Prayers for Ashleigh Range

Friends,
I have an immediate emergency post and need you to pray for my friend Ashleigh Range to recover from Inflammatory Breast Cancer (IBC).  She was diagnosed a few weeks ago with this rare and very aggressive cancer.  She is posting to her blog each week with specific prayer requests so please follow and pray for her as she and her family go through this very tough time. 

Ashleigh is a friend of mine and running buddy from Dallas.  She is also a GT grad and then went to MIT to get her masters, smart cookie to say the least!  She has a baby, Noah, and is 36 weeks pregnant with her second son, David.  She is strong and determined and can beat this.  Please lift Ashleigh up and pray for God to work a miracle and heal her completely.

Here are her prayer requests for this week:

Prayers

+ My white blood cell counts (WBC) are continuing to drop. Because I'm pregnant I wasn't able to get the standard steroid shot that allows chemo patients to only wait 2 weeks between treatments (it helps boost the WBCs and makes the recovery faster). The WBCs will continue to drop until it bottoms out and then starts to recover. The doctors have to wait to deliver or do the next round of chemo until after my WBCs hit a certain threshold. Currently that is looking like late next week maybe or early the following week, delaying chemo for an extra week and a half. My doctor told me not to freak if the tumors start growing again (how am I not supposed to freak out over that??). 

Please pray for two things: 1) That my WBCs rebound at heroic rates next week so we can deliver sooner rather than later, and 2) that the baby is delivered safely with no c-section or any other complication that would require me to take antibiotics and delay chemo even more. Right now chemo #2 is scheduled for the 24th but I'm really praying that gets moved up so there isn't 3.5+ weeks between treatments.

+ Continued prayers that the cancer continues to recede, break apart, and make its way to a "complete response" with chemo. Please pray that when we do the scans after delivery that the cancer has not metastasized to any other organs and I can "just" be Stage 3B or 3C.

+ This one is pretty minor in the grand scheme of things but I'm told I should lose my hair in the next few days (no thinning or anything yet though, maybe it is going to come out in one big chunk?). Pray that I see it as it really is - just proof that there are drugs inside me killing cells that replicate quickly, which is a very good thing. I hear that losing your hair is pretty traumatic, especially for a woman, and especially for someone that gets a lot of joy out of doing hair. I logically see that it isn't and shouldn't be a big deal, but I hear I might feel differently when it actually happens. Pray I'm cool about it. 

 http://www.myjourneywithibc.blogspot.com/

Memorial Day in Bend, Oregon

Yes, I know.  Before you go all "Memorial Day was so long ago," or "Why haven't you blogged Thailand or Cambodia yet?"  1. Yes, Memorial Day was a long time ago, but I've been busy. And 2) I have a draft of Thailand and Cambodia going but it's a lot of effort so wanted to give you some teaser content while I prepare my longer post.

So, Memorial Day --- here we go!  The plans started out for this weekend a little like this...
It was Will's bestie, Jonas's, birthday and his girlfriend was out of town so Will planned a fun weekend down to Mt. Hood and then Bend to do lots of fun things Jonas wanted to do.  I planned a quiet weekend in Queen Anne doing things at home and getting together a few times with my girlfriends for brunch etc. 

As will packed up his car with toys like bikes, rock climbing gear, tents, skis, etc. I waved goodbye to him and then instantly realized that I wanted to go on this adventure!  As he rounded the corner, I ran inside, grabbed my phone and rang him up, just as he was calling me to see if I wanted to join them.  Must have had some look in my eye that told him I wanted to go (in Will's defense, he had invited me all along but I had declined).  So I ran inside, started throwing stuff in bags and the boys came and picked me up for the weekend o' fun.

His car looked a little something like this --- the biggest challenge of the weekend was finding a place to fit me in for the ride ;)

Day One: Mt. Hood
The first stop was Mt. Hood.  Will and Jonas brought skis and attempted to summit the volcano.  I opted to sit in the amazing lodge that was built back in the 1930's or something like that nestled up by a huge fireplace, reading my Kindle and enjoying a bloody mary.  I win.

Day Two: Bend, Oregon - Phil's Trails
We made it down to Bend and went out to Phil's Trails complex.  I did a little trail running and checked out some amazing houses along the way while Will and Jonas did a little mountain bike ride.  This afternoon was, of course, followed up with some great beer, food and camping.

Day 3: Rock Climbing at Smith Rock State Park
Rock climbing is AWESOME! Have I mentioned that before :)  Going into this, Jonas didn't really love climbing and it's never been Will's favorite activity. However, by the end of this trip Jonas was a changed man and now is a rock climbing enthusiast... I'll take the credit for that! He even got in his first lead climb outdoors here!

Day 4: Mountain Biking at Phil's Trails
After rock climbing we spent the night at our favorite place, McMinemans, and then ate at Jackson's Corner... amazing pizza!  The final day in Bend we went mountain biking again at Phil's Trails and I had a sweet rental bike with a dropper seat (neither Will nor Jonas had one!).  Then we drove home and played trivia in the car for about four hours straight.  I served as the host and Will and Jonas had to beep in with the answers.  Great weekend with the boys!