Walk with me; see the green grass, the trees in the breeze.  The ruffle of a feather, the old man on his knees.  Stand, hold my hand, and watch as the sun sets on a time full of high seas and low tides.  Run; run, as we dance to the shimmer of the water.  Hold tight, come close, and sit beside me as we entangle our souls.  Souls bound by endless greed, the need, it started with one seed, bound by time, not ready to be freed.  Lie down, hold tight, sleep, hold tight.  Dream, hold tight.  Watch, wait, stand, walk, run, keep up, hold on, and dance to the strings that play in my heart.  Laugh till we cry, love forever more; live, until we die.

I have loved the first paragraph of this since I wrote it New Year’s Eve three years ago.  The title is “The Lucky Ones.”  I have always felt that it encompasses so well how we have lived our lives together.  From the first day I touched her hand I knew I would never let it go, and if I had to guess, out of twenty-two years together we have been apart less than a hundred days.  When I read that paragraph I read it with a pretty fast cadence.  To me it is the urgency of my love and passion coming out, but also it was the speed that Tammy lived life.  Tammy lived life like the grand finale’ on the Fourth of July.  Fireworks going off everywhere.  She had a fire in her that I sometimes had a hard time keeping up with.  If you need proof you need not look any further than our two oldest kids who happen to be the same age for a month and a half every year.  Yes, we had two one year old’s.  Then a two and a one year old, and then a three, two, and one year old.  I was pretty sure we were going to give Lanelle, our Parents as Teachers person, a heart attack.  Every time she was scheduled I was afraid she was going to cancel because she was afraid Tammy was going to tell her she was pregnant again.  Tammy didn’t miss a beat though.  She loved them all so much that she wanted another one six years later.

If I had to pin one word on Tammy it would be passionate.  She did everything with passion.  There was never much of a middle ground with her.  If it was sports, she practiced hard and played harder.  As a teacher, she was going to give you everything you needed to be successful.  Then she was going to love and care enough about you, to make you believe in yourself.  She always loved the underdog because she took the time to see the potential that they had.  She taught them to never give up on themselves, because no matter what, they knew that Tammy would never give up on them.  Some of you listening right now are one of those people, and I assure you, Momma Bear is still watching over you, and when times get tough that voice in your head will say, never give up, never give up.

Tammy took on cancer just like she took on everything else.  She took each step and attacked it with passion.   As I would look down the road she would stay laser focused on whatever was right in front of her.  Tammy was never known for her defense on the basketball court.  She was known for her offense, and so she went on the offensive and attacked it.  She fought it with every ounce of strength that she had.  I will never tell you that Tammy lost her battle with cancer.  She beat it every step of the way.  She beat it with her attitude.  She beat it with her heart, her courage, and most of all she beat it with her smile.  She smiled every day including the last day.

How do you sum up someone’s life in a few short words?  I feel I have lost my eloquence.  I miss her dearly already.  The only thing I can think to do is leave you with a final story.  The kids and I were lucky that we were able to spend a good amount of time with Tammy. Can you picture the five of us all sitting around Tammy’s bed, each of us touching her somewhere? We had been there for a while and I thought we needed a little break so I asked each of them to tell a corny joke and we would pick a winner.  The winner was Kylee with, “What do Romans use to cut their Pizza?”  Answer:  “Little Caesars.”  We all had a good chuckle.  Throughout our conversations I have been telling them that it is ok to be sad, it is ok to be mad, but it is also ok to be happy.  After a while I asked each of them to tell me their favorite thing about Mom.  Tanner said that she never gives up on anyone.  Kylee said she loves her strength. Morgan said her good attitude.  Tucker said just being her.  Mine was her big heart, she always had room for everyone.  My response to them was then go be that.  If mom never gives up on anyone then believe in everyone.  If you love how strong mom was, then go be strong.  If you loved her attitude then always have a good attitude.  If her heart was big enough for everyone then open yours.  Tucker’s was a summation of all of them.  If you loved who your mom was, then go be like her.

My message to all of you is the same.  On this very tough day, it is ok to cry.  It is ok to be mad, but also it is ok to be happy and celebrate Tammy’s life.  I will also ask you the same question.  What did you love about Tammy?  Then I will tell you that the way to keep Tammy alive in all of us, the way to keep her in our heart, is to take everything that we love about her and give it to someone else in our lives.  Give her to the world and let her live though eternity.

Tammy passed away at 10:13 last night.  She is somewhere better.  Thank you for all of the thoughts and prayers.

The sound it makes as it flows so fast past your ear, the whistle,  the whisper, the roar not of how fast it is moving but the sound as it is slowed down, so slow you can’t understand what it means, what it is trying to tell you, the boom, so low and slow that it is just vibrations rattling though your soul.  It is the whisper that providence is in motion.  Time is an illusion.  It is what it is, not what aught to be.

