Today’s reality

I am usually not one to feel sorry for myself. I am so thankful that I was raised to live in this mindset: It is what it is. You do what you have to do. On most days it is easy for me to rest in that. Why drown in your sorrows? It’s not going to make the situation better. In fact, it will likely make it worse. But every now and then, something will happen, and it will trigger the reality of my situation. I have a brain tumor. This thing could take my life, leaving my family without a wife, a mother, a daughter, a sister.

Yesterday was my day of being thrown back into reality. My college volleyball coach contacted me to let me know that our team is being inducted into our school’s hall of fame. After we finished our conversation, I was hit with this profound sadness. I started reminiscing a bit about those college days. The good ol’ days. The days before I had, or knew I had, this brain tumor growing inside of my head. I often refer to them as the pre-brain tumor days. Life was easy. Each day’s agenda included things like sleeping in, going to class if I felt like it, hanging out with friends, sports practice….fun stuff. The reality of our life right now really hit me. Life isn’t easy. We have a lot to deal with, more than most people our age. Doctor appointments, treatment, etc. is a part of our everyday life. It’s like we have this amazing life, yet there is this whole brain tumor thing that keeps invading it. But after wallowing in self pity for a bit, I was able to sit back and smile. I was able to smile because we are so blessed. God has given us two healthy little boys who constantly fill our lives with joy and laughter. We have a loving family that is always there to help us out when we need it, which has proven to be quite often. This tumor definitely keeps me humbled, especially when I am feeling weak physically. I deal with seizures as a result of this tumor, which is always a painful reminder of the formidable foe I am fighting. It’s also a constant reminder that I am not my own. I’m alive by God’s grace only. There are so many people who have it so much worse. A girl in our neighborhood, who was a few years younger than me, just recently passed away from the same type of tumor that I have. Five minutes ago, I received an email saying that a friend of ours just received news that his tumor has spread and there is nothing more they can do. I recently went to a brain tumor conference and it was filled with people that had bald heads from doing chemo, which exposed the all too familiar scar that outlined a prior craniotomy. A good majority of these people have a grade 4 tumor. Mine is a grade 2. The difference in prognosis is huge. These are the things that remind me how blessed I am. When I start to think about this, my thought pattern almost always follows down the same path. Why has God blessed me with a very manageable tumor? What is his purpose for my life through this? I don’t want to go through this journey without knowing that lives have been impacted. If lives weren’t touched through it, and it was just something that ‘happened to me’, then how depressing! Why can’t a broken leg just have been the thing that ‘happened to me’?
Because I’m looking for purpose through all of this, I am always on the prowl for somebody that needs my help, whether that is through encouragement, information, a hug, whatever. I love that. I love that my pride is constantly kept in check because I’m not on top of the world. I love that I am in a position where I have to look past myself and focus on others. My personality is to achieve, achieve, achieve. It’s so easy for me to grab every detail in my life and set it in order. I have plans A through Z, and then back-up plans for when A through Z don’t work out the way I had planned them to. While it can be a good characteristic, it’s often done at the expense of those around me. I am so focused on my plans, that things around me get pushed aside. “I’ll get to that after I accomplish this. Oh, they need me? Ok, just a second. I’ll be there in awhile, but I have some other things to take care of first.” If God makes time for every one of us and gives us the grace and hope that we need, then we have no excuse not to offer the same to those around us.
So yes, it was a hard day yesterday, but today was a good day. Today I was able to regain perspective. I don’t want to look at my past as the pre-brain tumor days. I want to just be thankful for the past, but look forward to my post-brain tumor days. The days that will happen after I am healed of this tumor. The days when I can look back and say “Yeah, that’s why God allowed that. That is so awesome. God is good.”

You might be a redneck if….you build your pool out of hay bales and tarps

Wow.  Summer is halfway over.  The weather has been amazing and so we’re trying to soak up as much Vitamin D, as we all know the rain is just around the corner.  The only good thing about that will be that I will actually sit down and write some more because I won’t feel guilty about sitting in front of the computer.

The days around here seem to go especially quickly because farm life is so crazy this time of year.  The thing that is lovely about this summer, as opposed to the last, is that the guys aren’t building a new milking parlor in addition to all of the other madness.  Hay is cut and baled, lagoons are being emptied and it will soon be silage time.  For all of you that don’t understand what any of that means, just know that it means 10-12 hour working days for the next couple of months.

Tyler and Trent have been busy outside.  They are so cute with their white hair and tan faces.  Marvin built them a pool, which I’m sure a lot of you saw the pictures on Facebook.  If you’re already on Facebook, you can request to see them here, if you would like.  For those that didn’t, I’ll try and get a picture posted here.  It’s not uploading right now.  Here’s the blueprint for you and all your friends:  He took 8 big bales of hay, placed them into a rectangle and then put a 200 foot tarp and draped it over them.  He then proceeded to fill up the middle of the ‘rectangle’ with water.  I have to admit I was so irritated when he first told me what he was doing.  He kept telling me that he had such a good idea for a swimming pool and that he was going to surprise us with it.  Yeah, surprise is a great descriptor for what it was.  But the guy is brilliant.  It is the perfect pool and it was extremely cost effective to boot, mainly because we already own those huge hay bales.  So it’s been a great source of entertainment for Tyler and Trent, and a great source for getting a tan during their nap time.

