Round 3 of Chemo

Beth is getting her 3rd treatment of Chemo today.  I am so grateful that I am able to be here with her. She gets a Chemo treatment in Chicago every 3 weeks.  I actually look forward to "Chemo Fridays"(even though today is Thursday).

Today she is also getting a port placed.  The port is like a permanent IV that is placed under her collar bone.  The port is designed to deliver medications and Chemo through a large vein directly into your heart. This allows the medication to be diluted more quickly than if the medication was given in the veins in your arms or hands by IV. Also, by delivering the Chemo directly into your heart, the Chemo does not break down or deteriorate the veins in the arms or hands.  

Beth has lost most of her hair from Chemo.  Caroline and Lily helped shave Beth's head last week as Beth got tired of her hair falling out in chunks. In addition, our dog Poppy was like, "Look Beth, there is only room in this house for one of us to shed hair all over the place".    

Lucky for Beth she has the most perfectly shaped head. We met Howie Mandel recently and he was in awe of her perfectly shaped head. 

The Chemo wipes Beth out for about a week after her treatment. Some of her side effects from the Chemo are nausea, she feels foggy most of the day where she can't focus on things and can't think clearly, she is weak and has very little energy.  Also, the Chemo makes her mouth very sore and wipes out her appetite.  Other than that, Chemo is a blast.

Some good news from this visit.  Each time she comes to Chicago, they do a full blood panel. One of the things they look for are her tumor markers.  Tumor markers are substances that are produced by cancer.  They measure her tumor markers each visit and they are hope to see a decrease in the tumor markers that would indicate that the cancer is responding to treatment.  If they find the tumor markers increased it would indicate that the cancer is not responding to the Chemo treatments.

Beth had to go out to Chicago a day early for this trip, so she flew out Tuesday night and I drove out yesterday.  Anytime she goes to Chicago I get very anxious knowing they are doing the tumor marker test.  I nervously wait for Beth to text me with her results.  I got this text from her yesterday.  Such a relief.   

CHEMO FRIDAYS are back!

We are in back in Chicago for Beth's 2nd round of Chemo.   We actually should stop keeping count because there isn't a set number of rounds she will get this time.  Her doctor said that she will be on Chemo until it doesn't work anymore - whatever that means.

When Beth finished Chemo 5 years ago she vowed that she would never have Chemo again, even if her cancer returned.  So, why did she agree to have Chemo this time?   In 2008 Beth was diagnosed with Breast Cancer that was ER/PR Positive, HER2 Negative.   During her last back surgery in December they had to shave down part of a vertebrae.  As a matter of routine they sent a portion of the bone to pathology.  When the results came back it showed that her cancer had changed.  She is still ER/PR Positive but now she is HER2 Positive as well.  The Chemo that she has had twice before was for HER2 Negative cancers. Because her cancer has changed, it opens new treatment options for her including a different class of Chemo all together.  It is pretty rare that cancers change at all and even rarer to change from HER2 Negative to HER2 Positive.  This is a huge blessing and an answer to many prayers.  Beth's doctors mentioned to us (after we learned that the cancer had changed) that she was running out of treatment options for Beth's HER2 Negative cancer and was relieved to have the unexpected change.

In addition, HER2 Postive cancers are more reponsive to hormone therapy treatments.  

Today Beth is getting a 5 hour infusion of Chemo.  To make things even better, today marks one week from her last radiation treatment.  Her doctors said that the peak of the effects of radiation will be 7 days after her last treatment (today).  So the combination of today's Chemo and peak sickness/fatigue from radiation should make for a fun couple of days for her.  

Beth's hair is starting to fall out.  She is about not happy about that.  We will probably shave her head in the next few days to avoid clumps of hair falling out which is more disturbing to her than being bald.  Speaking of being bald, we are going to play a joke on the kids and tell them that we are all going to shave our heads bald together as a family.  We will make sure to video their reactions when we tell them.  Lily will for sure have the most to say about this.  She had a major problem with Beth being bald the first 2 times.  One of our favorite quotes from Lily was from when she was 4 years old.  "Mom, you are invited to my birthday party but you have to wear a wig or everyone will laugh at you".  

2 Days of radiation left

Beth's last round of radiation is on Friday.  The kids and I drove out to Chicago to get her through these last two days and to drive her home.  The kids had not seen Beth for 3 weeks and they were excited to be back with their mom.   

