Jana Boyer

Welcome to our CaringBridge website. We are using it to keep family and friends updated in one place. We appreciate your support and words of hope and encouragement. Thank you all for lifting us up during the last couple months, there really are no words to express our true gratitude. The Boyers are strong and ready to fight this battle!!!!
Over the last couple months our lives have been turned upside down, so let me catch you up.  After overcoming the fear of "Colonoscopy Prep", Jana went in to get her first colonoscopy in late July.  At that time it was discovered that she had a sizable tumor in her colon located near the colon/rectum junction.  It was determined to have cancer and was going to have to be removed.  That was a hard pill to swallow for a woman who takes amazing care of herself through exercise and diet.  Ya... she's done almost every cleanse you can do and eats so very healthily, that it's just so hard to hear that your body has turned on you! At this point, she was diagnosed with Stage1 rectal cancer and we believed that once the tumor was gone and after a 6 week recovery we were in the clear. The date was set, now lets get this bad boy outta there! 
On September 24 she had a lower anterior resection to remove the tumor and  was thankfully discharged that evening (unheard of in general) but we came home thru a new program Kaiser has called KP at Home.  We were met by a nurse and EMT who set up our bedroom as a much more comfortable hospital room... you actually get to sleep and nobody wakes you up for vitals! An iPad and phone were set up next to the bed where Jana could just touch a button and have access to a nurse at any time of the day.  For 3 days she was seen by some of the coolest EMT's that took her vitals etc, her colorectal surgeon saw her every morning via the iPad and she connected with the online nurses throughout the day/night. Jana,as you can only imagine, became best friends with our online nurses talking about family and work histories and sharing funny stories back and forth.  The only negative to this situation was that she had a rare adverse reaction to anesthetist and her eyes were quite painful after the surgery but that cleared up quickly and she was back to her joyous personality. Feeling great after this experience and beginning to feel better each day, we got the call...  the one you really don't want to get. 
Jana's Colorectal Surgeon (who she adores) let her know that during the surgery he removed 30 lymph nodes and that 17 of them had cancer cells in them, this was very unexpected. Talk about the shoe hitting the floor... this one kinda knocked us back a couple steps as there were no initial findings that prepared us for this diagnoses.  Her stage jumped from Stage 1 to Stage 3C rectal cancer and it would require more then just the removal of the tumor; it would take that dirty word no one wants to hear... Chemo.  After talking with our Medical Oncologist, it was determined that she will need to complete 12 (4 hour infusions plus 48 hours of an external pump) every other week, over a period of six months.  We were referred to a Radiation Oncologist to see if that was needed in our treatment plan... luckily they do not think she would benefit from this type of treatment, so thankful for that!  
Whew... so here's where we are at... we are waiting to determine the specific start date for chemo but it should be the first part of November, the port placement will be done 10/28 and soon the battle and healing will begin. It's gonna be a tough road but Jana is a tremendously strong person both mentally and emotionally... physically as well too!  But we also know that we are not in this alone.  
We have an AAAAAMAZING community full of love and support that just surrounds us in a blanket of inspirational love!