change in game plan.

UPDATE: donation site is set up. click here.

i have a LOT to say in this post. it’s heavy, but with the bad i have some good news. first and foremost i must say…

i’m really glad i waited to write this post. the past couple weeks have been some of the absolute hardest of my life, my sister’s, and my whole family’s.

ugh. if you are friends with me on fb then you saw me write a couple wednesdays ago, “today’s treatment is the hardcore chemo. extra prayers

for ali as we all go about our day feeling normal, she’s all hooked up fighting for any sense of normality she can.” well about 4 hrs after i posted that i

got a text from my mom, who thank God was with her, saying ali was coughing up blood and having severe chest pains. they were leaving chemo to go

to the ER. 🙁 LUMP IN THROAT. then a handful of hours later my mom called crying so hard i could barely understand. “it’s cancer. the damn cancer

is back. the xray shows masses.” whaaaat theeee helllllllllllll? the tears started and didn’t stop for ohhhh about 5 days. and i mean, every hour of the day

cause i certainly wasn’t sleeping. that night my immediate family rushed to her bedside to be together. you have to remember that all the awful studies

we’d read about sarcomatoid carcinoma said chemo is often not strong enough and the cancer comes back by halfway through treatment. she was exactly half

way through. at some point we were also led to believe that if the strongest possible chemo doesn’t work, that’s it – no other options for this crazy rare aggressive

lung cancer. so you can imagine why we were freaking the hell out. once she had official petscan results, indeed there were 4 masses. one of which is large

(9cm) just where the lobectomy was done on her right lung. this explains why ali was back wheezing and short of breath. ugh. she was declared stage 4. :(:(

after we started absorbing the initial shock, that the statistics of this cancer were applying to her, her oncologist came in and told us about this drug trial.

for the first time i felt a huge weight lifted off my chest. immediately my tears stopped and i was restored with hope. this is the answer, i just feel it. it’s

called crizotinib and he says it’ll be FDA approved within the next year. it seems like all we’ve done since her initial diagnosis is wait, annd wait, annnnnnd

wait on results and scheduling. it’s driving my family mad. just like the rest of the time, we’d been waiting for biopsy results to assure she can even interview

for the clinical trial. the biopsy determined whether or not she had the ALK 1 mutation within the cancer cells. IF she did, she was among the 5-6% of

lung cancer patients with this mutation. while normally that wouldn’t matter, concerning the trial, it absolutely matters. with this mutation factor, the

drug knows exactly where to attack. those who have this, the drug is 80% successful. HOLY AMAZING NEWS. that percent is WAY higher than even chemo

was for success. not only should it keep away the cancer, it shrinks the current tumors. HELL YES. her oncologist believes she won’t be able to start the trial,

(assuming she meets all other requirements) until the chemo is out of her system for 4 weeks. last chemo was july 6th.

~~~

every week my whole family goes to library time, including brittany and girls since she’s still on maternity leave. i generally send nori with someone

because i can’t take off time anymore being in busy season. last week after hearing my sister’s lifeline could be cut short, i decided i needed to really

make an effort to go to her favorite thing each week with her. it’s the least i can do. it’s a bunch of fun and we know almost all the other kids there anyway.

they sing, have story time, play instruments and do crafts. all the things i miss about teaching! ali was a librarian for a long time, if you didn’t know.

naturally the tracy family is always the last to arrive and the last to leave. we stay extra and play. mia sleeps through all the fun.

after ali announced to fb that her cancer is back and she was in need of some support and a major ‘pick me up,’ an old friend of mine created a fb

event. she called it ‘wear pink for ali’ and all day friday people all over the US did just that. everyone’s feed blew up with images of people wearing pink.

there were pics of pink toes, newborn babies in and out of the hospital, groups of 8+ ALL wearing pink, tons of boys wearing their wives clothes…IT

WAS AWESOME. the kind of awesome that brought tears to your eyes and chills to your skin. people tagged ali so her page overflowed with love.

i pulled off 185 images, but over 350 participated in the event. and those are just the ones who tagged us. i used this free app to create the we <3 ali!

at the top of this post and the two collages below. adam says it looks super hillbilly with the huge watermark(to which i replied, ‘you’re a hillbilly’),

but i agree it does, 🙂  i would have done it myself in photoshop but it’d take hrs.  this took like 20 minutes.  get ova it adam! i just wanted

people to get the idea! sorry if i the watermark goes over your face! :-/

ali said her fb iphone app was down all day because she was getting so many notifications from comments and pics etc. it made her feel wonderful. thanks friends.

