was the first week of cycle 3 of 6, which meant the hardest two of the three drugs I get for treatment. While I felt ok for most of my few days in the hospital, just before being discharged to head home I started having some digestive issues that didn't resolve as quickly as we were hoping. Those issues led to my body becoming extremely dehydrated at home the following week, which meant a trip to the ER for fluids. Unfortunately this wasn't the best ER experience, but I got fluids and four hours later we were back home and I crawled into bed. From here, my body and immune system continued to crash in a way I hadn't experienced following chemo before. I developed a clogged tear duct infection in my eyelid (so random), multiple cold sores on my lips and around my nose, and some nasty mouth sores that I later learned I waited too long to prevent. So between the digestive and mouth issues, I went a good 4-5 days without eating much and felt pretty miserable.

As if we hadn't been through enough, the next week my knee started to swell and feel more painful after a few weeks of feeling pretty good and making progress with PT. I called my surgeon's office simply to ask if I could take something stronger than Tylenol for pain after PT, which prompted them to ask a few more questions just in case something more was going on. They decided it might be best to see me that day and take a look at my leg just in case, and good thing since the moment they saw me they knew something bad was happening. After pulling some fluid out of the swelling around my knee (gross) and doing some bloodwork, it was confirmed that an infection was growing and my surgeon would need to open everything back up to flush it out and replace as many parts as possible. YIKES! You can imagine we were pretty devastated and defeated at this point. I was admitted and immediately started on fluids and antibiotics to get a jump start on treating the infection and preparing my body for a second major surgery within six weeks. My blood counts were pretty dangerously low (indicative of a septic infection), so they did everything they could do to give my body a boost overnight in hopes of doing surgery the next day. Thankfully it worked, the surgery was a success, and after five days in the hospital I was back home recovering yet again. The additional challenge attached to a surgical infection was six weeks of daily IV antibiotics through my port. Without going into much detail, Ben became Nurse Ben to assist me with this process along with the help of a lovely home health nurse who stopped by our house once per week.

Ready for the final challenge of May? Literally on the last day of May and the first day of summer break for our girls, I decided that an exciting way to end such a horrible month would be to fall down a few stairs on to the tile floor in our entryway! Let's just say that stairs, crutches, and chemo brain are not always a good (or safe) combo, mmmk? The worst part was since our girls had a couple soccer games that night, Ben and Val had already left our house to head to Val's game that Ben was sub-coaching. Poor Charli and Lucy were the ones home with me when the fall happened, and it was a little stressful for them to say the least. Lucy was too upset to help (understandable), and once Charli recovered from her initial shock of seeing me on the floor bleeding (from my leg with two-week old stitches), she was able to ask what I needed - large towels and to call Dad. I forgot to mention that when calling Dad, please tell him I'm ok (conscious) and not bleeding from my head. Whoops! He came home right away and called 911 while he was driving, which I was in denial about needing those services at the time, ha ha ha. Thankfully the very nice firefighters and EMTs made sure most of my stitches were still intact and gave me a ride down to the ER, where the very nice ER doctor replaced a few stitches and had x-rays done to confirm no damage was done to my freshly replaced knee joint. NOT the best way to spend a Friday night, but we made it home and praised God once again that no worse damage was done!

June

Ok friends, if you've made it this far - thanks for hanging with me. I promise June and July will be much shorter and sweeter. :)

Things that went well in June

Due to recovering from my second surgery, I was blessed with another long break from chemo! You can imagine how nervous I was to go back and potentially experience what I did in May with my body crashing, but after another six weeks off and time to rebuild my strength and immune system, that didn't happen. I was also determined to do as much preventative work as I could before, during, and after chemo and I'm extremely happy to report that it worked! It can be hard to determine which supplements, nutritional support, etc. help the most - all I know is they did help, and my body recovered from chemo (same two drugs) that month. I also didn't have a single mouth sore! I DO know this is thanks to a product I use called Healios, which was recommended to me by a friend who fought and beat a similar cancer years ago. It has worked well for me when I'm consistent with it, so I'm happy to share with anyone and everyone i know who could also benefit since mouth sores are the worst.

Our girls had some really fun events and activities in June that I was able to attend and/or cheer them on! Val's annual dance recital was a couple days before I went back to chemo, Lucy went to her first overnight summer camp for four days and had the absolute time of her life, and Charli completed Driver's Ed just in time to kick off her high school journey this fall! Since I only had to spend three days in the hospital for chemo in the whole month of June, I was able to enjoy some summer days and even a few trips to the pool as a family.

After a loooooong 10 weeks, I finally started driving again!!! I can't even begin to explain how amazing and freeing this felt. It's something most adults take for granted (I know I did), and wow has it felt good to drive myself to appointments, drive my kids to activities, and even run a few errands again. Thankful beyond thankful to reach this point in my journey!

At the very end of June, we spent a long weekend in one of my favorite places - Guttenburg, IA, with my parents. I hadn't been up there since the fall before we knew about the cancer growing in my leg, so I couldn't wait to get back there and do all of our favorite things in and around this lovely rivertown. Sadly the river itself had other plans with some nasty flooding, so no boating happened. I'm still hopeful we'll have a couple more opportunities for that before boating season is done this year though! It was still so nice to get away and have a change of scenery for a couple days, spend some good family time together, and eat our favorite pizza and ice cream (Joe's - always go to Joe's when in Guttenburg).

