Prayer Request

Mom is asking for prayers today.  Over the last couple days she has had fevers on and off.  This is pretty normal when you're receiving heavy doses of chemo, but since she's already through her hardest days they're running tests to see what's causing the fevers.  They did a chest scan and they thinks she has a fungal infection so they're giving her antibiotics to treat it.  Please say a few extra prayers for our Mom today that the fevers would subside and that she starts feeling better.

Thanks so much!

Waiting

Hi everyone, this is Suzanne, Mary's youngest daughter.  Mom wanted me to let you know that she's been feeling better these last couple days.  She is currently on day 15 of her treatment.  For the first 6 days they administered the chemo, then she waited to feel the effects, and now her health is improving every day.  They had to take all of her blood levels (red blood cells, white blood cells, and her platelets) down to nothing in hopes that they will be replenished with good healthy cells.

Mom is staying up at Northwestern waiting for her counts to start coming back up.  We're hoping she'll be able to come home sometime next week, but it just depends on how fast her levels get back to normal.  They're not going to do a biopsy to see if the cancer is gone, instead they're going to rely on her blood tests (which they take everyday) to get an idea of what the chemo accomplished.  Once the doctors see what's going on in her blood, they'll figure out what Mom will do next.

Please keep praying.  Now is a critical time for her body to recover and start producing all good/normal cells.  We're thankful that she's through the hardest part of her round of treatment.  We know God was with her, carrying her through.

Day 12

Today is day 12 of Mom's fight!  Things are going as good as can be expected.  We are in the waiting period as well as the low period.  Her side affects from chemo have started to show up and will continue over this next week.  We're thankful that she hasn't had issues with fevers like she did last time she went through chemo.  Please pray extra hard this week for the chemo to rid her body of all the cancer once and for all.

As I, Amy, was driving up this afternoon to stay with my mom, I heard this song by Josh Wilson and wanted to share~

Encouragment

Blog update from Nicole Sniff, Mary's niece

I am sitting here overlooking the beautiful city lights, as Mary sleeps. Just another day of kicking some cancer tail has worn her out. Her numbers have been steady today, and things are moving a long as expected.

This is the first time I have been here and I feel God's presence. He is calling me to thank Him. Right here and now in the midst of the unknown. He is calling us to trust Him, and to remeber that His plan is better than our own.

The day I got the text message telling me that it was time to begin this next battle on cancer again, I was sitting and reading Psalm 20. Verses 1&2:"May the Lord answer you in the day of trouble. May the name of the God of Jacob protect you. May He send you help from the sanctuary and give you support from Zion." Then verse 5:"May He grant you your heart's desire and fulfill all of your plans."
verse 7"...but we will trust in the name of our GOD"

It's quiet here in the hospital, but I want to encourage you to not be quiet! Approach His throne with boldness and let's TRUST Him to answer our prayers for healing.

I just want to encourage everyone who reads this to keep praying! Keep approaching His throne with boldness, and we can pray with confidence in a God who does miracles. This really is the day the Lord has made, so let's rejoice and be glad in it. Be glad and praise Him for all He is doing and about to do in and through my strong and awesome Aunt Mary!!! I know she feels stronger fighting this battle with an army fighting with her!

Sunday Update

Hi family and friends...thanks for checking in.  This is Suzanne, Mary's youngest daughter.  Mom is still doing well.  She doesn't feel any effects of the chemo yet, although they're giving it to her every afternoon from about 1 to 8 and then again for an hour at 11.  They give her medicine to help her with nausea which makes her a bit sleepy, but she is doing well with it all.

She had a busy week and weekend full of visitors.  Adam, Bre, Lane, and Graysen were able to spend a few days with her this week.  They live out in Pennsylvania so it was good timing for their Easter visit.  Julie and Evan are able to visit mom often since they live in the city.  Today was extra busy for mom and dad at the hospital.  My family visited, along with Amy's family.  Mom also had other family and friends come see her today - Joe and Cheryl, Kimmy, and Kathy and Dan  - I think she felt very loved.  She's always enjoyed having lots of people around!

