This week has been up and down for me. Jon went with me to the CT scan on Monday. He was so sweet it was at 7:00 am. I had to start at 5:00 am drinking 8 oz of Barium chalky stuff every 30 minutes for 2 hours. It wasn’t to bad but left an after taste that took all day to get rid of. Anyway, Jon came with me it took about and hour and when it was over he walked me to the car came around to the driver side and opened the door for me and put the keys in the car for me and shut the door. I felt so taken care of. It was a very sweet and such a tender, lovely moment. I had a little anxiety attack in the afternoon and I felt a little helpless and hopeless. Jack, Jon and Kirk gave me a priesthood blessing. It was so amazing to have my son anoint my head with consecrated oil and then to have a beautiful priesthood blessing by my sweet husband. He blessed me to fully recover and to have many years here on earth with my dear family and friends. I have felt so much better and I know that I will be okay. I just need to keep positive thoughts and take each day at a time.
Tuesday was my echo cardiogram. It is an ultrasound of my heart to make sure everything is okay or to see if I will need heart medicine during my chemo therapy. They do not have the results back yet.
Wednesday was my chemo class Jamie and Jacki went with me. They tell you everything that is going to happen to you. I think the only thing that will be untouched from chemo is my big toe. Just kidding. They kept reassuring me that I would be surprised at how well I would do. But basically I will only have 1 week every three weeks where I feel close to normal and than the whole process starts over. But, I refuse to be out of commission for that long so we will see what I do. They gave us several pamphlets of cute hats and ideas for wig stores. We asked about my bone marrow test and they said it came back clean. Yippee! That was awesome news. So I keep the stage 3 diagnosis and we move forward with faith, hope, good thoughts and with the humble knowledge of so many wonderful friends and family members praying for me and my family, putting our names in the temple and sending their positive supportive thoughts our way. I can’t express my deep feelings of love for all those who have kept me in their prayers and thoughts. I have had so many people touch my heart by their concern and sweet comments. It is truly an amazing process when you see Heavenly Father’s hand in your life. I have had so many miracles touch my life since this whole experience has started.
I will start chemo on January 8th, lose my hair around the 22nd and put Jon on the plane for Australia around the 23rd. An exciting month!

Love to all
Margo

Yesterday (Wednesday Dec 17) we got the results of the bone marrow biopsy and GREAT NEWS…no cancer in the bone marrow. This doesn’t change the treatment protocol; but I am sure that it significantly affects the prognosis for the better. Margo was very relieved (as we all were) to have this news. Tuesday was not a good day and despite still not experiencing symptoms, I am sure that Margo’s mind is working overtime. She said that she fears that she has these renegade cells multiplying and taking over her body. Jon, Kirk (our daughter Jamie’s husband) and I administered to her Tuesday night and I think that the priesthood blessing really helped. We are in Wyoming tonight for the Christmas celebration tomorrow with the Rock Springs staff. We will be rushing back to SLC to attend a Neil Diamond concert Friday night (one of Margo’s favorite artists). The whole cancer thing seems like just a bad dream from which we hope to awaken. The recurring question in my mind is what could Heavenly Father’s agenda be for Margo and her family and couldn’t there a better way to learn the lesson we need to learn. We are grateful for the priesthood, faith and prayer and the tools of modern medicine all of which aid in the treatment of this terrible disease.

We are taking this challenge one day at a time. Margo had another CT scan this AM which evidently wasn’t too bad (easy for me to say); except for the chocolate Barium? drink that she had to take every 30 minutes prior to the 7:00 AM scan appointment and the indigestion and upset stomach that it caused. Yesterday (Sunday) Margo said that Saturday was not a good day. I don’t know how anyone could have told that it was not a good day as Margo’s smile and sunny disposition always belie what she may be feeling inside. We had our SLC office staff Christmas brunch in the morning and in the evening traveled south over treacherous roads to attend our granddaughter Ryen’s dance recital. Afterwards we had dinner with our daughter Jacki and her husband and family (including Ryen). Sunday was a great day mostly because it seemed as if none of this is real. Gratefully, Margo has still not had any symptoms; which makes her diagnosis all the more unbelievable. If there were any way that I could stand in as proxy and go through this chemo in her place, I would do it in a heartbeat to spare her the anguish and discomfort. We did get an email from Jessica in England, which was an unexpected surprise. We had understood that she would not have internet access in the Missionary Training Center in Preston; but evidently we misunderstood or something has changed. She sounds good and seems to be adjusting and happy (which is a great blessing). As we contemplate how dependent we are on Heavenly Father, it is indeed true that each breath we draw is a gift. I find myself holding Margo and my family a little tighter and savoring, even more than before, the time we spend together. A life altering challenge like this has a way of distilling in your mind what is truly important in life.

