I know many of you have been praying for us this week, and so many have reached out with encouragement and offers to help. It is hard to know how to ask for help a lot of the time, but please know how deeply we appreciate all of your support. 

This week was a hard one. 

The first battle was managing the physical pain. The nerve blocks didn’t seem to work very well, and for much of the week Allison rated her pain between a 7-9 out of 10. It took a lot of adjusting medications, and by Friday she was simply ready to be out of the hospital, no matter how she felt. She asked for the nerve blocks to be removed and just wanted to go home. Thankfully, around that same time, her pain finally started to improve, and we were able to get home late Friday night. 

The second battle has been phantom pain. It started as a mild itch, but at times it has become unbearable. Allison describes it as feeling like a million mosquito bites on your back that you can’t reach, which sounds absolutely awful. It’s heartbreaking to watch her reach for her foot, crying, trying anything to get relief from something she can’t physically touch. A pain psychologist explained that the connections in her brain that once went to her foot are now “smudged,” and her brain has to learn new pathways. PT has given her an app to begin working on this, which eventually builds up to mirror therapy, something that’s actually pretty fascinating. For now, we’ll continue to see PT just while we’re in the hospital, since we’re there so often. 

Last, there is the emotional and mental pain, maybe the hardest part of all. There is so much grief wrapped up in this, and it’s incredibly difficult to process. Allison has been experiencing panic attacks, and coming home Friday brought her to one of her lowest points. She feels like everything is out of her control, and the choices in front of her don’t feel like real choices at all. One thing is certain: she did not choose cancer, and she does not want to live with a disability. It all feels so overwhelming. Just four months ago we were living our normal lives; things that once felt big now seem so small in comparison. 

I think all of us are grieving in different ways. Lately, I feel like I understand more deeply why, in the Bible, people tore their robes and wailed in the streets; I can relate to Jesus’ agony in the Garden of Gethsemane. There is no grief quite like watching your child suffer. When my children cry, all I want to do is hold them, I’d do anything to take the pain away. And in that same way, I know God is holding us as we cry out, whether we feel Him there or not, willing us to give Him our pain. I don’t know how let go of this pain, but I do believe God is holding us and feels our pain deeply. 

I don’t understand why God allows this pain, why he has let so much suffering into our lives, but I have seen Him bring beauty from ashes before, and I trust that somehow, in time, we will see it again. And what better day than Easter to be reminded of that exact hope; that He makes beauty out of suffering. After all, Jesus suffered so much, he left comfort and peace and love to come down to us, be made fun of, be beaten, be tortured to death, all to leave us with the hope of one day being able to live in peace and love and wholeness with Him. 

I know this is a little outside of my normal update, but it’s honestly where I am right now, I can't speak for Allison or anyone else. Cancer is so much more than a physical illness. It’s mental, emotional and spiritual. It affects the whole person, family and friends, and sends ripples through the entire community in ways that continue to surprise me. It has both torn us apart and drawn us closer together. 

One day, I hope we can look back and find purpose in this pain. For now, I pray that you hold your loved ones close, that you experience health and peace in your homes, and that when life’s storms come, we all remember this: God is there holding us when we cry, when we thrash, when we try to run, and when we come back exhausted; he holds us as we rest, celebrates our victories, and one day we will all experience complete peace, joy, and healing together. 

As for next steps for Alli, she has an appointment on Tuesday where they’ll remove her dressing, check her incision, and then redress it. She needs to keep her knee brace on for 23 hours a day to prevent the muscles from tightening and making it difficult to fully straighten her leg. She's allowed one hour with it off to work on PT exercises. She’ll continue wearing the dressing and brace for about another week.

At the two-week mark, if she’s healing well, they’ll switch her to a brace that can be removed as needed, so she won’t have to wear it constantly. Around that time, we’re also hoping to be cleared to begin meeting with the prosthetics team. They will give her a compression sock to wear to help shape the end of her limb so it can properly fit into a prosthetic. That process can take several weeks (about 4-6) before things are ready to move forward with actually making the prosthetic, so we’ll share more on that as we get there. 

If everything is healing as expected at the two week mark, Alli will also get the go-ahead to resume chemotherapy. She’s about halfway through treatment now, so we’re anticipating roughly three more months. Our hope is that, now that we have a better medication regimen in place, Allison will experience fewer side effects this time around. 

For now, we’re just grateful to be home. We’re focusing on healing, recovery, and soaking in this time away from the hospital, while continuing to search for hope in what’s ahead.