2017 CDH1 T-Shirt Sale is Here!!

We are so excited to kick off our 2017 t-shirt sale and start accepting orders! This shirt was designed by my amazing cousin-in-law, Kristi Sasser. I mean, she is seriously talented and we are so lucky she always jumps in to come up with these awesome creations! We will be accepting orders for the next two weeks (until November 30th). Like last year, you can pay myself, Nicole, Rhonda, Benny Jo or any of our other family and friends in person with cash or check or you can pay via PayPal or Venmo. We will offer shipping across the United States and all over the world again, last year we shipped to Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Last year we sold about 150 shirts and sent $1500 to Dr. Guilford's at the University of Otago where he is working on an oral medication to kill off mutated stomach cells in patients with a CDH1 mutation, eliminating the need for future generations to undergo a prophylactic total gastrectomy. We would love to surpass 200 shirts this year and send over $2000 for this vital research. All the options and pricing info is included in the picture below, but please feel free to message me on Facebook or email me at jessica.j.sasser913@gmail.com if you have any questions. 

2017 Night of Healing

So we were incredibly honored to share our journey with CDH1 and total gastrectomies Saturday night at No stomach for Cancer's Night of Healing. Here is a video of our speech that night. As we mentioned during our talk, we believe God chose us for this and perhaps it was show others that their is hope for a wonderful, happy, healthy life after such a major surgery and lifestyle change.

What's So Special About November?

In the month of October it's so wonderful to see all the pink ribbons, pink socks on NFL players, pink hair extensions, and all things pink to raise awareness for breast cancer. Having lost our mom to lobular breast cancer, October has always been a special month for us to see people celebrate those who have battled this awful disease and honor those whose lives were cut short by it. But for the past two years the month of November has taken on a special meaning to us too. You see, November is stomach cancer awareness month.

Let’s talk about stomach cancer for a second. Most people probably don’t spend their lives worrying about stomach cancer. In fact, you probably only worry about “the biggies.” According to the American Cancer Society here are the top 10 cancer diagnosed in the United States:

1. Breast
2. Prostate
3. Lung
4. Colorectal
5. Uterine
6. Bladder
7. Melanoma
8. Thyroid
9. Kidney and Renal
10. Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma 

For many of these we have guidelines in place for monitoring and recommendations for how to prevent them; no smoking, wear sunscreen, limit use of hormonal birth control, etc.  An average person really only has about a 0.8% chance of being diagnosed with stomach cancer in their life. So why worry about something you have such a low chance of ever developing? Because stomach cancer is incredibly deadly. Even though the actual incidents diagnosed are so low, it actually has the third highest mortality rate. Only about 30% of patients will survive past the 5 year mark. And that’s only the stats for here in the US. Globally, stomach cancer is the fifth leading cause of cancer and the third leading cause of cancer deaths, with only about 10% of patients surviving past the five year mark.

Why is stomach cancer so deadly you may ask? It’s because most patients are either asymptomatic (showing no noticeable signs) or have nonspecific symptoms in the early stages, symptoms that can be written off as other things, like heartburn or a nagging stomach bug. For most patients, by the time symptoms occur the cancer is often in advanced stages and has metastasized to other areas of the body. What are the symptoms you may ask? Early cancers may be associated with indigestion or a burning sensation like heartburn, abdominal discomfort or loss of appetite. Advanced cancer can cause weakness, fatigue, bloating of the stomach with meals, nausea and occasional vomiting, diarrhea or constipation. More severe symptoms may include weight loss, vomiting blood or bloody stools and difficulty swallowing. Diagnosing stomach cancer often includes a physical exam, an endoscopic exam, or a CT scan. There is also a lot of research into breath tests as a minimally invasive way to identify stomach cancer.

There are several factors that can lead to gastric cancer. It is twice as common in men, so there is a thought that estrogen may aide in protecting women from the development of this form of cancer. The presence of an infection called Helicobacter pylori (aka H. pylori) is a risk factor in 65-80% of all gastric cancers. As with other cancers, smoking and obesity are also correlated with an increased risk of stomach cancer. Diet is not a proven factor, but some foods, like smoked foods, salt rich foods, red meat, processed meats, and pickled vegetables appear to be associated with a higher risk of stomach cancer. Lower rates of stomach cancer are tied to a Mediterranean diet or a diet filled with fresh fruits, vegetables, citrus, and antioxidant rich foods.

