Good News and lots of Memories

I have successfully completed three months of my oral chemo (Ibrance). Fatigue and nausea are my biggest complaints, but nothing I can't work through and it certainly isn't stopping me from living life. On Tuesday I had my first CT to see how the treatment is working. Today I met with Dr. Alguire for the results. I have breast cancer on my left lung and that area is unchanged. In the world of stage 4 cancer, unchanged is one of the treatment goals. My treatment is designed to hopefully stop cancer from growing while possibly shrinking tumors as well. I also have cancer in lymph nodes in my abdominal area some close to my heart.  Those areas are shrinking, so this is GREAT news!  While we are all praying for a miracle, and for the cancer to go away, the news that I am stable and some areas are shrinking is fantastic.

Moving forward we keep doing what we are doing.  21 days of chemo with a 7 day  break along with monthly injections of Faslodex. Working full time, keeping up with my busy kids, coaching softball and living life. So far this year we escaped to the Caribbean with good friends for a few nights.I had the honor and privledge to meet with members of the famous Christian band "Big Daddy Weave" This group and my sweet friend Angela and Jeff prayed over me, and how powerful that was.  God is working and we see it.  I was also able to help surprise a bestie with a trip to Vegas to celebrate her 40th Birthday. I jumped 855 feet off a building which was truly amazing and for spring break we are going on a cruise with our kids and good friends.  We are finding balance with life, and learning to live through treatment, enjoying life even with stage 4 cancer. Someone told me I make having cancer look easy.   It certainly isn't easy, but it does really put life in perspective.  I don't know how many good scans we will have, or how long my treatment will out smart the cancer, but I do know I am going to live each moment while I feel good!

My family thanks everyone for the prayers, they keep us strong when it would be easy to be weak.  They also show healing in my body and we are so grateful for that. Attached are some pictures from our recent escapes of reality and yes, that is me in the air! Jumping 855 feet, it was awesome and I can't wait to cross some more thrilling adventures off my bucket list.

Peace and Hope,
Chris and family

Blessed

It has been 60 days since I received the phone call that my breast cancer had metastasized to my lung. What a whirlwind of fear, prayers, sadness, prayers, anxiety, prayers, questions, more prayers, more surgery, the start of chemo and many many more prayers the last 60 days has been.

The phone call came the day after Thanksgiving, just as I was about to walk out the door to celebrate the upcoming birth of a new family member.  The next 30 days were filled with doctors appointments, Christmas celebration after celebration and the start of a New Year.  Life was so busy we hardly had time to really absorb the new reality ahead of us and the fact that stage 4 breast cancer has no cure, for the rest of my life here on earth I would be receiving chemotherapy treatments.

As the Christmas Season came and went and 2017 started, the meals, love and support continue flood us. We are so grateful for that. However, as life settled back in and the kids returned to school I started to slip into a dark place. I tried my best to hide it from my family and friends. I tried to hide the sadness and fear that was filling my soul. I put a smile on my face, went to work, games etc just as anyone would expect from me. Inside though I felt like I was dying.....

The sermon series at church this month is "Surrender" and each day I would do just that.  I would surrender my fears to God and have enough strength to get through the day. I used to find so much peace in being alone, I would long for kids bedtimes so I could have a hour alone. But suddenly being alone was scary for me. It gave me time to think and made my mind run wild and full of fear. Sleepless nights, and so much anxiety.  All I could do was what I knew to do and that was to keep praying and keep surrendering.

On January 15th, I went to visit a friend in the hospital.  Someone just starting their own roller coaster ride with cancer, only she didn't get a chance to fight. Her ride ended far to soon. My friend died that same day. That weighed so heavy on my mind for days and still does.  It was that day that I started to realize, yes I do have metastatic breast cancer. I understand there is no cure, but I am tolerating my treatment well, my side effects are manageable and I am finding balance in what I can do and what I need to let go. So why would I spend time being sad and depressed?  I need to get busy living.  Enjoying family, friends, work, and LIFE. Because I am here and I still have a LIFE. I have cancer, but I can't let cancer have my spirit.

In the past month the little community I am blessed to live in that sits on beautiful White Lake has blessed me beyond measures. It started with the Montague vs Whitehall girls basketball game becoming a pink out event, honoring and showing love and support for me and my family.  The bleachers were packed in pink, and the gym was full of positive energy the entire evening.

My family attends Evangelical Covenant Church of Whitehall Michigan and last night our dear friend Craig Smith who is the Youth and Worship Pastor along with so many other wonderful people held the most amazing worship service for our family.  We were blessed with a huge crowd of family, friends and even strangers. Showing love and support to us, wonderful music by a variety of people, some jokes, poems and so many prayers. My family left the worship last night with full hearts.  It is such a gift to be blessed by our community.  We tried to acknowledge each person who attended, but as we read through the cards we realized we missed so many of you.  Please know we are so overwhelmed by the presence of everyone and we thank God for all of you touching our lives, praying for us, and helping us ease the financial burden that comes with cancer.

