A new reality.  A paradigm change.  A different world.  Whatever metaphor you want to use, cancer has changed our lives in a very real way, and we are starting to see the world from a new perspective.

In the last few weeks, we have had a few updates and confirmed a schedule moving ahead. 

Biggest news is that we met with a surgeon at Vanderbilt. We appreciated his approach and patience with our questions, and  confirmed that 6 months of chemotherapy and immunotherapy are the best approach and then re-evaluate with an eye to surgical recission.  Apparently 10 years ago, they would have taken me straight to surgery and taken out the tumor and considered that a success, but the best practice now is to do the 6 months of therapies to reduce the chances of re-occurrence.  And the immunotherapy is less than a year on the approved list, and in a small but significant set of patients, it has been very successful. So, six months. 

I will have a CT scan in November or early December, then another sometime around late February.  I do know I am not a candidate for a transplant because of cancer in my lymph node near my liver.  Based on the tumor size and location, he would likely take 30-40% of my liver.  That sounded like a lot, but he reassured me that they don’t start to worry about liver failure until you start looking at a 70-80% recission, and we are not going to let it get to that stage.  Apparently, you can take 70 percent of your liver and not really have any long-term issues.  Huh.  Kind of amazing the durability of some organs.

So, we have a course ahead and a general plan.  Now I just need my body to cooperate.  I came in this morning for my 4^th round and found out that my white blood cell count had dropped far enough that I could only take 75% of my scheduled dose.  We are balancing knocking out the cancer with knocking out my immune system. It’s a game of chess with the variety of risks I face.

Thank you for your continued prayers and concern. We are working hard to manage our family schedule with a new schedule of medical appointments and treatments. We do have a very short list of meal nights for treatment days that our close church family has taken care of.  Once we get further along down the road, other needs may arise that we will ask of our extended community, but so far, we are blessed and provided for.  I appreciate the kindness of prayers offered for me.  I do believe that God hears our prayers, and that he acts according to his wisdom and plan in people’s lives.

As a family, we continue to adapt to the new patterns of this reality.  The basic pattern means that I just don’t have the energy and endurance I used to have for the few days after a treatment.  I don’t sleep very well for 3-4 days, and I must fight the occasional nausea, but all in all, it’s been manageable.  I eat a lot more fruit and nuts; and I drink a lot more tea and water.  There are random moments of sadness and fear and even lamenting, but there are also moments of strength, encouragement and perspective.  When I walk through the park, I treasure the trees and sky even more than before. 

And there are blessings even in the treatment.  Mia came and spent the day with me in treatment.  We both got work done, but we also had an epic Uno tournament that had us both laughing and laughing.  It was a good day.

I had a well-meaning friend ask me out of concern how long I had.  I don’t honestly know.  I don’t think any of us know, either.  I have cancer, so the question seems closer, but we are all on a narrow sliver of habitable reality. We are all on thin ice. Go five miles up and you can’t breathe.  Heck, go 5 feet down and you can’t breathe either.  You can’t drink ocean water, or live in it, so that’s 70% of the surface there. Mountains and deserts make nearly ½ the land area uninhabitable.  That leaves only 15% of the Earth’s surface habitable. Go 10 days without food, 3 days without drink, and 10 min without air. We have all had close calls with accidents or illness. 

The treasure of life is the remarkable miracle of experiencing it, and how unlikely it all is. It makes me grateful to God for making me, the beautiful world outside, and my wife and children, my family and friends.  My prayer for you today is no matter your current situation, you can have a moment of awareness of this astonishing world. And then, maybe a one extra moment beyond that where you see the hand of a creative and sustaining God working in ways we are too busy and too small to imagine.

Ready for the Next Round

Thanks to all of you who have been praying and sending encouraging notes – I have been overwhelmed by the number of prayers and encouraging messages I have received. I feel very blessed to have had so many family and friends reach out.  If I have not personally thanked you, please know that I am reading everything, and will reply in time as I can on our journey.

Last Wednesday, (11/6/23) was my first Chemo treatment, and it went smoothly.  It was a long day – a full 8 hours of transfusions (2 chemo medications and Immunotherapy, along with supporting medications).  I left feeling a little strange, a sensation that was hard to describe, but I knew they had pumped a lot of SOMETHING in my system.  Then came the waiting for exactly how my body would react.

Thankfully, I felt pretty good the next few days.  One thing they gave me was a steroid, which made me feel a little jumpy on Thursday.  Nasua was very mild on Thursday and Friday, and I certainly felt fatigue on Friday and Saturday, but by Sunday I was feeling on the upswing, and by Monday, I felt pretty normal, which is a great response, all things considered.

So today, I start the cycle all over again.  I hope that the pattern continues, and while the fatigue was real and I needed some extra rest, it was manageable.  Honestly, the most consistently uncomfortable has been the port in my shoulder.  I am getting used to the feeling of an object under my skin, but it still makes my skin crawl sometimes.  At this moment, I am hooked up and receiving round 2.

I continue to ask for prayer for this process.  Healing, bills, time, work.  There are so many changes making life different, and we are trying to find a new ‘normal’ to this new reality.  I was touched by something one of my pastors said a couple weeks ago – when we pray for others, our faith is lifting them when their faith may by weak.  This communal effort in upholding the concerns of others before God and sharing in the work of recovery is something that God acknowledges and blesses.  This is easy to understand as basic Christian principle.  We pray for ourselves and are instructed to pray for each other.  But as we experience sincere prayer out of concern for others, we open a stream of compassion that changes us for the better.  Karly and I discussed this week how it really is not a burden to pray for others or be involved in their heartache or burdens – It’s often a blessing to able to share the weight.  So if we ask how you are – or how we can pray for you – it’s a sincere question that you don’t need to dodge.  Life is going on for all of us, and life has plenty of trouble for each day.  Keep living it and sharing it as you go.

Thanks again for caring and reading.  I hope you find a beautiful moment today, even if it’s just a glance out the window.