There there’s genetics. About 10% of cases run in families and between 1-3% of cases are due to a inherited genetic syndrome, like hereditary diffuse gastric cancer (HDGC) syndrome. HDGC is tied to a mutation of the CDH1 gene. This is the genetic flaw that led Nicole and I to learn so much about stomach cancer. Current estimates are 1 in 9 million people carry this genetic mutation, but these people have an 83% risk of developing HDGC. That staggeringly high number is what led us to the decision to prophylactically remove our stomachs 18 months ago. And sure enough, even though we showed no real symptoms and had just had a clean endoscopy with 40 biopsies each, we both had stage 1 HDGC. It’s so crazy to know that there was absolutely NOTHING we could have done to prevent this. There was nothing we could have eaten or not eaten, no magic pill we could’ve taken. One simple little mix-up in our genetic code and we were destined to have cancer.

It’s hard sometimes to think of ourselves as stomach cancer survivors. We never underwent crippling chemotherapy or radiation treatments. We never even knew we officially had cancer until it had already been removed from our bodies. But in the most technical sense of the word, we are survivors. It’s crazy that in this day and age, with so many advances in science and medicine, that diagnosing stomach cancer early is still so difficult to do. For those of us who carry the CDH1 mutation, we have no real option for preventative screening, life without a stomach is our only shot at warding off cancer. How insane is that?!

Hanging with our stomachless pals at Night of Healing!

We had the honor of being at the Spotlight on Gastric Cancer symposium at City of Hope in Los Angeles, CA this weekend. We heard leading medical professionals talk about advancements in therapies and surgical approaches and we also heard from patients who have fought this awful disease with extraordinary courage, people who have lost loved ones after a long battle and others who are preparing to undergo a prophylactic total gastrectomy to stop cancer in its tracks. We bonded with people who can be described as nothing less than amazing, people we’ve “known” online for almost two years now but finally got to meet in person. And we got to share our own story of the wonderfully normal life we lead now (I will share a video of our speech soon!). We left LA on Sunday with nothing put hope for the future. You see the day is fast approaching when Caden, Liam and Andy will be tested for the CDH1 mutation and there is a good chance they will have to look stomach cancer square in the face and make some hard choices. This is why Stomach Cancer Awareness month means so much to us. We desperately need advancements in screening and treatments so that our babies have better options than we did.

Later this week we will unveil our new t-shirt design and start accepting orders. Just like last year, the funds raised will be sent directly to Dr. Parry Guilford in New Zealand who is currently working on an oral preventative chemo to kill off mutated stomach cells, replacing the need for a total gastrectomy for CDH1 patients. We are so excited for this year’s shirt, they look awesome! Last year we sold around 150 shirts and sent $1500 to Dr. Guilford, our goal this year is 200 shirts.

We can’t wait till we live in a world where ALL cancer is easy to detect and cure. Until then,  every November we will rock our periwinkle to support stomach cancer awareness.

17 Months Post OP and Another Surgery

It’s been 17 months today since our total gastrectomies. We’re both doing great and loving life more than ever! Last time we updated, I was about to undergo a prophylactic total mastectomy.   As you may recall, Jessica wrote that I had several suspicious spots show up on a breast MRI in July. The doctors then ordered a mammogram and an ultrasound with biopsies. The mammogram didn’t pick up anything suspicious, but the ultrasound showed even more spots that the doctors were concerned with. All of the post op biopsies came back benign, so even though the doctors encouraged me to go ahead with the procedure as a precautionary measure, I wasn’t too worried that they would find anything in the pathology. On August 15th, my doctor called me with the pathology results. My right breast was completely clear and all pathology was benign; however, my left breast was a different story. She explained to me that everything was still in the precancerous stages, but that I had a couple of different issues that most likely would’ve turned into cancer. I had Multifocal Lobular Carcinoma in Situ (LCIS) and atypical lobular hyperplasia (ALH). I also had fibrocystic changes including stromal hyalinization, duct hyperplasia, apocrine metaplasia, and columnar cell change. Now, I’m not exactly sure what most of that means, but my doctor keep saying, “I’m just so glad we decided to go ahead and do the surgery when we did.” I am too! She couldn’t believe that none of this had been found in any post-op testing or biopsies. I was exactly 36 years and 3 months old at the time of my mastectomy. I didn’t even realize until after surgery that my beautiful mother had been diagnosed with the lobular breast cancer that took her life when she was 36 years and 3 months old. I can’t help but think she’s had a hand in this whole process. I can’t even begin to imagine how if would feel to be my very age and diagnosed with terminal cancer. Although she lived a very short life, she touched so many people and through her death, she has saved our lives and the lives of many family members.