Over the last 3 weeks Beth has had 20 minutes of radiation every day.  That leaves a lot of down time and one of the many great things about her doing her radiation treatments in Chicago at CTCA is that during her down time she can squeeze in other treatments and appointments like Vitamin C infusions, physical therapy, massage therapy, meeting with nutritionist, etc...

Today, Beth went to physical therapy where they worked on her hand and arm.  She has lost almost all function of her left hand and arm due to nerve damage caused by the cancer.  Today's treatment was an hour worth of electrotherapy to improve strength and overall use of her hand and arm.  Basically they electrocuted her for an hour.

Beth also received a 4-Hour potassium infusion because her potassium levels were very low.    She was also supposed to get a port placed in her chest so that they could use the port to administer her Chemo but her blood test this morning showed her white blood cell counts were still way too low for her to undergo a surgery.  So they will have to stick (no pun intended) to a PICC line to administer the Chemo.

So, what's next? After Friday's final radiation treatment she goes home, but not for long.  We'll come right back out next Thursday for her 2nd round of Chemotherapy on Friday.  She will come back every three weeks for Chemotherapy.  During her Chemo treatments she will also get tested to make sure everything looks good and her that tumor markers are not elevated.

We just take one day at a time.

We are looking to all be home together once again.

Day 9 of Radiation and Beth is discharged from the hospital

Beth was discharged from the hospital last night.  They originally admitted her in order to get her back pain under control. They decided to keep her in the hospital until after her back procedure and until her Xena Warrior Princess Back Brace came.  This custom made hard shell bustier-style back brace arrived yesterday.  Beth will have to wear this thing for the next 6-8 weeks.  The good thing is it's made of Kevlar so we can feel safe when hanging out on the East side of Cleveland.   Beth says for how stupid it looks it is 100 times more uncomfortable to wear.

Today was day 9 of radiation.  She is scheduled to get 14 total doses of radiation.  They are radiating 3 spots on her spine.  Each treatment takes about 20 minutes and the radiation doesn't hurt at all.  

Beth has been quite sick today.  Between Chemo, radiation and the pain meds, we expected her to be a little sick but not quite like this.  She is not eating very much.  Today's meals consisted of 1/2 a bagel,  1 french fry and 4 oz of ginger ale.  None of it lasted very long in her system.  On a related note, Beth has lost 10 lbs in the 2 weeks she's been here.

Enough with all the negatives, let's focus on the things for which we are thankful.  We got an email from the President of Amazon thanking us for our choice in friends, as you have been keeping them business over the last 2 weeks. Thank you to all of our wonderful friends who have sent cards and packages.  Everyday Beth gets a stack of cards and packages delivered to her room.  The hospital staff has no doubt Googled - "Beth Mowrey, Celebrity" trying to figure out why she is getting all this love.   It's certainly not what comes in the mail, but more just feeling totally supported and loved has made such a huge difference. Every gesture has an impact. Thank you!

Another thing we are so thankful for is the help and love of our friends and family back in Ohio.  My mom flew out from LA to spend the week with the kids so I could be here with Beth.  Someone has brought a meal every night while Beth has been away.  We have people driving our kids to and from doctor appointments, practices, piano lessons, etc.  We have friends cracking the whip each night making sure homework is done and even helping the kids study.  Who does that?!  We have total peace of mind because of you.  It really is amazing.

Lastly for those of you not following along on Snapchat, I have been trying to post to "My Story" each day so people can get a feel of what Beth's day is like.  Here is yesterday's story.

Follow along on Snapchat - username: abmowrey

Guess Who's Back....Back Again

It's time to fire up the Cancer Blog again.  Originally in 2008 when Beth was first diagnosed with Breast Cancer we were touched by the people who were concerned for Beth and wanted to find out what the latest news was.  As much as we loved connecting with our friends and family on a 1 on 1 basis it simply got to be too much to keep everyone up to date individually.  Furthermore, we did not want to be constantly posting to social media and be a bunch of "Debbie-Downers" on Facebook.  So, we created a Blog where friends and family could check in to see how she was doing.  Unfortunately, we feel it's time to resume posting updates in order to keep everyone in the loop.  

Beth has been through a lot over the last 3 years when her cancer returned for a THIRD time.  We have done a very poor job keeping people in the know about the whole situation. The last 12 months or so have seen things take a turn for the worse in someways.  While we are very optimistic, we are aware that the next few months and years will be filled with many ups and downs.  We will use this forum as a means to keep everyone informed as how she is doing.  We will occasionally post updates to Facebook but they could be few and far between and will most often refer people back to this blog where we will try to post more regularly.  The goal is to post an update to this blog at least once a week.

