Thankful Thursday (on Friday morning)

Sorry this is a bit late, now that Grey's is back on we may have to do thankful Fridays.

This thankful Thursday is an easy one.
Thank you God for the sunshine yesterday! The girls and I played outside for HOURS yesterday. They drew the birds in the sky, rode bikes, scooters, drove the jeep around etc. We met a neighbor that goes to our church. We have lived here 5 years and I don't know the neighbors very well, sadly we have just been sleeping in our house most of those years rather than really living here. The busy life of daycare, work, sleep, eat, survive, rinse repeat has been our existence for many years. Part-time is a good thing for this mom. :)
Which leads me to my next thankful point. Thank you for my job! I love what I do (media buyer) and I love the gals that I work with. I am thankful for flex-time and part-time and the privilege of putting in my time and then picking up my kids and playing outside (with an iPhone attached to my side but none the less, I'm outside with my kids!).

Thank you for letting us be a family of 5 today and yesterday and the day before.
Thank you for great friends and great heart-to-hearts.

God is so good today and everyday!

We are okay. really

We are really doing okay with the last scan results. It did not take us by surprise and really when you get down to it is the same news over over as it was on October 4th 2010 when this journey all started.
It is a different perspective from within this house then on the outside. We have lived with the news of terminal cancer for close to a year now. The shock has worn off and doing our best to live with this is the challenge at hand. If we could take a magic wand and make this go away we would but that is not the case so we are building the support system and working through each emotion each step of the way. We are really okay.
When we turn every emotion, every scan and every issue that comes along with this cancer over to Him, we are okay.
When we keep them to ourselves, or search for them on the Internet or wait for a doctor to come up with some life saving plan... we are in a pit.
We are trusting in God to heal Craig and walk with us each step of the way to that point.

I do have a HUGE prayer request for our extended support system. Please pray for our day to day system. It is a tough place for many of them to be in. They are close enough to be family but don't really have the support in place to lean on. We need support for our support.

I have been wanting to update the blog all weekend but really there is not much to say. We really are doing okay, we actually got a lot done in our house this weekend, spent some time together as a family and with some great friends. All pretty normal.

Our 1st appointment at Vanderbilt is October 7th with Dr. Berlin. They will take blood and make sure that Craig's levels will qualify him for the clinical trial and talk about the side effects to make sure it is something  that we want to do at this point. Craig is happy and feeling good right now.

http://www.vicc.org/dd/display.php?person=jordan.berlin

Here is Dr. Berlin's bio. He is the one that we met with a while back and we will see on the 7th. He is Crazy smart. He is actually funny too. Nerdy funny but none the less funny.

I guess that is it. There is not much going on here. I think we have accepted the diagnosis that has been handed to us and we are taking one day at a time. Please pray for our peeps.

If you get the chance listen to this sermon of endurance... Kyle does it again. I need to listen to it again. I think there were a couple points that I got stuck on and missed some good points. We are so blessed to have such a talent at SECC.
http://www.southeastchristian.org/?page=3476
great sermon.

Rick Warren Purpose Driven Life Interview

I got this email from a friend's dear mom and I wanted to share it:

You will enjoy the new insights that Rick Warren has, with his wife now having cancer and him having 'wealth' from the book sales.

