90 days later

13 weeks ago Liz was diagnosed with breast cancer. What a ride so far: we started this journey with a lot of fear, and we're pushing through with hope and faith.

Liz is in the third week of the fourth chemo cycle. Two more to go before the all-important scans. If she's in remission, we'll ditch one of the three nasty chemo drugs and she'll hopefully start feeling much better later in July. She's feeling a little better each day of this third week, so I hope we'll be able to have a few more good days before the next chemo round. We're holding things together in the meantime with the strength from one another and with the help of many good people.

Grandma went home Saturday. We miss her very much. See photo below if you wonder why.

Cohen started swim lessons yesterday so he'll be ready for summer camp: a week-long camp for kids who have a parent with cancer. Jensen nervously watched his brother swim, with one hand on his pretzels and the other holding his backpack. When I asked him why he didn't play with his cars, he responded, "I didn't want them to get wet." So we sat. And watched. I'm looking forward to it again tonight. If the boys are awake and happy enough—I'll be the judge—then we'll go to this summer's first car show on our town's main street. They both love it, and it gives us some quality fun time together. It's party time, chumps.

Go Team Liz.

By Colette, inspiring cancer spouse, at mycomputerismycanvas.com

Stronger together

I don't feel strong today. Just tired. Only a few hours of sleep the last couple of nights, trying to keep sick boys in bed and keep them away from their mom. School yesterday and today, back home now.

I'm lying on the couch, seeking motivation to pay bills. No luck yet. But there's a Chopped marathon on the Porn for Fat People channel Food Network. So although it didn't help me send some checks, it provided me with an awesome quote. Made me think of me lady, and I also thought of our friends who just rejoined the cancer club:

"A man is only as strong as the woman who holds him. And I'm strong."  - Kent Rollins, chuckwagon chef

Great inspiration.

Go Team Liz.

Sick baby late last night at the urgent care. I also mean 'sick' as in 'awesome'.

Live greatly

Good reminder today:

"To live greatly, we must develop the capacity to face trouble with courage, disappointment with cheerfulness, and triumph with humility."  - Thomas S. Monson


The most recent entry in the Team Liz Worldwide Logo contest:

Trudy and her t-shirt creation at the Chesterfield 5K in Chesterfield, Idaho

Don't touch the baby

"Sometimes what you think is the harder road turns out to be the only one worth being on."       - Aristotle. Oh, wait, never mind. Panera Bread commercial. But could have been Aristotle. Or Toby Keith.

Howie Mandel and Theo Von punching cancer in the face for Team Liz:

Holly, you rule.

It's been a long few days with a whole lot of hand washing and 'encouragement' for the big boys to stop coughing in Eli's face. Time will tell if our attempts to prevent Liz from getting Jensen's (and then Cohen's) cold work out. We said that her room now has an imaginary red stop light at the door, so no one can go in without me. Jensen ran downstairs, drew a red almost-circle, and hung it on the door "so mom doesn't get our cold." At least he's good at coughing in his sleeve. He's also good at using it to blow his nose. But I digress.

Jensen's red light. And yellow. With just a little green.

In spite of the big boys' sickness, we've had a good few days with Grandma and Grandpa both at home. Grandpa (the baby whisperer) had to leave a couple of days ago. Jensen has made a few 'phone calls' on an old iPod to tell Grandpa to come back soon. Cohen had Grandpa and his big truck to himself at church. Eli had Grandma to himself. Or vice versa. Glad she's still here.

Chemo is cumulative, so this last week hasn't been fun for Liz. But she came outside with me last night for a short walk down the sidewalk and back, so maybe she'll be able to get up and about more this week and next. We change bandaids every day to cover her missing and soon-to-be-departed fingernails. Reminds me of wrapping a boxer's hands before a match. The fingernails will grow back, the hair will return. She's a fighter. She is strong.

