It’s been a year…
It’s been a year… 365 of record lows and record highs!!! (Look up the song “It’s been a year” by Ashley Cooke💜)
LOWS: November 3,2022 Mike had an MRI that showed 5 brain METS meaning the lung cancer had metastasized to his brain so his oncologist strongly suggested he go back on the targeted cancer drug Gavreto, so he did but with it came lots of side effects and unexpected health challenges! In the last year he has had an emergency appendectomy, Gamma Knife Surgery (brain radiation) two times, so many eye problems including very poor eyesight, increased eye pressures (double what it usually is) causing loss of field vision, a Chalazion on both eyes requiring surgery to get rid of them, anemia, blood clots, and most recently pneumonia! We can’t say for sure that Gavreto caused all of this but it seems a little too coincidental!!!
HIGHS: We celebrated 41 years of marriage, Mike turned 62, we made lots of memories with family including trips to Cancun (H4C), and last week a trip to Kohler and Green Bay WI including a tour of the stadium with former player HaHa Clinton Dix and a Packer game, Jackson got engaged to the woman of his dreams so we are planning a wedding for June 8th, the birth of our 12th grandchild, just getting to go to grandkids sporting events and Jackson’s last season of basketball has begun.
Mikes CT scan on October 20th had mixed results. The good news is that the tumors in his right lung are stable! His left lung however, looked terrible and was white where is should be black. They said it was either Pneumonia (from bacteria) or Pneumonitis (from the Gavreto)so they put him on LevoFLOXican to treat pneumonia and thankfully he is finally feeling better! We pray the cancer medication hasn’t caused any permanent damage but we have decided to stop it and go a different route. For this reason we are in CA at the Cancer Center for Healing. They do so many different tests to get to the root cause of disease. He is having lots of healing IV’s and immune boosting therapies. We did love our time at H4C in Cancun but this is more personalized and they use cutting edge technology that combines integrative and complementary treatments. After all the testing is complete they will make a plan specifically for Mike. So far we have loved everything here and are excited to see what all the findings show! We will be here for over a week with lots of appointments daily. Julia, Isaiah, and their two youngest kids are coming to visit for the weekend! We are excited to get back to watch 🏀💜🤍 and spend time with family!
I am looking around the Cancer Center for Healing which is the largest integrative medical clinic in North America. There are so many people here of all ages. Some look pretty healthy and some clearly are very sick, but each looking to turn over every rock to live as long as possible. 22 years is a long time to live with cancer, but we want more time, we want more highs and lows, because that’s what life is… We wouldn’t appreciate the highs as much if we didn’t have the lows, right?!? Lately we have both been weary on this long road but…we still want more time, weary or not! So, we join all these new faces seeking hope and healing but…we are not making healing our God. We are trusting God and His healing hand working through people!
In His love and ours,
Paula
