We had a bad week…

I’ve hesitated to post anything because we don’t want sympathy but we also don’t want the rumor mill to go crazy and get things wrong, so finally decided to tell you all that we had a really bad week.

Mike had his follow up brain MRI on Wednesday afternoon and a zoom call with his brain surgeon on Thursday afternoon. The results of the MRI came through to his phone via his Mayo portal early Thursday morning and the radiology report was shocking to us. It showed 5 new METS in the brain as well as enlargement of the two areas Dr.Parney had treated on December 7th along with some swelling on his brain! We were obviously devastated because it had only been 3 months since his brain surgery.

Dr. Parney made us feel a little better as he said the two treated areas looked like he would expect and should show improvement on the next scan. He also said the brain swelling is pretty normal after GKS and as long as Mike is asymptomatic he doesn’t require any steroids and he thankfully has no symptoms so that was good news.

To Dr. Parney’s eye, he only sees 4 new METS but this is cause for concern obviously so he gave us a few options. 1) wait and see 2) do another GKS or 3) start back on the clinical trial drug that has now been approved and named Gavreto (was Blu 667). Gavreto was what he and Mike’s oncologist suggested would be the best option for now because it did work well before to cross the blood-brain barrier to shrink the previous METS, so that is the plan.

In the meantime we are heading to Hope4Cancer in Cancun Mexico for Mike to get lots of holistic/integrative treatments in a Christ centered environment that will help his immune system and try to get to the root cause. We have researched this a lot and are excited and full of HOPE! We have talked to several people who have been there and have loved their experiences; including one lady who healed from stage 4 lung cancer🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼 Mike’s oncologist doesn’t want him to start the Gavreto until we return from Mexico in case he has some kind of serious side effect, so that is the plan.

Life is hard at times and we have shed a lot of tears recently, but we are by no means giving up or losing hope! Mike was a young entrepreneur, a super active/athletic father of five young kids and a life long non-smoker when he was diagnosed with lung cancer at the age of 39. We were devastated and naïve.when he went in for his first thoracotomy so long ago, but God has taught us so much along the way that maybe we never would have learned if we hadn’t gone through this trial!?! Our youngest has never known a “healthy” dad because he was only one year old when Mike was diagnosed. BUT…. Thank God it’s now almost 22 years later and Mike is defying odds and still here and he plans to continue to defy odds! He plans to be here to see our grandkids grow up, to hang out with our grown kids, to watch Jackson play another year of college basketball and get married and have kids…. You get the point…he plans to live!!!

Thank you for continued prayers for health and healing! Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans I have for you” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you, and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.” 🙌🏼🙏🏼❤️

Hope and healing,

Paula