~~~~

the long awaited fundraiser info. you can see blinkers menu here. 318 greenup in covington, KY. if you can’t make the fundraiser and still want to donate,

you can deposit a check to 53rd bank, payable to “rock pink for ali.” in the memo line write, “FBO allison nunery.”

you can also donate through THIS LINK.

here are the shirts we are selling. $10. if you can’t make arrangements to be there or have someone pick one up for you, i will try to work something out for you.

the shirt symbolizes our love for ali radiating our from hearts. 🙂

~~~~

moving onto the this past sunday. ali and ella’s bday’s are a day apart. 7/17 & 7/18. ella couldn’t be more thrilled to celebrate her bday with anyone else.

(though my aunt dannette’s bday is also 7/17!) we went to my mom & dad’s for their birthdays, celebrated and had some fun. here’s to 60+ more years

of birthday celebrations auntie ali!!

the klems rule is you can’t have gum til you’re 4. guess who just turned 4!! the first piece lasted about 10 sec before she spit it out and asked for another.

at least she didn’t swallow it. 🙂 by the end of the night she was even chewing with her mouth closed. impressive!

just before we all left, most the kids changed to their pj’s and we all headed outside to have some sparkler fun. no one was hurt. yippee!

oooooooooooo!

mom texted me at 5am the next day, ali’s actual bday saying that ali had a fever, vomiting and pain. ben was taking her to the ER at UC. yuck. we were

all very nervous trying our best not to think the worst. i was super bummed because we scheduled our ultrasound on ali’s bday so she could come

with us as an extra special bday present. after hours upon hours of the worst service she’s ever gotten in a hospital, she was finally in a transition

room by mid-afternoon. hours spent on a rock hard guerney with a temperature, on her birthday. totally sucks. meanwhile the x-rays came back showing

the same results as the last scan (relief for us as we were so scared the cancer spread further last week). she is about 2 wks out from the last chemo which

is when her counts are the lowest, causing an infection and fever. thankfully that’s all it was.

since this drug trial has been in the talks, they said the earliest appt she could get in for an interview at the James cancer center is aug 8. since

she clearly doesn’t have that kind time, all sorts of people were contacting ‘their people’ to start pulling some strings. and it finally all came together.

she left the hospital via ambulance last night and was transferred to the James in columbus. this morning some of the top dogs came in to speak with

her directly leaving the nurses bewildered with thoughts of, “who the hell does this chick know to have THOSE GUYS talk to her?!” THAT’s what

i’m talking about friends. our prayers are taking effect. we can literally see them working now! since she has to be chemo free for 4 weeks, she will

hopefully start the pill early august. HOWEVER, while she’s meeting some of the major requirements for the trial, she’s not fully accepted until

pfizer reviews her tests and possibly runs their own. her dr up there mentioned he doesn’t know of anyone else with the sarcomatoid carcinoma in

the trial, so they are curious of it’s effect. i know it’s the answer. ali knows it’s her miracle. one step closer to this being a memory.

please keep praying, as we are far from out of the woods. she will know if the drug is shrinking the tumors probably by early september. just in time

for us to celebrate olivia’s first birthday! that’s going to be an awesome gift from mommy! 🙂

xoxo to all of you wherever you are out there, for praying for ali. we truly appreciate every second you spend thinking of her. keep it up!!

heart, melanie