Jensen snuggled up to me yesterday, looked me in the eyes, and said, "You know what, Dad? I love you." Cohen, not to be outdone, yelled across the room, "I love you too, Dad!" To which Jensen responded, "Dad, you're my best friend. And mom. And Cohen, and Eli, and Grandmas, and Grandpas."

That's what I'm talkin' about.

Go Team Liz.

P.S. We got our Blue Lily family photos back last week. You can't even tell that my gorgeous wife could hardly walk with neuropathy pain. Again, she's a fighter. I love this family.

Breast cancer markers update

A quick reminder of some reasons to fight: Cohen's bedtime book selection last night, and the big boys' interpretive dance on Grandpa's truck.

The chemo crud hit Liz today. Pain all over, feels sick constantly, no appetite. As she said tonight: "I think I'm obliterating cancer. It just doesn't feel good to do so."

We learned on Monday that her blood work all looked good. We got even better news yesterday: ALL OF THE BREAST CANCER MARKERS ARE NOW IN NORMAL RANGE!!! Sorry I had to yell. But I'm that excited. Check these out:

Smiles. Hope. Fight another day.

Go Team Liz.

Cortney's photo of Notre Dame's Main Building with Team Liz logo added

Thunder rolls

Long day with doctor appointments and chemo #4. Blood tests all normal, breast cancer marker updates will come through tomorrow. Anticipated treatment plan is clearer now too:

• Chemo #5 on June 10th
• Chemo #6 on July 1st
• PET Scan
• Stop the Taxotere and Neulasta!
• Get her pretty hair and nails back, ditch the bad Taxotere side effects
• Keep going with Herceptin and Perjeta for as long as they keep working (average treatment time on this regiment is a year, but lots of people go for years before they change medications)

That's all good news!

Long night ahead so I can watch Ironman 2 on FX. Regular visits to boys' rooms when they wake up because of the thunder and lightning. We're thinking of the people and communities devastated by today's Oklahoma tornado. We're praying for those affected, along with our friends who are in need of their own medical miracles this week.

Liz is feeling okay. She can't sleep for the first 3 days of chemo treatment, so we'll hang out for a while tonight. We expect that the chemo crud will hit hard later this week and knock her down through next week. But we see light at the end of this treatment tunnel.

Grandma and Grandpa are a huge help right now, and we're so grateful for them and for so many others who give, serve, pray, and care.

Go Team Liz.

Graduation countdown

Just got back from a 15-hour door-to-door MBA day. 6 classes down, 3 in process until the end of first progression next month. Graduation exactly one year from now. Domer time.

Liz is awesome. But you knew that already. It's tough to see the chemo taking out her fingernails and sapping her energy, but she's doing relatively well otherwise...considering. She somehow finds the strength to be present, happy, together whenever our boys need her. Amazing.

My parents heroically rolled into town today, so I can rest easier while at school again tomorrow. Chemo treatment #4 this Monday (boo, hiss).

More Team Liz logo pics below, keep 'em coming!

Go Team Liz.

1.  TBS/TNT network executives, punching cancer in the face at the Upfront Announcements in New York (Holly, my Hackberry Hill Elementary buddy, is holding the logo)
2.  Comedian Deon Cole punching cancer in the face with Vince Vaughn's head blur behind him
3.  N and T, our niece Christy's awesome girls, with cancer fighting t-shirts
4.  Christy, Patrick, N and T
5.  N and T with their Team Liz signs
6.  My beloved 91-year old grandma's Old Faithful rendering since she couldn't travel there

First Second Opinion

We journeyed to The University of Chicago Medicine Comprehensive Cancer Center Duchossois Center for Advanced Medicine and Thinktank for Extra Long Hospital Names yesterday. Cattle call. But the facilities were top notch and the doctors knew their stuff. We first met with a Fellow who works with the head doc. She was great: appropriately empathetic, asked the right questions, obviously read Liz's file. Then we saw the big cheese.

