November 26, 2009--3:31PM

Heather now has thrush, which is an infection of her mouth and throat. It is common with chemotherapy, unfortunately. Her energy, nausea, etc vary from moment to moment. I would ask that you pray for her health, our children's well-being and my leadership through all of this.

November 24, 2009--8:37PM

Heather went in for fluids today, which helped her nausea a bunch. She ate some pickles, a hot dog, and a thanksgiving dinner with the SPUDs. Weird, considering she hadn't eaten much the last few days.

Paperwork's in Texas. Waiting for a court date.

November 23, 2009-7:08PM

Heather has been pretty nauseous for a few days. Today, her nausea started getting better, but they removed her drain tube and gave her an antibiotic, which makes her nausea worse. She is frustrated with feeling nauseous...and dependent. Pray for her.

We sent off the final bits of paperwork for Tessa today. She could be home as early as December 3 (yikes!!!!!!) or as late as January 18th. Pray for God's timing.

Father, we trust in you in all things.

November 21, 2009--7:44AM

Heather is on day 3 post-first-chemo-treatment. She has been sleepy a lot and intermittently nauseous, both common side effects. The medications they gave her for nausea are reasonably helpful, particularly the lorazepam, which knocks her out as well. She has maintained good spirits, but continued prayer is requested.

Heather has been playing email tag with our social worker regarding getting Tessa home. Apparently, she is going to Ethiopia on December 3rd (!) to escort another child back and was encouraging us to complete our paperwork as soon as we have everything in hand. It is remotely possible that she would be home then, though that is only 2 weeks from now. It is more likely at this point that Tessa will be home after the new year. Again, pray for God's timing and our sanity. :-D

November 19, 2009--8:12PM

Heather had her first course of chemo today. The oncologist went over Heather's test results with us, clarifying that her scans looked good and then said, "I see you still have your drain in, so I presume we won't be starting chemo today" or something along those lines. All the color drained from Heather's face as she has been psyched up for this. When convinced by the surgeon that there was no sign of infection, we were off to the races.

The nurse injected her with AC-chemotherapy, which in and of itself was not too bad, from what she has said. However, initially, her eyes burned, which is a common side effect. She is now quite nauseous, but has 4 different anti-nausea medications at home to try.

We are also going to ship off some paperwork for the adoption tomorrow, God willing.

Continued prayers are always appreciated.

To God be the glory!

November 19, 2009

Heather had a port placed in her arm so that she can begin chemotherapy today. Her mom is back, which is a huge help. Dear God help it to go well and kill all the cancer.

Also, our social worker still thinks a December welcome home for Tessa is possible.


Thank you all for your continued prayers.

November 18, 2009--7:55AM

Heather had her port placed in her arm yesterday so that she can start chemo tomorrow. All went well. Please pray that chemo is able to start tomorrow and that Heather is able to tolerate it well.

Thank you all for your continued prayers.

November 16, 2009--3:40PM

Heather's back from the doctor. Prayers were answered before they even went out. She has "bony islands" which are basically as common as moles, but in the bones. It was not metastatic bone disease! Yay! Praise God!

November 16, 2009--2:50PM

Heather had tests today--CT scan, bone scan, surgery follow up. Something abnormal on the CT but didn't show up on the bone scan. They asked her to come back in to look more closely. She is there now. God let it be artifact and not mets.

When I am afraid,
I put my trust in you.
In God, whose word I praise,
in God I trust; I shall not be afraid.
What can flesh do to me?
--Psalm 56:3-4

November 14, 2009--9:41

Heather still has an opening in her incision site, which is kind of gross. They will probably stitch it--without anesthetic--which is even grosser. Pray that goes well. Also, please pray that we receive the paperwork we need from Ethiopia today!

November 13, 2009--7:30AM

Heather has been feeling pretty good. Pam went home yesterday in fact. Last night, however, she noticed a little bit of drainage from one of the suture sites. She is concerned that this means her antibiotic has not taken full effect. She is going to call the surgeon today and see if that spot can get stitched and if there is anything else she needs to do for this.

Also, talked with our social worker in Florida. Apparently, she would like to go to Ethiopia the week of December 12 and would like to bring kids back with her. Pray that, if it is God's will, that our paperwork gets through Immigration and Naturalization smoothly and that she would be home with us by Christmas.

We would ask that you pray that we would have a smooth, non-doctor-visiting weekend.

Love, the Kanzes

November 11, 2009--6:33AM

We had Heather in the ER last night. She was having back spasms about every 10 minutes that were debilitating. They prescribed a muscle relaxant, which has been quite helpful. On the positive side, her infection seems to be clearing nicely. Praise God!

Heather also talked with her social worker yesterday, who indicated that she is hoping to go to Ethiopia from about the 12th of December to the 19th. She would like to bring kids back with her. Pray that Tessa is one of them!

November 10, 2009 6:02 AM

Yay! Heather and I both slept through the night!

November 9, 2009--8:34PM

Well, Heather was back to the surgeon today. 36 hours of miserable pain, nausea, and fever suggested infection. The red streaks were a dead giveaway. Needless to say, she was started on an antibiotic, which has slowly led to improvement, though where the real benefit came was in having her infection drained. She said her headache disappeared nearly instantaneously. She has slowly improved, but is still sleeping it off.

Chemo is on hold for a while, naturally. She is scheduled for all of her "stuff" again next week, though the infection will really be the deciding factor. We press on, trusting that God is in this with us.

November 8, 2009-3:09PM

Last night, thanks to a friend who volunteered to watch the kids, Heather and I went on a date. It was really fun. After dinner, we came home, got the kids, and went to see Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. When we left the theater, Heather asked if it was really cold. By the time we got home, she had a major headache and was nauseous.

This morning, she still felt pretty awful, so we took her to urgent care. She had a fever and it turns out, she had developed an infection. She is now on antibiotics but still feels pretty tough. She is supposed to start chemo this week, but I don't know what this all will mean for that now.

Heather's mom is on the way.

11/5/09--11:55AM

Sorry for the delay in updates. Things have been going well at home and we have been focusing elsewhere. Today we met with Heather's oncologist. He reviewed the final pathology. There was 1 positive lymph node, she has an estrogen positive (good), progesterone positive (good), HER-2 neu negative (good) tumor. Although her tumor was multifocal (bad), the largest area was 1cm (good). It was graded III/III (not great). I know most of you won't know or care what this means, though some of you (i.e., Gen) will.

She is scheduled to begin chemo next Tuesday. She will undergo 4 courses of AC chemotherapy followed by 4 courses of Taxol. Click this link for some info. Following that, she will be undergoing a 5 year course of Tamoxifen, which will interfere with estrogen production and is important because she has estrogen-positive cancer.

She will lose her hair, and she has her facebook friends voting on wigs so we are in the process of figuring that out. It is hard to say entirely what side effects she will have.

We are also working dilgently to figure out when and how Tessa will be coming home. Now that she is officially ours, there is some additional paperwork we need to get done before she comes home to us.

Please pray that chemo goes well and that Heather tolerates side effects well!