Cancer- A deal Breaker?

My recent diagnosis of thyroid cancer has come as quite a shock.  I was honestly expecting the doctor to say my incision was healing great, all results came back benign and now lets start replacement hormone. However he actually had the guts to say, "It was cancerous." How dare he!?!?!

I have papillary thyroid cancer. Which is the kind you want to have. :) I don't know if you can actually "want to have" it, but if you have to have the big C word. This is a good one to get. It was caught early through a yearly doctor visit, hasn't spread and is very treatable! That is great news. So the deal is, I get all the life lessons that come along with having cancer, but not all the total scariness. Yes, a bit scary to think about but it really could be so much worse.

One of the things that worried me was that we would not be eligible to adopt now that we had a cancer diagnosis. After I realized my prognosis was very good that thought really gave me the worst feeling.

I called our case worker and broke the bad news to her. Waiting to hear what she had to say, I was hoping for the best but ready for the worst. She is really so nice, worried about me, how is the family, how am I feeling. Ya, Ya, Ya..... I was thinking. Is it a deal breaker?

She said that our timing was perfect (we all know that is God's perfect timing). Not so very long ago all cancer diagnosis would immediatly make a family ineligible until there was 10 years of remission. However, now there is one that they look at on a case by case basis. What is the ONE, you ask? Yes, it is mine. Thyroid Cancer. It is the one kind a potential adoptive parent can get and not be immediatly thrown out of the program. Praise the Lord!!

After all my radiation we have to have the doctors fill out some papers and write some letters, and as long as I have a clean bill of health and a good prognosis, things should be fine. We are blessed that we are not super close to the top of the waiting list because we couldn't get a referral until all treatment was done and all paperwork complete. I got this at the best time, we should have no trouble having all this done before it is our turn to know which little girl is ours.

Thanks for prayers; they are already working in regard to our adoption. I am feeling good. I just am getting low on energy because I have no thyroid hormones at the moment. So that's exciting......get to gain weight and have not energy. Yuck! :(  Hoping by beginning of August to be totally cancer free, get on replacement hormone, shed a few pounds and have enough energy to chase my kiddos around.

Life Book Entry #2

Some time ago, I copied into this blog the very first entry I typed into our Life Book. For those of you that are not familar a Life Book is a book that chronicles the story of our adopted daughter's journey to and in our family. Much like a baby book with a different spin for adopted children.

Below is the lastest entry that I typed, printed and put into her Life Book, scrapbook. It just shares our heart with our little girl and with you. Maybe when she is 15 and full of attitude thinking no one loves her, she can look through this pages and see way back in May 2012, we wanted her.

Dear Sweet Girl,

Each month we get an email telling us about how Ethiopian adoptions are going: the pace of the process and what number we are on the waiting list.

It seems to us that the list is not getting short enough fast enough, because we want to meet you, hold you and add you to our family pictures right now.

We also know that you may not be born yet, and so the list cannot move too fast because we are meant to be matched with YOU. In short, we know God has already matched us. So, really the timing is perfect.

Connor drew a picture in his kindergarten class of our family from shortest to tallest, and he included you (of course you were the shortest). Kellen continues to want to buy you an outfit every time we are in the store, and Grady “practices” holding any baby he can so he “will be good with you.”

Every night when the six of us say prayers together, we pray for you and your birth family. We know they are special people who wanted the absolute best for their little girl. What a selfless thing they will do! We will not take that act for granted and will be forever grateful that you are a Dunlea.

Love Mom, Dad and the boys.

Working Cows

We just had a wonderful weekend working cows: branding the babies and giving the mom's their vitamin shots and such, before they head out to get fat on grass for the summer. It is nice to be at a stage (for a while) where there is no baby crawling in the dirt, and for the most part the boys know where they can go and where they can't. Makes the time much more enjoyable for mom. It was a time to enjoy working with friends and be thankful for the calf crop that we have.

Grady was actually very helpful this year. For the first time, we turned the 7 year old out to ride his horse with the big boys. He helped sort and move the cows and calves in and out of the work area. His horse JD is the best horse in the world for a young guy: smart, and responsive to Grady and the ultimate in chill.

Love the hat! Of course, he would not go look for the one that was not beat up and destroyed. Oh Well!

We even let them run the hot shot and move the cows up the shoot. It was nice that they did a great job and had fun working.

Part of this year's calf crop.

Our Brand. Dennis got this a few years before we were married. He had a hard time finding a brand that was approved by the Ag department. Finally, was able to get this for, Dennis Jeremiah Dunlea. I say it was God's divine intervention, because now it stands for Dennis and Jana Dunlea:)





Doctor Update 2

Thanks everyone for your thoughts and prayers. I had a nice appointment yesterday with Dr. Orlando. It turns out there are no nodules on the left side of my thyroid, which is a big answer to prayer. The plan is that I will have the large nodule and the right half of my thyroid removed on May 31. While I am under, they will quickly send the mass to pathology to see if it is cancerous. If it is, the doc will take out all of my thyroid, if not he'll just stitch me up.

The reason thyroid cancer is a "nice one to have" is because the treatment is so specialized, that the medicine to kill all the thyroid cells does not effect any other systems in the body. It is a very advanced cancer treatment. There is still only about 1/3 chance that it is even cancerous, but if it is, it is really easy to treat.

One night in the hospital and a week or so off, and I will be back to full swing (or close to it).

