Weekend Warriors

Good evening fellow Warriors,

Our apologies for the lengthy delay, it's been a busy few days. To get right down to business, there's good news and less good/other news. First for the good news, we continue to be fast tracked through the system and were discussed at rounds again, this time at the RUH cancer center. For those of you who don't know, rounds is a forum for doctors to discuss interesting and challenging cases among themselves to ensure optimal diagnosis and treatment plans are provided. We have an appointment with our Oncologist Dr. Sami (not to be confused with our Oncologist Surgeon Dr. Groot) this upcoming Friday; we're told there's often a 4-6 week delay in seeing an Oncologist from the time of referral so an 8 day turnaround is phenomenal, needless to say we're very pleased.  Once we meet with the Oncologist we'll have a much more definitive plan of attack likely include the specific treatment plan such as drugs and timelines associated.In other words, we are nearly done the reconnaissance and are heading to the war room to draft the battle plans. We see your weakness shadow.... Before treatment can begin we're told we will also be going for a CT scan, yet to be scheduled.

Now for the other news; our mission, should we choose to accept it pertains to future fertility options. Friday we went to the fertility clinic and although we did not know what to expect we heard news we were definitely not expecting. When we had met with our doctor earlier in the week we came out of the meeting understanding that IVF (Invetro) would be covered by the healthcare system due to our circumstances. Unfortunately, this is not the case.  So now we are burdened with an existential question in the middle of all the chaos; to harvest or not to harvest. As Alyssa's become rather fond of the farmer outfit idea, we've chosen either way we will be wearing a farmer outfit, it's a matter of whether it's to the IVF clinic or in a couple of years in a more intimate setting ;) There are other options available however none with the same reassurance as IVF.  The first and very personal question, do we even want children; if no this would be a simple decision.  As the two of us are very much on the fence and have always been, this only further complicates matters. We must make up our mind in the coming days if we are going to forge ahead as our window of opportunity if quickly dissipating and waiting another month for the next opportunity is not an option. At the present time, we're leaning towards "rolling the dice," and opting out of the IVF option.

Although this weekend has been wrought with indecision there have also been some pretty wonderful things. One of which being flowers. We really quite like flowers! And our kitchen table is full of gorgeous blooms. Unfortunately Alyssa did not inherit her fathers green thumb! Thankfully the family biologist came to the flowers aids and Alyssa has yet to destroy them... and the weekend is over in 1 hr and 22 minutes! The other great thing this weekend brought was the wonderful and generous support of our friends! Saturday morning Alyssa escaped for a little while when she went for pedicures with one of her best friends followed by some retail therapy, sushi and a classic movie. You can't go wrong with Roger Rabbit and snuggles with Jack! To clarify, Jack is an adorable kitten who just happens to have matching toe nails with Alyssa now! That cat has great style! Earlier in the week we went and watched a magical winter movie with some magical kids and look who came to visit!! Our very own elf on the shelf!!!! Now that's Christmas magic!

Again, we would like to thank everyone for their generous support.

Left foot'n & right foot'n,

Steve & Alyssa