Beth is currently in Chicago at Cancer Treatment Centers of America (CTCA).  We will write a separate post in the near future about how awesome CTCA is.  Beth travels to Chicago for all of her doctors appointments and treatments.

Three years ago we found out that Beth's cancer metastasized to her bones and mainly in her spine and her local doctors started her on hormonal treatments.  After 1 year of treatments and going on the recommendations of a few friends we decided to give CTCA a try.  It was the best decision we have made so far.   We wish we would have started here back in 2008.

In Nov 2014, Beth suffered a fractured vertebrae because the cancer had weakened the bones.  She had back surgery where they performed a Kyphoplasty procedure - filling the fracture with a cement compound, as well as another procedure where they fused the two vertebrae together and placed screws to support them.  



Almost exactly 1 year later in 2015, Beth fractured her back again.  Same procedure.  This time, they told her after she recovered from the surgery and after the holidays that they would start her on radiation in order to address cancer growth in her spine. 

That brings us to today.  A few weeks ago, only two months after her last back surgery Beth fractured her back once again only days before she was to start radiation treatments. They decided to not treat the fracture immediately and to start radiation right away.  She was scheduled for 14 rounds of radiation over a 3 week period in Chicago.  Because she was in so much pain they admitted her into the hospital where she still is today, mainly so they can control her pain and until she gets fitted for a back brace - more on that in second. 

In addition, they also did a PET scan which showed the cancer had gotten worse since the last scan. They started her immediately on chemotherapy which she will have every 3 weeks for the foreseeable future.  

Last night they finally decided to do a third Kyphoplasty procedure to address her newly fractured vertebrae and are fitting Beth with a hard shell back brace - think Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle shell.  She will have to wear that brace for 6-8 weeks.

They are also starting her on Zometa - a drug to strengthen the bones.



So that is pretty much where we are today.  We believe that they have her pain under control and that the procedure done yesterday will also take some of the pain away.  She has radiation until Feb 22nd. Her next Chemo treatment is on Feb 26th.

We try to take one day at a time.  Beth has been showered with phone calls, texts, emails, letters, packages, singing telegrams, etc... You all have made her feel so loved and supported.  Thank you for all of the prayers and service you have directed towards our family.

 "If we have faith in Jesus Christ, the hardest as well as the easiest times in life can be a blessing."

-President Henry B. Eyring 

I have watched this video many times over the last few years.  I am thankful its reminder.



We love you all!

Please send requests to:

So apparently Beth thinks that since the Cancer thing is over, she can now abandon the blog. I have been on her to post some sort of update or at least a post that says "I am no longer going to blog".

We all need to ban together and get her to post. Please send an email or text her and tell her you want an update.

send emails to beth@bookiesandcookies.com

send texts to: 317-605-6337

Beth Surgery Update - 9:00pm EST

The surgery is done and Beth is now in her room sleeping. They finished around an hour ago. Beth is alert and in good spirits. She is sore but drugged up pretty well. Beth drugged up on any sort of pain killers is some good comedy.

Dr Stallnecker came out and talked with me for a few minutes. He said the surgery went well for the most part. He did say though he had trouble with the right breast. He couldn't get enough blood flow to that area and it was concerning him. He is going to monitor it, but if it doesn't improve he will have to go in and remove it and replace it with an implant.

She will be in the hospital for at least 4 days. If she has to have another surgery her stay could be upwards to a week.

This hospital is unbelievable. Everything is so new and clean. The rooms are nice and big and the nurses are great. Top notch hospital. Torrance Memorial you should be ashamed of yourself.

Beth Surgery Update - 7:00pm EST

Going on hour number 12. No update from the nurse in the last couple of hours. Not worried just anxious. Dr Stallnecker actually tried to talk Beth out of the Tram Flap surgery last week. He was worried about how long the surgery would take and the increased complications that come from such a long surgery. I can't stop thinking about his hesitation during that office visit.

For those interested, we are Community North Hospital up in Fishers. She will be in the hospital for 3-5 days depending on how she recovers. She will be out of commission for at least 2 weeks and total recovery takes about 6-8 weeks. She will have at least one more minor surgery after she has recovered to complete the procedure. Beth is a quick healer. She went river rafting 3 weeks after Lily was born. So we are hoping that she recovers in time to enjoy some of the summer.

