The Bear

This past spring, my mother-in-law recommended I listen to The Book of Polly by Kathy Hepinstall. It was delightful, and throughout most of June I dawdled many extra minutes in my car listening to the narrator tell the story of Willow and her mother Polly, a seventy-ish Texas woman with spit and vinegar to spare. Polly has plenty of quirks, one of which is her refusal to say the word "cancer." She simply substitutes the word "bear"--breast bear, bone bear, blood bear, or in the case of poor uncle so-and-so, heinder bear (my personal favorite).

At the time, I thought it was funny. I still do. But now, I can see where Polly is coming from.

Not long after finishing The Book of Polly, I had an MRI on my left shoulder in preparation for surgery to fix a fraying tendon. That MRI showed an enlarged lymph node under my arm, which my orthopedist said was probably nothing, but I should get checked out. So I took the results to my primary care doctor, and because we were only days away from leaving for a month in Utah, we decided I should get it looked at there rather than wait until I returned to Texas in August. My father-in-law hooked me up with one of his doctor colleagues, and in the middle of July, I had a needle biopsy on the node. It came back "irregular", but there wasn't enough tissue to determine exactly what type of irregular we were dealing with. The node needed to be removed in order to learn more.

The day we returned to Texas, I called my doctor here and took the images and records of that biopsy straight to his office. They referred me to a oncologist breast surgeon, as they were concerned the node was so near a cluster of nerves and wanted to be sure the surgeon had plenty of experience in that area. Dr. Seda was awesome and explained that lymph nodes tend to collect cancers from other places, so she ordered a breast MRI and a PET scan to see if there was evidence of cancer in my lungs, breast, thyroid, or the skin on my arm--all places that would feed into this weird node. Both scans came back negative. A huge relief in the Bitner household.

But the node was still there, and it was still "irregular," so at the beginning of September, I had surgery to have it removed. Four days later, we got the crushing news. The cancer is melanoma, and since the only melanoma I've had is from my right foot eleven years ago, it is metastatic--it has spread.

I have since learned that melanoma is a nasty, crafty cancer. The little spot removed from my foot was less than a millimeter thick--and tests at the time showed it was not in my lymph nodes--but it was deep enough to find its way into my blood stream. It has been lurking about my insides all these years, swimming around and looking for someplace to land. Unfortunately, it has now landed. Not only is it in the lymph node under my arm, it is also in my brain and liver.

It sucks.

In the last three weeks, there have been lots of tears--LOTS of tears--lots of doctor visits, and lots and lots of prayers and love directed at our family. We made the rookie mistake of googling metastatic melanoma, which sent us into a tailspin (on the advice of Brad's friend and former boss whose husband fought a fourteen-year cancer battle, we now have a no googling pact). Thankfully, so many people were right there with hugs and tears and flowers and notes that we were able to move past that initial misery after only a couple of days. It is unbelievable how much prayer and expressions of love work. I have physically felt myself spiritually lifted--it's unlike anything else I've ever experienced. Love is powerful, y'all. That's all I can say.

We are now on the brink of beginning treatment. The plan is to start with radiation on the brain lesions. We'll do stereotactic radiosurgery (I think that's how it's spelled--remember, no googling), which is a very precise technique that targets the individual spots with a super-powered ray rather than radiating the whole brain in a series of lower doses. It scares me, but sounds like the best idea. After that, we'll attack the liver lesions systemically with immunotherapy. The doctors are still gathering data to figure out what will work best there. It's also possible I'll do radiation on the site of the lymph node, just to zap that all clean, but for now, fighting the brain and liver bears are our top priority.

I don't know what the next several weeks will hold, but Brad and I feel a lot of hope. We have a sense of deep confidence in the plan the doctors have proposed, which I believe is spurred on by the Holy Ghost answering prayers. My biggest concern is for my children. The night we told them about the cancer was easily the worst night of my life. No mother should have to watch her children's hearts break right before her eyes, especially if--even inadvertently--she is the cause. I wish I could erase those minutes from my heart.

You're reading this, so I'll assume you care about our little family. If you're the praying type, please include Brad and my kids in your prayers. They need to know they are loved by more than just me. And if you care to pray for me, please ask that I can sleep--my worries and a medication I'm taking to keep the swelling down in my brain are keeping me awake at night. Alone in the dark with my thoughts for hours is not a good place, and I would love some rest.

Mostly, though, thank you for caring enough to read through all this. I can't repeat it enough--prayers work. And simple, sincere kindness somehow obliterates the darkest fears.

Love is powerful, y'all.

Today was the last time I will watch one of my children in the Primary program. Thank you, Lukie, for keeping me young as long as you could.

While on the other end of the spectrum...

Pepper was ordained an elder in preparation for his upcoming service mission with the LDS Welfare system. Man, I love these two!

It's a bit ridiculous how much I love watching this little guy play baseball. Thank heaven they have both Fall and Spring leagues around here. I couldn't wait a whole year in between.

This weekend, Brad, Pepper, and Adam drove down to Houston to help LDS Helping Hands with the hurricane cleanup. They came back exhausted and smelly, but feeling good.