February 13, 2022April 19, 2023 Peter Witkowski Memos

April’s February 2022 Cancer Update

April and I arrived at last Wednesday’s juncture worn out like a pair of well-trod shoes. The last few months of chemotherapy treatments have extracted a toll on April’s body and on the souls of our entire family. Though we long for rest, the results of Aprils latest scans revealed the need for a new treatment plan…for more action.

What’s Next

According to April’s UVA team, her breast cancer has managed to squeeze past the safeguards provided by her chemotherapy regimen. It has made noticeable gains in the lymph nodes around her breast. A combination of scans and blood work also strongly suggests that April’s ER+ PR+ and HER2- cancer cells have also started to rebuild themselves within her breast and bones. Thankfully, the tumors in April’s liver remain stable. No new tumors have reached her lungs. Because the cancer has not penetrated her vital organs, the side effects of the new breast cancer growth remain minimal. But as we learned last spring, her cancer will not play nice for long. Last March, April came far too close to the edge of ruin. As the windshield wipers aimlessly swept back and forth on February 3, 2022 following the conversation with April’s UVA oncologists, we determined to do our best to avoid another debacle similar to the one of last March.

Over the past week April and I have repeatedly talked through the various treatment options with April’s UVA and Mayo oncologists, exploring both the standard of care path and the experimental treatment path. Choosing the right way forward has proved difficult for all the paths lead into dense woods with undiscernible futures. Because oncologists have only used hormonal therapies for a little over five years, little data exists regarding what doctors should do after treatments like Ibrance and Letrozole cease to work. With each change in treatment, the discussion moves from estimates and scientific studies to guestimates and anecdotal reflections. After weighing the few things that we could measure such as the physical effects travel against the backdrop of educated guesses, April and I decided to embark upon a standard treatment path composed of two drugs, Fluvestrant and Abemaciclib. The first consists of a shot administered monthly and the second a pill taken twice daily. Together, the drugs promise to keep April’s cancer at bay for another five months. They also threaten only mild side effects such as stomach issues, headaches, and some soreness at the injection locations. In short, the new treatment plan promises to work as well as the chemotherapy but with less side effects.

Though our shoes our worn, we hope this new path will lead us to a period of relative rest.

Reflections

That said, we continue to live in a world of varying shades of uncertainty. The path forward could twist this way or that with little warning. Though we remain confident in our choice, our hope resides not in the path but in the Lord above.

In many ways, our spiritual journey remains centered upon truths we have shared before. Suffering whether cancer or otherwise is the typical lot of the believer. Though April’s youth makes her illness less common and her suffering and that of our family more intense than others, the suffering itself is not an oddity. Jesus declared in Matthew 7:24-27 that the storms of affliction would crash against all of us. Or as James the brother of Jesus says, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the test of your faith produces steadfastness.” Because we know our suffering is not beyond the knowledge of God, we also know that our God can see us through this time. We do not know where April’s cancer battle will take us. But we do know that we do not have to worry about tomorrow for the God who cares for the lilies of the field cares for us. He will see us through today and tomorrow. Our heavenly Father knows all that we need. When we remember this, we have great hope. When we forget the love of God and gaze only upon the path, we fear everything from the next turn in the treatment path to what a nurse might think of us. The battle forever and always begins and ends not with our circumstances but with our heart. Oh for more steadfastness.

Prayer

Pray that the new medicine would hold the breast cancer at bay for the next 5-6 months.
Pray that our weariness would be replaced with faith that would lead to steadfastness.
Pray for God to grant us the wisdom needed to determine our children’s educational future.
Pray for God to give us straight paths and provide for us the best housing arrangements.
Pray for our children to repent and believe in Jesus Christ.
Pray would be obedient in the mundane stresses of life.

Contact Info

EMAIL US AT: BIBLEFIGHTER@GMAIL.COM

SNAIL-MAIL: P.O. BOX 158/ AMISSVILLE, VA 20106

CALL US AT: 540-937-6159.

SUPPORT US AT GOFUNDME.COM: APRIL WITKOWSKI MEDICAL FUND

SUPPORT US AT PAYPAL: ID: PAWitkowski

May 15, 2021September 24, 2023 Peter Witkowski Memos

Memo: April’s No Good, Very Bad Week – May 2021.2

To borrow from one of April’s favorite children’s books, this last week has been a series of terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days. On Mother’s day evening, April’s pain and nausea which had receded the week before stormed back with a vengeance. She found herself once again bedridden, surviving off a diet of prescription pain pills and nausea pills. With her symptoms growing in intensity, her Inova team in cooperation with April’s UVA team concluded that April should no longer wait for the experimental LY drug to tackle her breast cancer tumors. On Tuesday May 4, 2021, April exited the EMBER study to begin phase 3 treatments at UVA. Sadly, the first round of chemotherapy went poorly. As the first drops of the Taxol drug touched April’s blood stream, she shot up in her chair with an allergic reaction that warranted the attention of her oncologist, a pharmacist, and four nurses. With her heart calmed and her breathing restored, April returned home Thursday night to once again battle nausea and pain. Her latest trip to the large orange chair situated between IV polls and blood pressure cuffs went much better. April assumed the second chemotherapy drug, Abraxane, without a major incident. However, she still had a significant battle with pain. Seemingly, the weekend has been content to stop at horrible, dispensing with the need for the other adjectives.

This week has borne an eerie resemblance to one of those adventure films where the heroine finds herself in a rickety, old minecart careening down the track towards a washed-out bridge. Though April has tried pretty much everything one could think of, enduring a lifetime of pokes, pricks, and side effects, the wobbly minecart has continued to move with such speed that the switch tracks, rail bumpers, and emergency breaks of the medical world have failed. She has flown through most of phase 2 treatment options and some of her phase 3 treatment options in the span of five days. By comparison, her phase 1 treatment plan lasted 22 months. Thankfully, the Abraxane promises to lock the wheels of this horrid minecart, sparking some flames of hope.

