Friday, September 08, 2006

It begins again...

Dear Friends and Family,

I need to get this news out to many people so in spite of the fact that I’d like to talk to each of you individually, this seems to be the only practical way to do it.

Most of you know that I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2002. After a mastectomy, chemotherapy and reconstruction surgery, I’ve been followed by an oncologist and have felt great. Since there are no reliable breast cancer blood tests to go by, the follow-up is mainly symptomatic – if you have pain, it is followed up with appropriate tests. So when I developed pain in my shoulder and sternum recently, many tests were run. It was discovered that my cancer has returned and has spread to most of my upper bone structure, lymph nodes, neck and a spot on my liver. Although the doctors are reluctant to give a prognosis, it is clearly not a good scenerio.

This week I had a Porta-Cath (permanent IV line) inserted in the anticipation of starting chemotherapy in the next week or so. If this cancer turns out to be the same as before (estrogen receptive), then there is a newer chemo drug that is more specific to targeting it.

As you can imagine, this has been a difficult road to travel – one we had hoped to avoid. My personal concern has been for my family – besides our 2 daughters who live here in town near us (one is married, the other a freshman in college), our youngest daughter (15) is spending a year attending Faith Academy in the Philippines where I went to school.

Another concern is my mother who is still recovering from the loss of my father, and my younger sister who lives in Saudi Arabia and feels frustrated at not being able to be here to help.
Even though this has not been public news until now, we’ve already seen an outpouring of love and concern from those who knew. Those caring acts and prayers have held us up when things have looked darkest. We will continue to need wisdom as we face each new challenge.

In an effort to keep everyone informed, I hope to be able to send out periodic updates. This will save me the effort of repeating myself dozens of times. If you would like to be included on this update email list, please let me know by sending a short note to that effect. Only those I hear from will be put on this list so nobody gets extra emails they don’t need.

We appreciate your prayers at this time,

Yvonne (& Walt) Everly

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