Me & Jessica at my first post mastectomy check-up!

I had my surgery on Aug. 9th and my recovery has gone amazingly well. I went back to work at about 3 ½ weeks post op and have had very little pain throughout the whole process. I had expanders placed during surgery and started the expansion process two weeks later. I’ve had five fills so far and they have all went well. There is some burning and tenderness for a few days following the fills, but nothing unbearable. I go once a week for expansion and they add about 60 cc’s of saline at each appointment. The exchange surgery is currently scheduled for Nov. 20th. I only plan to be off work this time for one week. Throughout our journey with CDH1, the diagnosis, the surgeries, and the recoveries, the one thing that has helped us the most is knowing there are others out there like us that we can call on when we have questions, concerns, or just need someone to talk to. We have made many stomachless friends and they have helped us so much along the way. One of those friends, Mary Lemusu, also has a blog called Mummy Without a Tummy. She lives half a world away in New Zealand, but we both had our mastectomies on the same day. We  have checked in on each other regularly over the past couple of months and it has been so nice to be able to communicate with someone that understands exactly what you’re going through. If you’re just beginning your journey, I encourage you to reach out to others through online support groups, Facebook, the No Stomach for Cancer website, and other blogs to connect with others who carry the mutation. Although it is a rare mutation, these groups are full of others like us that are more than willing to offer support and guidance throughout your journey.

As always, thank you for your prayers and support. Please look for our next fundraiser to help support Parry Guilford’s research in November which is also stomach cancer awareness month. We plan to do another tshirt sale with a new design. We will post that information on our blog and on the Facebook pages soon. Also, we are so excited to speak at No Stomach for Cancer’s Night of Hope at City of Hope Cancer & Research Center in Los Angeles, CA in November. Please keep us in your prayers.Thanks for your continued support!

14 Months Stomachless: An Update On Our CDH1 Journey

Wow, summer has flown by! We haven't updated in a while, so we wanted to let everyone know how the past couple of months have been and what's on the horizon.

Enjoying a sister night at New Kids on the Block

The last post was at the beginning of May, six weeks after I (Jessica) underwent emergency surgery for a twist in my bowels. Honestly, this recovery was a lot worse than the recovery from the gastrectomy, probably because I was weaker going in. There is also now the theory that I probably had a small "kink" in my intestines the whole time that slowed digestion, which is why I never really experienced dumping syndrome or malabsorption issues like a lot of TG patients go through. After the emergency my bowel had been run twice and any kink there was gone, so my body finally felt the full effects of the TG on top of the bowel repair. Towards the end of May I started on digestive enzymes and started seeing some improvement in my ability to digest foods. I still I have to be careful with what I eat, mainly high fat foods and sugars, but most days are pretty good. My weight dipped to right around 100 pounds at the lowest, which for a 5ft 9in girl is tiny. But I'm actually back up to almost 115, so my doctor is super happy. Goal is to be 120 by the end of the year.

Mentally our family is doing better, but still recovering. My doctor's do feel that I'm suffering from anxiety and PTSD from the whole episode. They say it's very common for people who have near death experiences and medical emergencies to go through these issues after. Yes, I realize how lucky I am to be alive and I do realize that God worked together a series of miracles for me to get to UAB and the doctor I needed. But it was still traumatic to go from totally healthy on a Monday to near death on Tuesday. I've started medication and as a family we've started counseling and it really feels like we are mentally on the right track.

