Hi Everyone!

We just arrived home a few minutes ago from my April doctor’s appointment, and I want to get this down before I fall asleep.  It’s a good thing I’m taking that steroid, because I only got about 2 hours sleep last night, so I’m amazed I didn’t crash as soon as I got in the door!

It was a VERY good doctor’s visit, and the best way to describe it is to say that our God is the great and almighty God, and I am so grateful he has taken mercy on my poor soul.

For the past three or four days I have been feeling very good ­ in fact, better than I’ve felt for a very, very long time, and I’ve been fervently praying that it was because the cancer was being reversed.  Given the fact that I worry a lot, I had some concern that as has happened several times, when I felt fine and expected a good report, I got just the reverse, so while I wanted to have hope and faith, I did not want to have a lot of false hope, so I’ve also been asking for strength and courage to support me no matter what the result of my tests.

Dr. Ahmann was very enthused and excited.  My blood is still very good, the fluid is draining away from the lung and there’s less than before, and MY TUMORS ARE NOTICEABLY SMALLER!!!  Unfortunately, they have been very busy, and were terribly crowded today, so he forgot to order last month’s X-Rays for comparison; so, he couldn’t measure it, but he said it is so much better that he wants to cancel next month’s X-Ray unless I am feeling bad.  That is great news!  We have been up in the clouds, and offering thanks to the Lord every chance we had all day long.  What a blessing!

This is a very new medication, this chemo, and there was not even any news out about it a year ago when I was taking the tablet equivalents, which were too severe for me to take.  I am so thankful that I am able to withstand the effects of this chemo and continue to take it.  It is quite strong, which is why there is a delay of 21 days between treatments to give your body a chance to recover from all the side effects, and a treatment is only about ten minutes long.  It is actually a shot that they infuse, to give it more slowly, and mix fluid with it, and then give you more afterward to cleanse you.  And the price for that is $17,000 a treatment!  This was my fourth treatment, so they have now put $68,000 worth of this medication into me!  I’m also so thankful that I don’t have to pay for it, because I could certainly never afford something like that.

It is beautiful outside right now, with bright sunshine, after a rain shower that caught us near Seiad Valley, and rained on us until we began to climb Cade Mountain, where it dwindled away.  It was cloudy all day in Medford, but hadn’t yet rained when we left.  At Horse Creek and Hamburg the highest hills have fresh snow, and fog clusters are hanging around the tops.  The wildflowers are beginning their long show of color, and I was amazed to see that most of the large manzanita bushes were covered in light pink flowers.  I’ve never seen that before.  When I go for my next visit I expect the dry hillsides to be full of blooms as the new plants are up and it won’t be long now, if we get some sunshine to help them along.  All the hills are covered with soft, velvety bright green grass and are beautiful, lots of fruit trees are in bloom, forsythia is blooming all over, daffodils and some tulips are up along the river at homes, and there is bright green moss covering tree trunks, old walls and bedrock.  The river is still running very high and muddy, and looks at flood stage although it has at least several feet before it reaches the road in the low places.  The rain just can’t sink in any longer, so each rain brings it up a lot.

We were able to slow down and look alongside the spot on Cade Mountain that’s been slipping away for years.  It is at the Happy Camp end of the first 25-mile an hour turn, coming from Yreka.  If you almost stop, on the right side you can see where it has slid about 6-8 feet toward Happy Camp, across the road, and is about 5-6 feet higher than it was to start.  I know it dropped five inches in one day, and we happened to go over it that day.  It is very difficult to see because the road is winding so much there and you can’t see it until you are right on it.  The other end is hidden around the curve, so you are on the high side of the drop.  They have signs about every six feet all along the curve as warnings, since there was so much rain this year there were more serious drops than in some other years.  Today it was good, however, just a bit of a drop.

I forgot to tell you that on my last appointment as we were coming home, just after turning off I-5 and where there are old homes before coming to the bridge where you can turn to Yreka, as we came around a curve a bobcat was crossing the road, coming from the homes, probably searching for garbage or animal food.  Jim slowed way down and he leaped up onto the sloping bank, landing with all his feet spread, just almost at my window height.  He was not healthy as the only other bobcat I’ve seen here.  He was small, gaunt, old and ill looking, but still had spunk.  As he landed he spun his head around, looked me right in the eye, put his ears down and spit and yowled at me before heading on up the bank.  Jim was excited.  He’d never seen a bobcat in the flesh before.