This is an absolutely incredible short interview with Rick Warren, 'Purpose Driven Life ' author and pastor of Saddleback Church in California.
In the interview by Paul Bradshaw with Rick Warren, Rick said:
People ask me, What is the purpose of life?
And I respond: In a nutshell, life is preparation for eternity. We were not made to last forever, and God wants us to be with Him in Heaven. One day my heart is going to stop, and that will be the end of my body-- but not the end of me.
I may live 60 to 100 years on earth, but I am going to spend trillions of years in eternity. This is the warm-up act - the dress rehearsal. God wants us to practice on earth what we will do forever in eternity.
We were made by God and for God, and until you figure that out, life isn't going to make sense.
Life is a series of problems: Either you are in one now, you're just coming out of one, or you're getting ready to go into another one.
The reason for this is that God is more interested in your character than your comfort; God is more interested in making your life holy than He is in making your life happy. We can be reasonably happy here on earth, but that's not the goal of life. The goal is to grow in character, in Christ likeness.
This past year has been the greatest year of my life but also the toughest, with my wife, Kay, getting cancer.
I used to think that life was hills and valleys - you go through a dark time, then you go to the mountaintop, back and forth. I don't believe that anymore.
Rather than life being hills and valleys, I believe that it's kind of like two rails on a railroad track, and at all times you have something good and something bad in your life.
No matter how good things are in your life, there is always something bad that needs to be worked on. And no matter how bad things are in your life, there is always something good you can thank God for.
You can focus on your purposes, or you can focus on your problems:
If you focus on your problems, you're going into self-centeredness, which is my problem, my issues, my pain.' But one of the easiest ways to get rid of pain is to get your focus off yourself and onto God and others. Very important~
We discovered quickly that in spite of the prayers of hundreds of thousands of people, God was not going to heal Kay or make it easy for her- It has been very difficult for her, and yet God has strengthened her character, given her a ministry of helping other people, given her a testimony, drawn her closer to Him and to people.
You have to learn to deal with both the good and the bad of life. Actually, sometimes learning to deal with the good is harder. For instance, this past year, all of a sudden, when the book sold 15 million copies, it made me instantly very wealthy.
It also brought a lot of notoriety that I had never had to deal with before. I don't think God gives you money or notoriety for your own ego or for you to live a life of ease.
So I began to ask God what He wanted me to do with this money, notoriety and influence. He gave me two different passages that helped me decide what to do, II Corinthians 9 and Psalm 72.
First, in spite of all the money coming in, we would not change our lifestyle one bit.. We made no major purchases.
Second, about midway through last year, I stopped taking a salary from the church.
Third, we set up foundations to fund an initiative we call The Peace Plan to plant churches, equip leaders, assist the poor, care for the sick, and educate the next generation.
Fourth, I added up all that the church had paid me in the 24 years since I started the church, and I gave it all back. It was liberating to be able to serve God for free.
We need to ask ourselves: Am I going to live for possessions? Popularity?
Am I going to be driven by pressures? Guilt? Bitterness? Materialism? Or am I going to be driven by God's purposes (for my life)?
When I get up in the morning, I sit on the side of my bed and say, "God, if I don't get anything else done today, I want to know You more and love You better."
God didn't put me on earth just to fulfill a to-do list. He's more interested in what I am than what I do.
That's why we're called human beings, not human doings.
Happy moments, PRAISE GOD.
Difficult moments, SEEK GOD.
Quiet moments, WORSHIP GOD.
Painful moments, TRUST GOD.
Every moment, THANK GOD.

Vandy or Gemzar

I had my CT scan this morning and we met with Dr Hamm this afternoon to determine what to do next. The scan showed no growth in my pancreatic tumor and no growth in my liver spots however there was a new "shadow" of a new spot in my liver that had not been seen on any previous scans. Translation is not exactly sure what it is but it's probably a new spot developing. This test was not too much of a surprise for us. The increase in the tumor marker was our first sign. Today's test isn't great news but I am relieved in one major fashion. I got to a point where I absolutely hated my treatment because of how sick it made me, how long it took me to recover and how low it brought me mentally. I'm done and officially off that treatment.  This makes me happy.  This will hopefully give me some of my life back.  Now we have to make a decision though.  Vanderbilt or Gemzar.  I set the first available appointment with Dr Berlin at Vanderbilt which is Friday October 7th (next available was Oct 27th); it's the soonest I can get in.  Vandy has a clinical trial that I should qualify for which includes an investigational drug that's taken IV once a week for 3 weeks and then off the 4th week.  The trial is definitely intriguing but the biggest concern is going to Nashville once a week.  We've got to get more info on the trial which we'll get at the appointment.  Biggest question is whether or not the drug is having any success and the 2nd question is side effects of the treatment.  One would assume that because it's only one drug and given basically every week, that the side effects should be limited.  We'll have to weigh the promise from the study and the side effects with the prospect of a lot of driving.  The other option is gemcitibine (gemzar) and tarceva.  Gemcitibine is by far the most common treatment for pancreatic cancer; it's the standard.  It's also once a week, can be done here in Louisville and is by far easier on the side effects.  The tarceva is a pill taken daily with its only real side effect being acne.  I'd have to get something to combat that.  I wish the Vandy appt was sooner but it's not.  The trial would require me to be off of treatments for 4 weeks so that kind of fits the schedule.  I will feel bad if we wait for the appt though but decide not to do it.  That's our dilemma.  Plan is to wait for the Vandy appt to make a decision as of now.  Prayers requested are for making a good decision and that the cancer lays as low as possible why we wait out the next couple of weeks.