The good news: we're on the right treatment plan and Liz is responding well. In fact, the doc wouldn't do anything differently. She couldn't even feel any obvious signs of the tumor (you know, the one that used to be 7cm). Awesome.

The bad news: it's still advanced metastatic breast cancer.

I thought I'd be relieved after this appointment, especially since we're doing the right things. But I was actually disappointed. As crazy as it sounds, I must have believed that the doc would find something else, would have some miracle idea or therapy or medication or study that would guarantee a lifelong cure. So it was valuable to get confirmation that our local oncologist is perfectly aligned with super doc. But part of me wishes that they disagreed.

The medical campus is just South of downtown Chicago. After a 3-hour appointment, we endured enjoyed yelled at drove in rush hour traffic to arrive for a late, spontaneous dinner at Outback Steakhouse. Crikey. Liz has eaten little over the past 2 weeks, and she finally had a craving for some real food. Her body was probably screaming for iron as well—the Taxotere is merciless on her nails. She got steak. And smiled. We talked a lot last night, which we rarely have time to do enough of. And we laughed. Not exactly the date we would have dreamed up, but it was really nice.

The doc used the magic word—"years"—to describe Liz's prognosis. So our world won't come crashing down in the short-term. It's the long-term outlook that's the problem. This cancer won't be cured, but we want to manage it for many, many, many years to come. I vote for at least 50 more. High quality of life, plenty of time to teach and raise our boys, more time for Liz to teach me too.

It's not all doom and gloom. She's fighting this! The treatments are working. Round 6 will be administered on July 1st, and we hope that's the last treatment she'll have to have for a long time. Your thoughts, prayers, and service give Liz strength and give us hope. We want to kick cancer on its ugly backside so it never comes back. But if it does, we pray that the most advanced treatments to keep cancer at bay will continue to be developed and approved.

We will not live with fear. But don't blame us if we let it visit every once in a while.

Go Team Liz.

Coping with cancer, al dente

Just made some perfect fettuccine for me lady. And...I'm pretty awesome at cooking pasta. It is a questionable skill, given my current state of robustness, but it turns out that this chemo carnival causes Liz to crave noodles that are cooked to be firm but not hard: al dente.

It turns out that al dente is good for cancer treatment as well. We're learning how much we can handle without allowing our hearts or our emotions to harden or overcook. Liz is doing much better at this than I am. She still amazes me with her resolute strength, given all we've been through together, especially to ultimately be blessed with our boys. She says she feels more like mushy pasta. I respectfully disagree.

These boys love their mom. Lots of 'Happy Mother's Day!' exclamations and hugs for her today. Even some shy head-tilt sideways glance flirting from 7-month old Eli, her biggest fan. The boys are resilient and understanding, especially considering the disruptions and changes they've been dealing with over the past year (bed rest, kindergarten, new baby, cancer diagnosis, chemo treatments...). They give us reason to push through.

Case in point:  Cohen giving zerberts to Eli

We're going for the first second opinion tomorrow at The University of Chicago Medicine Comprehensive Cancer Center Duchossois Center for Advanced Medicine and Thinktank for Extra Long Hospital Names. I think it's across the street from the Derek Zoolander Center For Children Who Can't Read Good And Wanna Learn To Do Other Stuff Good Too. The doc we'll visit is nationally ranked in the top 1% of her specialty (by a magazine that ranks doctors so they can sell magazines), and she is personally known and recommended by Liz's oncologist. She's the same doctor who confirmed in March that we're on the right treatment path.

I hope that she'll say it was a big mistake, that Liz simply has a lot of stress caused by mothering 3 active boys, no cancer anywhere. Ever. Chalk it up to a faulty diagnosis.

If that won't happen, I want her to say that the world's best cancer researchers guarantee that Liz will be completely healed by July, forever, on her current treatment plan.

If that won't happen, then it must be time to get a second second opinion.