 We are so blessed and our God is an awesome God!

I am just about finished with my second round of chemo, and tolerating things well. Learning to balance life with the side effects. I will have a scan in about one month and we will see how my cancer is reacting to my treatment so far. I am learning that life is good and can continue to be good even with stage 4 cancer!

Peace and Hope,
Chris Stark and family



 

21 days of Chemo

Some do the 21 day fix work out plan. I just finished my first 21 days of chemo plan.  To be honest, it went great!  We lived life as normal with minimal side effects.  We enjoyed Christmas with family and friends. As I embark on my first stretch of 7 days off of chemo, I am headed to St. Mary's in Grand Rapids tomorrow to have my ovaries removed.  As you may recall my breast cancer thrives off of estrogen, so removing the ovaries will eliminate a lot of estrogen in my body with hope to keep the cancer  from growing any more.

Surgery is scheduled for 2:00 pm for those of you who want to say some prayers at that time, we welcome them.

I am off of chemo until Wednesday and then we will start the next 21 day cycle.

The picture above was taken by my dear friend Christi Marsh a few weeks ago, and as teenagers would have it, Bryce got his haircut a few days later....  We will have to do some more pictures soon, as he hardly looks like the same kid.

Peace and Hope,
Chris

Accepting

I have found it a challenge this week to accept my diagnosis....

I have officially started all of my treatments. I started with an injection of Zoladex.  This is a hormone based chemotherapy that is used to shut down my ovaries.  I will receive Zoladex every 28 days until I have my ovaries removed. If my white blood cells corporate with us, I will have my ovaires removed on December 30th. Last week I started taking Ibrance otherwise known as palbociclib. This is the oral chemo I take for 21 days with a 7 day break and then repeat. I ended last week with an injection of Faslodex.  Faslodex is a form of chemotherapy used to stop your body from producing any estrogen that is left after the ovaries are shut down. I receive this every 14 days, eventually tapering down to every 28 days for life or until it stops working. My weekend was great, I was full of energy and enjoyed each moment.  As the days go on, and I continue treatment I am feeling the effects. I am tired, actually exhausted at some moments, and my body aches. Nothing I can't tolerate, nothing that I will let slow me down, and nothing I should really complain about, it is the new normal.

The last few weeks my life has been so consumed with working on a plan and putting it into action that I put all my energy into that. Now that the plan is in place, I have more time to think about the reality of stage 4 cancer. I can't help but find my mind wandering at certain moments, wondering how many of these moments I will get to enjoy. Last week Jeff and I sat through 4 basketball games between the 2 kids. I couldn't help but think I hope I am still here in 5 years sitting in these bleachers. As I Christmas shop I think about buying a gift that has meaning.  Something that my loved ones will remember me by. My mind doesn't shut off, at night I think about the letters I want to write to my children in case I am not here for milestones in in their life, to tell them in person how proud of them I am.  I think of the gifts I want to buy them for special days in their life that I may not live long enough to experience with them. It may sound strange to some, but this is what is on my mind these days. I think these are all probably normal thoughts for someone facing stage 4 breast cancer. I realize that none of us know how long we have here, but knowing you have cells living in your body working against you to kill you really makes you think about life. While these thoughts drift through my mind periodically, I do my best to stay strong and not let cancer bring me down or rob me of anymore time than it already does. But I would be lying if I said I didn't have sad moments.

As we continue to adjust to the "new normal" life really is good. This week I worked a full week, only had one doctors appointment, went to yoga a few times with my Mom and friends and sat through a few more basketball games...  Life is good, even with cancer.

"I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." Philippians 4:13

Peace and Hope,
Chris

Gratitude....

Gratitude, tonight I attended a Heated Vinyasa class at Muskegon Yoga taught by Fred Meston with my friend Stephanie. I am a yoga beginner so Heated Vinyasa was a little much, but it felt great, and definitely gave me some yoga goals!  At the end of the class, as we slowed the mind and relaxed the body, Fred told us to think about gratitude. Well, instantly my first thought was how am I to find gratitude in my life right now?  What brought me here? I am not thankful for stage 4 cancer. Then I took a deep breathe, calmed myself and really thought about life and what it means.

By all means, the cancer part totally sucks. Any type of cancer sucks, but stage 4 cancer really sucks. Reading my medical summaries sucks. It is like a bad dream, only really it is reality and reality sucks.