The next big concern on the horizon is our high risk of lobular breast cancer. The plan has been to screen us via mammograms and MRI's every 6 months (with MRI's being the most accurate form of imaging) until a time we were ready to pursue prophylactic mastectomy. Nicole and I both learned the hard way that due to our weight loss over the past year we no longer have enough body fat for accurate MRI imaging of our breasts. Nicole's last MRI showed a spot they wanted to take a closer look at. An ultrasound revealed another spot, so they decided to perform a biopsy. During the biopsy they discovered more small knots than what had been seen in the images. Luckily all the biopsies came back clean; however, after consulting with the breast surgeon it was determined that since imaging was not accurate and she was already dealing with these cysts and facing frequent biopsies that she should go ahead with the mastectomy now instead of the fall of 2018 like she had planned. So next week, August 9th, Nicole will undergo a prophylactic double mastectomy at UAB. Here's where things get a little tricky. The reason she wanted to wait till the fall of 2018 was because her husband Heath left for a year deployment to Kuwait on July 16th. Thankfully the first few weeks of his deployment he is still in the US at a base in Texas and will be able to come back to Alabama for her surgery and be with her for a few days after. We went through our gastrectomies together, but I'm glad we will be doing the mastectomies separately so that I can help take care of her once Heath has to leave. Hopefully she will be able to return to work in 4-6 weeks. Due to her small frame they can't do reconstruction right away, it would put to much strain on the skin. Instead, they will place expanded during the surgery and at set times over the next few months the expanders will be filled with saline to allow the skin tone to stretch and adjust. Once they reach a good size and the surgeon feels like her body is ready a second surgery will be performed to swap the expander for implants. The recovery from this second surgery is apparently a walk in the park compared to everything else. And with that, Nicole's journey to beat hereditary diffuse gastric cancer and lobular breast cancer will come to an end and she will have kicked cancer in the rear end!

We are also so excited that No Stomach for Cancer has invited us to take part in their Night of Hope at City of Hope Cancer & Research Center in Los Angeles. The event will take place in November, which is also Stomach Cancer Awareness Month, and we will be speaking during the patient spotlight. From the moment we were told we carried this mutation we knew we wanted to raise awareness for CDH1, the cancers associated with this mutation, and the importance of knowing your family history and going through the process of genetic testing. This gives us an opportunity to speak to medical professionals and share with them the patient side of gastric cancer. We also hope to do another fund raising effort in November to correspond with Stomach Cancer Awareness Month and send the money raised to Dr. Guilford in New Zealand again. His research into an oral preventive drug is such a promising ray of hope for us that our children may be able to avoid a stomachless life, so we want to support his efforts in any way we can.

Over the past year and a half we've gotten to know so many people with CDH1 mutations like us who face the same challenges we do. I can't even begin to tell you how wonderful it is to have a group of people who understand exactly what you mean when you talk about things like bile reflux, malabsorption or food getting stuck. We've found an amazing "stomachless family" who always laugh with us about the crazy things we encounter, offer encouragement on bad days, and cheer us on with each milestone reached. And as always, we are both so grateful for all the love, support, and prayers that have been poured out on us by all of our family, friends, and people who just run across this blog and send us an encouraging thought. Despite any setbacks we've faced in the past 14 months, we are both living happy lives and we know a lot of that is due to all the love and kindness you all have heaped on our families along this road. In the coming months we do ask for continued prayer, specifically in these areas:

1. A successful surgery and recovery for Nicole.
2. Heath's deployment and their family as they go through this year without him.
3. Continued physical and mental healing for both of our families.
4. Advances in research into CDH1 and the cancers associated with this genetic mutation.

We love each and everyone of you. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you for caring about us and our families, for understanding our limits and always encouraging us to push to be the best we can be. 

Setbacks and A Whole New Recovery

This post has been really hard for me to start writing, I think because in some ways I still cannot wrap my mind around everything that has happened in the past six weeks. Several people have asked about what took place and have seen vague Facebook posts, so I thought it’d be best to lay it all there and tell the whole story.

