Hello everyone! Thank you so much to everyone for your continued love and prayers, for they are carrying us! I am still here at Smilow but the staff is nothing short of amazing! I am in wonderful hands and our Heavanly Father has me right in His hand through all of this. I am missing Chris and my girls, but trusting Him through all of this. My infection seems to be stabilized and if all remains well I will be able to go home tomorrow! (Thursday) I have rested a lot while here; something a mom of three little ones never gets to do so perhaps this was indeed all part of His plan to get me healthy and stronger. I have a long , hard battle coming up soon with the daily radiation and chemo again, so resting actually feels good right now!
Faith and Bella are both recooperating from the flu and Savannah Grace is a little spitfire and has not gotten it yet- please pray it stays that way! Chris is doing well at home taking care of the girls along with my dear friend Paula who flew down from New Mexico to stay with us for a week and take care of me! But The Lord had other plans for her and she is helping at the home front and getting some precious quality time (all be it sick time!) with the girls too!
Thank you from the bottom of my heart for all of your love, prayers, childcare help, meals, laundry help and everything else that is being done. Jesus has taken care of all of our needs and as long as we keep our eyes focused on Him and not on the storms around us we will be okay. “I lift my eyes up to the hills, where does my help come from? My help comes from The Lord, the maker of Heavan and earth.”
Thank you for loving us and praying for us! Give all of this glory to God!
Love and God bless, April (:

Hi everyone! I hope everyone is doing well! I am asking for prayer as I am still here and cannot be released again today. I have developed an infection in one breast and they have not been able to get it under control yet. They just started a new antibiotic this morning; this is the third one so I am asking for prayer that this one does the trick and then I can be on my way home soon! I was supposed to be in until Saturday but now it is at least until tomorrow (Tuesday ) afternoon so this is so long for all of us. It is hard with such little ones who just want their normal routine and with a mama who just wants to be a mama again! And for Chris too, So please keep us in prayer, I know how good God is and how He has got this but the extra prayer is so needed and so appreciated. And thank you to all of our family who have been taking over with the children this past week- that alone is no small feat! I thank you and love you all! Love and God bless, April (;

Hi everyone-
April is doing really well today. She’s eating & sleeping & even got out of bed with assistance & walked a bit. Still a long, long road to full recovery. But she is scheduled to be released tomorrow & will be resting at home with the help of Chris and a friend/caretaker. (No visitors yet, but we will notify you when she is well enough for visitors.) Thanks again for all the prayers for April, Chris & the girls & family!

Here is a message that April wrote today:
“Hi everyone! I hope you are all doing well! I just want to thank everyone from the bottom of my heart for all of your prayers, love , and well wishes. That have been amazing and are carrying us through this. Tuesday morning I had not one inkling of fear or anxiety, and I truly know that was Jesus holding me right in the palm of His hand, I had to get 5 pints of blood so was very weak and felt more scared wed and Tuesday . However, the fear totally passed and again I was filled with a sense of His peace even going into the second surgery which we were not expecting.
So The Lord has us and we could not do this without all of our amazing family being right by our side through it all. And also certainly not if it weren’t for the faithful prayers and love from all of you as well. So again I say “amen. ” He is carrying us right through this storm and we are praising Him through it all. Thank you, thank you and God bless. Love Apri

Thank you for all of the love, prayers , and messages! We are ready to roll! I am full of peace as we are driving, His peace that surpasses all understanding. Thank you for believing with us- “I’ve seen miracles just happen, silent prayers get answered, broken hearts become brand new, that’s what faith can do.”
By His blood I am healed, in Jesus’ mighty name, Amen.

~April

April just went into surgery. She went in smiling which really isn’t a surprise! Thank you for your continued prayers. I’ll update as I can. Chris

Hey everyone. April’s surgeon just came out, the first half is done, now they will work on the reconstruction. She is doing amazing. They are going to shorten her surgery to only part of the reconstruction for now however. As they don’t feel comfortable keeping her under as long as originally planned. I will keep you all posted. Thanks for your love and prayers!  Chris