There were quite a few deer out this time, since it was between 3:30 (when we left Yreka) and 5:15 as we drove home, which is dinner time for them.  We’d had to drive to Yreka on our way home to pick up my sewing machine that’s been in the shop.  Thankfully it was ready, and I can begin sewing tomorrow.

Our little grey fox just paid us a visit again.  I’m really surprised that she comes in the daytime sometimes, as you never see the red foxes except after dark.  We spread cracked corn under a large redwood just about 10 feet from my window in front of the computer, for the birds, and the foxes love the cracked corn!  I have a few photos on the other computer, but have to transfer them to a CD, since they are on a floppy, which is what that camera uses for storage, and this new computer doesn’t have a floppy drive.  Will try to get that done soon.

Jim’s heading out to Medford again tomorrow and then Yreka.  We’ve been trying to shop only every three weeks in town, and we made it this last time!  But, it takes so long to do all those appointments, it is just too long to shop, do errands and appointments all in one day, so he’s got to go back tomorrow, since he has some truck work to have done, and some other errands to do in both places.  Then we should be set until next month.  With the price of gas here now, we have to limit it to the least amount of trips we can.  In Medford it is about $2.69 a gallon, but Jim gets it for $2.63 in one out of the way place.  If you pass Medford by, and need some when you get over Mt. Ashland, you could stop at Hilt, the first little town in California, where you would pay $3.06 a gallon.  If you can make it to Yreka, it is $2.85 or so.  However, if you wanted to wait to get some in Seiad Valley or Happy Camp, at the cardlocks at each place, you would pay $2.99 a gallon at each of them.  Usually Happy Camp is higher and by tomorrow it may be again, who knows, but it is expensive!  If you buy it in Medford in our truck, by the time you get here you’ve already used ¼ tank, but we were able to make that one tank last better this time, since we eliminated at least one trip that would have cost us $80 or $90 for the trip.

This last month I set a goal to get a better handle on the side effects of this chemo so I could take it and get the most out of my life while I did so.  It has been playing havoc with my digestive system, with many problems, that spill over into what foods I eat, how I eat them, and having to keep very tuned into what my body is doing, as it tends to come and go a bit.

I want to thank all who sent recipes and advise on fruit drinks; by using the Ensure in them it has helped me to get protein in my body when I wasn’t allowed to eat hot or spicy foods at all, and was fighting a lot of nausea.  And, by working with the other things in my diet I was able to keep my weight exactly the same, which I was proud of.  They don’t want me to lose any of the weight I have, which I would like to do, but I certainly don’t want to gain any additional weight.  All in all, I have managed to do quite well with keeping it all under control, but the cycle will begin again in a few days, and I’ll have to start all over again.  My sleep patterns have been getting all messed up from side effects, medication, and whatever, so I’ve been working on them, because I can really see the difference when I can get enough sleep in one shot at night, rather than in snatches of an hour or two at most.  That starts with the steroid as a side effect, and then it is hard to break, because I go into a funk when I finish it, and all I want to do is sleep.  I’m having to work to stop that, and succeeded much better with it this round.

This next month I plan to do some sewing that has been needed for some time, to plant some flowers in pots and some veggies if I can get some wire to protect them from deer, but just going to put out pots on the deck, since we have so many deer here.

I am also going to work more on learning how to “live” with this chemo, and will begin again with my treadmill since I’m feeling better.  I know I’ll have some bad times again this month, but hope they will be further reduced and I’m hoping we can double the reduction in the tumors if I can succeed with all that.

I need to close this, it is time to eat and take my medicine, so I hope all of you out there are doing well, and I want to thank all of you for your kind thoughts and prayers, you can see they are making a difference.  It is just a miracle that some medication, with the Lord’s help and all your prayers, can help me at this point when my body is so weak and defenseless against this evil disease.  Please keep it up, we now have it on the run, so we need to redouble our efforts to get it moving faster in that direction.

You have all been such a blessing to me that I can never thank you enough.  I feel full of life again, although I still need the oxygen, and my body is very weak.  I feel so good inside, I know I can change the rest of it around with all your help, and the help of our Lord.  Jim and I are both so grateful to you all. 

Wishing all of you God’s peace,

Marcie

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James and Marcia Foley