Change in Plans and Ross Huettig

So I called yesteday and made a pseudo emergency appointment with my oncologist this morning.   I shared with him my desire to get the heck off this current treatment.  What it came down to was it's taking me 8, 9 or 10 days to recover from the treatment only to turn around and do it again.  It's not the way I want to live my life.  I am also not confident its working based on my tumor marker going up.  I was scheduled to do the treatment next Wednesday and have my next scan on the 4th.  The doctor concurred with my opinion which is pretty normal.  The current game plan really comes down to finding the best balance of being aggressive and also having a decent quality of life.  We decided to move the scan to next Tuesday morning.  If the scan shows improvement, then I may do the treatment scheduled next Wednesday but its probably not going to show improvement and is more likely to show us going in the wrong direction.  So most likely no chemo next week.  Its time to decide on the most common treatment majority of pancreatic patients do which is gemcitibine and tarceva or find a clinical trial that makes sense for us.  A clinical trial would most likely consist of gemcitibine and an experimental drug.  The gemcitibine treatment is typically done once a week with the fourth week off.  It's got a whole lot less side effects.  I also do not have to be hooked up to it for 2 days; its get it IV at the doctor and then leave.  I've been hitting that wall this cancer brings that I've heard and read a lot about.  There comes a time when the big picture comes into place.  Right now that means, how can I best enjoy my family and friends right now.  We'll keep you posted if we learn anything more about the clinical trials.

Ross Huettig, 26, passed away Wednesday.  I met Ross at a support group I go to occassionally at Gilda's Club.  It's a young adults group for those with or have had cancer.  Ross had an awesome young personality.  He was very different from me in a lot of ways but not.  He was a young man that believed in God and loved death metal music.  Not your normal combination but to me but that's part of what drew me to him.  He was one of those people that anyone would just be happy to be around.  I became facebook friends with him a few weeks ago and started to see some health concerning messages on his page.  I tried reaching out to him last Friday asking what could I pray for.  I told him I wanted to get to know him better.  I never got a message back from him but learned he was fighting for his life.  I'm in the seat that understands what he has been going through.  I'm actually happy to an extent for him.  He's done with chemo, done with pain.  I often visualize that meeting with Jesus and I think Ross is in an awesome place.  In some ways, I'm a little jealous, I believe heaven is that great.  Anyways, it was great to know him.  He's one of those people I'll look up when my day comes and hopefully I'll get to know him better.  God bless you Ross.

4/13

I have two scriptures on my bulletin board next to my desk that I read throughout the work day.
One is:
"I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." Phil 4:13.

Our wedding anniversary is April 13th (4/13).

Wow, it just hit me sitting here so I had to share.
Prayers for continual strength.

Friday and 9/11 reflection and some more...

written Friday:
Craig has not gotten sick at home this time. Which is HUGE! HUGE! Being that sick makes us question so much: Is this treatment worth it? Which is followed by a string of ridiculous questions. RIDICULOUS questions for a 30 something to have to think about!!!

This is a little selfish post, I have to admit. I hope that Craig has the energy to update this weekend so this blog doesn't become just about the view of the winy wife but for now it is just that...

