is you ask of me. I will not ask any questions. I will not complain. I will do exactly as you wish. Just tell me what it is I need to do to survive this. I have three children to raise.? And that is what I have done. To this day I have followed each and every piece of advice, order, perspective and treatment step to my best ability to assure my health and my survival! Keith, Blake and I returned to my house where my parents were distracting my kiddos. We told them that the doctor felt the cancer was contained. I remember my father bursting into tears. As he wept he told my loved ones in that room "I never thought I would be so happy that my daughter has cancer and that the cancer she has hasn't spread.? November 18, 2006 - Saturday. Cell phone rings again. It's another unfamiliar number. The voice on the other end was that of an upbeat, positive, intelligent woman named Dr. Jerri Fant. She is a well-known, brilliant breast surgeon and she wanted to help me. Wow. I have the best medical team in the entire world. She scheduled me an office visit for Tuesday. November 21, 2006 - Meet with Dr. Jerri Fant Love this woman! Ends up we went to high school together and have a lot of mutual acquaintances. I love her enthusiasm, empathy, and youth. She schedules me for lumpectomy and sentinel node biopsy where she will remove the remaining positive margins (cancer) and lymph nodes to test for cancer. She is in search of negative margins. November 22, 2006 - Informing Others Time to inform friends and family of what is going on and to clear up any rumors that might be going around. I send an email: "Hi friends! I just want to explain exactly what is going on... 1. I have breast cancer. 2. I will undergo one more surgery in a week, which is the lymph node biopsy, then start chemotherapy. After 6 months or so, I will end this fight with either 3 short months of radiation or a double mastectomy. 3. I am going to be fine. The next year will suck. But I am going to be fine. My friends are just amazing. I am crying while writing this because I am absolutely stunned at the support, prayers, food, flowers, phone calls, emails, etc. that everyone has sent. UNBELIEVABLE! Words of encouragement and positive thoughts have helped me get through the scariest days of my life. December 4, 2006 - Lumpectomy and sentinel node biopsy Dr. Fant was waiting for me. I was so thankful to have her comforting voice and familiar eyes. I'm so grateful she was part of my team. Results: clear, negative margins. Stage of diagnosis: I Line of Therapy: adjuvant December 21, 2006 - visit with Brad Baltz to make a plan Decided on 16 chemotherapy treatments: 4 adriamycin and cytoxan treatments every other week, 12 weeks taxol and taxotere regimen. January 8, 2007 - Lunch with Blake at Cheer's This was the most significant conversation I have ever had in my life. Blake decided to talk with me before my first chemotherapy. He had nursed and cared for his mother, his best friend, while she was undergoing treatment for ovarian cancer - the cancer that would eventually take her life. Her spirit lived on and her disease didn't jar the faith she gave her son. He has a deep belief in God and His will. I'm not quite sure of how I feel about God. I'm not angry with Him and I haven't questioned Him. No reason to, really, as it is what it is. I can't hide under the covers and pretend this isn't happening. It is time to put my big girl panties on and deal with it! So with my extra large, jumbo drawers I walked into Cheer's for a meeting with my best friend. Blake expressed that when you hand over everything to God, you give him the control; let him see with it the way he intends to, the chaos and disorder in your life will all settle. Things would eventually make sense. At first I chuckled at Blake's naivety, his far-fetched and much less conventional views of our Creator. I was born and raised in the Roman Catholic Church where we believe in more conservative ways God presents his love to us. He continued to present things to me in a much less conventional way. Telling me that God's plan is already set for us and the decisions we make are all a part of his inherent trip, specifically designed for each individual. Hmmm! Now let's see here - I make my own decisions, right? But I have to say in Blake's defense it seems to me, today, that he was foreshadowing and accurate in his assessments. Everything happens for a reason. It's quite cliché, but true. January 10, 2007 - placement of medi-port and first chemotherapy Another surgery for medi-port placement. Dr. Fant was there as they put me to sleep. After waking up, Keith took me directly to HOSA. I was lead to a private chemotherapy room in the back where my chemo nurse, Ginger, tapped into my port for the first of many times. It would eventually be punctured through my right upper chest just above my collar bone. She turned on the I.V. pump and let it drip. The first chemotherapy I was given was Adriamycin or "the red devil.? The second was cytoxan. The cytoxan burned terribly as it slowly flooded through my veins. It felt as if I had just inhaled wasabi. A migraine set in, as did the nausea, and as the day wore on, so did the fear and anxiety of what I was doing to my body. The poison inside of me was destroying every cell. Good and bad. That night was another story and one in which is hard to touch on. It was like the scene from the movie "Dying Young? with Julia Roberts caring for Campbell Scott as he endured chemotherapy. I recall the scene with the sweating and vomiting and mind-boggling craziness in his head. All the chemicals attacking his entire being both physically and mentally. This was the