Who is that gorgeous woman with the old guy? You can just feel the light, heat and goodness from her smile. No wonder so many people have so much love for her!

December 12

Margo had the bone marrow biopsy yesterday and it was not really traumatic just a little pain in the a... or rather rear end (for a moment there I forgot my audience). Evidently, Tylenol will have to be her drug of choice for the forseeable future and not the horse pill Motrin 800's she is accustomed to. After a lengthy discussion with our daughter-in-law Jamie (our resident cancer-chemo expert and breast cancer survivor); we decided that it would be good not to start the chemo until after Christmas so that Margo can be comfortable and not hairless while our family are here and until Jon leaves for Melbourne. She wants him to have a memory of her as she is now and will soon be again. The scene at the oncologist was much less chaotic yesterday. We got right in and out in a little less than an hour. When the nurse found that we were LDS and that we have two children serving missions, she said that she has worked with cancer patients for over 10 years and she suggested that we give Margo a priesthood blessing before each chemo treatment. From her experience, this will help Margo a great deal. All in all we feel much better about things today. I look forward to Margo and I dancing at Jon and Jess' weddings (whenever they might be). We continue to be humbled by the overwhelming outpouring of love, faith and concern for Margo and our family.

Margo's take on the most recent events

Written by Margo:
My take on yesterday.
Wednesday December 10: Another roller coaster ride in my life. After an hour of explaining different drugs and their reactions for chemo and lots of technical stuff I found out I have stage 3 diffuse large cell lymphoma. This is still curable same way as if it was stage two and with the same results it is means I have cancerous lymph nodes above the diaphragm and below the diaphragm. I am having a bone marrow test today as a baseline and also to make sure that the bone marrow is not involved. I will have an echo cardiogram next week to determine if I need heart medication during my treatment as some of the drugs can make your heart race. I will have a port put in on the right side or left side of my chest under my collar bone. They will administer the chemo drugs through this port. I will have a CT scan as a baseline to help see how the therapy is working in the upcoming months. I am deciding whether to start chemo next week on the 18th or wait until after the Holidays. So much for the negatives. The great news and blessings are that all my children (except Jessica) and their families will be here for Christmas, my house will be bursting with hope, faith, love and positive feelings. Another blessing is that Jessica left on her mission this morning. It was touch and go there for a little bit. Hard to let her go, but I know that as a family we will be blessed because of her sacrifice and her love for her Heavenly Father and Savior. That is the latest update. I appreciate everyone’s prayer’s and good thoughts and I am humbled that so many are keeping me in their prayers. Jack and the kids have started a blogspot for me that will have updates it is margofeller.blogspot.com. I love you all, Margo

