Cancer UPDATE and Surgery Results

Hey, I'm Nicole. This is my sister, Natalie. This is my sister, Nyka. I'm gonna share my test results for my treatment and my surgery in this video. This is a personal story for all three of us. It's really hard to share everything, but we're gonna share as much as we can to hopefully help somebody along the way. In this video, I'm gonna thank everybody who helped me along the way. I'm gonna share tips that helped me through my journey, and I'm gonna share verses that encouraged me. I'm also gonna let you know what the next steps are for me, and I'm gonna share my test results for my treatment and my surgery. This is my story. I know everybody's chemo or cancer journey looks different. I'm not trying to tell anybody anything other than my personal experience, and hopefully this will help one person that will make this whole video worth it for me. Y'all may have seen the video I posted in March about my announcement for stage three breast cancer. I appreciate all the sweet, kind comments and encouragement. We did post an updated video of Nicole ringing the chemo bell after six months of treatment. She finished it, so she got to ring that bell, and she was ringing it really, really hard, like that. So that was really fun to celebrate her being finished with chemo, and I'm with all the sweet nurses that cheered me on. Yay! This is so awesome, man. You earned it. Show your certificate. That is amazing. Yay! My certificate. That is so sweet. My last chemo certificate, and all the nurses signed it and wrote little letters here. So sweet. She just handled it like a champion. You did so amazing. She was so positive. She handled her chemo treatment like a boss, like a straight-up boss. We were so proud of her, and yeah, it was really scary at the beginning, because it's so amazing that God gave her peace through this journey. We are so thankful to God that he was with us throughout this whole journey, and he's with us right now. We saw so many small and big miracles throughout this whole time. Y'all just wouldn't even believe that it's indescribable. I feel like God just blessed her not having a lot of symptoms. You know, they were so minor that she could just keep going through the day and everything, and for the most part, you couldn't even tell. So I know that that was a blessing from God, for sure. And I do wanna say that I had cosmetic symptoms, but most of the symptoms I didn't have was the actual health and side effect symptoms. When she was first diagnosed, we didn't know what was gonna happen, and she was still so positive and hopeful. When me and Naz are really scared and down, it's just God gave her that kind of peace. I'm definitely not perfect, and I do not know everything. I'm still learning, but I'm so thankful that God did give me peace along the way and calm my stress. I know in the last long-form YouTube video I did, I talk about the peace that passes all understanding, and that's the illogical peace that God gave me. Three or four days in, it was like you read something you said at night. I read a medical packet that just triggered me. Something triggered me. It's like it all hit her, and then that morning she wasn't gonna go to church, and she was like throwin' up that morning. You know, it was like a few days after her diagnosis, just from stress. Decided to go to church, and she went to the altar and prayed, and God just gave her this peace, and she just hasn't been the same since. You know, she wasn't throwin' up anymore. She was just so positive and everything, and I know that God gave her that peace. When we were young, we all gave our life to God. We do believe that God created this world. He created us. He created you. And then he sent his son Jesus to die on the cross for all of us for our sins, and he rose again the third day. So we all have that peace that we're gonna be in heaven with him one day, and we feel like God gave us so much peace throughout this whole experience, and gave us some kind of supernatural peace as well while we're going through this. First of all, I want to start out by thanking God. He's given me the most amazing support system, my family. Everybody stepped it up, checked in, praying, and sometimes waiting on me hand and foot. Really, no one could have done any more than what they've already done. They've done things that I don't even know that they've done and has taken care of me through every little surprise, every little appointment, and there's still more time to go. There's just so many things I couldn't even name and still am figuring out about along the way. Never complained, always encouraged me. We've had a lot of joyous times during this. Even through this situation, we've had joyous times together. I do want to thank Team 318. Thank y'all so much for praying for me. My family actually started the Team 318. It's our birthday, March 18th, and we released the first announcement video on our birthday. So I do want to thank Team 318. I know a lot of y'all have been praying and it's made the world of difference. We got to see God's work a lot through the prayers. And I want to make sure before the end of this video, I'm going to thank my amazing doctors and nurses, everybody from chemo to surgery. Got to know some really sweet people along the way. This is three quick tips for someone who's going through something like this. Wait, three? It's three, right? Wait, I do three like this. I don't even know anymore. I've never seen three like this. This is three. That is weird. That is not three. This is not three. Look, three. Mess it up. Okay, I want to share three quick tips for someone who's going through something like this. The first tip is lean into friends and family. Do not be isolated. Like, you're going to need people. Lean into the love. Lean into people. And you don't like doing that. It's really hard to be vulnerable. He didn't tell you to stop that. Whatever. It's true. So be vulnerable. It's okay. The second tip, journal and read your Bible. I read a lot of Psalms. I feel