melanoma wife: "The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit." Psalm 34:18

LEARN THE ABCDEF'S OF MELANOMA!!! EARLY DETECTION IS THE KEY!

Sunday, April 25, 2010

"The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit." Psalm 34:18

Today my heart is completely broken and my spirits crushed....more than any day since Marcus left us. Sitting at the table with my brothers-in-law and their families for lunch-I am overcome with emotion and have to run to the restroom. Marcus should be sitting next to me. He should be ordering lunch with me. We should be talking, holding hands, sharing stories....but he is not there. So the rest of my day has been crying, crying and more crying....my head hurts from so much crying. I miss him so much. I miss our life together before he got sick. I miss him holding me. I miss his love. Will I ever know love like that again?

The girls don't want to obey me-I guess they feel like since their daddy is gone they don't have to listen anymore....I feel lost, empty, sad, frustrated, angry, depressed......will this ever go away?

I know the Lord is close to me and saving me...He is the only way I am making it through each day. I know God has a plan. I know He will never leave me. After Pastor Ron's sermon today, I also know that I must patiently wait for God's plan and not try to make things happen on my time. So I will wait. As long as it takes, and pray nonstop for strength and more strength to get through days like I have had today.

Please pray for me. My heart is broken-my spirit crushed.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...: I love you baby. I wish there was just something I could do. Pray I will. I love you and I'm always here for you. Aunt Kel; April 25, 2010 at 10:23 PM
Nicholson Photography said...: My heart hurts for you my friend. I want you to know that even though we all look up to you, your strength, your faith, your hope...We don't expect you to be 100% everyday. Days like today are going to happen. This wasn't your first bad day, and it probably won't be your last. Remember your words..."Marcus Allen Stanley made [you] a strong woman. He told [you] often that [you] could do anything. He taught [your]daughters the same. That through Christ, [you] could do it-nothing was impossible." YOU WILL GET THROUGH THIS. IT WILL GET BETTER. And when the girls drive you crazy, let them come play with Emily while you go home and take a long hot bath!; April 25, 2010 at 10:29 PM
Anonymous said...: Praying.
Janine; April 26, 2010 at 7:59 AM
Julie said...: Thank you for being so honest and showing raw emotion. I believe that is part of the healing process as well. My heart aches for you. I will continue to pray for you. Love you!; April 26, 2010 at 3:11 PM
Anonymous said...: Day by day my friend
day by day.... :)
love Myrna; April 28, 2010 at 10:27 AM
The Jolly Mon said...: Jesus told her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying. Everyone who lives in me and believes in me will never ever die. Do you believe this, Martha?”

Oh, no, you never let go. Lord, you never let go of me.; May 4, 2010 at 3:20 PM

how it all began-the "mole" story

well, just for those that don't already know-here is how this journey began. it all started with a little mole that marcus had since birth, on his thumb. in early 2007, i noticed that it had started to change-it was bigger and part of it was black and part was brown-i really didn't know much about melanoma, but i remember the way it looked-it reminded me of the mole on my niece's foot that a dr. removed when she was small, because he said if they didn't remove it, most definitely it would turn cancerous when she went through puberty. ANYWAYS, so i began nagging sweet hubby to go get it looked at. of course, he kept saying, "it's no big deal, i have had this mole since i was born-it's fine". so life went on.

well, hubby works with his hands since he is a machinist, and he bumped the mole-it bled-it grew bigger. a few months later, he bumped it at work AGAIN-it bled-it grew bigger-and now it actually started to bother him. it was sensitive.

one day out of the blue he called me from work-and asked me to make an appt. for him to go to the dr. to get the mole removed. THANK GOD! so of course i got right on that phone and made him an appt. first call to his current primary care phys. was a joke-they couldn't see him for at least another week or so because they were only seeing flu patients on fridays (the only weekday hubby has off) and didn't feel his mole was anything to fret about! well, i sure thought it was and called my primary care phys.-she had no problem seeing him on friday like he wanted!

sure enough, once he saw her, she didn't like the looks of the mole and immediately sent him to a dermatologist. and only by God's hand guiding-did she decide to NOT wait 3-6 months for a dermatolgist in beaumont to get an opening-but she sent him to a dr. in mid-county-that she didn't even know-she had just received his business card in the mail the week before-and decided since he could work hubby in so quickly-that he was the ONE!!! THANK YOU GOD!!!!

well, the next week came-marcus went to the dermatologist-wanting to get that mole removed!! to his surprise-the dr. wanted to biopsy it-he didn't like the looks of it either. (do you see a pattern here? sweet wife was on to something !) he talked the med. asst. lady into cutting as much of the mole off as she could-and she did-we later found out that she removed all the cancer from the thumb with that biopsy! one week later, we were told that the biopsy showed malignant melanoma and they sent us straight to MD Anderson in Houston!!!! talk about scary!

the medical oncologist explained that the type of cancer he had was called superficial spreading melanoma-and it liked to spread to the lymph nodes-so he suggested a partial amputation of the thumb-to make sure he got all the cancer-and a sentinal node biopsy-to see which, if any lymph nodes had cancer- Marcus wanted to save his thumb-so that is what they did. the dr. removed the margin around what was left of the mole-and took a skin graft from the side of his stomach to rebuild the thumb. this all healed very well.

they did the sentinal node biopsy and found that there was one lymph node under his arm that had cancer-it ended up having 20 cells in it-so they suggested he remove all the lypmh nodes from under his arm. he did this and all the other nodes came back CANCER FREE!!!!!!!

now they also suggested he do 4 weeks of high dose interferon to kill any cells that may have gotten loose from that node-to prevent this monster from coming back. they also want him to do 11 months of the interferon shots-but we don't know how far he will go with those. all depends on how sick they make him-and if they are anything like the high dose-he may only go 2 weeks.**MARCUS COMPLETED 4 WEEKS OF HIGH DOSE INTERFERON AND DID THE SHOTS 3/WEEK FOR ABOUT 3 MONTHS BEFORE HE STOPPED**

we later discovered that once the cancer has spread to lymph nodes closest to the mole, it is considered stage III-no one ever really told us this-we had to learn on our own.***UPDATE-8-31-09 LUNG METS WERE DISCOVERED SO MARCUS WAS UPGRADED TO STAGE IV***
***AFTER IL-2 AND SEVERAL CHEMO COMBOS, MARCUS LOST HIS BATTLE 4-1-2010. MELANOMA SUCKS!!!***

this is a brief outline of the "mole" story-hope it was easy to follow-and hope it makes everyone think twice about their moles!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! PLEASE LEARN ABOUT MELANOMA-IT IS NOT "JUST" SKIN CANCER!!!!!

melanoma wife

OUR FAMILY

LEARN THE ABCDEF'S OF MELANOMA!!! EARLY DETECTION IS THE KEY!

Learn more about Melanoma and share the knowledge with others

Sunday, April 25, 2010

"The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit." Psalm 34:18

6 comments:

Facebook Badge

About Me