scene in my own bathroom this horrific evening. January 17, 2007 - visit with Brad Baltz Good counts today. I really like the staff here. All my nurses are fantastic! Dr. Baltz is a super nice guy. I'm not sure what he thinks of me not that it matters; he is, after all, just my oncologist, right? The guy that is going to cure me-save my life-enable me to raise my children-and give me my crazy life back? January 23, 2007 - Surprise party at The Fountain I'm feeling much better now. More like me and more at ease with what I am going through. Keith feels we should get out and go to The Fountain for a beer and to unwind. As we walked in I saw my friends and family as well as the staff wearing baseball hats. The khaki hat had "gococo? embroidered in pink. This is the first time I cried. I saw my brother, David, first. He grabbed me as I fell weeping into his arms. The outpouring of love, care, generosity of the ones I love was very evident to me at that exact moment. I then realized that life had dealt me a difficult hand and that my strength and courage to fight this battle was made possible by their support and prayers. As Jimmy Buffet so eloquently wrote "breathe in, breathe out, move on.? And this is exactly what I was going to do. January 24, 2007 - 2nd chemotherapy and shaved head This chemo was much easier. I didn't have the apprehension and fear that I had the first time. Ginger, in the chemo room, was very comforting. She was attentive and smart. I trusted her to give me the poisons. Weird, huh? This evening was when I decided to shave my head. I had just grown my hair out, ironically, for Locks of Love. I had just cut it three weeks before diagnosis. As I took my morning shower, a clump of hair fell out of my head. I will never forget how wet, scratchy, yet slippery it felt. My hair slid down the back of my neck, over my shoulder blade, making its way over the small of my back and only to make an ear-piercing "thud? on the shower floor. I knew I had to shave off the remaining head of hair. I knew I could not ever feel that helpless and sad again. So we did it. Me, Keith, our kids, Dave, Ellen, John, Trace, Brad, Betsy and Buff all did it! Emphasis on the we. Keith took a couple of shots of tequila, I took a couple of xanax and we let it roll. We all took turns with the shears. I'm reveling in this, as it was a definitive rite of passage for me. It may seem odd to most people but it was a huge release and relief. It was a wonderful yet strange sense of accomplishment, and for the first time in months, I actually felt completely in control of myself, my body and my actions. I am the boss, I thought. I am in the driver's seat now. Watch out cancer! You are in a fight for your existence in MY body! I am going to win this war. January 31, 2007 - Dr. Brad Baltz prescribed Effexor February 1, 2007 - hat and scarf party at Ciao Baci A celebration of my baldness! My girlfriends put together an evening of fun complete with hats and scarves. Some were funny, some serious. It began to snow and it was beautiful. I felt beautiful. I had strength, courage and a bald head. I was happy and weightless-almost floating. These important women in my life were all celebrating me. And the snow - God performing for us all! February 7, 2007 - 3rd chemotherapy As I was sitting in the waiting room a friend from my past approached me. It was David Eddington. I had not seen David in over a year but had heard via the water cooler that he had been diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. David and I had lived next door to one another in our younger years and were close friends. Here, we were neighbors in the oncology office. We visited while we waited. This day would be the first of many treatments we would take together. My renewed friendship with David was my next life-changing stop on this journey for survival. If I could change one piece of this story it would be to give David life. February 21, 2007 - last chemo treatments Thank God this part is over! The migraines are terrible. I am weak and tired. Brad is giving me the month off from chemo. I get to celebrate my birthday chemical- free, chemo-free! Four weeks off before I start the next regimen, one chemo treatment each week for 12 weeks. March 15, 2007 - 1st Taxotere treatment Wasn't near as bad at the A/C regimen. But would eventually tear me down into nothing. The next 12 weeks were grueling. I was getting weaker and sicker. My skin was gray, and I had finally lost my eyebrows, eyelashes and eventually my fingernails turned black and wanted to fall away. I was a cancer patient. I looked and felt like a dying woman. March 22, 2007 - May 31, 2007 Taxol and Taxotere treatments May 31, 2007 - last chemo, scans today - all good. Officially put into remission by Brad Baltz This is the day we had all been waiting for my 16th and final chemotherapy treatment, a full set of scans, and hopefully, a remission status put in my chart. Everything went exactly as hoped. Brad officially put me into remission. As my last dosage of chemo went into my port, he spoke to me of my strength. He said I was an amazing patient. Hmm?! As if I had a choice? I did it though, the way I said I would with no questions and no complaints. He told me he wanted me to lose the 28 pounds I had gained due to the steroids. I needed to drop the weight to ensure accuracy as well as ease on my body as it endured the next huge step in recovery-my double mastectomy. I had 4 weeks to lose it. I was pissed. When asked how he intended for me to lose that weight he told me to walk. I couldn't even walk to the damn car 45 Inviting Arkansas

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