THURSDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2006 05:22 PM, CST

Hi everyone. Today has been pretty good. I had to give more blood again this morning. Thank you daddy for taking me and hanging out in the chemo room with me. My arms are so sore from giving so much blood and I was a little scared to get stuck again. God sent a nurse named Lorie to me and she was awesome and made the process almost painless. Praise God!
I heard that some of you ladies prayed for me this morning and last night. Thank you so much. What a blessing that was for me. I was in the chemo room waiting to do lab work and just thinking about you guys praying on my behalf and it gave me such a peace. I love you guys. I don't know what I would do without each one of you.
I did get really tired when I got home. I took a nap and I've felt pretty good the rest of the day. I was able to ride with mom to pick up Em. Thank you Diana for all you do. I love knowing she is there with you and all of her friends.
Jenny Lee, Nicky, Heather, Rose and TJ, thank you so much for coming by and visiting with mom. I know she really enjoyed that. Also, thanks for all the YUMMY food. Jenny Lee, you do too much. We really appreciate all you do.
Claire, I know I've gone overboard about the chili, but I need the recipe. What a nice surprise for John and Jonathan. John is actually eating some now.
Calling Teri/Paula Deen, where are my salmon patties? I'm just kidding. Can you tell they have me on all this medicine to stimulate my appetite? I think it is working.
I miss everyone so much. I feel like I'm on an island right now. I'm praying that I will start feeling a lot better soon. I'm going to be up for a movie very soon. So you guys get ready.
Is everyone finished Christmas shopping? I love this time of year. We get to celebrate the birth of Jesus. I love sharing that with Emily. We also get to shop a ton and give toys. I can't wait this year. Emily and Abby are at such fun ages. Emily really has been working hard wrapping and telling everyone what they're getting.
Mom and I are going to try to get out for a little while in the morning. I'm going crazy in this house. I pray I will have the energy to do that.
I don't have to go back to the doctor until next Tuesday for my next treatment. Please pray my blood counts will remain high and there will be no problems with me getting the next treatment. I haven't noticed any major side effects from this chemo so far. I started feeling like I was getting the flu and I know that is part of it. I'm just wanting all of this stomach/liver pain to go away. This has been almost more than I can endure. The doctor is really trying to manage my pain, but it makes me out of it at the same time.
Keith, thanks for all you did this week. I don't think I even remember some of it. I know you were about to carry me into the hospital. Now that's a good big brother. I love you and really appreciate all you're doing to help John and me with whatever we need. Oh, and I'm looking forward to Saturday. Please pray I will feel well enough to come over and just hang out and eat.
Kim, thanks for keeping Em for us this week. You have no idea how much that helps us when I'm not feeling well. She loves her aunt Kim and Macy.
Enough about all of that. I hope everyone is having an AWESOME week. The weather has been wonderful.
Keep posting. I love the encouragement.
Blessings,
Kristina

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 13, 2006 01:59 PM, CST

Hello everyone. I had to go this morning and do more lab work. I'm feeling a little better today. Praise God. This has been really tough.
Yesterday went well. The treatment was eight hours.
Stef, where do I start? Thank you so much for getting up with the chickens and taking me. I know I was so out of it. I'm glad you like to read. It was such a comfort to wake up everytime and see you still there.
Claire, thank you for coming and hanging out with Stef and me. I'm so sorry I was so out of it. I did start feeling a little better yesterday afternoon. Claire, thank you for praying over me. I woke up for a split second and saw you praying. What a blessing you both were to me yesterday. I'm glad I didn't wake up with a tube in my nose. Stef, I'm eating!!!!
I'm sorry I haven't posted in a while. I haven't felt well at all. I pray that everything is going to change starting yesterday. I pray this chemo is doing a mighty work on this cancer.
Thanks for all your posts and cards. I love to read them. Keep the encouragment coming. I'm not giving up!
I'm going to keep this short. I'm going to go take a nap with Em.
I love and miss everyone.
Blessings,
Kristina

MONDAY, DECEMBER 11, 2006 09:55 PM, CST

This is John.
Kristina woke up this morning with the worst pain and nausea she has experienced throughout this entire process. We then received some good news in that she can start her chemo Tuesday as opposed to Thursday. The challenge there was that she needed to have an EKG today and, as we found out once we got to Sara Cannon, an MRI.

She received fluids, pain and nausea medication at Sara Cannon in Nashville this afternoon. That didn't help much at all. She was still in pain and was really out of it as we made our way to Baptist Hospital at 2:45 for a brain MRI. If that scan is clear as the doctor expects it to be, Kristina will start her chemo tomorrow morning at 8:00. I know that the people at Sara Cannon intended to let us know if the scan did not come back okay and they never called. So we are assuming that she is a go for her chemotherapy treatment tomorrow at 8:00am back at Sara Cannon.

Please continue to pray for healing and pain control. Please specifically pray that nothing will keep her from starting her chemo tomorrow and that it will start to work immediately. She really needs the relief. We need to start heading the other direction.
As of 10:00pm tonight Kristina's pain has finally started to subside a little. Praise God! Please pray that she will have a restful night and will not have any problem getting up in the morning.