If you'd like to write Mom, her address is:
Prentice Women's Hospital
250 E. Superior St.
Attn:  Room 1486 - Mary Provance
Chicago, IL 60611-2908

We don't know anything new in regards to her diagnosis.  We should know more by mid-week.  For now, her spirits are good and she's being well taken care of at Northwestern.  We have our tough moments trying to understand all that she has to go through and not wanting to see her in pain, but we know God's hand is on her and He is sovereign.  We will continue to lean on Him in order to have an eternal perspective and also to receive comfort through our weaker times.  Please keep praying for my mom to get rid of this cancer for good.  Thanks so much.  Mom appreciates each one of you checking in on her.

Grammy & Papa with Tenley & Baby Cartlan

Grammy with Amy's family

Hope

Lane, Graysen and I decided to give Grammy a chance to nap today, and we found this in front of the Hancock building, very fitting!  We went there to get her the strawberry cheesecake she was craving from the Cheesecake Factory!! 

Treatment Update

It's Adam again, I wanted to update you before the night ends.  Mom got a call from Dr. Jessica tonight, and it's official...they are going to start her treatment tomorrow.  They have decided to move forward with a higher-dose chemo regiment, mainly because they have to get the leukemia out of her body. 

Tomorrow morning Dr. Jessica will be coming in to meet with me and Mom and to go over the reasons as to why she chose this option.  We know there were a lot of factors that went into this form of treatment, so hopefully we will get some more clarification of that from her.

As you read before, today was quite a roller coaster of emotions...mainly coming from the FLT-3 surprise.  I wanted to let you know that there is positive news as well with the FLT-3 not being present in her genetic makeup.  A few years ago when she was being treated here at Northwestern, her doctors told her that because she has the FLT-3 situation that it will be harder to make the leukemia go away and it will also be more susceptible to it returning again like it has.  So we are taking it as a positive that the FLT-3 has not shown up on the tests, because it very well might be easier to get rid of the leukemia again and the chances are better that we will NEVER SEE IT AGAIN!!!  Pray for that, and pray for Mom's strength as she mentally prepares to take on this nasty chemo again.  The hard part is that she knows what it's like because she's been there and done that before...but this is what will make her better and she needs the strength to fight through it. 

I will post another update after Dr. Jessica leaves in the morning.  Dad was up here tonight and both Lane and Graysen Provance were able to see her again as well.  Grandkid visits might be over now because of her needing to be more isolated, but we are thankful that over the last few days she has been able to see every one of her grandkids, even the new arrival Cartlan!  By the way, Suzanne is doing very well and Cartlan's doctors appointment yesterday went smooth...Mom and baby BOY are doing great!! 

Side note...I will be going out to get Mom some cheesecake tomorrow because Bre and I went to dinner with the kids while Dad was here and we went to the Cheesecake Factory.  When I came back to her room and told her where we went she asked what kind of cheesecake did I bring her?  I know where I will be going after Dr. Jessica leaves her room!!!  Love you Mom, whatever you need I will get!!

"Assumptions"

Remember what they say about assumptions...well, the assumptions that the team of doctors here at Northwestern were making about the bone marrow biopsy results have surprised them once again!  This is Adam, Mary's son, and I have been with her since last night anxiously awaiting the team of doctors' visit so they could tell us that they would be moving forward with her treatment plan. 

The team came in this morning about 8:00 and told us that they would probably start moving forward with a treatment option that would include a low-dose chemo and a new drug called Nexavar (Sorafenib), and they asked me if I had been able to talk with the pharmacy in regards to getting the Nexavar shipped to us.  I then spent some time getting that lined up, and started doing some research about the drug and what we could expect.  That is when the assumptions started to turn into frustration, because one of the doctors came back in about a half hour ago to tell us some surprising news.

The doctors have been aware for quite some time that Mom has a condition called FLT-3, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CD135, and they were under the impression that when the results of the bone marrow biopsy came back, that they would find the FLT-3 present in her cells once again.  Well, they are completely shocked and somewhat baffled that they did not find the FLT-3 present, which completely changes the treatment plan that they had set up for her to possibly start today.  They are going to send another sample to test in order to see if the results might have been inaccurate. 

