Flashback to June 3, 2015: Telling the world...God's servants pick up our broken pieces.

The following are the Facebook posts Matt and I put up a few hours after the phone call from Dr. Strickland.


Katie's:
     Well, today my family received some pretty hard news to swallow. It has been confirmed that I am beginning a battle in breast cancer. Although all reports are not back, based on the results we do have, it looks to be stage 3 inflammatory breast cancer (further tests will confirm that). Don't google it bc it will scare you to death and I am here to reassure you I am not going anywhere!!! I'll know more tomorrow after my oncology appt @ 2:30, but it looks like chemo will start immediately, with surgery to follow after margins have shrunk. Rest assured, we are making sure baby Griffies will be fine through all treatments, and nothing will be done until we are given that reassurance. That being said, it's a very aggressive cancer and we cannot wait until delivery. I love you all and desperately need your prayers for me and my nugget as we begin this journey. More than anything, my God will be glorified because He has given me a peace of "I'm gonna be ok" that can only come from Him, and for that, I am blessed and thankful!!! Now, let's beat this cancer!!

Matt's:

     Katie was diagnosed today with Stage 2 breast cancer. We meet tomorrow with the oncologist to discuss chemo treatments. Katie was told that it is a very aggressive cancer but that it is a curable cancer. I'm sure it's going to be a tough road ahead but I'm confident that God is with us during this and every thing is going to be fine. I ask that you pray for our family, for Katie's healing, for baby Griffies' health, and for Bella. God is good, all the time and all the time, God is good!! Thanks!

My response in the wee early morning hours of June 4th:

     As I sit here unable to sleep, and read all these precious messages again and again, to say that I am completely humbled and in awe of God's love through you, His servants, is an understatement!! I am truly blown away by the number of precious souls that are covering my Heavenly Father's throne tonight on my behalf. I'm sure He's even a little blown away ;) I thank you from the bottom of my heart for being warriors for me. I ask that as this journey is just beginning and progressing, that you will keep those prayers going up every chance you get!! I have had a peace that I would beat this from the beginning of the possibility that it was even coming, but Satan uses fear in powerful ways and I need him to get behind me. I need to continue reading y'alls sweet messages and know that with all these prayers, there is just no way God could say no! I'm gonna continue loving my sweet hubby's "no worry" nature that sometimes drives me batty, I'm gonna keep that sweet secret my daughter gave me tonight as I was putting her to bed, and I am going to watch my second daughter be born and her life unfold before my eyes, and I am going to continue teaching other's about God through this battle!! Please join me in that faith friends!!!

To say that we were overwhelmed, in a good way, by all the love and support that began flooding our souls and picking up the newly broken pieces at this point, would be an understatement too great to explain!! We both grew up in the church, but neither of us have ever been through a situation quite like this before, and so the love of His people that was poured out on us in such beautiful ways, was truly awe inspiring and brought tears to our eyes daily! God is so very good guys, ALL the time, and we thank you for choosing to walk this weary road with us!! We are truly honored to have you come along :) We also realized at this point, we had a choice. We could either focus on the good and see that if we trusted in Him through this trial, He would win souls for His Kingdom through our toughest of days, and hopefully bring my body back to complete healing, OR, we could sit back and focus on how much it all really sucked, and make this journey much harder than it naturally already was to be. Thankfully, through the sweet words of our friends and family, God showed us we had the strength and peace to choose the first option, and we decided to lean on Him and get ready for the bumpy road ahead, knowing we would be carried by His hands. We began clinging to each other and His promise of "You're gonna be OK. Trust me." Just because we chose Him though, did not stop the crazy from beginning ;) 

