The Story

Let me tell you about my special daughter, Caroline. She'll turn 31 in a couple of weeks and she's had quite a life. From the time she was about 13 until 4 1/2 years ago, she fought every demon I can imagine--she did a lot of drugs and kept running away over and over. We tried one treatment program after another, but she managed to bamboozle all of us, determined to set her own course in life.

Then, in January 2006, she decided it was time to come back to us. She went through rehab at Valley Hope in Atchison, Kansas and has been sober ever since. She was pregnant and in May 2006 gave birth to Hannah who is a frilly, fun four year old who keeps us all on our toes. While it hasn't been all smooth sailing, Caroline has continued her recovery. She now works for an agency in Kansas City, MO called Synergy and does street outreach with homeless youth. She and Hannah moved into a Habitat for Humanity house at the beginning of the summer. Her house is beautiful and we're so thankful that she has a safe and very comfortable home. Cara also has a 13 year old named Lexi. Lexi's lived with me since she was little. She's our dancer and our scholar. She's taken dance lessons since she was four and is really looking forward to being an 8th grader at Pittsburg Community Middle School.

This summer, Caroline was diagnosed with melanoma. She had a mole removed and it showed cancer in May. In June, they cut around the site of the mole and checked to see if any lymph nodes were affected. There were small spots on two nodes, so they removed all the lymph nodes under her left arm. The other thing that goes with this is a year of interferon chemotherapy. The treatments began today. She'll have 20 daily treatments (Monday through Friday). After that, she'll have some maintenance treatments for a year--the doctor said she'll give herself shots 3 days a week.

The interferon stimulates her immune system to fight the cancer, so she'll feel like she has a bad case of the flu that won't go away until the treatments are concluded. I decided to write this blog to keep all of you who know and care about us informed.

Lexi and I have moved in here in Kansas City to help drive Cara to her treatments and help with Hannah during this first month. She gets her treatments at the KU Medical Cancer Center. She'll be off work for now--hopefully she'll be able to go back to work in 5-6 weeks. We'll just have to see how she does.

I'll post as the month develops to let you all know about her progress. We're so grateful for all the help and support that we've received from friends and family alike.