What’s Next

Over the next three weeks, the Abraxane chemotherapy drug should bring April’s free-falling descent to a stop. She should then be able to start inching her way back towards health over the next six to nine months. If all goes extremely well, she may even be able to reintegrate some of the phase 2 treatments options back into her regime. Though the outcome of this treatment will not be known for weeks, its side effects which include hair loss, a racing heart rate, and more nausea and fatigue have already begun to make themselves known. Until she starts that climb back to health, we will need round-the-clock help.

Though this week has been hard and more hard days lie ahead, we still remain hopeful that April’s treatment plan will once again offer us some nice, pleasant, quite good, and very excellent days.

How Are We Doing?

As April and I have rumbled through the last few days, we have shed many tears, grieving everything from the threat of hair loss to her increasing pain levels to the uncertainty of tomorrow. The days have been long and cruel. But our hope remains for our God remains on high.

Though we do not know why our sweet April suffers, we know these storms of affliction do not prove God’s displeasure or weakness. If anything, they prove the opposite. Steven, one of the original deacons, was stoned to death. The apostle Paul suffered through stonings, shipwreck, and imprisonment before being executed in Rome. The apostle Peter was crucified upside down. Thousands of early Christians were burned as garden torches and fed to lions in the Coliseum. Blessed are those who suffer for righteousness sake.

While April will not know the dangers of typhoid fever nor the threats of cannibalistic tribes, her sufferings still make up what is lacking in Christ’s affliction (Col. 1:24). She battles breast cancer today for the purpose of evangelizing and training her children, encouraging her husband, and building up her earthly and local church families. Though she is confined to the ordinary grass lots of suburbia, she is still very much fulfilling the extraordinary calling of being a wife, mother, and sister in Christ. She has endured a lifetime of a horrible, terrible, no good, very bad days for Christ.

Though we wish April’s cancer gone 1000 times over and still plead with God for such an outcome, we know her pain and our pains have a divine purpose and legacy. It is this: “that you may be perfect and complete lacking in nothing (James 1:4).” Jesus overcame sin and death through suffering. Hardships do not disprove God’s love for us but rather reveal us to be at the center of it. Through sorrow, we find the joy of salvation and dispensations of even greater grace, love, and mercy. In time, these horrible, terrible, no good very bad days will reveal paths of gold. God has deemed us worthy to suffer. Oh, how precious is my dear, beloved April.

Thank You!

Thank you for the constant outpouring of prayer and support. We long ago lost track of all the well-deserved thank you notes that should have been sent. Thank you for extending us grace. We are forever thankful for our family, ABC church family, and friends.

Prayer Request

Please continue to pray for us and our family. Though God has been faithful this last week, we have been ever so weak.

Pray that God will bless this new line of treatment. Pray for God to alleviate April’s pain and nausea. Pray for me and April as we continue to assess and think through medical, parenting, and lifestyle options. Pray for God to use our suffering to advance our faith, to save our children, to care for our families, and to advance our Amissville Baptist Church family. Pray for all of us to know the comfort of our heavenly Father. Pray that we may be perfect and complete and lacking in nothing. Pray.

Contact Info:

EMAIL US AT: BIBLEFIGHTER@GMAIL.COM

SNAIL-MAIL: P.O. BOX 637/ AMISSVILLE, VA 20106

CALL US AT: 540-937-6159.

SUPPORT US AT GOFUNDME.COM: APRIL WITKOWSKI MEDICAL FUND

SUPPORT US AT PAYPAL: ID: PAWitkowski

SCHEDULE A TIME TO HELP: BIBLEFIGHTER@GMAIL.COM

May 8, 2021May 11, 2021 Peter Witkowski Memos

Memo: Quick Breast Cancer Update – May 2021

(As of 5/11/21, this post no longer accurately reflects April’s health. We will post another update by this weekend.)

Dear friends, thank you for faithfully praying for April this past week! God has been gracious to our family! April no longer is suffering the debilitating pain and nausea that made bed rest a necessity for several days. Her new treatment plan has also stabilized her liver enzymes. God has heard our prayers and has guided April away from the edge of disaster back towards the pastures health as this week progressed. Though she is moving in a far more promising direction, April has yet to arrive at the stable ground which is decorated with the flowers of normalcy. Today’s path still consists of many malformed bumps and rocks that take the form of mild liver pain, frequent nausea, and noticeable fatigue. She also stumbled into a rut with her new treatment plan that has resulted in a rash. Her medical team will be tweaking her treatments over the next few weeks to reduce the negative side effects associated with one of April’s pills in hopes of creating a treatment regime that will still effectively whack her cancer without wrecking the rest of her body. Though April is not well, she is much better today than she was last week. We hope this good turn of events points to a future filled with many even brighter and more peaceful days. In short, we (with you) called out to God in our distress and can confidently say that our God has heard our cries for help (Psalm 18:1-6)!

Thank you for partnering with us through prayer! We also want to thank our medical teams and the many, many family members, ABC church members, and friends who have helped us manage last several weeks meeting needs we could have never anticipated. God has been good to us and has shown us his love through you! Thank you!

Please continue to pray for April. Pray that the nausea, pain, and fatigue will retreat to the point that she can once again home school our kids and manage the home. Pray for God to sustain over the next several weeks as the days have been long and filled with never ending general sense of unwellness. ~~Pray that God will bless us with a great relationship with our new medical team at INOVA~~. And pray that God will give us wisdom as we seek to parent our children through this season.