Thank you for all of the wonderful prayer, comments, and support.  We came home from the hospital late this morning.  Surgery went very well and Tammy is recovering very well.  As soon as we were able to see her it was all smiles and the giddiness of a kid in a candy store.  For the first time in many months she was pain-free.  She has some discomfort in the area of the incision and an occasional back spasm, but that is all.

Going forward she will start her chemo in three days.  Her total recovery from surgery is expected to be eight weeks before she is fully back to normal.  She has lung scans scheduled for the beginning of August to see what been going on in there.  Her CEA has been inching up over the last couple of months but she has been on and off her chemo a lot because of side-effects and sickness.

We really don’t know what to expect in the coming days and months.  As usual life has been a roller-coaster of up and downs.  For a while now it seems that something else has come up right after she gets one thing figured out.  Right now we are just going to live for the moment that we are in, cherishing each second, minute, hour, and day that she does not have to fight through any pain.  Whatever happens tomorrow, will happen no matter how much we try to plan for it, escape it, or fear it.  Tonight as you lay down to go to sleep do me a favor.  Be deliberate, be specific, and be thankful for everyone in your life.

Hello Merica, on this pretty loud fourth of July night.  I hope you enjoyed this seemingly endless holiday weekend.  I haven’t put out any updates for a while.  May was pretty busy with Kylee graduating and Tanner moving home.  Kylee is going on to Bethany in the fall and will play basketball.  August is going to be fun and I’m sure emotional for us as we have to move #1 and #2 into dorm rooms and houses.  This summer has been pretty uneventful as summer sports for the oldest two have dwindled away.  Morgan has been busy working and playing softball.  We haven’t made it too much softball but we are surrounded by a wonderful crew who have taken up some slack and helped her get to where she needed to be.  Tucker has been spending a lot of time home with Tammy and Kylee.  Kylee has been home most of the summer helping Tammy get things done around the house, entertaining her little brother and getting him anywhere he needs to go.

I think the last post left off after eye surgery and a good report about her lungs.  We were hoping to ride a nice plateau for a while and it has somewhat worked out that way as far as the cancer in her lungs go.  Some side effects have been causing some issues along the way.  I would like to say that the last two months have been great, but I probably would not go that far.  After her eye surgery things were going pretty well.  She had started her chemo up and was going along good.  She got some kind of infection and they put her on antibiotics.  She was on them for a week or so and developed very large blisters on her feet and hands.  They were very painful and she ended up in a wheel chair for a bit.  They took her off all chemo and changed antibiotics.  They started to get better and after another week or so she could start to get back on her feet and be mobile again.  She started chemo up again and after a week or so the blisters started to come back.  After this second time they decided that it was the chemo causing the problems and since then she takes the chemo until she starts to get symptoms and then takes a break for a week or so and then starts it back up.  She can stay on them close to two weeks and then she stops.

She continues to be on steroids everyday.  She tried to stop them at one point and she started to spiral down in the energy department.  Everyone thought it best to keep her on  it.  It’s a pretty small dose everyday, but without it she does not have any energy.  She has had a few infections in the last few months, but has fought through them for the most part and in general has felt okay,  except, that she has been fighting with a sciatic nerve issue for about four months.  Over the last few months this has been getting worse and at this time has made her pretty immobile.  She has had three epidural shots and nothing seems to be getting any better.  After meeting with her neurosurgeon for a check up he told her that he could fix her back problem.  So here we are now on the eve of another surgery.  Tomorrow at 2:30 hopefully she will finally get some relief.

Our brains are pretty amazing when it comes to pain.  It shoots out pain responses to tell us that something is wrong, or that we are injured, but after we are healed it kind of deletes it from our memory.  We forget about how much pain we were once in and some of us do the same stupid thing again.  We heal up and once again we simply forget.  Here a month or so ago I had a very large abscess under my chin.  It was very painful, but a month later I really don’t remember the pain.  I know it hurt, but I don’t remember the pain.  For many people they do not have this luxury.  Pain is a constant.  Pain is their life.  I have been all around the spectrum about Tammy’s pain and how I can help her deal with it.  Anger, sadness, frustration, you name it, I’ve felt it.  When I think about how she deals with it, the only thing that comes to mind is courage.  Courage to face another day through the pain.  My biggest struggle someday’s is to find my own courage, But how can I let my courage falter when she doesn’t.  That brings us to Grace.

Tammy has fought this battle with enough Grace for all of us.  I have been struggling with what I needed to say in my next update.  This is probably why I have put it off for a while.  For some reason Grace came to mind tonight.  I realized that I have been waiting for Grace to cover us, maybe just to cover me, I don’t know.  I realized through Tammy’s grace through pain that maybe sometimes it does not come straight to us.  I realized that I should not be waiting for grace.  Sometimes I am the receiver and sometimes I am the messenger for someone else.  Grace is a pretty complicated word.  Sometimes I need to extend it, sometimes I need to receive it.  I know I am not making much sense, but I know we are always covered by it.  Tomorrow is going to be a very good day.  I hope when she wakes up she is pain-free.  I can’t wait to see her smile that is not pushed through the pain.  I can’t wait to see her after her “Independence day. “