MelissaStuff

 It's coming . . . look at all the great ways to get cheaper tickets:

If you read my first post earlier this morning , you may have wondered what happened to us after that . . . well, let me tell you. {feel the jerking of the cars and the clacking as the mechanics of the coaster inch the cars up further and further towards the top of the first hill} We met with the doctor first which was fascinating. He is truly the expert in his field and the "Big Daddy" as he was referred to when we first arrived. I had no doubts we had landed in the right place. Not only is this his primary field of study and teaching, but he publishes the articles that set the standard for all of the doctors who see patients with thyroid cancer. He affirmed that because of my age my cancer is Stage 1 - which determines the likelihood of survival, so you can't get a better Stage unless you just plain don't have cancer at all. He also said he thought the treatment that I had undergone already was appropriate although there were a couple of things he might h...

Joey and I drove to Houston yesterday . . . after making sure our kids and animals were all taken care of, which is always a bigger deal than I anticipate it being. It's been a long time since Joey and I have had the chance to "get away" just the two of us, so even with the reason for the trip, it was nice to drive and chat and stop at Collin Street Bakery and Cooper Farms store and eat at Cracker Barrel as if we were on a vacation. If you've ever taken an anti-anxiety medication, you know the strange feeling of knowing academically that the facts should be upsetting to you, but feeling inexplicably calm in the face of those still upsetting facts. It isn't truly inexplicable, though, as you took a medication that is formulated to do that very thing. However, recently I have found myself experiencing this very same feeling without any medication, and I am confident that it is the definition of "peace that passes understanding." I will say waking...

Saying our family has had A LOT going on would be in the running for understatement of the year. So when we had the chance to go see the new remake of Disney’s classic, Dumbo , at the Alamo Drafthouse Cereal Party  we were all over it. If you are like us and have never heard of a Cereal Party before, it is a unique Alamo Drafthouse movie showing. The show new release movies extra early on Saturday morning - our movie started at 9:30 am. You are encouraged to wear your pjs, and they have an all-you-can-eat cereal bar set up in the front of the theater.  What better way to do Saturday morning cartoons?!? It's even better than my childhood memories of gathering around the television in our pajamas with our bowls of cereal. For our crew, it was our first time at Alamo DraftHouse. If you haven’t been there, it has a beautiful vintage look and feel. It's the perfect combination of old classic feel and every modern luxury you would expect from the nicest moder...

Trying to find answers on cancer treatment was actually much less simple than I anticipated. Clearly there are great things about each of the locations we were considering - Cancer Treatment Centers, Mayo Clinics, and MD Anderson. Many people have had good results at each of these places. The bottom line is that on Monday, April 8, we will be going down to MD Anderson's Cancer Research department to meet with the premiere thyroid cancer expert - Dr. Steve Sherman . He is going to re-examine all of the test results and scans, including the pathology of the cancer tissue originally removed. They have told us to hold our return date loosely. I'm personally feeling like there won't be any emergency treatment necessary, so we will be coming home and then possibly going back as needed for follow up. There are still a lot of unknowns - there could be drug trials . . . waiting and additional scans . . . even a stint at Cancer Treatment Center if there is sufficient cause...

Some of you have been tracking through every step, some of you are just wondering what weirdo asks for cancer treatment recommendations. So, in an effort to get us all in the same page, here’s a recap: I have been battling thyroid cancer now since December 2017. Thyroid cancer  is typically a pretty simple diagnosis and treatment leading to full remission. However, my situation has not been so simple. I have a B-RAF gene mutation that makes it more aggressive and less responsive to treatment. All original tests led doctors  to believe that I had a singular node that needed to be removed in December 2017. When they actually opened me up, they had to do a full thyroidectomy and remove the metastasis in five lymph nodes including one that had become it’s own tumor, growing outside the bounds of its original space. They stopped short of removing all cancerous tissue because some of   it was too close to my carotid artery. Following that, they did a round of I-13...