Dear and good friends,

I’m gazing out the window at a beautiful spring day, so disappointing news is hard to believe and tough to share with you.

The sad news is that a recent PET scan and a chest x-ray show that Sammy Sarcoma is back in a big way. It is very common for sarcomas to recur in the lungs, and indeed that is where it has returned. I dared to hope that any recurrence of tumor would be isolated and small and possible to remove with surgery.  But that is not the case. It is not possible to do radiation therapy, either. There are many tumors in both lungs and they are not confined to one area. At the moment I have some pleurisy that may be related to the tumor.

So now I am facing some serious decisions. My oncologist recommends a biopsy of one of the tumors in the lungs to determine whether the recurrence is from my breast cancer of twenty-one years ago or the more recent sarcoma in my forearm. Also, because of some disturbances in vision I am to have a brain MRI “to see if anything is there”. Teehee!

Next Monday I will meet with my oncologist again when we have all the evidence in hand. You see, if it did, by some remote chance, happen to be breast cancer recurrence there is a good possibility of treatment, but if it is sarcoma the outlook is much more bleak. This time next week we might be discussing palliative care rather than aggressive chemotherapy to defeat the disease. That will be a serious life-altering decision.

As you can imagine this is all been a shock and a disappointing setback! In all of this, I feel encouraged to know that you care. I really need your prayers as I process the sad news and as I, with my doctors, make those very serious decisions. Thank you for staying on the journey with me.

It is a wonderful thing to know of God’s love at a time like this.  I feel very privileged to know that God promises us, His children, a secure future.  I realize that nothing can separate me from His love.  He has promised to never leave me. And, He is able to display His grace in my life for others to see. There is also the great promise that at the end of my earthly life I will be with Him forever. Wow! Now it occurs to me that this paragraph may sound trite because we have known these promises most of our lives.  Today I am hanging to these promises for dear life. Will you please trust God along with me—for His glory!

Lots of love and many, many thanks,

June