Melissa's Service

If you were unable to make it to Missy's service, here is a link to our family's eulogy of our sweet girl.  Here is a link to her best friends eulogy as well, and below is the slide show we played of our favorite pictures set to one of her favorite songs.

Thank you once again for your amazing love and support of Missy and our entire family during this heartbreaking time.

Arrangements

Here is a link to our Sweet Melissa's obituary and the details of her services.

Thank you all for the outpouring of love and support during this heartbreaking time. 

Our Sweet Missy

Our sweet Melissa Rae passed away peacefully last night after a two and a half year coragous battle with brain cancer. Our family was with her, surrounding her with love. We know she will always be with us. We are completely heartbroken. Thank you for your prayers, love and support. I will post arrangments here when they are made. Please share this with anyone who loved our Sweet Missy.

An update on Missy

The last few weeks have had major changes for our sweet Missy. The past weekend brought new heartache with her mostly losing the ability to communicate with us and fighting constant focal seizures. Yesterday we were at the point of needing to have help from the hospital to fight the seizures, so an ambulance came to take  her to the local hospice hospital.

Yesterday was very challenging, but around 3pm we got her seizures under control and she was finally able to rest. She has now been sleeping for a little over 24 hours. We don't know what each day will bring. We hope she wakes up, we hope to take her back home, but what we hope for most is peace for our sweet Melissa. 

I wanted you to know we are here. I know your prayers, good thoughts, and support will give our family comfort. Missy has lived a faith filled life for many years. She relies heavily on prayer, and we are at peace with whatever is to come. But this heartbreak is so difficult for us all. Your loves prayers and support just help to lighten that load.

December NIH Visit

The week before Christmas Missy and our dad went back to the NIH to meet with doctors about her cancer.  We learned that her new medication is not working. There is nothing else available to try. They are taking her off all treatments and just placing her on steroids to keep swelling down. After Christmas Missy and our parents met with the local doctors and with Hospice to begin this new stage of dealing with her terminal cancer.

 We are heartbroken. Truly and completely heartbroken. But we are also trying to focus on where we are right now. She is no sicker today than she was before the trip to NIH, we just have more information today. We had a wonderful Christmas as a family and rang in the New Year all together. We will just have to wait and see what 2013 brings, taking it one day at a time and enjoying every moment we have together.


This is harder than I could ever imagine.  For now, our family is spending as much time together as possible.  We are talking and laughing, hugging and kissing and telling each other as often as possible how much we love the other. Someone is always with her. We are all here together, spending time with our Sweet Missy.   Hard days are ahead of us, but for today, we are living in the now.  We are doing the very best we can and are loving each other with the time we are given.  

September NIH Visit

Missy's visit to the NIH in September showed new growth of her cancer.  She began a new treatment for this growth three weeks ago.  We will not have the new MRI results for another nine weeks, but the treatment went well and has not been too hard on her physically.  She is very tired, but thankfully has not been ill.  She is doing very well.

We are all hoping and praying this treatment will stop the new growth.  Please pray for healing while we wait for the new MRI results.

July NIH Visit

Hello everyone! I am so sorry it has been so long since I have updated here at Kicking Cancer.  I am going to make a real effort to post after every NIH visit from now on, even if it is a simple one or two line update just saying "Things are great! See you in eight weeks :)" .  I know people check here to see how our sweet Melissa is doing, and I am sorry I have dropped the ball.  Now on to the update!

Missy's MRI today showed that both the aggressive and the non-aggressive cancers are actually shrinking! This is wonderful news.  The Avastin is still working to shrink the aggressive cancer, to the point that even the tiny peripheral dots were smaller.  She is now also on Carboplatin for the slower growing cancer in her tumor, and it that too is shrinking.  We are so thankful for this update!
Recently Missy has needed a few blood and platelet transfusions before her bi-monthly treatments.  This is a side effect of the Carboplatin, and thankfully was not a sign of any other issues from the cancer.  Because of this side effect, they are reducing her dose of Carboplatin, but are keeping her on the medication since it is working so well to fight the cancer.  She is of course staying on the Avastin for the aggressive cancer too. We love Avastin!

So, that's the update for now!  Missy is doing great! She is feeling tired from the carboplatin and her lower blood levels, but mostly she is truly wonderful.  Since I last updated, Missy had her 30th birthday and we have taken a family vacation.  I will end with a few pictures of our sweet girl so you can all see how great she is doing!

In the pool, enjoying the Florida sun
 
The entire family on the beach
 
With some of her best girlfriends at her birthday party

Sisters at the birthday bash

Love :)

You can see lots more birthday party pics HERE and more vacation pics HERE :)

Thanks for continuing to check in, even when I don't update often, and thank you for all of your prayers and support of our sweet Melissa!