My Prayer is He reveal His almighty purpose for this Mess. I am yelling at Him today. I need some encouragement and purpose for this pain in my house.
If you watch this video you will get it... I want to see my flipped board!! first side would say: wife of husband with terminal cancer.... WHAT DOES THE OTHER SIDE SAY! I know that you can make beautiful things! Let's see it! I know that You can heal! Let's see it! I know that we have an Almighty purpose here. Let's see it! I know that if we look around we can find His blessing in any circumstance BUT today I am begging for a black and white/in your face/I am here, here it is... Blessing! Not a whisper...not into whispers today.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LxltWrH8S0&feature=related


continued Monday 9/12:
There were so many 9/11 10 years later specials I guess I really want to know what my 10 year later looks like... or maybe I don't. I thought a lot about that this weekend. What if this is as good as my life is going to get? What if having a sick husband is better than having no husband at all. I know that is the case especially having a husband like Craig but in many ways my dreams have already disappeared. No one dreams they will get divorced, or be child-less. No one dreams of being unemployed for an extended period of time. And no on dreams of having cancer in their house especially terminal cancer. In so many ways the grieving process for the family life that I did everything in my power to built is already gone. This is ridiculous but I was a little jealous of the families of 9/11 that they were 10 year out from their tragedy. As they wrapped up last night special on CBS they talked with the firefighters that responded and survived. They said it wasn't a day or a week that they just lived through, it was something that was a part of them now. There wasn't a day that went by that they woke up and didn't think of 9/11. It was a part of their soul. And I think that is the cancer will be for my family. There won't be a day that goes by in my life that I don't think of pancreatic cancer and its effects. I learned a lot from the last half hour of that special. There was a firefighter that didn't go back to firefighting b/c of 9/11, he lost his marriage b/c of 9/11, he seemed hopeless b/c of 9/11. I will not allow that to happen to this house. We WILL take every measure possible to be a productive, God-filled house regardless of the adversity that we face. If that means that my kids are in art therapy until they are 50, then so be it. Where ever God leads us to make sure that our salvation remains intacted, we will go. Eternity is the only place where my dreams of a family of 5 is guaranteed, so when He says here is your task and I have given you a friend named Jesus to walk with you while do this task, I will say thank you for the chance to complete this task, and thank you for your son, Jesus.

continued Tuesday:
yesterday as me and girls were playing outside and waiting for Craig to come home, it felt so normal. So normal to have dinner heating up inside and waiting for him to pull in the driveway. It made me stop and say, is this cancer-thing really happening. This is the life that I recognize. Is this other one really going on? Is this really happening? really?

John 3:16

Sorry for the delay folks.  Quick summary: this weekend went a lot better than the last treatment weekend but still absolutely zero fun and hard.  I was successful at not getting sick after the treatment this time though again, I didn't feel good at all.  I guess sorry again for the details but I actually got sick before my treatment began just from the anticipation while I was getting prepped for treatment.  This is just very hard and it makes me dig deep begging for a reason to continue to do this to myself.  I have other available treatments to me that don't wreck me this hard.  It's very hard to come to terms with what to do.  My tumor marker actually increased a little more from fifty something to seventy something.  We are not sure this treatment hasn't run it's course.  The plan is to make it to the next scan which is after the next treatment.  I honestly am not sure I can do this again.  It beats me up so hard and knocks me out.  This would be a lot easier if there was a big light at the end of the tunnel.  There's not a big light for me here on this Earth.  Hope I'm not sounding depressed.  Reality is very hard and every time, I'm wiped out and it wipes out the family.  The prayers we can use these days again is guidance.

Emotions are admittedly running high right now as I watch the CBS 9/11 special.  It's a constant reminder of how great life is but so very fragile.  There's a lot of shitty stories out there and my heart goes out to all of them.  There's also a lot of strength that comes deep within people and admire the heck out of that inner self.  10 years ago I was at work helping out at our branch at 25th and Broadway getting to know some people pretty quick that I didn't too much about.  I remember coming home from work and crying on the couch wanting to punch somebody or something.  I watch this special and am reminded how may people are still suffering from either depression or breathing in of bad air and dying of cancer.  9/11 is obviously something that will be forever etched in our minds.  Today at church we talked extensively about 9/11.  It's 2 numbers you can't forget.  But in a time when hostility is bred and vengeance is demanded we are reminded of 2 other numbers that I am forever grateful for: John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."

thankful thursday

written yesterday:
Craig is still getting chemo and I think he is already feeling sick. They lowered the dose to see if he could tolerate the side effects more this time which is what we had talked about all last week. We will see what this evening brings. Pray for tolerable side effects.