#Godiswritingmystory 

Flashback to June 2, 2015: His whisper

When the lump started growing rapidly at 27 weeks, I had a gut feeling. You know, one of those gut wrenching ones that no matter how hard you try to ignore it, and pretend its not real, you just can't shake it?? One of those. I wanted to pretend I was just an emotional prego, but sadly, I knew in my core that something was wrong, terribly wrong, and I was just not going to be able to shake the feeling. My heart knew I had cancer. Fast forward to the morning of my first appointment with my surgeon for the initial ultrasound that would ultimately confirm my gut feeling. I parked right in front of her building, it was about 8:30 in the morning, and the building was covered in pink. So. Much. Pink. I’ve always loved the color pink, but in that moment, I despised it. I despised what it looked like. I despised how it made me feel. I despised what it stood for. I parked the car and just sat and looked at all the pink and thought to myself, “and so it begins,” as tears began to stream down my face. In that moment, knowing I had no control of what I was about to find, I said a simple prayer through my little sighs, “Dear God, please let me be ok, either way….cancer or not.” In that moment, I absolutely cannot explain it, but remember it with the most vivid of details. God reached out with His mighty, but all too gentle hand, and with the sweetest of whispers said, “You’re gonna be ok. Trust me.” With a new found sense of complete peace, my response was a simple “ok, lets do this.” Tears wiped, car locked, big girl panties back on, and I opened the pink door…. 

#Godiswritingmystory

Flashback to June 2, 2015: Let's go back to the beginning..."It's cancer."

Around the time I found out I was pregnant, which was around 5 weeks (November or December of 2014), I found a lump in my right breast.  I showed my OBGYN at my first pregnancy appointment, and after examination, we both agreed it seemed to be a fibroadenoma.  It was movable, round in shape, and had probably shown up due to the pregnancy (or so we thought).  I agreed with this diagnosis because I had a fibroadenoma removed from my left breast when I was 17, and it did seem very similar.  Looking back, this was God’s perfect timing beginning to work!! Had we pursued an ultrasound at that time and found the cancer, I could not have safely begun the aggressive treatments I needed due to the fast growing cells of the baby. The chemo would have attacked her as well and she would not have survived. That is one fear I am so VERY thankful I did not have to endure….again, God has perfect timing!!  At 27 weeks, the lump began to grow very rapidly; so big it was protruding out of my bra, pain began to manifest, and my skin began to favor something that is best described as an “orange peel”.  When I went back to Dr. Logan at 29 weeks, she agreed that since it had changed, we would seek a second opinion from a breast surgeon. The next day, 2nd of June 2015,  I went to the breast surgeon, and upon an ultrasound, she told me that she didn’t want me to necessarily prepare for bad news, but she wanted me to know she was concerned enough that she wanted to do 3 biopsies that very day. She said that the lump did not have clear margins or the symmetrical shadows that a traditional fibroadenoma should. As she left my room, I composed my nerves just enough to shoot Matt a text to say a little prayer. He of course was ready to head to me, but as odd as this may sound, I needed to be in that moment alone. I was able to just pray and process and be, and who would have thought that I would need those few moments, but for whatever reason I did. I needed to just hold my little belly and remember my God was bigger!! So after a few minutes, it was time to start the biopsy process. Oh the biopsies! That was an adventure in and of itself!! At that point I was 29 weeks along, so my little darling had grown enough that she could lay on my venae cavae, and during the biopsies, she planted herself right on it when I had to lay flat!! Lets just say, trying to keep me from blacking out during that process was probably the most challenging of all ;) They were so sweet though, and Dr. Strickland was able to get what she needed even in the twisted position I had to lay in order to appease the baby within ;) And just FYI, the loud "shot" sound of that needle biopsy contraption will most definitely play with your mind and nerves, just so you know ;) Any who, she called me the next day, 3rd of June 2015, from her daughter’s basketball game of all places because she didn’t want me to have to keep worrying. When I answered the phone, the world stood still as I heard the echoing words..."It's cancer." Dr. Strickland informed me that I had a highly rare and aggressive invasive ductal carcinoma known as inflammatory breast cancer; stage 3. It had already spread to one lymph node as well. I asked "on a scale of 1-10, how bad is mine in the realm of having breast cancer" and she said "a 9." So "great," I thought, "one of the worst ones." My daughter within gets the wiggles, and my own heart shatters in the same breath…. 

 #Godiswritingmystory