Hi Everyone! I hope this finds you all happy and well, even in this crazy cold weather! Thank you all for your continued love and prayers, we are so grateful for them. I am preparing for my surgery for my double mastectomy which will be on Tuesday, and am asking for prayers that day for not only for myself but for the surgeons, nurses, our family and our girls please. It is going to be a long day, 12 hours of surgery! But since I will not be remembering any of it I ask that you pray for peace for Chris and our families as they are waiting. Please pray that the surgeons do all that they are supposed to and that God guides their hands; also the last time I had a surgery I had a pulmonary embolism after it so please pray that nothing like that happens again and that God just surrounds me with His loving care and protection.
I know that after will be difficult so I just ask that you please keep me in prayer as you remember for complete healing and also for our girls, that they adjust to all of this okay. This will be the hardest part for me I know, not being in their moment-by-moment and day-by-day lives that I am so used too. I know God has us and that Jesus is already filling me with His peace that surpasses all understanding because I am not nervous or afraid, and I know that only He can take that from me and provide me with His assurance instead. So thank you for continuing to pray as I feel them already each day. But I know I have a very long road and will need His constant love and peace each moment, each day. So please just pray as you think of it over these next few months.
Thank you as always for all of the love, help, gifts and goodness from your hearts. You are all perfect examples to our family of what God meant when He gave us His commandment to “love one another.” Thank you for showing the love of Jesus through yourselves.
Love and God bless, April
Ps. I know the doctors will be coming out to update Chris and our family periodically on Tuesday so I will have him or Lisa post a few updates. Thank you!

As we gear up for April’s surgery on Jan. 13, we are in need of many volunteers to assist April & her family over the next three months. I’ve added 2 immediate dates to our help calendar–a need for rides to Yale for tests/treatments on Dec. 30 & Jan. 6.
Also, we are once again seeking meal help, laundry help & eventually childcare & nursing help for April post-surgery.

I’ve added dates to the help calendar for assistance with meals & laundry for January through the spring. Once we find out the childcare & nursing help for April, we will add those in. (Expecting to have the dates added about 2 weeks post-surgery.)

If you can donate a meal or two, or do a load of laundry, we would greatly appreciate it. Please sign up on the calendar or email me and I will add you in.

It will take a small army of volunteers to provide care for April, Chris & the girls over these next few months and we are so THANKFUL to all the volunteers who have helped us over the past year & continue to help us!

Our family could never, ever begin to thank you for the prayers, donations, gifts, and volunteer assistance you have given to April & Chris.

Please share this website with your friends & family—every bit of prayer & support is appreciated.

Come end of February/early March, April will be in need of daily, 2-hour childcare assistance along with rides to her daily radiation treatments. After 6 weeks, she will once again begin her “normal” chemo schedule. Come late spring, we are hoping April & the volunteers will earn a much needed rest!

Please keep praying for complete healing for April, strength to make it through this long & grueling journey, for both her, Chris & the girls. Our family will forever be grateful for you love, support & kindness over the past year and months to come.

The Gentes/Robert family could never thank you enough.
Wishing you a Merry Christmas, joyous New Year and blessed 2015!

Sincerely,
Lisa Gentes-Hunt
Cell: 617-306-8395
Email: lisagenteshunt@gmail.com

Hello everyone! I hope this finds you all well and enjoying this beautiful Christmas season! We have been busy with lots of doctors appointments but all in a good way! We found out today that my surgery for my double mastectomy will be on January 13th, 3 weeks away! We are super excited that this is happening and now a bit overwhelmed as we start to think about all of the logistics, but I know God has this like He has had everything else this past year.

My surgery will be at Yale New Haven and it is a 10 hour procedure. They are going to remove both breasts and then re-construct using my fat tissue and skin from my stomach and hips and back. It is quite a long re-cooperation time, 6-8 weeks on the good end. I will be in the hospital for 4-5 days so we are going to need prayers for the surgeons, doctors, our children and us during all of this please. I have to have 6 weeks of daily radiation about 3-4 weeks after the surgery so I will be going to Backus hospital in Norwich for this. That is only a half hour away and Yale is just to far to get to each day for the 6 weeks. I trust that I will be in just as good hands there as my doctors recommended a radiation specialist there for me to see. After the radiation is finished I will start right up on chemo again for 2 months and continue with my other infusion medicines every 3 weeks for my lifetime. At least this is the treatment plan so far but who knows what God has in store, so much has already changed in one year that I know He can make all things change for the better in the future as well!

It is a bit overwhelming for me to think about all of this and how it will all play out, so I am just trying now to do one day at a time, as God tells us to do. I know He has the plans and is really the one in control, anyway. BUT as a mom who is always with her kids and in her home it is a bit much to take in! I will have to depend on others quite a lot and this is hard for me, something God is working on in me I am sure and will no doubt use for good later!

