The following are posts copied and pasted from the PostHope website which was cyber-attacked and shut down. The administration never recovered the money stolen by the hackers. Please say a prayer for them.

As of August 2024, I am doing very well. I am in the middle of radiation treatments and going to physical therapy. I plan to go back to school at the beginning of the school year to resume teaching.

A winding road to a mysterious diagnosis

May 4, 2024

Last spring, I had the surprising urge to walk 100 miles to raise money for the American Cancer Society.  It was one of the most beautiful months of my life, even though my husband was dealing with a mysterious undiagnosed illness.  Every day after school, I walked and prayed, delighted in all the spring beauty, and listened to amazing audiobooks.  Eventually, we found out that Pat had sarcoidosis and his treatment was a success, but in the interim, those 100 miles kept me sane.  However, as I walked in April of 2023, a lump developed on my right ankle.

I remember requesting prayer for my ankle during Sunday small groups at our church.  I said, “I’m making a doctor’s appointment this week — but wouldn’t it be wonderful if the lump went away before I got to the doctor’s?”  My friend Terri scolded me, knowing that I don’t like medical appointments — “You better go to the doctor’s regardless!”  Well, that Monday, I tripped over the garbage can at school.  I basically did a belly flop because I was carrying a pile of books, and when my leg hit the floor, the cyst on my ankle burst.  There was a pain for about twenty minutes, and then it disappeared.

I went to the doctor the next day regardless.  There was no sign of a lump at this point, and the first question my doctor asked was, “Do you wear boots a lot?”  I said, “All the time — I’m a boot girl.”  My doctor told me that it had likely been a ganglion cyst and to cut down on my boot wearage and it might not come back. 

In the autumn, I once again felt the urge to walk for a cause. I chose 60 Miles for St. Jude’s. Walking helped me get through another unexpected health crisis—this time, my daughter’s.  (She is also doing so much better!)  However, once again, I developed a lump on my ankle.  I was in the process of being introduced to a new family doctor, so that took a few weeks.  Eventually, my new doctor sent me to sports medicine.  When that doctor couldn’t drain what he thought was a ganglion cyst, he referred me to an orthopedic surgeon.  

The orthopedic surgeon was confident I had a cyst as well, even after an MRI.  At my second appointment with him, he asked, “Well do you want it out?”  I said, “Yes!!!”  He said there was a very small chance that it could be a tumor and that the reason he had sent me for a scan was that he wanted to rule out sarcoma because he would hate to get in there and risk microscopic cancer being left behind.

So I had the surgery to remove the cyst on April 12th.  Afterward, the surgeon came out and talked to my parents while I was still in recovery and told them that it hadn’t been what he expected.  On April 19th, I was using my phone to check emails and such while my students were taking a test (we had no internet access at school at the time due to a ransomware attack), and all of a sudden, a message popped up from my virtual medical chart.  I opened it up, and read the words “Synovial sarcoma, monophasic — margins are positive.”  My heart began to race and my belly felt like it had dropped five inches.  I texted a friend, “I think I have cancer.”  Having to finish the day teaching kept me from panicking.  It sounds terrible that I found out that way, but it worked out for the best.

That night the surgeon who had removed the growth called me.  He had already made arrangements for me to meet with an oncologist who is an orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Bowen.  Since then it has been a whirlwind of scans and appointments.  What ups and downs emotionally as I over-investigated synovial sarcoma online, imagined that my aches and pains I’d attributed to arthritis might be cancer, put my fears in God’s hands, and then would take them back again at random moments.  As I told my co-workers, family, and close friends, I could feel the results of their prayers.  Worry dissipated.  I was able to sleep like a baby.  Still, it was such a relief when I received the news on April 29th, that I had low staging.  The cancer is only in my lower leg, and I am somewhere between stages 1 and 2 because the tumor was just short of being 5 centimeters.  

This Tuesday, May 7th, I will undergo my first surgery to clean up the mess left from the earlier mass removal.  There are microscopic bits of cancer surrounding where that mass was.  The surgeon will go in and clean out the flesh and tendons until he finds no more cancer cells under a microscope.  Then he will cut out a margin of healthy flesh to decrease the risk of cancer coming back.  