Our last post saw us both doing really well, we had just come back from a cruise with our families, our weight had stabilized, we were both eating whatever we wanted and living a normal life. Since that time we have actually both gone through a hospital stay and surgery. In February Nicole gave us a scare. She started having some pain in her lower abdomen and her CT scan was not very clearly showing a problem. Her lab work looked good and her pain was controlled by pain killers. But after several days of monitoring by our surgeon at UAB and consulting with our surgeon at MD Anderson she underwent exploratory surgery. Luckily, everything GI related looked great; however, her ovary was quite large and discolored, so they did have to remove it. Pathology all came back clear and after a week of recovery she was back to work and feeling like herself again. Little did we know this scare was gearing us up for the big show that would come a month later.

It really kind of began on Saturday, March 11^th. I had an odd pain in my left side, right over my J-tube scar. It came on after I scarfed down a taco taking my son to baseball, so I dismissed it as gas pains. Over the next day or so the pain got worse, extending to my whole abdomen and back and causing some bloating. But it was never unbearable and by Tuesday I was back to normal. I was incredibly busy that week helping organize and run a consignment sale at my church, but I felt great. I was eating pizza, mini brownies, and running all over the place with lots of energy. On Tuesday, March 21^st I woke up with the same pain in my left side and as the day wore on it became increasingly worse, I was incredibly bloated, and started having spells of nausea and vomiting. Trying to be Super Mom I loaded up my son and took him to baseball practice, but by this time it was incredibly obvious that something was wrong. My husband came to take me to the ER and a close friend came to take Andy home. We told him bye and that we were going to go see the doctor and be home that night. We were wrong.

Our first stop was to a freestanding ER center not far from our house. It’s a new facility, super efficient with a CT machine and we’d been there before when I had a GI bug and needed fluids. We figured I’d be evaluated, have a CT and some pain meds and be told to follow up with my doctor the next day. As we were there being evaluated the pain kept getting worse and worse and reached an unbearable level when I drank the contrast material for the CT. At this point my blood pressure also started to go up and up. This was alarming because my blood pressure is usually a perfect 120/80, even during labor. They gave me morphine and three rounds of Dilaudid for pain and that couldn’t even touch the pain. My CT results showed something called mesenteric swirling, which is a sign of an internal hernia or twisting of the bowel. The decision was made at that point to place an NG tube down my nose to help relieve pressure and to transport me to a hospital to be evaluated by a surgeon. And here is where a series of miracles takes place.

We were asked what hospital we wanted to go to and immediately said UAB. That’s the best facility in the state and Dr. Heslin, the surgical oncologist we’ve worked with since returning home is based there. We were told that UAB had no beds available, the ER was full, and they were diverting patients to other facilities, so we’d need to select another hospital. We asked for the second-best facility in the area for GI issues, St. Vincent’s and were told the same thing. At this point they said they wanted to send me to UAB West, a small hospital outside of Birmingham that had never seen someone like me (a stomachless 32 year old). My husband, my hero, was not going to accept this, he was making sure I got transferred to a hospital where they could properly treat me. I was in extreme pain and after all those pain meds I was loopy, so poor Steven had the weight of all this on him. After being in the ER for several hours, his phone was dead and mine was down to 5% battery. We had no clue we were going to end up in the ER all night, so we didn’t think to bring a charger. For those who don’t know, Steven is a medical device sales rep and he sells instruments used in some GI surgeries, so he has a work relationship with our surgical oncologist as well. Since his phone was dead, he recalled Dr. Heslin’s email from memory and sent a desperate email from my almost dead phone asking what we needed to do. By some miracle, Dr. Heslin happened to pull out his phone to check something and saw the email and immediately got on the phone with Steven (who had wrangled a charger from a doctor at this point) and started discussing lab results and symptoms. He also called UAB and made sure they found a bed for me and arranged for an ambulance to come and get me. We have learned that Dr. Heslin is the MAN at the UAB and if he wants something done then it’s going to happen. Shortly after getting off the phone with Dr. Heslin the ambulance arrived and off to UAB we went. When we arrived, we met with one of the residents who took more blood to run repeat labs and sent me to X-ray to make sure my NG tube was placed correctly. At this time he told us he didn’t think I needed immediate surgery, so I told Steven to settle in and get some rest. It was around 1:30am at this point and we were exhausted. TMI alert, but I want any fellow CDH1/TG friends to be aware of every symptom. When I returned from X-ray I felt like I needed to go to the restroom and when I did it was all blood. At this point I knew something was really wrong. As I was explaining this to the nurse the resident came back in and explained that my labs had significantly worsened and that I was being taken to immediate surgery. Everything moved so fast at this point, they started prepping me right then and there and Dr. Heslin came in and could only really tell us at that point that they believed my bowel was compromised. The last thing I really remember is being placed on the table in the OR with Dr. Heslin holding my hand and telling me everything was going to be okay.