I want to thank you all for you patients as you have waited for me to tell you what is going on.  It has been a roller coaster of ups and downs, back and forths,  and side to sides.  It seems forever ago that I told you that we were heading to MD Andersen.  Blood clots, pneumonia, hoping for a plane ride.  As it turned out we found what would keep Tammy from going.  In usual Tammy fashion she now had a goal.  It was a plane sitting on a runway to get her to Houston.  The doctors were finally getting the pain tolerable and she was getting more movement in her leg.  She was winding up her engine that says I will not be beat.  I will get there.

Tuesday morning as she was trying to move up in bed she heard a loud pop.  After an x-ray it was determined that she had a pathological fracture of he left humorous.  She was in a lot of pain.  Once again the doctor set out to get her pain under control.  At that point we had to start with the hard decisions.  Are we going to MD?

After some very big questions had to be asked and answered she decided that she was not going to try and get to Houston.  Pain management went in a different direction.  A pain pump was brought in and as her bone started to heal what it could, and the pain medicine started to work better, she slowly started to come back to us.

Sunday her comment was that this is the best I have felt in a month.  Tammy can attract a crowd and she spent all day Sunday with friends and family.  We can always tell when she is feeling better.  We all chuckle as drillmaster/coach Mom starts to take charge.  We all went to sleep with a positive thoughts.

Early Monday morning the tide changed.  She woke up with a big headache, nausea, and vomiting.  The nurses were able to get her settled down after a time and she has been sleeping all day.  No one knows what is actually going on.  Speculation is that there is a tumor in her brain that is causing problems.  At this point surgery is out of the question because of the risks for everyone involved.  She is resting comfortably and as much as we can tell her pain is tolerable.

I have a few thoughts that keep flashing through my head as I try to get through this update.  The first is miracles, the second is gratitude, and the third is sunshine.

No matter what happens Tammy is a miracle.  Six and a half years ago no one would bet a penny that I could kiss her on the forehead last night.  I did kiss her on the forehead and I am grateful that I could.

I am grateful for everyone around me.  Which is a very big circle that includes all of you.  The last two weeks has been chocked full of really, really hard decisions.  I have had to lean on some very special people to get through them all.  I am humbled by their generosity, caring, and love.

As I close this I want you to have sunshine on your brain.  I want your thoughts to be about Tammy snapping her fingers to know which way was right and which way was left because she could only snap one of them.  I want you to remember her stomping her foot in the coaches box because that is what good coaches do.  I want you to remember that day that no one else believed in you, but Tammy did.  I want you to remember that day that she touched you with her ray of sunshine,

and then I want you to go out into your day and touch some else with it.

The hardest part about these updates it how to get started.  After six and a half years of doing these I still wonder, do you start with the good news, then the bad.  Maybe warm up with how the weather has been with a little family stuff mixed in.  A funny story, a sad one, I don’t know so I just started writing my thoughts.  My thoughts are on Tammy so I will start there.

About three weeks ago Tammy’s oncologist decided that the chemo she was on was not working good enough for her.  We knew this was coming.  Everyone was trying to milk every last bit of goodness out of it before we gave up on it.  It really hasn’t been stopping anything but we had some evidence that it was slowing it down.  Every one agreed that it was time to get serious about looking for a clinical trial.  We found out that MD Anderson had something that Tammy could possibly get in so we scheduled appointments and made flight arrangements to head down there today (Saturday).  In the meantime Tammy would continue with a couple more radiation treatments to her spine to try to help with the pain that is still radiating down her left leg.  This past Monday Tammy was not feeling well and having trouble breathing.  She went in and they did an x-ray of her chest and it was determined that she had pneumonia in there.  She was placed on full-time oxygen along with breathing treatments and antibiotics.  Tuesday she was going to go ahead and try to have her radiation, but her left leg was hurting pretty bad.  The doctor examined the leg and decided that she needed a sonogram done which revealed that she has a nice blood clot in her left leg, and most likely some of it has traveled to her lungs and settled there.

