Friday was wonderful . . . Praise the Lord!

Let me first tell you all what an incredible impact each of you have made on my family in the pass few days. You have shared personal stories of how cancer has effected your life and I thank you for passing on your strength to me and my family as we face this battle.



So here is where we stand as of Friday evening:

• I have Adenocarcinoma Cervical Cancer and I am at stage 1B1 . . .

In stage 1B the cancerous areas are larger, but the cancer is still only in the tissues of the cervix and has not usually spread. It can usually be seen without a microscope, but not always. In stage 1B1 the cancer is no larger than 4 centimetres (about 1.6 inches). In stage 1B2 the cancer is larger than 4cm across.

Stage 1 cervical cancer is generally treated with surgery or radiotherapy. But if you have stage 1B2 cervical cancer, your doctor may suggest combined chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

• Treatment : radical hysterectomy and bilateral lymph node dissection, results in a cure rates of 85% to 90% for patients with small volume disease. The size of the mass is between 3 to 4 cm. A randomized trial reported identical 5-year overall and disease-free survival rates when comparing radiation therapy to radical hysterectomy.


• They will send everything she removes to a pathologist. Who will let us know if the cancer as enter my lymph nodes.


• If it has entered my lymph nodes I will have to have a combined approach of chemotherapy with radiation therapy. I will not know this until around 5-7 days after the surgery.


• I will stay in the hospital for about 3-5 days, then come home with a catheter for 7 days. Yippee . . .Happy Birthday & Merry CHRISTmas to me! NOT!!!
• Recovery time will be a minimum of 6 weeks.
• Praise the Lord . . . My daughters do not have a risk of getting Adenocarcinoma Cervical Cancer from me.

Positive things:

• I got to pick the hospital: Saint Joseph's Hospital of Atlanta

Why? Because my Uncle (AKA . . . Unkie) was treated there for his cancer & for my extended family and friends who are Catholic, they should be proud to say Saint Joseph’s is Atlanta’s oldest and only Catholic hospital. Also, my mass is a vascular one (Tom & I got to see it (digital pictures) . . . no wonder I am bleeding like I am.) Saint Joseph’s performs approximately 1,600 vascular surgery procedures per year – more than any other hospital in metro Atlanta and Georgia.

For all my HISTORY / American Girl students at Timothy Ministry . . . click on this link to read about it's History: http://www.stjosephsatlanta.org/about/history.html I thought it was a cool story about caring for others. Kind of like what we do each session at Timothy through our service projects.

Things I am happy about and I hope that you will smile right along with me:

• I am going to have a pain button . . . every time I feel pain, I can just press it and I will receive some gooooood drugs! :)
• I am going to have cable for a few days . . . for you who don't know . . . we don't have cable at home. It is always one of the families highlight when we go on vacation.
• Go ahead be prepared to laugh . . . . At the end, I had one last question for the Doctor . . . she leaned forward, thinking it was an intense question . . . then I said "Does the Hospital have wi-fi in the rooms?" Then the room was filled with laughter :) Got to have my lap top.

Tom and I are so grateful for your support through your prayers . . .keep them coming. We will update you more after Monday when we will be given the date of the surgery . . . it will be with in the week.

Resting in HIS arms,

Trina