I don’t think my girls really realize what is going to happen and I don’t expect them to at their tender ages. We told them today that mommy will be going in for an operation but I have never really shown them up to this point how sick I am some days. I am able to handle it pretty well in front of them, praise God, so they have never really seen me too upset or sick. This will be difficult for them- I will be sent home from the hospital with drains in and because I am having many sites being opened and operated on it will be difficult to move for some time I have been told. I will not be able to lift or hold them for 6 weeks, and I may not even be able to have them on my lap for a while. As a stay-at-home mom for seven years now this is something we do many times a day on a daily basis! This piece will be really hard on all of us. Please pray for them that they are not going to be too scared and can handle all of this okay. Also please pray for Chris, he will be taking at least a 4 week leave from work trying to be with me and take care of our girls. This will be quite a challenge! I am so blessed to have him with me through this and am truly grateful for that.

I thank you all in advance for the love and prayers and help that we will be given over these next months. My sister will be adding to our calendar site again soon as we have all of the dates now for my surgery, pre-op appts, and chemo days. I cannot thank you enough from the bottom of my heart for all of the love you have displayed to our family this past year. God is so amazing and His love shines in each of us who love others. So thank you for loving me and sharing this difficult road with us. I pray it is used to bring people closer to Him and to know His great love and healing power. His great and mighty hand is being revealed in this miracle that we are so humbled to be a part of!

Merry Christmas and may we all experience the true beauty and joy of this amazing time, a miraculous season all because of Him.

Love and God bless, April, Chris, Faith, Savannah Grace and Isabella Hope

Ps. We were not able to send out Christmas cards because of the timing with everything going on but next year, Lord willing, next year! Amen that there will be a next year for me, in Jesus’ mighty name!!

“The Mighty One has done great things for me-holy is His name.” Luke, 1:49

HI Everyone! Chris and I just met with my breast surgeon who seemed amazing and everything seems to be a go for the surgery! Thank you for all of the prayers, we truly appreciate it. They very rarely, if ever, do this surgery on patients with metastatic cancer so we are truly humbled and grateful that God has allowed us this opportunity. It will be at Smilow at Yale-New Haven and it looks like it will be at the beginning of January. We will need lots of help after this so this is the hard part again and so I thank you all in advance for all of your love, prayers, support and help with this. This will be difficult for the girls as I will be away from them in the hospital so please pray for them as this will be approaching. Also please pray for Chris as this will be a long road to take care of our girls and me! I know God will give us the peace and strength and help to get through but it will still be hard!
It is funny that just one year ago almost to the day I was crying at an office in Boston after being told I had to have my left breast removed; I was so devastated about losing the breast, and then chemo and radiation. Then, hours later that same day, we were crying in that same office after being told the news that what I had was terminal and had only 2 years to live. How I wanted to just rewind to that morning where all I was losing was a breast and some time from chemo. Isn’t it amazing how now I am rejoicing to be simply at the place where I was last year and truly elated about the surgery that I am again able to have? Only through the grace of our mighty and awesome God is this possible! Jesus heard our cries right from the very beginning and has answered our prayers! And even though it has been the longest, most difficult year Chris and I have faced together God has supplied all of our needs and given us His peace throughout it. He has promised in His word that no tear we ever cry is ever wasted and that He hears us and He answers us. Sometimes it is in the way we want and sometimes it is not; that is up to Him to decide. But through all of this we trust Him, we praise Him, and we give Him all the glory. Thank you for believing and trusting with us. Thank you for being a part of this miracle, and what a beautiful season to have a miracle in, where the greatest miracle to ever happen on earth happened where our Lord and Savior was born for us!
Enjoy this beautiful season of love and miracles! Embrace your family and friends and give thanks to our wonderful God for all He has so abundantly blessed us with!
Merry Christmas!
Love and God bless, April, Chris, Faith, Savannah Grace and Isabella Hope.