Needless to say on Thursday I went scrambling to try to change Houston appointment, flights and hotels as a trip this week probably wasn’t going to happen.  Tammy stayed in bed Thursday and Friday.  Here pain in her left leg was getting worse.  They say that blood clots are very painful,  after the last two days I tend to agree with them.  This morning Tammy had enough.  She was breaking through all of the pain meds that she is already on.  So instead of an update from Houston that I was hoping to hold out for, we are at the Salina twenty-four hour spa and hospital, trying to find a way to control her pain so that we can get down to Houston next weekend to try to get into a phase 1 trial.  The staff here has been working all day trying different things to make it manageable.  We are trying to stay with things that she can travel with, so that rules out pumps and stuff like that.   It will be a big plus if they can get her off of her oxygen.  Her leg hurts enough that she hasn’t been walking.  So we were trying to figure out how I was going to push her through the airport while dragging her oxygen.  We will get all of the semantics worked out.  Our goal right now is that she is fit to travel next Friday.  If I know Tammy there will probably not be a whole lot that will stop her as long as her pain is under control.

I don’t pretend to be a relationship guru.  I feel that I am just a scribe that the universe has picked.  It has allowed me to feel its energy and find meaning where there seems to be none.  Tammy is the teacher and I am merely a willing student.  I have learned so much from her the last six years.  Life looks and feels different.  If you have ever read, “The Five Love Languages,” you know that touch is one of the languages.  It happens to be mine.  I get up every morning with energy burning at my fingertips.  My purpose for the day is to give all of my energy away.  I do this by touching, my motto is to never let a good hug go to waste, and I have always given most of it to Tammy.  Tammy knows this and has always been a good sport about it.  I could give her a back rub for hours and I love her bald head.  She has given me a hard time about rubbing every last hair off her head because I could rub up there  for hours and not get tired of it.  So for the last year and a half I have been in a quandary.  If I touch her it hurts and so here we are, when it hurts too much to hug. Tammy knows I want and need to touch her, so she lets me hug her anyway.  No matter how much it hurts her, she lets me touch her.  Over time we have both modified how we touch.  She braces for impact and I just hover close.  Letting my heat and energy envelop her while I gently touch her cheek with mine.  Most of the time that is not enough for me, so when I lay down next to her in bed I gently hold her arm or hand until all of my energy is gone and I slowly fall asleep.

I am sure that was a touching story but that was the background for a much larger thought.  Sometimes the most important thing is not the story, it is the metaphor that it opens up to us.  Before a year and a half ago, “when it hurts too much to hug,” would have a totally different meaning.  I am sure it would have included ego, pride, and selfishness.  So what she taught me this time was that no matter how much it’s going to hurt,  we have to let each other in.  We have to let the energy flow.  We have to set our ego aside,  we have to swallow our pride, and most important we have to hug them, not because it is not painful for us, but because it is what they need.   We have to keep loving through the pain.

She keeps loving me everyday, I can’t ask for anymore than that.

I hope you all have a wonderful and love filled Easter.  Fill your baskets with the sweetness of love and give them to everyone you come into contact with.  Love you all!

Another month has flown by.   Tammy has had a decent month.  She was able to have a two-week break from radiation everyday, which was very good for her.  She gained some strength both physically and mentally.  The doctors were hoping for a longer break but Tammy’s pain started to ramp up.  She has several small lesions on her spine.  They are located in places that are affecting nerves.  At first it was pain radiating out to her shoulders.  Radiation has helped with that pain, but in the interim, pain has started to wrap down her legs to her knees.  It’s the same story as a nerve has been affected.  hopefully next week she will get to start radiating that one to hopefully give her some relief.  The status quo has been maintained.  We are still chasing.

I feel compelled to tell you a story.  With my new job and the location of our new house, I am able to come home for lunch every day.  I love it.  I have never had that opportunity on a regular basis before.  Tammy’s radiation has been around lunchtime for quite a while.  So when I come home I get to help her get ready.  It hurts for her to do many things that we take for granted, so I do things such as get her cloths, put pain patches on and help her get dressed.  This past week, as I got down on my knees to help her with her shoes and socks, I had a thought pop into my head.  “So this is what it means to serve.”  You have to understand that when I come home from work for lunch I am pretty hyped up from being very busy.  By the time I get to the shoes, I have calmed down.  My revelation was a combination of what was calming me and the deep meaning of what I was actually doing.

I have tried many times in the last week to find a definition of “service” that applies to what I have been thinking.  I can’t find one.  So I made one up in Latin.  Per servitium esse in caritate.  To be of service through love.  Most of the time when we help our spouses it is tied to some sort of expectation.  If you help me do this I will help you do that.  This week I realized that I was calm because I help Tammy with no expectation.  I do it because I love her.  I do it because I want to, not because I have too.

