“You beat cancer by how you live, why you live and the manner in which you live.” By Stuart Scott

     For the past several days I have been digesting and sifting last weeks appointments. Going back and forth with the results of the testing, how the effects of the drugs are affecting Tammy. I have been trying to nail down my feelings about how this all is going to play out. I really haven’t come to any conclusions, but for some reason a “grain of sand” is stuck in my head. Life is hard for everyone. We all have our own set of unique problems that we all deal with on a daily basis. Our challenges are not bigger or harder than anyone’s, they are just different. We are all fighting a battle of some kind and sometimes we all get tired of it, worn out, burned out, wiped out, and just feel like the weight of the world is shoving us down and there is no hope. Hope is a wonderful thing, but sometimes we expect hope to be a big bang moment. A grand gesture, and epiphany moment, a miracle. Hence a “grain of sand,” Hope does not always come in the form that we are expecting. Sometimes it is just small grains of sand that over time accumulate into something that we never thought possible. One grain of sand is nothing, but if you keep gathering them up then eventually your bucket will be full and you won’t know what to do with the extra that is running over the sides. I am not a real patient person when it comes to waiting. So this week I definitely was struggling with my grain of sand.

     We arrived in Houston Tuesday evening and Tammy had her testing done Wednesday morning, everything went good. We were nervous of course, we always are no matter what we try and do. Tammy had only taken about half of the drugs they had hoped her to take because she had been fighting the side effects so bad. This is somewhat to be expected because this is the stage of the trial where they are trying to figure out dosages. They had reduced it once and that was still not enough. Tammy had stopped taking it again on Christmas eve. Her swelling had gotten to the point that she didn’t feel comfortable with what it was doing to her. She can’t restart the meds until her cyclosporine levels get low enough. The bad part about cyclosporine is that only a few labs in the county test blood for cyclosporine. Result take at least a week to get back and so all of the data is a week old so its hard to get anything changed fast so that leads to Tammy being off of the drugs longer that she probably needs to be, but that is the way it is. So going into the doctor’s office we really didn’t know what to expect.

     What we found out is that there has been some growth, but that it is growing at a slower rate than it had been growing from August to October. Since she has been on the trial her growth rate has dropped to 16%, down from 25% in October. Our “grain of sand.” The trial is making a difference. Doctor reduced the doses again in hopes that if we can keep her on it for a longer period of time then she will actually get more of the drug in her than staying on a higher dose and then having to stop. Our hope is that this growth rate will continue to be reduced by being on the drugs longer. If her growth rate gets above 20% then she will not be able to stay on the trial. Her schedule now is she has to go to Houston every two weeks to meet the doctor and do blood work. We thankfully made it through her having to be down there every week. Thanks to everyone that has helped make this possible. There are no words that I can say to thank all of you enough. We will continue to gather our “grains of sand,” and be thankful.