No More Chemo!

On Tuesday morning Danny went in for the PET scan that would determine if he needed two more cycles of chemotherapy or quit early. We waited two grueling days to hear the results. I bit off all of my nails and gained three pounds from the stress eating! We tried to busy ourselves and managed to have some fun with Becca and celebrate my Dad's birthday. When we got home from the party I started getting Lucy ready for bed when Steve got home. He had gotten an email from our Dr. saying that "the scan showed no sign of the disease and an enlarged spleen. Excellent news."
We were like, WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?! We thought that meant we were done with chemo, but really needed him to come out and say it. Steve texted him (it pays to be the guys accounting firm! We have his private email and cell number:) and finally got the okay to celebrate. We were in shock for a bit before I totally lost it. We cried from joy for a little while and then called all of our fam. When I called my house the birthday party was still going full swing so I heard a huge cheer and screams on the other end of the line after I told my Dad the good news. It was a very surreal night. We have been doing chemo for ling enough now that we don't quite remember what life should be like or what we should do without it. Today we met with Danny's oncologist. He consulted with his colleagues and I guess they are in disagreement about Danny starting radiation. The plan was to radiate where the large mass was in his chest, but it is close enough to his heart that there are risks to radiation, so they only want to do it if they think it will really decrease his risk of reoccurance. They're sending us to UCSF for a second opinion. If they decide on radiation then we'll be doing about a month of that-probably starting in January. If not, then we're just done. Regardless we are excited to have a break in December. We'll be seeing our Dr. every three months for a couple years, than every six months for a couple years and will be officially "in remission" after five years (after which we'll only be seen once a year). I guess that goes on for the rest of our lives. Crazy.
Thank you for praying and fasting for Danny. I know it contributed to our good news. We feel so lucky to have such incredible family and friends supporting us.

The "chemo team" after we heard the news. Marilyn and I have different areas of expertise-and we all needed each other to get through this.

Lucy kept bringing us tissues because we would randomly break down. After awhile she started fake sobbing to feel a part of the group. She pretends to cry all the time (much like Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty she runs to a bed/couch and dramatically heaves)-but this time she audibly fake cried-it was hilarious.