Here is what we would find out. During my total gastrectomy in May 2016, a portion of my intestine was tacked up for the feeding tube to be inserted. My bowels became twisted at this spot and my superior mesenteric artery, the major source of blood supply for the intestines, had become twisted as well. What my lab work was showing was sepsis and as soon as they opened me up (and this was a full on open surgery, incision from sternum to below my belly button) they saw that my entire bowel was gray and dying. After surgery my family was told had I not made it to UAB when I did and been taken to the OR when I was then I more than likely would have died. I had around a 25% chance of survival when I entered the OR. Only a 25% chance of living. That’s hard for me to even type. I almost lost my life, I almost left my baby boy, my husband, my sister, my family and friends. It scares me so much to think about how close I was to dying. And it makes me even more grateful that my husband could keep his head clear and email Dr. Heslin during all the chaos of trying to get a hospital to take me. As soon as the bowel was untwisted the blood rushed back in and almost everything turned from gray to pink immediately. There were a few spots that stayed dark and were concerning to the doctors, so the decision was made to just close my skin incision, leave me on the ventilator in ICU, monitor my labs and take me back into surgery the next afternoon to make sure all blood supply had been reestablished and no part of the bowel had died. All of this was explained to family, but of course I had no idea, so I wake up restrained in recovery on a ventilator. Hands down the scariest moment of my life. They kept me in the recovery area most of the day Wednesday so that Dr. Heslin could monitor me between cases and later that afternoon I was moved to ICU. There was a precious resident named Lindsay who stayed by my side all day and after a while she asked if she could trust me not to pull out the breathing tube and when I nodded yes she removed the restraints from my arms. That was amazing because I could actually use sign language and write notes to my family, it was so hard not to be able to communicate. They kept me pretty sedated while I was on the ventilator, so most of those first two days are a fog to me. What I do remember is being surrounded by the people I Iove the most: my husband, my big sister, my parents, my sister-in-law Amanda, and the most amazing friends in the world, Brittany and Kim. Praise God my labs continued to improve over those two days and on Thursday afternoon I went back to the OR where everything looked great and they were able to close me up and remove the ventilator. I returned to ICU for the night and moved to a regular room the next day. I stayed in the hospital over the weekend and was able to go home that Monday evening. I can’t tell you how good it felt to be reunited with my little boy after such a scary ordeal.

Without a doubt this recovery has been much harder on me than the recovery from the total gastrectomy. I had been doing so well with eating prior to this set back, I had a lot of energy and was maintaining my weight. Now I am struggling to eat again, dealing with food aversions and what I would call extreme dumping syndrome daily. Mornings are the worst for some reason, nothing I eat or drink agrees with me, but by the afternoon (after my midday nap) I can tolerate more foods. I have lost another 16 pounds and I am literally a walking skeleton at this point. For the sake of transparency, I will also say that I am really struggling mentally too. I have nightmares of waking up tied down and being unable to speak, just like when I woke up from my first surgery. I get overwhelmed very easily and cry more than I ever did after the TG. I think the shock of it all has really taken its toll on me. We have made the decision to seek counseling with a professional who handles trauma victims to try to get past this hump. This has also been incredibly difficult for Steven and our sweet Andy. We thought Andy was handling everything well until there was a mix-up at school and his number didn’t get called during carpool, he thought we forgot him or were back in the hospital and had a complete meltdown. His teacher also told me that some days he doesn’t play on the playground, he just sits beside her and will kind of snuggle up to her. Hearing this completely broke my heart. My sweet little boy is always so full of life and loves to run and play, but there are days he just needs to sit and get extra love. He’s so much like Steven, he puts on this brave face and holds everything in until he just can’t hold it anymore. So, we’ve also decided to seek some counseling for him. He’s been through so much this past year and we want him to be able to talk about his feelings and not hold on to things that hurt him.

