We are expecting a baby, and a cancer diagnosis?...

I have used this blog over the years to randomly post things about our family, but time has always been what has kept me from being consistent with it. Now here I am and life is probably the craziest it'll ever be but I feel like documenting this journey is necessary. A way for us to look back and remember where we came from, and a way to keep our friends and family updated.

So what is going on with the Foiles these days?

Well, as most of you know we are expecting baby #3! We are so incredibly anxious to meet this baby, mostly because we are TEAM GREEN, and have no clue if we are being blessed with a baby boy or baby girl!

<3<3<3

While we are expecting this sweet, sweet bundle of JOY any day now, our lives have kind of been thrown for a loop..

Brad has been informally diagnosed with stage 2 Hodgkins Lymphoma. Cancer. While I will save the the "how we found out" for the next blog update I wanted to in a way announce this to clear up any speculation that may come about as more and more people start hearing the news.

What I will say is, we have been told he will be just fine, if this is what they think it is. 
He has a 8.7x6.7cm mass under his left breast bone near his heart. He will undergo surgery on Tuesday the 2nd where they will be taking a portion of the mass to biopsy.
Between the biopsy and the PET scan we should be receiving confirmation of the suspected diagnosis. They seem very confident, and optimistic at this point.

I also wanted to mention Brad and myself are feeling very positive about all of this. While we do have worries and concerns for the months to come we are confident he will pull through just fine. One thing I did want to make clear....

**Our children do not know**

We will tell them things as they come and will go into as much detail as we think is needed, but will most likely keep things pretty vague for now. Sadly lymphoma is not unknown to the Foiles family. Our children, Ella especially remember this very clearly and I do not want to instill fear into her little mind.

The word cancer is scary. What we have to remember here is every single person, every circumstance, and every diagnosis is different. We plan to take one day at a time, one worry at a time and we refuse to let a small six letter word intimidate us.

Lastly, please remember your response to something can trigger emotions that will last a life time. 
We know this is very scary and a shock to many, but despite that we hope to hear nothing but positive encouragement and optimism to help get us through!!

I will update again soon!

Thank you in advance for being here for us during this difficult time.

Update: We have a diagnosis and treatment plan!

Well, it has been less than a month since the first appointment that led us to the path of finding out what was going on with Brad and we now have an official diagnosis...

 

*Stage 2a Bulky Hodgkins Lymphoma*

 

 

Stage 2: Means it is two groups of nodes, the one mass on his chest under his breast bone, and then he has a small node that is enlarged under his collarbone. And the PET scan showed us that it has not spread to any other area of his body.

 

Stage 2 can be either a or b and it depends on symptoms. Stage 2b symptoms are systematic and include fever, weight loss and night sweats and Brad exhibits none of these, which is a good thing and puts him at stage 2a.

 

The *bulky* part of his diagnosis is considered unfavorable, but still curable! Bulky just tells us that the mass is rather large. If the mass was smaller he would be considered just a 2a.

 

Now on to treatment..

 

Which will start

***February 17th***

&

will be every other week.

 

 

Brad has opted to do an early stage clinical trial.

 

Standard treatment for early stage Hodgkins is a chemotherapy called ABVD (a mild form of chemo) with a baseline of 6 cycles (which is 12 treatments, over 6 months.)

 

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The clinical trial will be 2 cycles, so 4 treatments over 8 weeks of ABVD and then a PET scan to see if the cancer cells are gone or mostly gone. If they ARE we will continue on to do 4 more cycles. If they are NOT we will switch to a slightly more aggressive chemo called BEACOPP for 4 cycles.

 

So the main difference here is if they aren't seeing the results they want after 8 weeks, they will switch to a more aggressive chemo versus waiting it out with the ABVD.

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I know it's a lot it absorb and a lot of information, but people are curious so I thought I would share!

 

The doctors are extremely optimistic, and we really are not worried at this point! Brad is just more than ready to get going, and to get it over with!

 

Thank you for all of your thoughts and prayers! We have been overjoyed with all of the love and support! Keep them coming as we have heard the 1st round of chemo is the most difficult!!