like God spoke to me a lot through the verses of just my daily reading. Y'all may have saw the last video where I shared a scripture. It was three days after my diagnosis. It will literally blow your mind. The verse that was already highlighted that applied to my situation, and it gave me so much peace. It was literally like a day-by-day thing that I was depending on God for. I was reading the Bible, seeking. If you seek Him, you will find Him. I was desperate and depending on Him for a word of encouragement through the Bible, and He provided that for me. I also journaled my experience. It's good to get things out. And I even documented a lot of the things that I witnessed that I felt like God did for me. Little things here and there that gave me peace. Yeah, you need those golden nuggets of inspiration and hope throughout the day to get you through each week. The third tip is I encourage you to find a church. I know for me, it was nice to be able to go to a place where it's like I could hear God speak to me. He can speak to you without church. I feel like I could get encouragement and guidance. It's easy to find community there, people that do want to encourage you. So here's three verses that encouraged me along my journey. The first one is Romans 5, three through four. And not only that, but we also rejoice in our afflictions because we know that affliction produces endurance. Endurance produces proven character and proven character produces hope. This was one that my sister-in-law actually told me as I was going in to get my first scan. We didn't know where everything was. Only thing I knew was that I had breast cancer. It was the most aggressive type of breast cancer. It had been into my body for I think a year at that point. It was in my bloodstream, so we didn't know if it was in my organs and bones. Well, this verse gave me a lot of encouragement. I didn't know where the tumor had started, where it ended. I remember I actually read this verse like three days after your diagnosis. Basically, your struggles will produce hope, well, character first, and then hope later. And I was like, hopefully I can learn something and take something from this. And I'm still learning and taking stuff from it, but I do think my faith has increased. Yeah, and I heard Natalie quote this verse. What does it say? It wasn't the same that was in there. If you go through something bad, you get faith. They didn't recognize it. I'm gonna let Nyka read Philippians 4, 6. Can you handle this? I did bad in reading. Don't worry about anything, but in everything through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. Good job. Yay. It's nice to know that God, he does wanna hear about your troubles, like that song. Don't worry about nothing, pray about everything. If I lied to y'all, I don't know if y'all could handle it as much. I'm gonna let Natalie read the third scripture, 2 Corinthians 1, 4-5. He comforts us in all of our affliction so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any kind of affliction through the comfort we ourselves receive from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ overflow to us, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. Then Christ is helping you through it so that you can therefore help other people, right? Yes. Do you have a summary? You're so smart. Before the very final tissue test, that scripture came up and it did give me a lot of encouragement and peace. It took me a little bit to actually get into my first chemo appointment, but I remember after a week of chemo, we started noticing a difference in the size of the tumor. And then after two and a half months, it felt like the tumor had almost completely shrunk. That was all through, I guess you would say, doctor visit, exams. You know, it was at stage three because of the size. And then it getting down to where we thought it might've just been the biopsy clip left, which was the marker that they put in my tissue. And we were thinking maybe that's all that's left is the biopsy clip. That was really a blessing to be in that position after two and a half months of chemo. But even though after two and a half months, we felt like there may not be anything left, I was still getting treated because the cancer cells were still in my bloodstream because of the type of breast cancer that I had. So they had to keep treating my blood with the chemo. So I had to finish out the six months of chemo. And I knew that there was gonna be a lot of tests at the very end of the process to see what the results actually were. And I'm gonna let you know what those results were. You know, at the very end of the six months, they do mammogram, CT scans, biopsies, MRIs, surgery where they test the tissue afterwards. So I did the CT scan and I did the mammogram and the results came in. There was nothing, you know. The surgeon literally looks at that and she's like, you know, this doesn't even look the same person. You couldn't tell if it was a biopsy clip that was left or if it was something residual cancer-wise, something really small. The tissue test from surgery is the final test, but the CT and mammogram are really good tells of what to expect after surgery. So I go in to get surgery and I wake up from surgery and they let me know that I didn't have, in my lymph nodes, no cancer was found. Yes, because they did a test like while she was in surgery, the surgeon came out to us and they told us like, we're gonna tell you if there's any cancer in your lymph nodes like we were talking about like her armpit or whatever. And that'll give you kind of a gauge where it is and if there's any kind of in her body. So it's just a preliminary test that you can get immediately and that was such a good news because they said if you have a lot in your lymph nodes and they have to take out more lymph nodes and then it hurts your mobility. She got like the minimum taken out that she could get taken out. So her mobility's at 100%. So we kind of woke her up from surgery and we're like, that's no cancer in your lymph