I don’t want to end this post on a negative note. Despite all the bad the past month has held, we’ve seen God’s hand caring for us at our lowest point. I am a firm believer that God will give you more than you can handle at points in your life and these unbearable moments are when we learn true dependency on Him. We also believe that we serve a loving God and that these things don’t happen to punish us or because we weren’t faithful enough. My husband reminds me all the time that we live in a fallen creation and we can’t let the circumstances of this world define us, we must stay firm in our faith and let God’s hope shine through us even when we’re deeply entrenched in pain and suffering. At the end of the day, I look back on that night in the ER and realize that the things of this world were lining up for me to not receive the treatment I needed and to die; however, God lined up a series of events that would get me exactly where I needed to be, when I needed to be there and ultimately I was spared. On my absolute worst days, all I have to do is look at Steven and Andy and I’m relieved to be here with them, no matter how awful I physically feel.

We have also seen a tremendous outpouring of love and compassion during this ordeal. Every need we’ve had has been met before we could even speak it. God has truly put us on a path and surrounded us with an amazing group of people who love us and lift us up in our hardest times.

Hopefully our next post will find us all healthy and in great spirits!

8 Month Post-Op Update

We realized it had been a while since we posted an update on our post-op progress.  In all honesty, we’ve been so busy living and enjoying life that the past few months have flown by. We each have battled some hiccups and bad days along the way, but for the most part life is normal, we just eat a little bit different than most people.

We are 8 months post total gastrectomy, which is so crazy. January actually marks a year since this process officially began. I met with the geneticist for the first time at the end of January 2016. Who knew it would lead to this wild ride?!

Merry Christmas from the Bahamas! 

So what have we been up to since our last post 4 months ago? We have been chasing kids, working, spending time with family and friends, enjoying the holidays. We even took a cruise to the Bahama’s a week before Christmas! The trip was much needed and so much fun. The boys played with dolphins, hung out at the Atlantis resort, ran all over the beach in Nassau, had breakfast with the Cat in the Hat, and played their hearts out. Nicole and I were a little worried about losing weight on the trip because we were so active, but we actually ended up eating really well and it all balanced out. It was a great way to close out a hard year.

Our boys health has kept us occupied recently too. My son Andy was diagnosed with juvenile arthritis right before Christmas, so we’ve been going through testing to try to narrow down his specific form and adjusting to weekly Methotrexate injections. Nicole’s oldest son Caden broke his kneecap in a wrestling match a week and a half ago. At first they thought his femur was also broken and that surgery might be required, but luckily an MRI revealed the damage was not as bad and for now he is just immobilized to hopefully heal the kneecap. Nicole’s house has also been hit by strep and the stomach bug over the past few days, both boys have been sick. So she’s donning masks and gloves, spraying Lysol like crazy, and we are all praying she doesn’t come down with either. Unfortunately we found out on New Year’s Day that people without a stomach can still get the “stomach bug” since it actually occurs in the intestines. I got sick that morning and ended up in the ER getting fluids that night for dehydration. Way to ring in 2017! According to the GI these things will be “exceptionally violent” in us as our intestines are more sensitive due to the amount of work they do. I had a lot of abdominal pain for days afterwards and found out it was actually from swelling that happens in the intestines when you have GI bug. Since our intestines are more sensitive and we no longer have any real fat padding in the abdomen, we will just be more aware of the swelling that takes place. So we really need this bug to quickly leave the McDonald house and Nicole’s immune system to fight it off.

