Recently I posted about Sandi Rog, a fellow author who, the same week her excellent debut, The Master's Wall, released, was diagnosed with cancer. She recently sent out this update, and with her permission I'm posting it here. Please continue to support her and her family with her prayers, and by buying her book--for every book sold her publisher is donating a dollar to a foundation they created just for Sandi, to help cover expenses. I meant it when I told you to buy her book instead of mine for Christmas. IN FACT...the next 10 readers who buy her book and email me a picture of themselves with it (alison at alisonstrobel dot com) will get a free copy of whatever book of mine they want, including Dan's and my children's book. And if there's a big enough response, I'll come up with a few more prizes. I'd really appreciate it if you posted about this on your own blogs, tweets, FB statuses, etc. THANK YOU! Ready, set, go!

I spent all day at the hospital today, and I feel I should fill you all in
on my prognosis.

We saw Doctor Myint who is my oncologist. Here's what he said:

I'm at Stage 4 Cancer with T-cell Lymphoma. It's very aggressive. I have to
undergo six chemo and radiation treatments (that's five days in the hospital
every three or four weeks, can't remember). I go in again on November 29th.
He worked the schedule out so I could be home for Christmas (I'll go home on
Christmas eve after my last treatment). He says at the end of all my chemo
treatments (which will end up being approx. four and a half months), I'll be
admitted into the hospital for a full month for a bone-marrow transplant
(the cancer IS in my bone-marrow; he said there were two different things
they were looking at in the bone-marrow. It wasn't in one part, but it WAS
in another). They will "flatten" my bone-marrow during my stay in the
hospital (destroy it; this will be the worst of the treatment, he said), and
then reintroduce my own stem cells back into my body.

Good news: he says this will also likely put my MS in remission!!! I knew of
another doctor doing this method on MS patients (one in Chicago). Turns out
Myint WORKS WITH THIS GUY and they both made the discovery together!!! So,
he said, while he can't "officially" say he's treating my MS, he actually
WILL be. I was so wanting to do this with the doc in Chicago, but there was
no guarantee I'd get in for this treatment, so I didn't sign up. I'm amazed
that Myint was part of that same team of doctors! It gives me hope. I was
thinking how horrible it would be to deal with cancer and then when that was
done, to deal with MS.

Anyway, he said his staff was shocked at how aggressive this cancer is and
that it's a rare form of cancer. But because they've tackled it right away,
they feel positive they'll be able to get rid of it. He said it responds
positively to chemo and radiation treatments. So . . . He also said he WILL
give us a copy of the FDA report which states that I got cancer from the MS
drug I was on. He says it's several MS drugs that can cause this, and not
just the one I was on!

Anyway, it was hard news to receive, but I'm feeling positive and
encouraged--especially with the MS news! Pray my body is strong enough to
endure the treatments. So far, God has given me His strength to get through
this. Pray that continues! My kids are counting on it.

I'm exhausted and feeling lousy, otherwise. :-)

One last thing: they say the first few months after the release of a book
are vital. Well, this all happened just as my book released, so I won't be
able to market it the way I'd like. I asked God to be my publicist and take
care of it all for me. I can see Him doing that already, but I don't want
Him to get bored with it and move on to something else, lol. :-) Will you
pray He'll continue that work for me? Thank you! xxx I have to laugh,
because several of the doctors and nurses know about my book. Some have even
bought it! I was passing out bookmarks from my hospital bed. I debated
setting up a table for signings. :-)

Oh, and am I scared? Yes. I can't believe I'm in this fight. I'm taking
things one day at a time to keep my sanity.

If you don't hear from me in reply to emails or whatever, please don't take
it personally. I try to read everything, I just can't reply to everything. I
might put updates on my blog on occasion.

Hugs in Him,

Me