In the midst of reality, I still have so much to be thankful for. I have a loving family that cares so deeply for me.  I have amazing friends. We live in an amazing community where strangers have reached out to our family. I have a loving church family that prays with me and for me. I am surrounded by other area church families that are also praying for me. I have a great job, with awesome co-workers. I feel great, I wake up each day and feel great!  I am so grateful for the last 39 years I have had here on earth and I pray I get 39 more. That is all good stuff to be grateful for.

Last week I met with Dr. Alguire at the Johnson Family Cancer Center.  We put together the rest of the treatment plan. I started some hormone based chemotherapy to shut down my ovaries.  Since my cancer likes estrogen, we need to shut down all the estrogen in my body.  So far I am tolerating that well. Tomorrow I will start my oral chemo treatment.  The treatment is a newer drug and has a great response in patients so far. I will take that drug for 21 days, and then take 7 days off. Then we will repeat the cycle.  Continuing to repeat while monitoring my cancer.  As long as the cancer doesn't grow, we stay on that drug cycle.  The treatment comes with side effects, but hopefully nothing that doesn't allow us to enjoy each day. This treatment also comes with a heavy price tag, one pill is $495 dollars.  Today I was blessed to find out that my insurance agreed to pay for it, and I was awarded a $25,000 grant bringing my monthly copay for the drug down to $10.00 a month.  New chemotherapy treatments, health insurance and grants have been added to my list of things I am grateful for...

So while the reality of my families new normal totally sucks, and we have no idea how long I will continue to feel well.  We are grateful for the days we have and are hopeful we will have many, many more.

 Peace and Hope,
Chris

Working on a plan..

I don't really even know where to start.  We are overwhelmed by the prayer and love that friends and strangers have extended to our family.  We have received cards, gifts and so many people have reached out and want to help us.  The truth is, I feel great. It is by the grace of God that I had kidney stones and a CT scan that accidentally found these nodules on my lung. If we had we not caught this until I had symptoms we maybe having a different conversation.

The fact that we caught the metastasis before I had symptoms doesn't change that fact that I have stage 4 breast cancer, it simply means we have time to find the best treatment for me.  Yesterday at U of  M we listened to options and recommendations. Friday morning we will meet with my oncologist in Muskegon and work on a timeline to put treatment into action.

With stage 4, they start with the treatment that has proven to possibly keep cancer from growing while allowing quality of life.  So, we will start out with a few therapy's that have minimal side effects but also have been known to stop the cancer from growing then we hope and pray they work for years.  They can’t promise anything,  and we will live scan to scan, blood test to blood test.  I will start treatment soon and should be able to live life as normal through treatment for now. Praying that these drugs can keep the cancer from growing more. If they don’t work for me, then we go onto the next drug and see if that works.

After we meet on Friday and have a final plan and timeline I will make another update.  Of course we also have to wait for the insurance approval of the recommended treatment choices. 

Our family thanks you for the prayers, they are helping to us stay strong and hopeful during a time that it could be so easy to let go.

A few of my favorite people have sent us songs, and this one happens to be one of my favorites right now.  Go check it out on YouTube, it is powerful. 

Lauren Daigle - Trust In You - YouTube

Peace and Hope,

Chris and family 

Dancing with Mets....

In January of 2008 I was diagnosed with Stage 2 invasive breast cancer at the young age of 30.  My children were 4 and 7 at the time.  I underwent a double mastectomy and 4 months of chemo therapy.  The time flew by, I tolerated the treatments well and my kids did great. 

Fast forward through, a full time career, beach days, ski trips, vacations, busy kids and sporting events to October 2016 age 39.... So close to the 9 year cancer free anniversary. So close that some days I forgot I ever had breast cancer.

I saw my family care doctor mid October for kidney stone symptoms, she ordered a CT scan to see if they existed.  As I took the call from the nurse a few days later, she mentioned the scan picked up 2 stones that I should pass easily on my own, then she followed it up by, it also picked up some suspicious spots on your right lung and we would like you to see your oncologist ASAP for a PET scan.....  As my jaw dropped to the floor, I was speechless.  I wasn't expecting that call, I felt great, it had been 9 years. "NO NOT ME and NOT METS", I thought to myself. For those of you who don't know, metastatic breast cancer is the only breast cancer that kills. There is no cure. 

Within the same week I saw my oncologist, had a PET scan. and received a call that confirmed the CT scan and PET scan both show the same areas of concern, for metastatic breast cancer on my right lung. 

Then the waiting began..... What was really just a few shorts weeks felt like years. Years of tears, anxiety, worry, sleepless nights and many prayers. November 22nd I had a biopsy at the University of Michigan that confirmed my breast cancer has spread to the outside of my right lung. This is considered metastatic stage 4 cancer.  While stage 4 cancer is devastating we have several options for treatment.  We head back to the University on Tuesday,  we will work with my oncology team and develop a plan of attack. 

While our life will never be the same and our family adjusts to the new normal,  we will learn to live and thrive with stage 4 breast cancer.