I hope she is out of surgery soon...American Idol starts in an hour.

Beth Surgery Update - 2:30pm EST

2:38pm - nurse Wynn came out to tell me that Beth has been upgraded from "she's doing well", to "she doing REALLY well". The updates have been on the half hour every 2 hours. At this point I am convinced that the nurse has an Outlook reminder set to remind her to come out and tell me that Beth is doing well every 2 hours.

By the way, during an 11 hour surgery how and and when are breaks for the doctor taken? Does he just leave for lunch with Beth laying there wide open? He has to take breaks right? I need to know these things.

We are 8 hours into surgery. I have passed the time with a lot of YouTube, a couple episodes of The Office and even caught up on some behind the scenes of Survivor. On CBS.com you can watch exclusive footage of Survivor including Webisodes of "Ponderosa" - footage of where the members of the jury stay after they get voted out. This is must see for all Survivor fans. Check it out.

I haven't spent all of the last 8 hours watching mindless YouTube clips though, I did learn some interesting facts on what exactly this boob doctor is doing to my wife


Beth got the abdominal muscle flap (Tram Flap).


But most of the time I was watching clips like this one



As good as these guys were, I kept finding myself thinking, "How awesome would it be to work for Google??" I mean this had to be a recruiting commercial for Google right? "Hey come work for Google, we take breaks in the middle of the day to watch a couple of dudes beat box".

People wearing shorts and flip flops to work and not to mention the huge cooler of help yourself adult drinks off in the corner. Smart advertising on Google's part.

Beth's Surgery update - 11:00am est

11:15am- Hour number four. Only update from the nurse is that "everything is going fine back there". Thanks for that update nurse Wynn...

Glad there is Wifi in the waiting room, but this wireless network doesn't allow Facebook access. Bummer. Another irritating thing is that there are very few electrical outlets round this place. Running on a low battery and will have to sit on the floor by the women's bathroom to recharge the laptop here soon. That should be fun.

I was way more nervous for Beth's 1st surgery than I was for this one. Her 1st one lasted 9 hours, a couple of hours longer than expected. Was a nervous wreck. I thought this one was going to be a relatively easy surgery. Not the case. Everything is different. Everyone seems so much more focused and business like. We are even in a completely different area of the hospital than the 1st one. Not that there was anything wrong with the way the nurses and doctors went about their business with the 1st surgery, it's just that people are taking this one a little more serious. Everyone has their game face on. Even nerdy little Dr. Stallnecker had a different demeanor to him this morning. That should have made me feel more comfortable right? It actually did the opposite. It made me realize that there is some serious stuff going on here. I guess it all makes sense. The 1st one was chop and remove - how much damage could you do?This one takes a little more skill and attention to detail.

Gotta set up camp outside the women's bathroom...

Beth's Surgery Update - 5:30am est

Today Beth goes in for reconstruction surgery. It is an 11 hour surgery that starts at 7am this morning. With 11 hours to spare and some Wifi at the hospital I figured I would post some updates throughout the day.

5:30am - we pull into Community North Hospital. They have this really cool free valet service. This is great when you are pulling in at 5:30am. The only downside is when you're leaving - waiting 15 minutes for them to pull your car around while you stare at it parked 50 feet away.

6:30am - Beth and I meet the Boob doctor (Dr Stallnecker) for some last minute surgery details. Part of this pre surgery visit involves him pulling out the sharpie marker and drawing all over Beth's chest and tummy. It looked like he was drawing up a football play.

7:00am - Head back home to get the kids off to school. I am normally not home in the morning to see the kids off to school - Beth gets the pleasure of directing that circus on a daily basis. All I will say is that our kids don't wake up in good moods.

To be continued...

Good News Bad News

The good news is my hair is starting to grow back. The bad news is that it hasn't grown in the front yet at all. I'm starting to get a little worried.

Goodbye Chemo

I hardly even know how to begin. It's over. No more chemo. No more cancer. It's hard to put into words how I feel about it. I mean, obviously I'm thrilled. But there is some other emotion too that is hard to place.

It reminds me of when I was pregnant with our first baby. I was so excited for the ultrasound to find out if it was a boy or a girl and to see that cute little bugaboo. We find out it was a boy, yay, and then the sonographer says 'ok, let's check this little boy out'. He goes on with the ultrasound, and as he charts and measures he's talking out loud saying things like, 'So his spine looks perfect. We can rule out spina bifida. His head is a nice size so we're not going to worry about Downs.' He went on and on all the while telling me how perfect my little baby nugget was. He walked out of the room and I immediately broke down and sobbed. In those four months of pregnancy before the ultrasound, it never once occurred to me that my baby would be anything but perfect. Hearing all the things that could have been wrong, even though they weren't, left me totally shaken. I cried and cried. I was suddenly so grateful that he was perfect. The rose colored glasses were gone and I was overwhelmed with gratitude.

