"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God." - 2 Corinthians 1:3-4

Thankfully our day yesterday began with the amazing news from Dr. Peacock that all of my MRIs and the PET scan as well as the echo came back showing that the cancer has not spread to other pats of the body!!! PRAISE GOD! That was such a relief! So, I remain at stage 3.

My family is feeling this compassion from all of you! We have received so much support and love already! Thanks to the compassion of many, my first treatment day, yesterday was perfect! It was great to be with Pete all day and then visited by Chris Wilson, Mom and Dad- who brought me the Holy Eucharist, a spiritual bouquet from my sister's family, and much love, my brother Mike who happened to be working his rounds at Gwinnett Medical that day, and then my brother Gene and nephew Joseph to round out the family representation in the afternoon. I had just enough time in there to take a nap and even to enjoy a great Cuban lunch with my parents and Pete in the break room. As in usual fashion, my family managed to make a party out of the event. Praise God for a fun and loving family!

The nursing staff at the center was fabulous! They took such good care of me. They kept apologizing because my port was "positional" meaning that I had to be in a certain reclined position for it to work. They think I still had some swelling from the recent installation surgery on Monday. But I kept on explaining that it wasn't a bad thing to be told I had to recline in a comfy leather recliner for the day. God was telling me to rest! So, these are the reasons I ended up not blogging yesterday.

I was blessed to have been given some cold pack mittens and cold pack footies, by Julie, in order to protect my nails during the infusion of Taxatere. That is the very strong chemo that has caused some to experience discoloration or even loss of the nails. By having something cold on my nails I can work to hopefully stop those side effects and protect the nail cells. I am also taking steps to condition my nails often with a wonderful shea butter and lavender salve.

This morning I woke up at 2am ready to climb Stone Mountain! I am on steroids for three days around treatment to help my body cope with the chemo. Apparently they can make people feel agitated and revved up. I spent all morning working and talking! I did go for a nice a long walk which gave me great time to breathe and pray. I was then able to get a lot done!

This afternoon I went back to the cancer center for a Neulasta shot that is given 24hrs after each chemo treatment in order to boost my body's white blood cell count. It will force my bone marrow to produce white blood cells to hopefully avoid a dip in my counts. It is something recommended for those on strong chemo.

I am so appreciative of the amazing demonstration of love and support that I have received from all of my ESOL teacher friends!!! Today I spent quite some time opening up a ton of cards they had all brought to a meeting that I could not attend Tuesday night. Paul counted 22 cards!! They had even included gift cards to some of our favorite places and practical places. WOW! The generosity was quite overwhelming. Thank you to all who contributed. What is beautiful is to see how the boys are touched by the outpouring of love. They feel special also. Thank you for blessing them with that wonderful feeling!

We continue to strive to keep things around here as natural as possible both in routine and in the things we bring into our home and into our bodies. We are making a conscious effort to just live more healthy. It was time to go back to what we know is best. So, we are making our own hand sanitizers from the wonderful essential oils, and making our smoothies and juices, and just eating good food created by God. It is empowering to take more control of what goes into our bodies. If you have some great recipes to share that do not include sugar and do include fresh wholesome ingredients, we would love to hear them. I also welcome juicing recipes!

Thank you for keeping up the prayers. Be assured of my prayers for each of you!