April 2026 Update

Hello and Happy Spring!

Six weeks down, six weeks to go. It's hard to believe I've reached the halfway point of my treatment at Envita Medical Center in Scottsdale, Arizona. After reading back through my last update post, I realized I kind of left you all hanging with the official treatment plan, length, etc. My apologies! I will say the first 2-3 weeks down here felt like a whirlwind between meeting with different doctors, starting treatments, and adjusting to my new, temporary home. During my initial consultation appointment, my head doctor explained the details of the plan my care team put together for me, which would take 12-13 weeks. While being away from Ben and our girls for a few months is one of the hardest things I've ever done, I still feel blessed to be here and able to focus on healing in a beautiful state like Arizona. The sunshine, palm trees and consistently warm weather has been soothing to my soul!

Because God's timing is perfect, our family was able to ease into the time apart and only two weeks after I made the trip to AZ, Ben and our girls came down for spring break! We made the absolute most of our four days together with a road trip up to the Grand Canyon, a fancy dinner in Sedona with the BEST view, some sweaty mini golf, shopping, pool time, a Chicago Cubs spring training game for Ben, and a couple dinners with friends of ours who happen to live in this area. We chased joy together and soaked in every single minute! Of course saying goodbye was still painful, but it helped knowing I already had plans to go home for a long weekend over Easter.

Before I continue, I want to share that a huge part of what made cancer treatment in AZ possible for me is having a place to stay with family. Ben's wonderful grandparents own a home in the Phoenix area where they've spent the winter months for several years. They even built a sweet little guest house, a casita, 4-5 years ago that provided the perfect space for me to stay with them. It's wild to think of all the ways God's plans have fallen into place since December when we first learned my cancer had returned. And having Ben's grandparents here with me, sharing meals together and providing a sense of comfort and security while away from my family for the first half of my treatment was exactly what I needed. They left a week ago to head back to Iowa, and I miss them already! Thankfully my parents also came down for several days at the end of March, Ben's aunt and uncle were just here for a week, Ben is making another trip down to AZ this week, followed by my mom again and then a group of my best friends for a long weekend in May. In addition to those plans, I have a couple friends who live in the Phoenix area and have gone out of their way to spend time with me, drive me to and from Scottsdale for a procedure that required sedation, and most importantly made sure I know I have a support system in AZ too. Grateful is an understatement!!

Moving on to more of the details of why I'm down here - cancer treatment. As I explained in my last post, my doctors in Iowa didn't have more options for treatment beyond surgery. And speaking of surgery, the reverse total shoulder replacement I had done in mid-January was not only a success, but has also healed very well! Most days now I actually forget I have a metal shoulder and implant in that arm. I'll take that as a win in this crazy process for sure! When we first reached out to Envita, they were in full support of me having that surgery done before coming to AZ and starting treatment with them. Next steps involved a number of deep mapping/root cause lab kits to determine several things - toxicities, gut health, the most effective chemo drugs and medications based on my specific type of cancer, and the overall terrain of my body. This data provided what the doctors at Envita needed to form a strategic, targeted plan of action for treating any remaining cancer in my body. And because my PET scan in December revealed a new, small tumor on my right femur, we knew going into this treatment process that a targeted approach was needed.

That leads me to the two procedures they recommended for my leg, the first of which I just had done a week ago. It's called a CIPI - Chemo Immuno Precision Injection. Using CT guidance and twilight sedation, they inject a combo of chemo and immunotherapy drugs directly into a tumor, which not only targets that area of cancer cells, but also initiates an immune system response in the entire body to seek out other circulating tumor cells to destroy. The second procedure I'll have done later this month is called Cryoablation and will involve going back in via the same method and essentially freezing that area of cancer to kill off any remaining cells. As you can imagine, there's a much longer explanation for both procedures, but what I find encouraging is how targeted both are while being minimally invasive. Outside of these procedures, my weekly treatment plan has included low-dose GTF chemo and things like high dose vitamin C, nutrient infusions and blood ozone (oxygen) therapy to help my body detox and support my immune system. This combination of therapies has felt like such a refreshing approach to cancer treatment, and I truly LOVE my team of doctors and nurses at Envita.

The best news? It's WORKING. One of the lab kits they run every few weeks looks at my overall "cancer burden" or circulating cancer cells in my body. The top end of this range of numbers for someone with cancer is around 400,000. The first time I had blood drawn for this lab kit was the day before my shoulder surgery in January, and then again two weeks later. I'll just go ahead and share how these numbers have changed over the last few months -

1/12 - 22,776 (surgery on 1/13)

1/28 - 3,175

3/12 - 1,982

3/23 - 980

Words can't express how the evidence of this treatment working makes me feel! God is so good!! And these kinds of results aren't something I've been able to see in the last two years - there was no blood work done following 9 months of high-dose chemo to confirm that it actually worked. Just quarterly scans to make sure nothing large enough to see on a scan reappeared. I know this isn't necessarily the case for all types of cancer, but for osteosarcoma and my personal situation, this has been my experience. And now I know better and couldn't be happier with how my current treatment is progressing!

So now we move forward with the second half of my time at Envita. I'm hopeful to learn more about my health and lifestyle changes to implement once I'm back home in Iowa, make a few lifelong cancer friends from around the country, and return to "normal life" with a renewed strength to beat this evil disease. As always, THANK YOU to our incredible support system who continues to carry our family and provide for all of our needs in different ways. Our girls' activity schedules are busier than ever with spring sports and events as we near the end of another school year! If anyone feels moved to drop off a meal or two for Ben and our girls before I'm back home at the end of May, here is the link to our Meal Train again -

https://www.mealtrain.com/trains/m3r94l

Thank you for praying for, loving and cheering on our family, friends!

Lindsey, Ben, Charli, Val & Lucy