The Aicheles: God is Great!

My mother began her cancer battle at the end of June. She has been such a figure of strength in so many peoples lives. We were all devastated, but even more amazing was the hundreds of friends and families that reached out to her as well. After her initial diagnosis, she asked (really nagged) to get her medical records. Once she got a copy of the CT scan, it was evident that her doctor in Arkansas was not telling her everything. She decided at that point to go camp out at MD Anderson until they saw her. They were able to get in with the oncologist in a little over 24 hours which is pretty amazing. The results ended up being mixed mullerian ovarian cancer Stage 4. She was also inoperable at this point. It was pretty much the worst diagnosis possible. We all started doing some research and a lot of prayer. She also went to a wholisitic MD who helped her out spiritually. It was pretty evident that God was guiding her every step of the way and when she opened her heart to listen to Him, miracles started to happen. She and my dad rented an apartment in Houston and she started some preliminary rounds of chemo to get to the point to do a hysterectomy. She also radically changed her diet (she was pretty healthy to begin with), started exercising regularly and kept up her research.

All of her research led her to a doctor in Austria who had been having great survival rates for his ovarian cancer patients. He had multiple approaches, not just chemo (which is MD Anderson's first line approach). After she finished her preliminary chemo, she and my dad went to Vienna, Austria. She loved the doctor and his practice and decided to stay there. When they did the CT scan there, no cancer showed up. Everyone was shocked, but happy. She went to Germany so a specialist could do the hysterectomy. He cut her open and found no signs of cancer either. She followed up in Austria with 6 rounds of chemo, heat treatments, dendritic cell vaccines and some other things (about 2.5 months of treatment). She and my dad came home cancer free on December 8th! The Lord has already used her testimony in so many ways. She and my dad have met so many amazing people. We are so blessed to have a happy ending to such a horrible, stressful situation. This battle is long from over, but we know where our strength is.