On with thankful Thursday...
This will be a strange one. I don't like to compare us to other people to make us feel better and then say I am thankful that we are not them. We have had that done to us more times that I can count. I know people have the best of intention but sometimes it comes off like, well at least I am not you... yuck! (maybe I don't want to be you either BTW!)

ANYWAY, wow that was a long way to get here.
We are downtown b/c we saw Dr. Hamm today. So we are sitting here waiting for Nurse Karen to find us and we see an orange jumpsuit and feet in chains walking down the hallway with an armed guard to follow. At first I have to admit it freaked me out a bit. Then my heart just felt so terrible for this man. How much adversity can one person take? I really wanted to go pray with him. Maybe "be the sunshine" (quote from GNO at SECC) to this lost soul. I have continued to pray for this man throughout the day. Come to find out he enjoys chemo days! WHAT THE HECK!? He gets to watch TV, have a nice guards undivided attention, he gets outside, he socializes with people that are not in prison etc. So I guess I am thankful that chemo days ARE our bad days. We have so much more in our lives that this is THE WORST DAY of the week. I feel badly comparing ourselves to this man, in many ways we are in the same boat as he is. In fact he was only two doors down from our room. In my "Facing adversity" group at SECC there are people in the group that have family members in prison. I have seen the other side to the stories, right or wrong, families suffer when one member is behind bars. I pray that this person can be healed and utilize his time wisely and find the God that forgives all sins and will give him eternal life or if he already has that he can be a light in prison to others.
How's that for the strangest thankful Thursday ever!

Labor Day Weekend: Part 2

Sunday night was a very special treat for our family.  On Tuesday I got the call from one our regional folks to represent BB&T at the upcoming BB&T Night at The Bats.  I graciously accepted.  We arrived at the park a little early so my family and I could get on the field to watch me throw out the first big pitch.  I'm not certain Michelle was overly impressed at the opportunity but me, as a guy, thought it was pretty darn cool.  I was very excited and not nervous at all.  I got a lot of great yells at the park and text messages before the pitch to build my confidence.  I got "don't throw like a girl", "don't bounce it", "$10 if you hit the mascot", "don't pull a John Wall first pitch" and "I hope you throw a good pitch" (mom).  I went with the heater and wasn't sure how my arm would react because I didn't get to warm up.  The ball went right down the middle of the plate and I got "that's one of the best pitches I've got" from the catcher.  My brother in law Brad got it on video and posted it on facebook if you care to see the pitch.  This would have made the evening in itself but there was more to come.  Emily and Morgan were given the opportunity to be the junior groundskeepers for the game.  We got to hang with Buddy Bat down near the field entrance for an inning waiting for our groundskeeping duties.  At the end of the 4th inning, the regular grounds crew ran on to the field to rake the dirt and right after them went Buddy Bat, Emily, Morgan and one other younger boy.  They ran with their small brooms in hand to first base and Buddy Bat gave them the instructions to sweep off first base until it was clean.  They then took off to 2nd base with the other boy out front followed by Buddy Bat; Emily was a few steps back and Morgan a few more steps back.  Morgan was running holding onto her shorts afraid they might fall down from running so fast.  They cleaned off 2nd and ran to 3rd in the same order they ran to 2nd.  After cleaning off 3rd base, they got to step off the side of the base and rest for a second while much of the crowd gave them a very cheerful ovation for their hard work.  They then made their way to the backstop and the Bats manager stepped out of the dugout and gave them each a baseball.  We then had to rush off the field so the game could start back up and we went back near the locker rooms and got some pictures taken with Buddy Bat and he signed their baseballs for them.  One side quick story:  Emily and I went to a Bats game earlier in the year and I made the mistake of mentioning that maybe if we get lucky, we'll catch a foul ball and we can take a baseball home.  Emily pretty much left the game in tears when we had to go home empty handed.  So she was glad to get a baseball this evening, very glad!  We were initially worried the girls would be shy about running on the field especially after an already tiring weekend but they did great.  I was soooo proud of them.  We were also worried about the rain because it was all over the forecast but our perfect game didn't see rain until the very last out of the game.  And the cherry was the fireworks show that we watched from undercover after the last out.  We got to see many friends at the game including a bunch of folks from my family.  It was really a perfect evening and one I will very much cherish.