Around the time of our last post point Nicole was having trouble with her incision not closing. She underwent a surgery on September 28^th where the wound was cleaned out and a wound vac was placed. The wound vac was a pretty painful experience for Nicole; however, it was effective. After a few weeks with the vac on the wound started to close and it is now fully closed and healed. Nicole has also had some issues with fat malabsorption and was dealing with some sickness after eating foods with a higher fat content. She started taking digestive enzymes with high fat meals to help her body absorb more nutrients from the food and they have really helped her out. They aren’t 100% and there are times she has issues with foods, but for the most part the enzymes have made a big difference in her ability to absorb and digest food properly.

Stricture (a narrowing at the area where the esophagus and small intestine were joined) turned out to be an issue for us both. I had dilations performed in August and September for what was called a “significant stricture.” At my first dilation the area was pretty much closed off and I even had food trapped in suture wire that was left from surgery. I had a really awful reaction to the first dilation and they felt it was because the area went from barely open to wide open and it was just a little bit aggressive for my system. The second dilation went much better and I finally hit my stride eating and maintaining my weight. I was supposed to have a third performed in October, but I was doing so well at the time it was deemed we’d wait until a problem arose instead of putting me through another procedure. I started having an increase in swallowing difficulties in early December so we set-up another dilation for January 13^th. Turns out it was a lot worse than expected, the area was almost completely closed again and a lot of scar tissue had to be cut away before the balloon could even be place to dilate the area. I had some issues for a few days after with nausea and reflux much like the first dilation, but it passed pretty quickly this time. I will undergo another dilation on February 3^rd to hopefully prevent the drastic closure that happened before. Nicole also had some difficulty with food getting stuck and underwent a dilation on December 28^th and luckily that provided some relief for her. Since strictures can be pretty persistent they are going to perform another dilation on her tomorrow (January 25^th) to hopefully stay on top of the issue. One cool thing that both of our EGD’s revealed is that we are both starting to form our own little stomach pouch under the anastomosis. How cool is it that our bodies can adapt that way?!

Since we both had stage 1 hereditary diffuse gastric cancer at the time of surgery, we are being monitored every 6 months for any sign of recurrence in the abdominal area. We both have had CT’s and everything came back clean! We will repeat scans again this summer. Lobular breast cancer is the next big concern we have to face and a prophylactic double mastectomy is on the horizon for both of us. We are being monitored every six months via mammogram or MRI (we both just had clean mammograms over the past month). Nicole is leaning towards having surgery in the summer of 2018. Steven and I want to evaluate my health around the two year mark to see if another pregnancy via IVF with genetic screening is possible. If so, we will pursue that route and I will have the mastectomy after having another child. If another child not possible, I will go ahead with the mastectomy sooner.

Our silly boys enjoying a train ride to the North Pole! 

Our fundraiser we held in November was very successful! We raised over $1500 to send to Dr. Guilford’s research center in New Zealand. Around the time we sent the donation we got a really cool update from his lab. They have actually been able to grow miniature stomachs that will allow them field test the medication in the lab. Our boys may be able to bypass this whole TG thing! One of the ladies in our CDH1 group collected photos of everyone’s children and took them to Dr. Guilford’s and they are now up in the lab to remind him of why he does what he does. When we emailed him telling him we wanted to raise money for his lab, his response to us was “we are confident your children will have better options.” Talk about goosebumps! In the future we will be doing other fundraisers for his research and we hope to have the same positive response that we had to our first effort.

As we approach the one year mark it seems like our bodies are really starting to adjust to this new life. They say it can take up to three years for everything to fully settle into place, but most of the big stuff will resolve in the first year. We probably won’t post a ton going forward, just because there shouldn’t be a lot of action as far as our TG healing goes. But we will posts as milestones approach, as news and developments about CDH1, TG, or HDGC/lobular breast cancer occur, any fundraising efforts we undergo or if anything crazy happens further into the recovery process. As another CDH1 friend and blogger Marne put it “the best thing about life after TG is LIFE.” So we intend to live it to the fullest, to enjoy every moment with our families, and to offer love and support to others who have to walk this path. We can always be reached by commenting on this blog, reaching out to us on Facebook or emailing us at Jessica.j.sasser913@gmail.com or mc0826@hotmail.com.