What Heather wrote, for those who don't get her emails.

Heather wrote this on Tuesday, for those who don't get them.

Hi Everyone,

So after all that we went thru this past week I am once again crying over how awesome our God is. On Tuesday morning we recieved the following e-mail from Tessa's social worker who told us on Monday after recieving our cancer news to get healthy and to keep going with our adoption as planned....

The memo line said...court date.
The e-mail said "Oct.29th"

Our court date for Tessa is October 29th. We have giggled a lot over God's timing of this. She will be home for Christmas!!!!! Now I just need to get healthy!!!!!!!

On Tuesday afternoon we had our appointment with my oncologist Dr. Muslim. After explaining our case to us, I found myself smiling at him and thanking him. We laughed as we left as we talked about how he was like a Dr. Wilson from the TV show House but of a middle eastern descent. We found out that his MA Laura is the daughter of friends of ours from church. So God has placed us in good hands and we look forward to working with them.

As I write this, it is about 4 am so forgive me if I babble a little. I couldn't sleep go figure .

I won't go into all the technical details for you but here is the jist of our future with cancer. This morning we will need to get to the hospital at about 9. They have tests and prep and such they have to do. My surgery is at 11. My mom will be home with the kids. Jason's mom will be meeting him at the hospital. They will be doing a single mastectomy of my left breast. The oncologist said it was silly to consider doing a double. There is no risk for me to get cancer in the other breast considering my history and the cancer type. So I guess I will get to use the fake boobie that Grace made me from the ABC noodles .

The surgery will be a few hours. The big thing at this point will b how many if any lymph nodes have been affected. That will give us a better idea of long term outcome but frankly those predictions don't mean much to Jason and I since we know that God is so much bigger than whatever odds that they give us. Dr. Muslim told us that I have a less aggressive form of cancer so that was good news for us and that breast cancer is CURABLE not just treatable!

Depending on how quickly I recover I will be released on Thursday I think. Please wait for word from Jason on when to come and visit in the hospital. He will let you know as soon as we know something.

After about two weeks of recovery we will meet with Dr. Muslim again and go over the reports. I will be having chemo reguardless of what the reports say or what they find in the lymph nodes. I will start in about three weeks. I will have 8 treatments total for a total of 16 weeks. One about every two weeks. The first four will be the most difficult then it will get better and better. It goes in thru an IV and the treatment lasts about two to three hours. I will be able to drive myself there and home and should be able to care for my kids afterwards. He assured us that it won't be that bad and that he has no concerns about how I will handle it. We joked that I already know how it feels to be constantly tired and nausas with my RA and my pregnancy with Ian. He laughed and said that they have much better meds than what I took with Ian so I should be able to tolarate it fine. I will loose my hair but we found a catalog with lots of cute hats and wigs that Grace has already gone thru and marked her favorites. So don't be shocked when I come to church as a flaming red head! We are going to have fun with this but they do have one wig that actually is VERY close to my hair color and style that I have now so I am going to have a little normalcy to our lives as well.

We do not know about radiation at this point. That will depend on the lymph node thing I think.

So you may be wondering about Tessa coming home...
Once we pass court next week she is legally ours. We have a power of attorney that is working on our behalf. After next week Jason (I can no longer go obviously) and most likely his mom will travel anywhere from 3-6 weeks later. So Tessa will be coming home to a bald mama in the middle of chemo. The doctor didn't think that would be a problem but I am sure that I will need some help. I am guessing I won't have to beg people to come help take care of our new addition :)

*Huge thank-you to the huge group of Cedarcreekers who volunteered to take care of our yard. If you are able to help them out I'm sure they could use it!

I know there will be more needs as we learn more but that is all I can immediately think of.

Please don't send flowers since I am allergic to them. I would love cards and e-mails but please don't call unless you need something. Our phone has been ringing off of the hook unless of coarse you are family or part of our close church family! We check our e-mail almost constantly so if we are able to respond we will.

Here is the lastest set of prayer requests for Tessa to come home and our cancer jouney...

*Please pray for our friends and family who are struggling with this diagnosis. Some are reliving their own experiences of their own cancer or a loved ones cancer. I have also become aware of three others that may be facing breast cancer. Those closest to us are scared and don't know what to say or do. Give them the peace that they need and pray that EVERYONE uses this time to draw closer to God and to make a changes in their lives so they can look back on their lives with no regrets.

*Please pray for our surgeon and all of the medical team that will be working with my case. Pray that I am able to share my faith with them and that God can use me to work in their hearts to someday come to know HIM.

*Please pray for Jason, Grace, Ian, my mom, and Jason's mom as they sit by my bedside and watch me lay in pain. That will be difficult for them I am sure and they need God's strength to get thru this.

*FAST RECOVERY!!!!

*Please pray for good health for Tessa and her caregivers.

*Please pray we pass court!

*Please pray for us as we prepare our hearts and home for our daughter Tessa and work out travel details for Jason!

As our prayers are answered I put them at the bottom of the letter so you can keep track of how awesome God is!

Thank-you again for your prayers today.
Your family in Christ,Heather, Jason, Grace, Ian, and Tessa Kanz Answered Prayers!

*Recieved clear direction to do a single mastectomy 10/20/09
*Recieved our court date of October 29th. 10/20/09
*Cedarcreekers volunteered to take care of our yard! 10/20/09
*Found out that flights were not nearly as expensive as we thought. 10/3/09
*Wyneens raised over $700 for us! 10/3/09
*Wynveens volunteered to have a garage sale fundraiser for us! 9/25/09
*We recieved confirmation that Tessa is living in Addis and won't need to change homes and caregivers in her last few months in Ethiopia 9/24/09
*We recieved 12 new pictures of Tessa 9/24/09
*We recieved word that our dossier was translated, authenticated and submitted to court this week 9/21/09
*Our USCIS paperwork arrived 9/15/09
*Frequent flier miles donated 9/14/09
*Three new pictures arrived of Tessa 9/14/09
*Dossier arrived safely to Ethiopia 9/12/09
*Garage Sale success! Raised $1500 9/12/09
*Assistant Stork was able to process our dossier quickly and get it sent to CCI 9/4/09
*Reese's Rainbow profile is on the website 9/4/09
*Our passports came in the mail today and fun news about Tessa. 9/3/09
*Fingerprints were easy to do and Kelley survived her day with the children 9/2/09
*We recieved our dossier back from the state today, made copies and had sent it to the Assistant Stork to send it to the US department of State and the Ethiopian Embassy! 9/1/09
*We recieved a new video of Tessa today! 8/31/09
*We made over $1000 in two days of garage sales and have enough for a second sale!!! 8/29/09
*The girls had a great first day of selling and made $99! 8/28/09
*We had lots of brave helpers for our Friday sale and volunteers for tommorrow as well! 8/28/09
*Our documents arrived from CCI and our dossier has been sent to recieve the Great Seal of WI in Madison . 8/28/2009
*Our letter from CCI to include with our dossier is in the mail and on our way to us so we can add that last piece of paperwork before mailing it off to get the Great Seal! 8/25/09
*Beth Crammond volunteered to make some jewerly for our sale! 8/25/09
*CCI and Catholic Charities were able to communicate today and add the missing information to our homestudy and everything is approved! 8/25/09
*Melissa approved our homestudy 8/09
*Cynthia was able to get our changes made to the homestudy quickly. 8/16/09
*We recieved our fingerprinting appointment sooner than we expected and Jason was able to get approval for getting off of work for our fingerprinting appointment in MN plus we have a babysitter! 8/13/09
*Our last homestudy meeting went well! Answered prayer 8/13/09