What they do know based on the bone marrow results, is that her Leukemia (AML) is officially back in her system, and that is what has caused her blood levels to be completely out of the ordinary.  Knowing that, they will need to start a chemo regiment, but because of the surprise of the FLT-3 not being present, they are still unsure as to what type of chemo she will be starting.  As you can tell, I'm trying my best to explain what the doctors have told us, but this is all very difficult for us to understand or comprehend, and that is to be expected when the doctors themselves were completely shocked by the results.  One thing that I am confident about, is that this team of doctors will do whatever it takes to find the answers, and we feel confident in Dr. Jessica and her team that they will put Mom on the correct treatment plan in order to rid her body of this cancer and get her into remission again.  Dr. Jessica has been on the phone with many other physicians around the country, and is looking at the data of some clinical trials to find out the next best steps to take.  She is the perfect fit for Mom, and we have no doubt that she will do everything possible to help Mom OVERCOME again!!!

Mom was initially upset by the news, because the treatment plan was set up and she thought her stay in the hospital would be shorter than what she experienced a few years ago.  Please pray for peace within her to know that we truly don't have any of those answers yet, and the length of stay has yet to be determined.  I am doing my best to let her know that only God truly knows the plan, and that no matter what, we have to rid her body of the Leukemia no matter how long that takes.  Just like before, Mom is strong, and she told me she is ready for the battle...and the doctors also told me this morning that her organs and body overall is very strong and can take anything that they decide to treat her with!  As they say in the movie Braveheart..."Are you ready for a war!!!"  Pray for Mom to be ready, no matter what the treatment plan, and no matter what other "surprises" are thrown her way!  I will try and send another update later today if we know more, but they told us it would probably be another day or so before they could give us more direction. 

Thank you all for your prayers!  And our whole family also wanted to say a special thanks to all of our family and friends who have made meals, dropped of gas cards, come up to stay with her or see her, and supported all of us and my Mom in so many different ways...you are amazing and your love does not go unnoticed....we love you back!  Just pray...then pray a little more,

Adam Provance

Happy Good Friday to you all,

We don't have much to update, but wanted to let everyone know what has been going on these past few days:

After being admitted to the hospital Wednesday, later that evening..Suzanne and Cory welcomed their first son, Cartlan Scott. He was a 6 lbs 9 oz, 20 in bundle of joy! Thanks to the technology of iPhones, Mary and Greg were able to FaceTime through the whole thing and witness the event :) It was definitely hard that they couldn't be there in person, but thankfully Suzanne had such a smooth and fast delivery, that by 10:30, we all got to meet and share in the joy together! It was a great lift of spirits!

Mary came into the hospital with such a spike in her white blood cell count..first thing they started doing was the fight to get them under control. The first night here, they pumped her full of platelets and blood and gave her oral chemo pills.

Yesterday, she underwent many tests and scans, had a pickline put in, and a bone marrow biopsy done. All these tests are what determine the plan of action that her doctor will take, but we won't know all the results until midweek. This is a prep weekend to collect all the data, do all the tests & scans, and strengthen her up for the fight to come!

We have complete faith in Jessica Altman, her amazing doctor. God has His hand in it and has blessed us by putting her doctor in our lives! She loves Mary as one of her own family and has a strong, positive outlook on getting Mary healed again.

Calling All Prayer Warriors

Hello all friends and family.  It is Bre, Adam's wife.  We do not have much information at this time, but were sure that the word would spread fast and wanted to at least let you know as much as possible.  Mary has been feeling sick for the last few weeks.  At first, she was told it was just her allergies and put on medication, which did help.  Then, this past week she was diagnosed with strep and began antibiotics to fight that.  This morning, she headed to Northwestern for her routine appointment.  They ran tests immediately as she was feeling so bad.  We are so sad to report that all tests completed so far show that Mary's cancer has returned.  She was immediately admitted to Northwestern this afternoon and has already started chemo and will get blood and platelets tonight in order to begin her fight.

As you can imagine, we are all trying to gather our thoughts and help Mary put her game face back on.  We need your prayers as our family walks this journey for a 2nd time.  We will again try to keep the blog as updated as possible.  We will also update you as Mary gets her permanent room at Northwestern in order for you to send notes / cards as this was something that meant so much to her the last time.

While you are praying for Mary, please also pray for Suzanne and Cory as they are at the Morris Hospital this evening preparing to welcome their 2nd bundle of joy into the world and make Tenley a big sister.

We are all filled with great joy and great hope and great peace knowing that God, once again in all things, is in complete control.

Until tomorrow...  Love, Bre