I just heard from my doctor and she said that the tumor board was all on board for going ahead with the surgery! Praise God! So this seems like the direction we should be going in as the doors are opening and this is what we felt in our hearts would be best from the beginning. So I have an MRI Tuesday and then a consult where Chris and I will meet the surgeon and go over the results on Friday the 12th. So please pray that we stay on God’s path for us and make the best decisio…n all around. I am so excited to get the ball rolling though! Thank you for your continued love and prayers! My sister will be adding to our cancer website she created for me to help with rides since she only scheduled up until this past Tuesday, so thank you in advance! I will keep everyone posted as soon as we know more at the end of next week! Please keep praying as this will be a long road but I know God has us and He has been with us this entire time, carrying us. We serve an awesome and mighty God!
Love and God bless, April

Happy New Year to all of our friends and family! We cannot express how grateful we are for all we have been given this past year! We could not have had such a wonderful year without the love, prayers and help from so many of you. For all of the babysitting, meals, laundry help, rides back and forth to chemo and radiation each week, gifts, donations, cards, visits, Chris’ understanding work family, our amazing church family, our loving and supportive parents and our awesome sibllngs who mean the world to us ! And just for the plain love we have been shown by so many of you! God has blessed us so abundantly and for the gift of His son, our Lord and Savior, our redeemer and Healer, we are most grateful for. Look around at all the blessings He has given you and just rejoice in How much He loves you. May you all have a beautiful, healthy and happy new year filled with His great love and blessings!
Love April, Chris, Faith, Savannah Grace and Bella (:

Hi Everyone! I am just writing asking for prayer for tomorrow, Tuesday, Nov 25th and then for Tuesday, December 2. I have my tests and a PET scan tomorrow and this is a big one for us. I had a pet scan a few months ago, the first one I have had so far (normally they do not do pet scans for what I have due to the high cost and insurance) but they decided to do one and our insurance does cover it, praise God. So the last scan came out really good but my doctors did not want to get too excited as they need to compare apples to apples, so tomorrow is my second one, the comparison scan. If it comes out as good or better than the last one then it will be a new plan for us! And as my doctors said the last time, they could not really explain it but said “praise God!”
You know that we believe I have been healed and it is just in God’s time when it will be revealed and He will be glorified! But we are praying it is soon, as we are just all really tired. It has been a year now of all of this, and we would love to move on to a new chapter spreading the word of God’s goodness and healing to all who will listen!!
My day starts at 6:30am so it will be a long day for myself followed by my long chemo treatments and it will be long for the girls also so please pray for them too. Chris will come with me on December 2nd when we meet with my doctors and hopefully come up with a new plan! That too, will be a 6:30 day full of meetings and tests, including the genetic testing for all of this for my sisters’ sakes and our 3 beautiful little girls. So we would love the extra prayers for this next week as I know I will be more exhausted and there is a lot going on, physically and emotionally. But God is the God of all of this and I know He has us, so thank you for praying with us.
Thank you also for the continued love, prayers, meals, babysitting help, laundry help, rides and everything else people have been doing for us. We could not do this without all of you and appreciate it from the bottom of our hearts. Thank you thank you! I look forward to sharing some amazing news next Tuesday with all of you!
Love and God bless, April

Hi Everyone! I am just writing asking for prayer for tomorrow, Tuesday, Nov 25th and then for Tuesday, December 2. I have my tests and a PET scan tomorrow and this is a big one for us. I had a pet scan a few months ago, the first one I have had so far (normally they do not do pet scans for what I have due to the high cost and insurance) but they decided to do one and our insurance does cover it, praise God. So the last scan came out really good but my doctors did not want to get too excited as they need to compare apples to apples, so tomorrow is my second one, the comparison scan. If it comes out as good or better than the last one then it will be a new plan for us! And as my doctors said the last time, they could not really explain it but said “praise God!”
You know that we believe I have been healed and it is just in God’s time when it will be revealed and He will be glorified! But we are praying it is soon, as we are just all really tired. It has been a year now of all of this, and we would love to move on to a new chapter spreading the word of God’s goodness and healing to all who will listen!!
My day starts at 6:30am so it will be a long day for myself followed by my long chemo treatments and it will be long for the girls also so please pray for them too. Chris will come with me on December 2nd when we meet with my doctors and hopefully come up with a new plan! That too, will be a 6:30 day full of meetings and tests, including the genetic testing for all of this for my sisters’ sakes and our 3 beautiful little girls. So we would love the extra prayers for this next week as I know I will be more exhausted and there is a lot going on, physically and emotionally. But God is the God of all of this and I know He has us, so thank you for praying with us.
Thank you also for the continued love, prayers, meals, babysitting help, laundry help, rides and everything else people have been doing for us. We could not do this without all of you and appreciate it from the bottom of our hearts. Thank you thank you! I look forward to sharing some amazing news next Tuesday with all of you!
Love and God bless, April