This means I will have a gaping hole that will have to be filled in with muscle.  So, within a few days of my first surgery, I will go back in for a six to eight-hour plastic surgery to reconstruct the tendon that lifts my foot and to attach all of the blood vessels, muscle, and skin they are grafting to my ankle.  Yuck, right?!  I will be in the hospital for a couple of weeks with my foot in the air so that swelling doesn’t complicate the healing process.  

I have to be out of school for the remainder of the year due to the seriousness of the surgery.  Yesterday, I broke the news to my students — that was harder emotionally than finding out I had cancer.  But boy, did I feel loved by those kids!   I loved some of their questions and comments — but I will share those another time. 

I covet all your prayers and positive thoughts.  Please pray for my healing and for all of us to grow in faith and love of God through this journey.   

May 7

Surgery rescheduled for this afternoon

When a nurse called me last night to go over my instructions for prepping for surgery, she gave me a new time to check in.  I’m estimating that it will be past noon when I’m in the operating room. 

Both Pat and I fell asleep early last night, even though we were in a hotel. I think I will have to ask where they got their pillows. I don’t know when I’ve been so cozy, snuggling up to Pat while he listened to an audiobook. I nodded off to sleep before I intended to. 

The past few days have been full of celebrations, from a baby shower to my nephews thirteenth birthday party, to a wonderful worship service, to a rainy outdoor Russian Easter gathering, to visits with friends from out of town.  I enjoyed a parents versus kids kickball game, a ping pong tournament, an outdoor concert, pickle pizza on the porch delivered by my brother and his wife, a sniffing investigation of baby foods, laughing while a dear friend demonstrated strategies for using a bed pan with my leg strapped in the air…

Yesterday, my students showed me so much love. So many homemade cards and letters. So many gifts and hugs.  I had a girl who isn’t even my student, and a beginning language learner, come up to me and ask me if I know Jesus, because if I do, and I pray, he will help me get better.   

But it was after school that I got the biggest surprise.  I had a bunch of my students help me carry all my gifts to the cafeteria, just so I wouldn’t have to make so many trips myself.  My buddy Pam must have thought I was trying to sneak out without saying goodbye (I really wasn’t) so she told me that Nadine had forgotten to give me something. She helped me load all my gifts on a push cart and then escorted me back into the mods. 

Imagine my surprise when I saw Kristina’s room, which is RIGHT next to mine, had been turned into a garden of hanging flowers and fairy lights.  And there were my beloved friends from my very first placement in Scranton twenty years ago — Lincoln Jackson, and then I turned to the right and saw more besties from my last school — Isaac Tripp. And of course all of the teachers I’ve grown to adore since I started at WSIS last year. What a wonderful experience to get pumped up with love with three groups of teachers before my surgeries. 

And it was a tea party! 

I came home with a car so loaded down with gifts, I’m half surprised I made it up West Mountain — ha ha. 

Still the night has more blessings, beautiful well wishes from my kids, the best sushi I ever had, and time chatting with my parents in their hotel room.

God is good.  He is the good who created all of the beautiful flowers I’ve been given the past few days.  He is the good that provided me the relationships with so many human beings who love me and I so love, and He is the good who will be guiding the surgeon’s hands in the operating room later today.  He will come alongside me as I deal with the pain afterward and whatever else may transpire.  There are no better hands to hold me and my loved ones than those of my Heavenly Father. 

Surgery #1 — marked done!

I’m sitting in my hospital room on the sixth floor, with a lovely view of the grounds and rolling hills, with Pat in the easy chair beside my bed.  He’s watching reels and I’m on my laptop.  It’s just like being home — haha!  

I was loopy for a couple of hours after my surgery — perhaps I still am.  However, I’ve been quite chatty because I am just so happy with how the surgery went.  As much as I was determined to choose joy no matter the outcome, I really didn’t want to say goodbye to the tendon that lifts my foot.  Praise God, there was no sign that the cancer had gotten to that tendon, so it is intact.  It looks like hikes and racquet sports may be in the much nearer future than expected.  