Remember when I was concerned that Trent wasn’t talking yet, and all of you told me to just enjoy the silence because he would be soon enough?  Soon enough has now arrived.  The boy talks as much as Tyler now.  The only difference is that only half of what he says can be understood.  Tyler has been doing a lot of activities away from Trent, so I think that it has finally given Trent a chance to get a word in edgewise and it’s starting to ‘click’.  It’s surprising how competitive the boys are even with 3 1/2 years difference in age.  I’m looking forward to school starting.  I think Tyler is going to absolutely love it.  His favorite thing, aside from being down on the dairy every second that he can, is to work in his workbooks.  I love that he’s so self-motivated and such a smart kid, but it’s really hard to keep him stimulated, and a bored Tyler is not a good Tyler.  I’ve been told that is what is referred to as “payback”.

On the medical front, I finally heard back from  Dr. Liau.  She said that she reviewed my scan and that she agreed that it looked stable.  She did suggest, however, that we keep watching it closely.  This means I’ll be getting another scan done on September 8th.  The thing that sucks about that is going through the agonizing process of anticipating the results so quickly after just going through it.  But on the flip-side, it’ll be such a short window of time, that we’ll be more confident that not much probably changed, if anything.  Her main concern is that this tumor is trying so hard to become a grade 3, but just can’t quite get there, much to our delight.  So she wants to stay ahead of it.  On a side note, for all of you brain tumor patients that read this blog, there is a brain tumor conference coming up in September in Oregon.  You can check out the details here.

I’m still doing IV therapy through the same clinic I’ve been going to in Portland for the past year, which includes DMSO and high dose Vitamin C.  When I’m not on chemo, then I’m taking one of those.  This last round of chemo was a little rough, but otherwise I’m feeling really well.  I’m at least able to keep with a 3 and 6 year old, so I guess that says something.

I know this is becoming redundant, but we can’t thank you all enough for the ways that you support us.  We would be lost in this mess without each of you by our side, so thank you so much…

At last…

I have been trying to post a blog for over a week now.  My browser kept kicking me off when I would try and create a new post, so I finely conceded to use IE (I normally use Mozilla), and I can finally post!  We had such a great, relaxing time in Maui.  It seems like we’ve been home for months, already, but yet I can’t believe I’m leaving this weekend, already, for Oklahoma.  

I’m going to go ahead and paste an email that was sent to us by the clinic, explaining the treatment that we will be receiving.  A lot of you have been asking for specific information about what we’re doing exactly, so here it is:

For the first four days they are given formula A, which consists of high dose vitamin C+B17 (formerly known as Laetrile) in combination with a full dosage of DMSO, to carry it into the malignancy better. Then on day 5, they are switched off to formula B, which consists of sodium bicarbonate in D5W. The patient usually has a Herxheiber reaction during this time, which is your hard evidence that the treatment is hitting the target. At the end of the 8 days on formula B, we switch the patient off onto formula C, which consists of DMSO bound with sterile dextrose, which acts as the “bait” for any malignancy which might be remaining. They finish out their round of 20 treatments on the DMSO/dextrose formula.

We have been successfully treating prostate cancer, as well asglioblastoma multiforme and astrocytoma, for over ten years and counting. Although DMSO is our primary chemotherapy agent(natural, non-toxic, yet powerfully effective) we also have incorporated Dr.Simoncini’s Sodium Bicarbonate, as well. DMSO,being highly alkaline and fungicidal, is a potent cancer killer by itself, as well as being a great carrier solvent, which will bind with and deliver anything of a similar molecular structure. Thousands of patients have received it, going back over 30 years, in many published clinical trials. Yet you will never hear about it, because it is a natural, botanically derived substance which is unpatentable, and therefore in direct competition with costly chemotherapy chemicals which are the standard of mainstream medicine. Despite all the evidence for efficacy of DMSO as an effective nontoxic chemotherapy agent, the FDAhas never approved it for that purpose. Because of DMSO’s special properties as a carrier solvent, it can bind with any other substance of a similar molecular structure and carry it across the cell membrane, right into the tumor.  When it is given intravenously, it crosses out of the circulation and totally saturates the soft tissues and even penetrates the blood/brain barrier, which is why it is so effective against brain malignancies. It will gently and painlessly eradicate a brain tumor without causing any collateral damage to nearby healthy structures, unlike surgery. And because it can also penetrate deep into the bone marrow, it is effective against myeloma and late stage prostate cancer, which typically goes into the deep pelvic bones.