Challenges in June

To be honest, I'm happy to say not much. June was a wonderful recovery month after everything that happened in May. And in preparation for some longer stretches of weeks in the hospital coming up in July and August. My only struggles were dealing with the daily IV antibiotics and a couple issues with my port. We've learned more than we could've imagined when this all started back in November/December!

July

Oh July, you were the slowest and fastest month of the year so far. The first month I had to experience three back to back weeks in the hospital for treatment...in the middle of the summer...when major FOMO kicked in and it felt like I had zero control to do anything about it. And still I powered through the best I could.

Things that went well in July

WEEKENDS! Since my chemo treatments are either three or four days, I'm always in the hospital during the week and in July it was Monday-Thursday the first two weeks, followed by Tuesday-Thursday the third week. I soaked up every bit of weekend fun and rest time in between those weeks. We were able to spend time with family, my amazing cousin came to visit from Ohio for the second time this year, and we wrapped up Lucy's second year of summer swim team! It never gets old watching any of our girls learn and grow in new skills. :)

This was the most back to back chemo I've had since March before surgery, and yet my body handled it really well for the most part. I continued to manage side effects well with all of my preventative efforts, and both my appetite and sleep habits bounced back pretty quickly!

I had SO many people come down to visit me in the hospital during those three long weeks! My brother drove up from Des Moines one day, several friends from Cedar Rapids stopped by for lunch or to chat for a bit, my parents brought me down to be admitted one week when Ben had a work obligation, and even a close friend of mine who recently moved an hour away from CR came to spend a couple hours and bring me dinner one night! So grateful. And the reality for us is that as much as Ben would love to stay with me through every hospital stay, it's just not what is best for us as a family since our girls need their dad at home too. We make it work, even though some weeks are definitely harder than others!

Challenges in July

I bet you thought my knee drama was over by now right? Wrong! Nope. Definitely not, ha ha. The bummer about having two surgeries in the same location so close together (and the minor fall down the stairs) is that a LOT of scar tissue can build up and become problematic. I reached a point near the end of June when my wonderful surgeon said if I wasn't able to bend my knee to at least 90 degrees fairly easily, we would have a short window of time to fix it. And by fix it, he meant something called a joint manipulation. They basically put you under some anesthesia for maybe 30 minutes and well, force the joint to bend as far as it will go and break up the scar tissue. It worked, I was thankful to be asleep for the actual procedure, but still experienced a lot of pain after waking up and was pretty bruised and sore for the next week. This also happened during the first week of July when I went back for chemo. Yay!

This is the most time I've ever spent away from my family in a month's time, and it was hard. I'm grateful for technology like FaceTime, and our girls were able to come down with Ben one week to pick me up from the hospital when it was time to go home. It still doesn't change the fact that inpatient chemo is HARD - mentally and emotionally draining in a way that nobody can truly prepare you for. Of course it's worth it in order to fight this cancer, but sometimes the sacrifices along the way feel too heavy to endure. I'm just doing my best to remember that I'm getting closer to the end. And we started a "Wins & Gratitudes" poster in our kitchen back in April to help us remember all the reasons WHY we can see this journey through to the end. We don't have to stay stuck in survival mode and still appreciate the joys of life along the way!

August so far...

After spending the last two weeks at home and making a few more summer fun memories as a family, I'm currently back at the U for another three week stretch of back to back chemo weeks. I've honestly never wanted to quit something so much in my life! Our friends and family are a little busier this month with final summer vacations and back-to-school prep, so visitors are a little more scarce. Of course we understand, it just means I need to put my head down and focus even more on the positives in front of me. I'm nearing the end of cycle 5 and beginning of cycle 6 in a couple weeks - my final chemo cycle!! This means that pending any other delays, I will be done in mid-September. Life won't go back to "normal" right away, since my body will likely need months to recover, but I'm still hopeful to return to some of our normal routines with school and work. That's all we can do - keep hoping and moving forward. :)

For those who have continued to ask how they can help or what we need - thank you for caring and showing up! Meals are still a HUGE blessing as we near the end of my chemo treatments in September. While I do enjoy cooking and being on my feet a bit more recently, the reality is I still get tired easily. I can't tell you how much this serves Ben and our girls during the weeks I'm in the hospital for chemo for 3-4 days either - they appreciate it so much!! So for those of you who enjoy preparing or picking up an extra meal for a family who could use one, I've included a link to our meal train below!

Woods Family Meal Train - https://www.mealtrain.com/trains/m3r94l

Lastly, an event coming up really soon this Saturday, August 10th is the annual Courage Ride - a sarcoma cancer fundraiser that directly benefits the University of Iowa Holden Comprehensive Cancer Center for sarcoma research. This year is the 20th anniversary of this bike ride fundraiser, and our family's first year participating! Unfortunately my knee isn't quite ready to hop on a bike yet, but Ben along with some of his coworkers and a few of our friends will be riding to show their support in the fight against all sarcoma cancers! Our girls and I plan to hang out down at Big Grove in Iowa City where the bike riders will start and end their rides, while we also enjoy some tasty food and live music. We've heard it's an awesome event, and what's pretty cool is both my surgeon and oncologist also ride in it! For anyone who wants to read a little more about the Courage Ride, donate to the cause, or come down to Big Grove and hang out that day - I've included the link to more info below.

Courage Ride Sarcoma Fundraiser - https://www.courageride.org/mission

Here are some more pictures to share from the last few months too. :)

Thank you for caring, praying for and cheering on our family. We love you all!

Lindsey, Ben, Charli, Val & Lucy