Luck

I never considered myself to be lucky. The only thing I have ever won was a Berenstein Bear book during a Bronco Booty drawing in the first grade. I pretty much thought it was the best day ever. I got to leave class, go to the office, pick up my prize, and learn about strangers from Brother and Sister Bear. My little brother on the other hand, won a car in high school. Yes, that would be my life. Bought a new car, it got hit less than a week later. Both of our horses got out, but Mark's crossed the road safely. I won't bore you with the entire list. Mark, on the other hand, didn't seem to have luck at all. Good or bad. Most everything he has, he has gained through hard work. His life used to be quite boring. Oh boring, I miss you! The only sure thing about luck is that it changes sooner or later. For us, it seems to be sooner.

If you look back at one of my earlier posts, I mentioned a CT scan Mark had done the second day he was in the hospital. The scan went well overall, nothing too serious.  There was a benign looking blemish in his kidney, and a lesion on his hip bone. The lesion was EXACTLY where Dr. Hancock took the bone marrow biopsy, so it seemed too coincidental that the one lesion that showed up happened to be the one place biopsied. Literally, there was a one in a million chance that Mark's bone marrow biopsy would come back positive. We felt assured, and put it out of our minds. Fast forward about two weeks, and as luck would have it, Dr. Hancock indeed took a biopsy of the one lesion Mark had. Yes, Mark's biopsy came back positive. GRRRRRR.

Before I could get too down on our luck, our amazing doctor put it into a new perspective for us. Had he taken the biopsy from Mark's right hip, the results would not have been the same. We would not have had  the entire picture or location of the cancer. Mark would have done 6 cycles and we would have called it good. Sometime later, the cancer would have come back. Honestly, I can't think of anything more depressing than thinking you were done, only to have it come back later. We want this gone--for good. So, this does change Mark's treatment plan. His cancer went from a stage 2B to a stage 4B. We have learned the numbers don't matter much, just Mark's response to treatment. Since his cancer is  fast growing, it also responds quickly and correctly to chemo. That doesn't change with the new development. However, we jumped immediately to 8 cycles. Mark will also receive chemo directly into his spinal fluid affectionately known as a 'back poke". He will get this each time he goes in for his regular chemo treatments. With good advice and reasoning from the doctor, these lumbar punctures will make sure the chemo gets into the central nervous system, a sneaky place where sneaky cancer cells like to lurk undetected, only to manifest themselves at a later date. The bone marrow bridges a nice pathway for cancer cells to infect the central nervous system, even though Mark's initial spinal fluid test came back negative. As I said before, we would rather go overboard and be sure we sought out and killed every possible cell, than leave some of them hanging around to haunt us later.

I told Mark we should think about buying a lottery ticket tonight since we seemed to be the "one' in the one in a million chance. I guess this luck thing has two sides. It is bad that Mark's cancer is further reaching, but how lucky are we that Dr. Hancock biopsied the EXACT location of the lesion? How lucky are we that we caught it now rather than later? How lucky are we that we have a great clinic here in the sticks with amazing physicians and staff? How lucky are we that we are surrounded by amazing family and friends? I won't consider us cursed with bad luck quite yet. In fact, each day Mark and I realize more and more that there isn't much luck in life at all. I remember when I was little, I used to think how lucky that Samuel the Lamanite guy was that not one of those arrows hit him...I missed the boat on that one for awhile (this was around the same time that I thought  "By this 'shalmenno' --ye are my disciples " was some special one word scripture phrase and the coolest part of the song.) Heavenly Father is pretty mindful of us and miracles happen everyday.

Speaking of amazing friends and miracles, we had few brighten our day. One woman, who is struggling with infertility and just got back from her second round of invitro, brought us an amazing care package. How thoughtful considering she has enough on her plate. We also had some special visitors, whom we love, bring both Mark and I our own packages. Don't tell Mark, mine is totally cooler, but his IS special. How many people can say they have a personalized throw-up bucket complete with a handle.

As you can see, the inside even has instructions. I am considering putting a similar message in the bottom of the toilet.  My favorite part was the liter measurements on the side. If Mark starts hitting those numbers, we might be in big trouble. There are even perfect little bags we can use to line the bucket. How clever is that? We hope he doesn't have to use it too much. We will see how this second round goes.

On a completely random note, when I went to get the mail yesterday, I heard some commotion behind me. When I turned around this is what I saw:

That would be my totally cute dog wondering when I was going to come and let her out of her kennel. The snow falls off the roof and piles up so she can reach. She usually isn't tall enough to peek over like that. It made me laugh just a little. I wish more people got that excited to see me. If Mandi had a dog as cool as mine, she wouldn't hate them so bad:) AND she would let it sleep in the laundry room if it was super cold and had arthritis. Mandi, I am just sayin!