(A Little) Progress

Well, we finally have a date for my consult with Dr. Million, the radiation oncologist.  Oct. 22 at 10:00 AM at St. Mark's.  Dr. Million has offices at both St. Mark's AND Huntsman, and the first available time was at St. Mark's on that date.  I will still do my treatments at Huntsman, but I really want to get this moving, so took the 10/22 appointment.

Not sure if this means we'll start radiation treatment that following Monday, 10/26- we'll have to see.  But, that's my hope, and that's what our prayers will center on now (each step brings new hopes, new prayers, and a LOT of waiting!).

On another topic- on general conference weekend Lisa, the girls and I went to my Mom's home in Roosevelt.  We always enjoy going out there for conference, because it's so peaceful and quiet, and we are able to relax and unwind a bit.  Conference was great, as always.  Mom and I took the opportunity to tell my Grandma Burgess about the cancer (she's 98, so we feared she'd hear the news and have a heart attack), but she took it like a trooper!  She's had breast cancer and survived, my Mom has had uterine cancer and survived, and now me (talk about your BAD genes!).  Granny took it in stride and said "Well, I had cancer and I'm OK, JoAnn had cancer and she's OK, so you'll be OK."  Good to see even my 98 year old Grandma can see that we can fight and win this battle.  Not sure she'd have the strength to do it, but I do, and will!  We also told Granny about my cousin Bob's wife Andrea, who is right now battling breast cancer, as well, so Grandma got a "twofer"- not that she wanted it!  Andrea is doing very well, and it's interesting to have two of us in the family battling this disease at the same time.  We pray daily for Andrea, Bob and the boys.

Finally, I wanted to share some wonderful support given to us by our dear friends Dave & Julie Bell and their kids- Blake, Kurt, Lydia and Ben.  When we returned from Roosevelt on conference weekend, there was an envelope taped to our front door.  On it was a picture drawn by little Ben, who by the way is the cutest kid in the world!  He'd drawn a bicycle, as he knows I'm a cyclist, and had addressed the letter to me.  Inside was a touching letter that brought huge tears (again, not like that's hard to do with me), and some stickers Dave had had done for us and other friends and family.  Excerpts from the letter follow:

"Know that you are not alone.  We love you. We are grateful for the way you have influenced our family for good and look forward to making many more memories of times spent with the Handys.  We have enclosed a few decals we had made that we are hopeful will help you along this journey.  We have replaced Lance Armstrong's "LiveSTRONG" with "HandyBESTRONG".  Please note that it does not say "ToddBESTRONG" as we know that cancer affects the entire family as well as the individual.  We have the decals on our vehicles and on all of the Bell family bikes.  We hope that when you see them you will be reminded that you are not along and that you can draw additional strength from friends."

I've been remiss in getting my decals on my vehicles and bike, but like the Bells, I can now say that the Handy family vehicles and my bike are all decked out and bearing the message "HandyBESTRONG".  I so love the Bell family!

Ben's drawing and the HandyBESTRONG logo are posted here for all to see and enjoy.