I can't help but feel similar now. Like, now that it's all over I almost want to break down and cry. What is that? Relief? Maybe. It's more than that though. It's a relief for a worry I didn't even know existed. Gratitude? Yes and no. For sure I am grateful, but I am grateful for many things and this doesn't feel the same. Is it growth? Can you even feel growth? Maybe a combination of the three, or something else altogether. It's definitely something though. I have some seriously strong yet nameless and puzzling emotions going on.

While I try to sort out my emotions, here is the low down on what's next...

• I see the radiologist on Monday to determine whether or not we are really going to do this radiation nonsense. I say no. We'll have to see if she agrees with me.
• Thursday I meet with the plastic surgeon to schedule reconstruction. When that will take place depends on if we are doing radiation or not. No radiation means we just go right into reconstruction. (Although I'm really not a big fan of boobs, I have to say I am way excited for this. These fake, expander boobs or 'foobs' as we like to call them are really uncomfortable. They're hard as rocks and if you push on them they pop back out like a plastic water bottle. Kind of a neat trick but mostly kinda creepy.)
• I also need to have my port removed. This is supposed to be a lot easier to take out than to put in.
• I have a prescription for Tamoxafin. This is a pill that I'm supposed to take once a day, everyday for the next FIVE YEARS. This may not sound ridiculous to anyone else but me, but I can't see me being successful at this. I don't even finish my antibiotics. They only last a week.

The Good, the Bad and the Uuuh-gly

OK, I really don't want to do this. It's pitiful to ask. But... C'est la vie. I am. Just deal with it. My friend Amanda had a super pooper day and she blogged about it and got 26 comments! 26! Now I'm not saying it wasn't comment worthy, it was an awesome post, but I have stinking cancer people! This is your moment. If you read this blog, leave a comment. Pretty soon, I will have no need for a cancer blog and we will print it off as a book and your name will be forever there as a reminder of those who laughed and cried and supported us along the way. In no way is this a competition between me and Amanda - (as long as I get more than 26 comments).

Let me start this off with the good. The great even. ONLY THREE MORE WEEKS OF CHEMO!!! Can you believe it?! Hallelujah! Some times it felt like this was going to last forever. But three weeks? I can do three weeks. I can do three weeks and make it look good. The other bit of good news is I'm starting to get a little fuzz going. My heads getting fuzzy (maybe a little more like velcro than fuzz, but I'll take it), and my legs and pits need to be shaved. Yay! Never thought I would be excited about that.

Now for the bad. I have felt so lucky this whole time because I kept my eyebrows and eyelashes...up until now. Seriously? I have three weeks left and I lose them now? What kind of crap is that? And what's worse is I think my fingernails are going to fall off. Uh- I think I just barfed in my mouth a little. I really can't think about that without getting sick. They are starting to separate and leave a space between my nail and finger. OK, really I can't talk about that anymore. Moving on.

The Ugly. As if all the 'bad' wasn't ugly enough, it has been really windy these last couple of days. How is that ugly you might be wondering? Well, let me just say on days like today I wish my wig had a chin strap. I think I may have scared a few of the neighbor kids.

Cancer is so five minutes ago

I am sorry I have neglected the blog for so long. Especially with the last post being so indulgent. My reason is simple... I AM SO OVER CANCER! I'm bored with it. Aside from my fridays being taken up with chemo, I wouldn't even know I had cancer. No side effects, no sickness, nothing. So here is where I am supposed to say, "I am so lucky! I am so blessed. How wonderful." The problem is that I am so sick of being bald and ugly. It's really the only thing that's going on. Me...being bald. It's not a lot to blog about.

It does make for some good quotes from my kids.

Lily: "Mommy, you're invited to my birthday party. But you'll have to wear your wig or everyone will laugh at you."

Caroline: (As I'm crouched down, tying my shoes.) "You have a shiny, bald head."

Benson: "I love you, Mom. Even when you're bald."

Ella: "It looks like you're wearing a mask." (Because there is a distinct line from where my face has color and my head is white, white, white.)

Ahhh. Good times, good times.