However, it’s not a done deal until we get the results of the samples the surgeon sent out.  If they find any suspicious cells, then they will have to go back in remove more of my leg.  So keep praying!  

So far, I don’t feel any pain, even though all I’ve had is Tylenol.  That appears to be a surprise to everyone.

I also surprised the nurses by being able to walk to the bathroom rather than having to use a potty chair.  The negative pressure wound vac that’s attached to my leg is held in place by a partial plaster cast and a very long ace bandage.  The pump is in a small purse-like bag that I can put over my shoulder when I make my little trips to the lav.  

I haven’t spoken to the surgeon yet, but hopefully, tomorrow morning, he will visit with news that I can go home while we wait for the lab results and get the second surgery scheduled. When he called Pat after the surgery, he said he was very pleased. I can’t wait to hear all the details.  

I am so grateful to God and to each and every one of you who took the time to pray for me.  What a gift you have given me.  I felt like I was bathed in God’s grace — like any anxiety was washed away. (Even when it took five tries to get an IV put in — I now know I have very small and wiggly veins.)  As I was wheeled into surgery, I felt surrounded by prayer and bolstered by God’s love.  And then to have the good news that I got to keep my tendon!  What an answer to prayer.  Thank you, everyone!  

May 9, 2024

Home!

I’m home with a new respect for anyone who has ever had to navigate with crutches or a walker. I wanted to be cool and use crutches, but my family convinced me that with my track record for clumsiness, a hose strapped to my leg, and a pump hanging at my side, I’d better take the walker.  

Last night, I made the pilgrimage upstairs, moving my butt from step to step with one leg.  When I got to the top, there was a problem.  Even with Pat in front of me and Spencer holding the walker behind me, it was really scary to stand up on one leg at the top of the steps.  I ended up doing a twisted roll onto the landing and then getting up because I was too chicken.  

It was worth it to get upstairs and sleep in my own bed.  We have had split reclining mattresses for years.  Pat uses his remote control all the time, but my batteries were long dead because I prefer propping up with pillows.  Well, being able to have the mattress lift up my foot was so cozy.  I slept so well, and then just lazed in bed snuggling with General and Iris this morning. 

Backpacks are great too… I have all my supplies strapped on my back as I move from one area of the house to another.  Works out great. 

I won’t post wound pics here, but I’ve texted them to some who wanted to see it.  The hole in my leg is so perfectly oval that it almost looks like a sticker on the front of my leg in the photo.  When you see the photo, it seems miraculous that I’m not in pain.  Pretty sure it’s partially an answer to prayer and partially that the negative pressure wound therapy pump is designed to reduce pain and promote tissue growth.  It’s an incredible invention that I am thanking God for!  

I got a call from the surgeon who will do the next surgery this morning.  He is hoping that the pathology reports will be in by the end of the weekend.  He plans to operate on Monday, but if the reports aren’t in, he plans for Tuesday at the latest.  Please pray that everything is good on the reports so we can go ahead and get this leg on the mend  

Yesterday, when I was reminded that I’d have to have regular chest scans, possibly for the rest of my life, some fear crept in.  The lungs are where this cancer moves next a good percentage of the time.   I’ve had COVID three, possibly four times now, and there is some research showing that SARS-CoV-2 can be linked to cancer since it alters tumor-suppressing pathways and triggers inflammation.  After the resident doctor left, I started researching synovial sarcoma once AGAIN.  Then I happened to click on Facebook in the middle of my research and saw a post from my nephew Matthew.  “Don’t overthink.  Just pray.” 

I closed my research tabs and prayed.  Immediately, I had that peace again.  God is sovereign.  He has always had my future in His hands.  Though cancer was a shock to me, it was not to Him.  This body is an instrument meant to bring Him glory and to be used for my eternal good — and hopefully others’ eternal good as well.  I love the idea that this bump in the road is refining me as a person, growing me in grace and faith, and beautifying my soul.  Maybe even opening doors for a new way of life that’s simpler, more healthy, and more freeing.  

Please keep the prayers coming!  It’s been a tremendous comfort knowing that you all are helping me fight this battle.  So very grateful!