Labor Day Weekend: Part 1

We had a crazy busy weekend which is just what we needed after the intense week we had discussing next steps in Craig's treatment etc. The weekend started off with a pedicure for me before we packed up the car and picked Emily up from school. We then headed to our first destination: The Knarr's house. The girls love Sydney and they were excited about a "sleepover". Hannah has an early bedtime so she stayed back with Rob and Steph. So the four of us headed to the rehearsal for Kristy (my cousin) and Bruce's wedding. Emily was chosen to be a flower girl and Morgan was a program attendant or a door holder as she called it. Rehearsal and rehearsal dinner went well and we enjoyed being around everyone to start the weekend off. Although as Emily sat in the pew during the rehearsal she expressed to Uncle Jim (father of the bride) and Aunt Kathy (mother of the bride) that "this was not nearly as fun as she thought it was going to be." geez, Em honest much! They have a great sense of humor so of course they laughed it off and told her the fun party of a Catholic wedding was the reception. :)

Saturday Emily got her hair done and just loved every minute getting ready for the wedding. We visited with the Geiger's and the newest cousin, Loraine (after my late Grandmother) who is just two weeks old. Emily did wonderful in the wedding and she loved being apart of the wedding party. It was a beautiful wedding and a fun reception.

She loved her hair. It looked great and it stayed all day really well.

Morgan handing out programs. She looked so cute.

Cupcakes!

Hannah at the reception. She did not last through the wedding.

Thanks again Steph for taking her outside. ;)

We had such an awesome time dancing at the reception, this is Morgan about midnight. She is asleep and if you look close she used the table cloth as a blanket.

Kristy's pick for the first reading was Ecclesiastes 3: There is a time for everything,

and a season for every activity under the heavens.

It was a definitely a time to celebrate and a time to dance!

We wish them the best of luck in their lifetime together. Keep Christ the center of every "time" in your life and you will suceed regardless what you face together.

 Thanks for letting us be apart of such a great event. It was a very blessed feeling being around a great family and having a great time. Congrats to Kristy and Bruce!

thankful thursday

As promised today is thankful Thursday. This has been a really emotional week so I can't say this is going to be your typical Thankful Thursday post.
In the midst of the emotions I did get a lot done this week both at work and at home. I won't bore you with the work details. We got new carpet in the girls rooms and down the stairs to the basement. Long over due and I am glad it was complete.

Sunday one of Emily and Morgan's friends from Vanguard dropped off dinner and with it came a dozen roses of all different colors. Totally brighten our day. The girls wanted to play "wedding" with them. They still look very pretty and make me smile every time I see them. We are so blessed with the dinners that come in around treatment days. I think we would be eating a lot of cereal some days if those dinners didn't come in. A lot of nights around treatment days I am spent so not having to put together dinner is a huge relief.

I am incredibly thankful for my two best friends from high school, Gwen and Janelle and their husbands. It seems silly to even just call them friends. They are more like family than friends. They are always willing to listen and they are always there to hear even the toughest things to hear. They never judge and they are always on my side. God knew what he was doing when he put us together. I will probably be working for the rest of my life to repay them for their incredible friendship and I look forward to it. :) love you.

We have a wonderfully busy weekend to look forward to. My cousin, Kristy, is getting married on Saturday. Emily is a flower girl and Morgan is a program attendant or as she calls it a door holder. We are looking forward to spending the weekend with extended family. I hope Hannah behaves herself in church. This should be interesting.

So that is about all that I have for thankful Thursday.

I read today's devotional in the book "Jesus Calling" September 1st: Seek me with your whole being. I desire to be found by you, and orchestrate the events of your life with that purpose in mind. When things go well you are blessed, you can feel Me smiling on you. When you encounter rough patches along your life-journey, trust that My light is still shining upon you. My reasons for allowing these adversities may be shrouded in mystery, but My continual Presence with you is an absolute promise. Seek Me in good times; seek Me in hard times. You will find Me watching over you all the time.

Have a great Labor Day weekend.