Are you ready for this? The Power of Prayer and Positivity is ALIVE AND ACTIVE and all of you are part of the first phase of our Miracle!

     Ok People, I have always believed that if you put yourself in a box, that safe little place that is nice but doesn't leave room for Excellence of any kind, you are bound to get by just fine, sure... However,  if you fully believe, push the envelope, accept nothing mediocre, believe in miracles, and DREAM BIG you always end up in a place that is so wonderful it's almost surreal.  Even when people think you have lost your mind and are a little unsure where your enthusiasm comes from you keep believing.  Sooner or later you are bound to see greatness in your lifetime.  Greatness is here People. Miracles are happening and it's because of the power of positivity,  prayer, and the goodness of the human spirit that I am sitting here writing this at this moment. I'm in complete and utter shock.

     Once I found out that Biochemo was my path, I was self admittedly anxious.  Ok, I was petrified.   I have been praying, willing, visualizing, meditating, you name it pretty much escorting this melanoma bastard out of my body.  I had a couple of calls into MDA today (Friday) 1. for my anxiety, and 2. to hear the report of my tests from wed.  Results still were not in this morning.  I was told to call back around noon so I decided to get in the shower and just push through the day.  While in the shower, I noticed...

Holy Cow!  What you ask?

It was the ....

                                        Ichthys

      I know if may sound weird, but I swear it was perfectly shaped (hair) and to me, it was a message that no matter how hard the fight, I will be protected and I'm not alone.  Remember, this was the morning when I found this sign in the soap dish of my shower.  At 5pm, Dr. Kim called me personally.  Not his nurse, not a PA, Dr. Kim directly.  The news he had for me was so amazing that it felt like a prayer had been answered.  He said that the results of my CT scan showed my lung nodules and liver tumor showing considerable shrinkage on their own without any chemo. A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!  

     Dr. Kim said that he doesn't want to start biochemo on Tues. because he didn't want their to be any confusion whether or not it was my body shrinking the tumors or the chemo.  Music to my ears.  Best News EVER!  I fell to the ground in a puddle of tears so completely in shock and relieved by the news.  I ran down and cried to Jeff, to mom, and then immediately ran across the street to the neighbors to share the great news.

     Basically how it was described to me was that because I was pregnant during the time my re-occurrence was discovered my immune system was surpressed.  In pregnancy your body's immune system drops in order to not reject the fetus.  After, my body started rebooting itself and my hormones were going back to normal my immune system kicked in again and essentially began attacking the melanoma.  Wicked cool!

     I'm not so naive to I think that I'm completely out of the woods or even close for that matter, I do after all have Stage 4 Melanoma.  But hey, I'll take anything positive I can get and we can't discount the fact that I'm Jen...I'm going to do this!  What this means now is I get to get Z settled into his new school, and we will re-scan in 4 weeks.  If I'm showing signs of more shrinkage, I keep letting my body do it (obv. best case scenerio), if tumors have grown again chemo will start.  Maybe by that time, BRAF will be distributed and we won't have to go the Bio-chemo route.  Obv. if anything weird shows up on my body, I go in right away.  

     With Cancer comes extreme highs and lows.  There are many moments of confusion, celebration, set backs etc, but I'm ready to keep fighting so I can be around to be an example to Zachary that mom never gives up even when things get hard.  Sat. night a rash/ terrible itching started at both incision sites along with some middle of the back pain so we take the punches as they come, will call on Monday and hopefully I'll be able to keep everyone in the loop.

     For now, I'm leaving you very happy that chemo won't be starting this week!  YEAH!

Thank you to everyone that is helping our family deal during this incredibly tumultuous time of not knowing what the next day let alone hour brings.

Keep the faith...I am <3

Jen