nodes. Okay, so the lymph node test was really good. And like we said, that's done live during surgery. Yeah, I got the least amount of lymph nodes taken out. So that was a good thing for my mobility for the future. We were so happy that after she told us that there was no cancer in their lymph nodes, like we were already celebrating. We're like, woohoo, this is such good news. We cannot wait to wake her up and tell her. Two weeks after the surgery, the tissue test results come in. And that is the last of the last of the last test. And those results came in. So test, test, test, test, test. So now we're at the final test. The final countdown. Yes, the final countdown. Okay. Like the only time she was nervous was when she got like the text that said, your test results are in. It is, it messes with your head because it's too complicated to read because if you don't know, you get your test results at the same time, at least in my case, the doctor and nurses get them. The only difference is I can't read them. They're too complicated. Yeah. So I do get really in my head. I get crazy. I get stressed, all those things. So when I get the notification that says, your test results are in, because I want to give information to myself and I want to give it to everybody else. Yeah. And I don't even know what it says, but you know, I knew it was going to be good, but you just, you want to see it in writing. You want to see that final test be what you think. Yeah, I was so nervous too, to be honest. Like it was hard. I was like, I have to be here before because it's so stressful. It definitely messes with you a little bit. And then you have to wait on the doctor to call you. And sometimes, you know, even though the doctors are amazing, sometimes they call you the next day, which is totally fine. They're busy. You have to sleep on that. Yeah. And I don't know, I already waited two weeks. You know, I can wait a night, but for some reason when they're in and I can't read them, it drives me crazy. And it's very frustrating to me. So two weeks after surgery, you finally got the text that said, your test results are in. And we opened it up. We didn't even know what it said. You don't want to hear the phone call. You don't want to see the test results are in. You want them to like mail you a letter and then you'll read it when you're ready. Which will be never. You don't want to hear anything they got. Like you don't, you love them, but it's hard to hear what any doctor's got to say when your results are coming in or your sister's results. If you've been there, you know. I can understand, obviously, everybody's cancer journey's different, but you just don't think about every little step or every little thing. You know, it's like an emotional rollercoaster. It really is. Okay, the results are in. I'm officially cancer free! Yay! I'm so excited. They found less than one millimeter, which is like that. Practically nothing of residual cancer tissue. And it was removed. Pipe down, people. Yeah. Long story short, she's cancer free now. You are cancer free. We are so thankful. Praise the Lord. Yes, praise the Lord. Yay is an understatement for sure. We're so thankful, and so we appreciate, obviously, the doctors, the nurses, and also the prayers. We appreciate y'all so much. We are so thankful, and it's an understatement. Thankfulness is an understatement. Thank you for the kind words and encouragement. And my sisters have been my cheerleaders along the way. They have been my support system every day through the ups and downs, through all the little surprises, like I keep saying. Still annoying. Yes, they're still annoying, and I love them. And like I said, we have had a lot of joy during this process. Yeah, we really have. And that was like her whole thing. She's like, I'm not gonna wait till this is over to have fun. You know, I'm gonna have fun now, and we're gonna have some good time. I'm so thankful and blessed. You know, there's other good news that came to me cosmetically that I will keep to myself. Everything looks good, and that's all I'm gonna say about that. Thank you for your prayer, support, and for watching this video. If you want some more information on breast health or breast cancer, you can go to NBCF.org, National Breast Cancer Foundation. You can't afford a mammogram. They can provide you with a mammogram. They send hope kits to women who are diagnosed with breast cancer. They provide educational resources and support for women who are going through breast cancer. And any kind of information or learning more, how to be helpful to people that are going through breast cancer journey, any information you need, they can provide that for you. So the next steps for me, there's still a little bit more I have going on. Immunotherapy, it prevents recurrence. A good many sessions of immunotherapy. I also have the chemo pill, which I'm taking for a year. And I also have radiation for five weeks. And I will keep y'all updated on my next steps. Everything's to prevent a recurrence. I'm still being treated. You know, I'm not taking chemo anymore. I'm cancer-free. I'm so thankful that I'm on this end of things. And I know that, you know, my story may be different than somebody's you know. So I can only speak on my journey. And I'm not an expert. I'm not perfect. I'm just trying to help people if there's something I can say. And thank y'all so much for being a part of Nicole's journey. And honestly, like y'all have made a difference. You know, I really do think the prayers have made, you know, such a positive, a reason the result was so positive. And we really appreciate y'all. I'm thankful for my doctors and my nurses. So many people along the way that's been a light to me. And I pray that this video hopefully helps someone else in their journey. If you need prayer or know someone that needs prayer, put their name in the comments and we'll be glad to pray for them. And we encourage others who are watching this video to join us in prayer for the comments below. We'd love to pray for y'all. Amen.