OK, so here we go again…once more with feeling! I spent two hours last night typing a description of yesterdays doctor visit with Margo and when I went to post it to the blog the internet went down and I lost everything that I had typed. Since it was almost 1:00 AM, I collapsed into bed for a less than restful sleep, determined to never try to post a blog without first saving it as a word document.
Margo’s appointment with the oncologist, Dr. Kline (female), was at 3:00 PM yesterday. We had to wait 2 hours to be seen and when she finally did see us she went into a great deal of detail related to outcomes, prognosis, and possible bad side effects of the treatment. We didn’t leave her office until almost 6:30 PM. The Reader’s Digest condensed version is this: The lymphoma is stage 3, which means that it is not localized just in the neck and it is in the lymph nodes above and below the diaphragm. (Stage 1 would just be localized in the neck where she first felt the lump, stage 2 would be in additional places above the diaphragm but not below and stage 3 is both above and below the diaphragm. I can’t remember which stage 3 was without symptoms 3A or 3B (I think it was 3A); and since Margo has no symptoms that would be the stage. Stage 4 would mean involvement in bone marrow or other organs which is unlikely since she has not had symptoms. However as a routine part of the work-up they will do a bone marrow biopsy this afternoon to rule that out for sure. The treatment for Lymphoma is chemotherapy and not radiation, since it is not localized and we don’t want to risk missing any of the bad cells. The fact that it is stage 3 is not all that uncommon with lymphoma since this is systemic (a disease of the lymph system). Given the characteristics of the disease it is still 70-80% curable. Lower grade very slow developing lymphomas are not treatable and are therefore not curable (they just are there and always have to be checked). Similarly, aggressive lymphomas are typically not curable since they are resistant to treatment. Since Margo’s lymphoma is curable we feel that this is the best of circumstances for her. Also, it is a blessing that the first indication of it was a swelling close enough to the surface of the skin in the neck that she could feel it. The doctor said that often the primarily affected lymph nodes are much deeper and so it is not noticed until the cancer is much more advanced and there are serious symptoms. After speaking with Jed last night and previously he reminded me that the oncologist that they met with at the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale said, “People will tell you that it’s a good thing that this or that is or has happened, but the reality is that there is nothing good about this…it is cancer! I am sure that this is all too ‘fresh’ for Jed and Jamie and I find myself regretting not having tried to do more or be there more for them. You can have empathy after fashion, but is really true that it is not too hard to get along with someone else’s troubles unless you have been there yourself. Jamie and Jed are our examples of courage and fortitude indeed!
The chemotherapy will be administered every three weeks in 6-8 courses. After 3 months she will have another PET scan and if it is clear they will do 2 more chemo treatments and it will then be over as long as she remains cancer free except for 3-6 month follow-up checks. If the scan is not clear they will do two additional courses and check again. The drugs they use are abbreviated R CHOP (I believe that is right but I don’t remember the names since the amount of information was overwhelming). I do know that one of the drugs is an antibody and one is a steroid and the other three are cyto-toxic cell killers. Side effects are varied but most significant is hair loss at 2 weeks, nausea, malaise, chronic tiredness and lack of energy. But we were cautioned not to pay a great deal of attention to horror stories heard from others or things on the internet, since everyone reacts differently.
Prior to beginning the therapy Margo needs to have the bone marrow biopsy, and echocardiogram (to establish a baseline of heart function) since one of the drugs can affect the heart, to have a port surgically inserted in her arm or shoulder for administration of the chemo and a regular CT scan to establish a baseline of the size of the lymph nodes. If all this can come together in the next week we could start chemo as soon as a week from today. But this needs to coordinate with our schedule for travel and other events that we have already planned. (some of which may need to be cancelled). We are also trying to decide if it would be best to start the week after next so that we get past Christmas and so that she won’t lose her hair prior to Jon’s departure. One of Margo’s biggest trials will be just sitting there for 6-7 hours while the chemo is administered without anything constructive to do. It will seem like wasted time to her.
Needless to say there were many tears shed again yesterday and Margo though tough and determined, is mad (not at anyone but at the circumstance and the disease). If you can even imagine Margo mad… Her response after leaving the doctor was: this is way too much information… let’s Go, Fight and Win! Interestingly as we went down the hall to the oncologist we passed a cosmetic dermatologist’s office window that had a vinyl letter sign that said ‘Weapons Are Not Allowed’. I wonder how many times someone had to come in armed and dangerous for this to be enough of a problem to post that sign. It occurs to me that it would have been more appropriate at the oncologist office.
I am uncomfortably numb and we are all trying to cope one day and challenge at a time. We just put our daughter Jessica on a plane to London this morning for her mission which would be difficult even under the best of circumstances. In my heart of hearts I feel that Margo will be fine and that she will respond well to the treatment. As we listened to the over the top medical detail and informed consent, I could only think of our ‘secret weapon’ the love, support, concern, faith and prayers of many, many dear friends and family and the power of a priesthood blessing. I am promised in my patriarchal blessing that I will have the privilege of laying hands on the sick and anointing them with consecrated oil and seeing them be healed. I am absolutely convinced that this is true. I truly believe that things happen for a reason and I have often prayed and continue to pray for the courage and strength to face whatever comes our way. I in no way believe that Margo’s sojourn here in mortality is meant to be over. I also know that sacrifice brings the blessings of heaven and with two missionaries serving simultaneously we are expecting a dump truck load of blessings. We are so appreciative of all the many expressions of concern and love that we have received and for the many prayers offered in Margo’s behalf. We are truly blessed to have such dear friends and such an amazing family.