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 09, 2006 08:18 AM, CST

Yesterday was a long day. We thought we'd see our first oncologist at 8:00 and have time for Kristina to take a nap before her 2:45 appointment with the other oncologist. We weren't seen until about 9:45 and didn't leave Vanderbilt until about 11:30 so her nap was much shorter than we had hoped it would be.
Dr. Mayer at Vanderbilt stuck to her original story. Gemzar Carboplatin combo was her firm suggestion. She was pretty convincing. Her thinking on this was that Gemzar was the most logical of the remaining "off-the-shelf" or standard drugs and that combining it with another chemotherapy would give Kristina a major punch to push back her immediate problem. She was not saying that she thought it would necessarily get Kristina's cancer into remission. We felt like she was saying it was a way to push the disease back a little bit and buy some time. One thing we walked away with for sure from that appointment was that any suggestion that doesn't include a potent chemotherapy component is not valid for her at this point. There's just too much risk involved for her given the state of her liver.
Later we saw Dr. Spigel at the Sara Cannon Breast Cancer Center. He was also very smart. Dr. Spigel really respects Dr. Mayer from Vanderbilt and actually agreed with her recommendation of Gemzar/Carboplatin if we were going to go off the shelf. However, he thought it would be worth our time to consider some more experimental drugs and thus introduced us to his center's experimental trials specialist--Noel Willcutt. She was very helpful. Kristina seemed to really connect with her. She was a sweet lady with whom Kristina could be very comfortable.
After considering all of the evidence, we made the decision to go with at least a few weekly rounds of a late stage 1 trial of a drug called Kosan. For you technical geeks out there, the trial is Kosan Kos-1584-002. See link here for details: http://www.kosan.com/early-stage-programs.html
The decision really came down to a few basic factors. 1) What will give us an immediate response? 2) What can Kristina's body handle? 3) What will give us the best chance to get the cancer into remission? The trial gives us a chance on all of those so we're going to go for it.
Please pray that God will use this new drug to work a miracle in Kristina's body. We are excited about it and can't wait to get started on it. It looks like the earliest day she can get started is Thursday of next week. So there will be a few more days between now and then in which Kristina could be experiencing significant pain. Please pray that she will get through these next few days relatively pain-free as we wait.
Thank you to the carolers who came by last night. Kristina said it was like hearing angels outside her window. It was very uplifting to her. Do carolers only come at Christmas time? :-)
We love all of you so much and can't tell you how much we appreciate your prayers and encouragement. Keep it up!
In Christ,
John

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 07, 2006 08:50 PM, CST

Here is the breakdown of where we are with Kristina's treatment. We have now received input from four different oncologists--two of them informally--and will be receiving input from at least one more before the end of the day tomorrow. Three of these individuals are local and the other two are out of state.
It is a great blessing to have so many sets of eyes on Kristina's situation but it can also be frustrating. I say that because with different men and women come different opinions. We are starting to see some common threads in their suggestions but there are definitely still some question marks out there as I type this.
Please pray that by the end of the weekend the Lord will give us clarity on what to do next. We need to start some sort of regimen by early next week for sure. We're confident that we have two good local options in Sara Cannon at Centennial and Vanderbilt Ingram Cancer Center.
The chief consideration in determining our next step is the condition of Kristina's liver. If her disease there is advanced enough, it may make the oncologists swing one way or the other on treatment recommendations. So we're really praying that tomorrow we'll have a consensus from at least two well-trained individuals on just how aggressive we need to be with this next treatment.
To spare all of you from the mind-numbing technical terms we've been wading through in the past 48 hours I'll stop with the details. The above tells the basic story.
Thank you to all of you who have been so diligently praying, fasting, crying with us or because of us, etc. We love all of you so much and truly could not get through this without your direct and/or indirect support. Continue to bring this to the throne of our Father in Heaven.
In Christ,
John

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 05, 2006 08:32 PM, CST

Today was a pretty good day. I still have some pain and have a very tender stomach. But for the most part it was a peaceful day. I was able to finish my Christmas shopping.
The past few days have been tough emotionally. I'm still trusting that God will heal me. But I'm also starting to be responsible for the girls. I've started getting things together in case it is the Lord's will to take me home. That has been really hard. I know that either way it's a good thing though. All of us should really prepare for this because we could be taken away like Shawn and Donna Wilson were taken.
I have a CT scan in the morning. Please pray that it goes well. Drinking the barium is really hard for me. Plus I'll have to get an injection that is not fun at all. And don't forget that God can still take away all of my disease at any time. So please pray that these results will show no cancer or at least no enlarged liver.
It's a difficult balance knowing and trusting that God can at any time take this away but also being responsible in knowing that He may not choose to. You have no idea what sort of spiritual warfare that creates for me. But I know that His Word is absolutely true. I know that it is not built on emotions but on truth. Praise God! If it was an emotional thing, I would be in real trouble because I'm a wreck emotionally.
Stef, thank you so much for the sweet pendant. It was a great reminder of how God looks at our faith and how He understands our frailties. I picked up a chain today to wear it.
I just feel so helpless right now but I know that God is here. I know He can't lie and that He's made me so many promises to comfort me and give me eternal assurance. But it is a constant struggle to focus on that while Satan is just attacking me from all sides. Pray that God will give me a protection and a peace that I've never experienced before. I feel like I need a million angels around me to get me through this.
Thank you for your posts and your prayers. Keep them coming!
Blessings,
Kristina