We already received official governmental confirmation that all will be well. Jesse White, our beloved, narcissistic Secretary of State of Illinois, officially declares the disease temporary. Pictorial proof:

This whole cancer thing just has to be over soon. The chemo treatments are beating up my beautiful bride. But we'll keep working on getting stronger, firmer, without becoming too hardened. Al dente works for us, but there is one exception: we'll harden our resolve, and we'll become more firm in our commitment to do everything we can to fight this. As a ND friend said to Liz: fight like a girl!

Happy Mother's Day to the strongest, most intuitive, most patient, most caring mom our boys could have hoped for.

And a very grateful Mother's Day to those brave, selfless birth mothers and families who entrusted us to raise Cohen and Jensen and allowed them to become a natural part of our family.

Go Team Liz.

What it's like to have boys

Actual bath time exchange between Jensen (3) and Cohen (6). Pretty normal stuff around here.

J:   Hey Pirate? Hey, Pirate? Pirate? PIRATE?! Wisten to me!
C:  En guarde, you scalawag.
J:   Please help me find some food for me?
C:  Arrrr... The rotten fish be stinky. Let's fill our ducks up with water. Watarrrrrrrrrrr...
J:   Water fight!
C:  No no no I'm not a pirate any more. Stop it! Stop it! I said I'm not a pirate I'm not even kidding I promise. DAAAAAAD!
J:   The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round. The pirate on the tub goes splash splash splash, all froo the town.
C:  Take that! Walk the plank.
J:   Stop eating my water.
C:  No, you stop eating your water.
J:   Jingle bells, jingle bells, la la la la la.
C:  Your mom eats your water.

J:   Be quiet!
C:  Why?
J:   Cuv the sea monster is hiding, I can't find him.
C:  He ate all of your ducks.
J:   No, he's hiding. My ducks will get him and keep us safe.
C:  Whew.

And...scene.

The opposite of courage isn't fear

Jehovah said to Joshua, "Be strong and of a good courage" (Joshua 1:6).

Good advice.

Lately I've thought more about what courage really means. Initially because I was forced to by my ethics professor, and then because I realized that the concept describes Liz really well. She is good. But she is also courageous. In his book Courage: The Backbone of Leadership, Gus Lee writes:

"The opposite of courage isn't fear; fear is simply the internal condition that courage overcomes. The opposite of courage is indifference. Courage comes from commitment, care, and love, whereas allowing wrongs in others leads to others' mistreatment and suffering. That is why being courageous for rightness is superior to being 'a good person' who keeps his own nose clean."

He adds that when we strive to be good we often don't choose to face strong, negative, gut-wrenching feelings. To have courage, we must directly face fear, correct our internal wrongs, and then confront, address, and correct external wrongs in others. Courage literally means heart, innermost feelings, and inner strength.

Liz knows herself, faces challenges and fears head-on, and immediately then focuses on how to lift others up: our boys, family, friends, people she has never met. One of the many reasons I love her.

Go Team Liz.

Cohen 'teaching' Jensen how to play the piano

Brooke in Canal Street subway station

Brooke at September 11 Memorial

Back to Tayhoss

My amazing and beautiful sister Becky (or 'Rebecca' for those more sophisticated than I) left Saturday morning: SLC to pick up her boys, then back to the great Republic of Texas, which just hasn't been the same without her. The boys loved her, we miss her, but we're glad we could spend this time together.

Tough times this round of chemo, though different than the last two. Better in some ways, worse in others. But each day is one less chemo day and one more day of survival, so...thumbs up.

We've spent a lot of time thinking, talking, reflecting. I hope we're getting wiser. As Confucius said, reflection is the noblest way to gain wisdom, but bitter experience is teaching us a thing or two these days:

By three methods we may learn wisdom: first, by reflection, which is noblest; second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.

    ~ Confucius

Here's to more reflection.

Go Team Liz.