The events as they have unfolded are these: Margo noticed a small lump on her neck when we were in San Diego in Oct and upon our return she saw our primary care physician who prescribed an antibiotic to rule out some type of infection. She took the Rx for almost two weeks and it was not getting smaller and she felt like there might be another smaller lump just above the initial one, so she got in to see an ENT monday before Thanksgiving and he did an excisional biopsy two days later on wednesday. We met with him last thursday and he said the diagnosis was a lymphoma but he wasn't sure which type. He scheduled an appointment with an oncologist the next day and after meeting with him we had a much better idea with what we are facing. It is Diffuse Large Cell Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma which according to him is the most common and has an 80% cure rate over-all. (Which was very comforting to know). Margo has felt well and has no symptoms which are good things and he feels that it is likely just confined to that one area in her neck. He is a radiation specialist and so referred us to another oncologist that does chemo. He said that this type responds best to chemo and that they would probably not do radiation unless it is in a fairly small area in the neck which they will know after the PET CT scan that will happen tuesdayDecember 9th. We have an appointment with the chemo doctor on wednesday and we anticipate that she will start the chemo immediately. Thursday and friday were terrible days, mostly for the lack of information about what we needed to do and what the prognosis would be. Words cannot begin to describe the feelings of melancholy and despair I felt when contemplating Margo's disease and the possibility of losing my dear eternal companion. I could easily become a bitter, angry, lonely old man. We all shed lots of tears and I felt like I couldn't breathe for a while. But we are feeling much better now and there are times when it just seems like a bad dream from which we soon hope to awake. We are so thankful for the outpouring of love and faith from family and dear friends.

What's up with me

This is the email update from my mom she sent out on December 5th, the friday she found out the kind of cancer she has:

Hi,Just got back from the oncologist. I have Diffuse large cell lymphoma (non hodgkinson’s). This is the most common non hodgkinson’s cancer. It is 80% or better curable. I have an appointment next Tuesday for a CT PET scan which will determine the stage of cancer. Dr. Sause said it seemed like it was just in my neck but they will know more when they do the scan. I have an appointment on Wednesday to see Dr. Kline a chemo doctor at Lakeview hospital. She will tell me the results of the scan and the treatment plan. Dr. Sause said the treatment would be chemo with a small chance of radiation treatment. Chemo time 4 - 6 months. I am very hopeful and very grateful that it is curable. I prayed that it would be something the kids could live with so they could leave on their missions and I feel that my prayers have been answered. Had a great priesthood blessing last night from Jack with my son’s Josh, Jon and son’s – in-law Brian and Kirk in the circle. We called Jed, Mindi and Marci and put them on speaker phone and with Jamie, Jessica and Amber all squeezed into my office for the blessing. I feel very positive about everything. I was a little scared this morning and felt like I couldn’t breathe. I think it is the not knowing that is the hardest. Now I have a focus and an opportunity of success so I truly am blessed. Thanks for all the prayers, thoughts, fasting. I feel very loved. I love you all.Margo

What's going on...

I have been feeling very helpless living so far away from everything that has been going on, so when Dad presented the idea of starting a blog to keep everyone up do date I jumped right in (glad to contribute in some way).

Here is a little background or as much as I know at least. I came down to visit for Thanksgiving this year arriving the Saturday before. My mom had a Doctor's appointment a few days after I got there, it was a follow-up visit for a bump on her neck that she had been taking antibiotics for. The doctor said that it should be removed since the antibiotics were not helping. The surgery was set for the day before Thanksgiving. My mom was in and out, and ready to host Thanksgiving dinner for about 50 people.

Here she is Thankgiving morning making cornicopias (sugar cones stuffed with candy) with the grandkids.

She was told it would take a week to get the results back from the biopsy. I guess she was trying not to worry anyone, but she never once gave the impression that she was very worried about it, even though I am sure she was. She was happy and bubbly just like always. On the Tuesday following Thanksgiving I asked if she had heard anything yet and she said they called that day and scheduled a follow-up/test results appointment on Thursday, and added with a laugh that it must not be very good if they can't give me the results over the phone.

I left on Wednesday and got a call Thursday morning from my Dad, he could barely get the words out...my mom had lymphoma. I couldn't believe it. He said they have an appointment with the oncologist the next day. That was a rough 24 hours.

On friday we found out exactly what we are dealing with. She has Diffuse large cell lymphoma (non hodgkin's). They said it is generally treated successfully...good news!! She is getting a CT PET scan today to see if the cancer has spread to anywhere else in her body. We are praying that the cancer will not be anywhere else. She will get the results back tomorrow, and we will know more of what to expect.