MONDAY, DECEMBER 04, 2006 10:38 AM, CST

Update from John:
We just returned from our visit with the oncologist. The news was not good. We were told the fact that her liver was enlarged was a good sign that the Doxil was not working. She is going to have scans on Wednesday just to confirm what the oncologist believes to be true. If he is right, she will see a new oncologist at the Sara Cannon Breast Cancer Center at Centennial Hospital on Friday--hopefully to start a new treatment. The new treatment would most likely be a biological approach versus a chemotherapy approach. This would be an experimental treatment so the chances of success are really unknown. If that treatment does not work, Dr. Raefsky said we could be looking at months in terms of Kristina's physical life expectancy. Of course we all know about Kristina's spiritual life expectancy. That issue has already been settled, praise God!
Please pray for peace in our house right now and continue to aggressively pray for healing. As we were reminded last week, only Christ holds the keys to Kristina's physical life. So we will continue to ask Him to have mercy on her and allow her life to continue. Please join us in doing so.
Thank you.
John

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 02, 2006 06:18 PM, CST

Hi everyone!
Kristina has been kind enough to allow me to post a message to all of you tonight.
"So we fasted and petitioned our God about this, and He answered our prayer" Ezra 8:23
I consider it such a blessing to call upon each of you at this time. Your diligence in prayer for Kristina and her family and your dedication to our Lord and Savior is inspiring. At this time, I would like to ask that each of you be in prayer about joining us in a 40 day rotating fast. We brgan the fast on Friday Dec 1 and will end on January 10th. I realize that this will mean that several of us will be fasting during the holidays, however, we consider this fast to be a privilege not a punishment.
Ideally, we would like for you to pray about the fast and then as God leads you, contact me and let me know what day or days that you would like to fast. For example, you could choose every other Wednesday or every Sunday or just one day for the entire 40 days. This is between you and the Lord. I do need for you to let me know what day or days that you would like to fast so that the entire 40 days will be covered in prayer. We will follow scripture and keep this VERY discreet. There will only be one or two that will be aware who is fasting on the given day, "When you fast, do not look somber...But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to men that you are fasting, but only to your Father who is unseen." Matt 6:16-18.
I would suggest that you prayerfully consider this fast allowing Him to direct you. We realize that not everyone will be called to fast. Please know that our main purpose is to allow the Lord to lead this fast and accomplish His will. Our desire is to pray for Kristina to be healed as well as for the Lord to use this time to revive our hearts and further His Kingdom. Our fast will be an act of obedience and a time of self denial where we spend time before the Lord praying for Kristina's complete healing and any other concerns on our hearts.
Some examples of fasting would be: Stop eating dinner on Monday night at 6 PM and eat nothing and drink only water all day Tuesday. After 6PM on Tuesday night eat a light meal to break your fast. This would be an example of a 24 hour fast
A slightly longer fast would be to stop eating after lunch on Monday at noon and eat nothing for the remainder of Monday and all day Tuesday. For dinner on Tuesday eat a light meal to break the fast.
A 36 hour fast could be to stop eating dinner on Monday night at 6PM. Eat nothing on Tuesday or Tuesday night. On Wednesday morning break the fast with a light meal.
These are just examples of a fast and are only suggestions.
Thank you for your prayers for Kristina and her family. My heart overflows with love and thanksgiving for each of you and your perseverance in prayer and service. Kristina is blessed to know each of you and to be able to call upon you during this season of her life. I look forward to what the Lord has in store for Kristina, her family and each of us during the next 40 days. May God receive all the glory!!!
In His love,
Stephanie
stefbradshaw18@yahoo.com

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 01, 2006 07:37 PM, CST

Who got out and went Christmas shopping today.....I did, I did, I did. What a blessing. I was able to stay out several hours. I took it very slow and sat down a lot, but I did it. Praise God!
The pain has been so much better today. Your prayers are working. Thank you all so much for praying for me all the time. I don't know what I would do without all of you.
What a nice surprise to come home to flowers. Thank you Nene and Linda. That was nice. They're beautiful.
I'm going to keep this short tonight. I'm feeling pretty good and I want to spend some time with my family.
Thanks for all the sweet posts and cards. You have no idea how much they mean to me.
I hope everyone has a wonderful Saturday. I can't wait to spend a quiet day with John and the girls.
Blessings,
Kristina

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 01, 2006 08:12 AM, CST

Well, I just received a call from Dr. Raefsky's office and they will not have the results back today. They have rescheduled my appointment for Monday.
I'm a little disappointed. I didn't want to go through the weekend. This does give us more time to pray!
I hope everyone is having a good Friday. I'm going to try to get out a little today. My sister has volunteered to watch the girls. I'm going a little crazy in this house as you can imagine.
Please pray for my pain to continue to ease up. I love you all so much.
Blessings,
Kristina