Thanks for your prayers. Love to you all.

Doctor Update 1

As some of you may know, I have been visiting the doctor a bit more than normal lately. In fact, visiting at all is rare for me. I am a very healthy person, thanks be to God. Sometimes I will even extend my yearly visit a bit long, just because time slips away, but I was a good girl and went just recently. At my routine check-up they found a nodule on my thyroid. I went the next day to have an ultrasound of the nodule. That is where the tech asked me, "Are you tried a lot, because your thyroid is large?" After a bit of a laugh, I said, "That may have nothing to do with my thyroid, I have 4 kids under 8, a farming, coaching football husband, a part-time job and a house to run."  "YA, I am tired."

Anyway, back to my point. It turns out that my thyroid is not large, just the nodule attached to my thyroid is large. So, the next step was to have a biopsy. I did that, and the results we inconclusive. There are some suspect tissues on the nodule that always present as be begnign, but could be cancerous. The only way to tell is to look at it. Some how pretty soon they are going to look at it and let me know.

I decided to blog this before my meeting with the surgeon tomorrow, just to record the events of this journey as they unfold. I am told, and through my research have discovered, that thyroid nodules are very common and most are not cancerous. But if it does happen to be cancerous, it is the kind of cancer you want (if that makes any sense). They will remove all or part of my thyroid, which I hope to learn more about tomorrow.

So, for know, please pray that the nodule is gone. If God chooses to let it be there, then please pray that only 1/2 my thyroid needs to be taken out, and it is not cancerous. Of course, many people are walking around with no thyroid and take medicine everyday....there are worse things. If it needs taken out, it will be OK. But since we are praying, lets pray that I keep some of that little thing God gave me, and my life is not inconvenienced in the least:)

More to come later. Thanks for your prayers.

Life Book

Every book Dennis and I have read about adoption, it has been suggested that we keep a Life Book about the adoption journey and about our adopted child. This is very similar to a baby book, I think, but a little more important because of some of the questions and uncertainty that naturally come along with being an adopted child. The goal is that this book is a reference of words and pictures that will always be there to let our daughter know her history and as much as possible about her life.

Today, I bought a bright pink scrapbook album with butterflies and hearts and started our Life Book for our little girl. Below is what is written on the very first page.

Dear Precious Little Girl,                                                                 2-4-2012

Daddy and I decided to keep a journal about your arrival into our lives. So, I sit down today to write the first entry.

Before daddy and I got married we talked about adoption being something we both wanted to do. We did not know when or how, but we knew it was something we were both interested in.

It was the summer of 2011 and the topic of conversation came up in a more serious manner: When will we adopt? We had your brothers biologically and could have had more, but did not want to add to our family in that way. We wanted to find you. So in July we contacted All God’s Children, filled out the first of many pieces of paper work, and started on this journey to get you home.

As I sit here today, I do not know you, I don’t know your name, and I have never seen your picture. You may not even be born yet. But, I believe our God in heaven knows you, He has picked you for us and us for you, He knows your name, your favorite food, He knows how fast you will be able to run down our driveway, and He knows how much we will love you. Your brothers and our hearts are excited to meet you and are filled with love for the sister we do not know yet. Can’t wait to hold you!

                                                           

Love, Mom and Dad

One Dirty Car

The boys and I were on our way home from helping daddy work cows: branding new ones, taking out old tags, tagging new ones, vitamin shots etc. Well, I had planned to go, hang out a bit and then leave, but ended up actually getting my hands dirty, which I do really enjoy most of the time. It is a bit hard with Kellen and Keagan on the loose, but they are at the age where they stay back quite a long way. Grady gets a stick and helps move them up the shoot. Connor will help most of the time, but he is our moody one, so today he was not overly helpful.

Back to my original thought. On our way home we stopped to get milkshakes as a small reward for being good and not causing trouble. Kellen was in the backseat with his, as I was walking into the restaurant to get the rest of our dinner to take home, he apparently was upset that his milkshake was stuck and wouldn't come up the straw. He shook it so hard that it "exploded" to quote Grady. When I opened the door and Grady informed me of this explosion, I was a bit confused until I saw the back window, Connor's shirt and hair, the backseat and the floor. Yes, chocolate milkshake everywhere! He shook it so vigorously that the lid came off and the tasty treat flew all over the third row of seats  in our Expedition.

Of course, this mess prompted me to clean the car out. The following is a list of what I found: unopened jar of mandarin oranges, advent calendar with chocolates inside, 2 footballs, 3 basketballs (full size), my coat cover in cow poop, 4 sweatshirts, 2 raincoats, child's pair of rubber boots, child's pair of cowboy boots, 5 hotwheel cars, plastic helicopter, pair of size 3T pants, preschool "I can cut" workbook, My brother's T-shirt, 5 socks, bag of flag football pictures that I still need to hand out to my players, 2 Bible coloring and activity books, mini "I love Jesus" beach ball, 2 backpacks, 2 stocking caps, toothbrush, football mouth piece, diaper bag, my school bag, one dirty pair of underwear, one clean pair of underwear, 3 reading books, one blanky and one suckie.

Yes, funny and shocking. I am not even mentioning the garbage items that I through away. All the above items made it into the house. I should be ashamed, but I'm not. My husband says he is embarrased for me:) I say, Oh well, that's life! It shows what is important to us, what we enjoy doing, and that we are not freaked out about cleanliness:)