Colette at Brooklyn Bridge with Freedom Tower (and brand new spire) in background

Halfway done

Round 3 of chemo administered this past Monday. The doc will likely do 6 rounds (maybe more, but we're choosing selective hearing at the moment), so if my advanced math skills are correct, then we just passed the halfway point. Sweet.


Taxotere dosage was reduced by 25%. Liz's hands and feet can't take both barrels any more. But she opts for temporary miserabality (yeah, I made that up) for the hope of a long, symptom-free remission. She's already on maintenance doses of Perjeta and Herceptin. Things is lookin' good. Yes, I mean 'cancer good', but that's better than 'cancer bad', which somehow sounds like a worse bad than regular bad, while 'cancer good' is a not-as-good version of good. Let me be clear: Liz doesn't feel well. Hands... feet... knees... insomnia... But it seems like things is lookin' purty darn good.

Monday's blood work showed that her liver enzymes are all 'completely normal' (woo-hoo!) and the breast cancer markers continue to go down (awwwww yeah). In fact, based again on the calculator built into my phone on my advanced math skills and way too much time spent formatting this tiny table because it's too hard to focus at 2am especially when my mind is blown as I must pick between Duck Dynasty, NOVA, Lockdown, America Unearthed, He-Man (yeah, I said it), and Judge Judy a quick data dump into Excel, CEA is in normal range, and CA27-29 is just barely outside of normal range. I would have written the previous sentence in gigantic font, all caps, multi-color, with lots of exclamation points, if my Managerial Writing professor hadn't told me that's a bad idea.

The most important thing about these markers is that they just need to keep going down. The chemo treatments are working.

We asked the doc about Liz's chemo fog during the first 10 days of round 1. Best answer ever: "That was most likely caused by her body processing all of the material ejected from exploding cancer cell walls. The treatment is working." Awesome. 

Refreshing to hear, especially from the doctor who wouldn't tell us at diagnosis if he thought Liz had weeks or months left. And, for the first time, he referenced the long-term: "We'll go through this treatment cycle, then if the cancer comes back after a few years, we'll know what to do next. In the meantime, new medicines and treatments are being approved regularly. Although I can't predict the future, I'm hopeful." Finally.

All of this talk about exploding cell walls reminds me of a particularly disgusting—yet strangely appropriate—Team Liz logo:

My only favorite sister Becky (or 'Rebecca' to those more sophisticated than I) swooped in to save us this week. We are so glad that she's here. The boys all took to her immediately when they woke up Monday morning. Whew. I just hope that Cohen and Jensen don't tell her what we we've been saying about her. Loose lips sink ships.

Liz got a haircut from her barber stylist hairdresser Kristina Khristeenuh Criss-tina Christina the day after chemo. "No, really, I'm not kidding, really, she did, I'm not kidding, I'm telling the truth, I promise, really." (Cohen is in my head.) Not all of the hair is gone on her perfectly shaped head, and it was starting to get longish, at least for a gorgeous bald lady (1/8"). I sat in the car since I'm a dude and I'm hard-wired to be uncomfortable going to the salon and arranged a second opinion at the University of Chicago School of Medicine and Doctors Who Know Stuff Etc. Hung up just as me lady exited with an even prettier dome. Super high fives to the greatest Christina, greatest hairdresser person of all time, and I believe she's currently accepting appointments to cut all of the hairs on your head to your preferred length. (Did you read that, Christina? Was that good enough? Probably not if I misspelled your name... But, you are awesome. Let's drum you up some business!)

Church folk are arranging lawn mowing for the summer, friends from church and work and ND are helping with meals, we have had cleaners at our home twice now, and we sense all of your thoughts and prayers. Thank you. We love and appreciate all of the help. I'm learning not to feel as guilty about it all, but I'm still a work in progress...obviously. We just hope that all of the help won't be needed after a few more months.

We're halfway done, after all.

Go Team Liz.

Howie's latest Team Liz worldwide logo submission