So as I sat there on my knees looking up at her my thoughts we also tinged with a bit of sadness.  You see, usually everyday I take her breakfast in bed.  It takes a while for her pain meds to kick in and she needs to eat something with them.  I usually bring all of her meals to her because if she is in a spot where she is not hurting she doesn’t want to move.  My sadness came from the thought of, “why did she have to be in so much pain before I realized the happiness and calmness that came from simply serving her through love?”  Why did it take me 21 years to realize this.  How many breakfast in bed have I missed because there was nothing in it for me.  How many times did I give a big sigh after she asked me to help her find her cloths.  I realized that serving through love is not a transaction in the sense that If I provide her this, she will provide me that.  To me this was profound.  My calmness came from the lack of expectation.  I help her because I can.  I help her because she needs me.  She has needed me for twenty-one years.  I had simply failed her because of my expectation that somehow she would pay me back.

Someday, life will get back to normal.  We all will be better and my hope is that when we do something for one another it will not be a transaction.  We will simply help each other through love not expectation.  Some times we have to scratch their back, even though we know that they will not scratch ours.  If I find myself in that situation I am just going to smile, and be thankful that I have that opportunity.

Happy New Year to you all.  Its been a while since you have heard from us.  We had a wonderful holiday season full of family and friends.  All of my family made it here for Christmas and we were able to spend lots of time with Tammy’s over break.  The time was filled with lots of laughter, smiles, music and love.  What more could we ask for.  If we let ourselves, Christmas is a magical time full of love and joy.  2018 is off to a flying start, and I have a feeling it is going to fly by.

Tammy has been feeling relatively well and was able to do quite a bit over break.  She actually sat and played poker against her arch card nemesis Chad, and had a blast.  She said that she really missed being competitive.  They both ended up losing, so that  added a lot more smiles and laughter from the gallery.

As far as cancer goes the news has not been all that we were hoping for.  The radiation that she has been doing has been helping.  The known spots have been shrinking, which helps with pain.  The stinky part is that it keeps moving, so we keep chasing.  The last week of December she had a pet scan and they found a few more spots.  They found two small lesions on her brain.  A soft tissue tumor on her left hip and a couple of spots on her sacrum which is right above your tail bone.  The doctors continue to hit each spot as they come and so far it has been successful.  For the most part she can keep her pain under control with pain meds and is able to function.  Each day is a new adventure, but she still has a determined look in her eye.  This week she had her first chemo infusion in a while, and besides fatigue she is doing ok.  Radiation five days a week plus chemo makes a bad combo for white blood counts, so she has been trying to stay out of crowds because of all of the sickness going around.

Personally I have been very frustrated.  I have really had to dig deep into myself this month and try to come to terms with how things are going.  For me, I have been feeling that there has been no sense of urgency from Tammy’s Doctors.  As a husband and care giver this is very frustrating and stressful.  I want them to do something now and get her fixed up.  Tammy is very methodical in her approach.  She takes on each spot as they come and focuses all of her energy there.  I on the other hand have been struggling with all of them at once, which is my nature,  and why I have had to dig really deep into my bag of emotions to try to come to terms.

The first thing that I had to do was find some grace, or more accurately I had to extend some.  I had to force myself to remember that her doctors are people too and they also have her best interest at heart.  I have to remember that they have been fighting for Tammy for six years also.  They are vested in her well-being, and I have no doubt are hurting when something goes the wrong way.  I’m sure some days they feel just as helpless as I do.  I have to cool my jets, which leads me to my next realization, gratitude.

Instead of tearing her doctors down in my mind I need to be grateful for there help.  They have kept her with us for six years.  If I am truly honest with myself they have already created a miracle.  So humbly I digress,  Doctors, I am so thankful for you.  Our timing might not be on the same page, but I have no doubt that our hearts are.

I have also had to take a step back away from the battle and remember why this is all important.  I have not asked why this is happening to us for a long time.  I believe with all of my heart that I am here, in this fight, and in Tammy’s life for a reason.  I was picked because I have something that Tammy needs on her journey.  I am grateful that I was picked for the job.  I am grateful that if she needs help up from her chair, she reaches for my hand.  I am grateful that if she needs help getting her shoes on, I get to bend down on my knees to help her.  I am grateful that when she is hurting, she asks me to help her find a way to relieve it.  Most of all I am grateful that she picked me.  Out of a million men to choose from, she picked me.  I love her for it, and no matter what happens, she is enough.

A story popped into my head last night as I was trying to settle down.  Most of the time it is in the quiet darkness of late night that I can find my sanctuary, my peace for the day.  A summation of everything that has happened and possibly a look into tomorrow.  For most of last week I had not found it.  My sanctuary was being elusive, my anxiety was going full-bore, and I was tired.

As I was finding my way, a term, or phase, I am not sure what to call it popped into my head.  It came from a story about Tammy.  This isn’t uncommon.  I spend hours contemplating things and all of a sudden the static clears and it all comes into focus.  This past week was a very hard week and my focus was definitely off.

To set the stage imagine a college girls basketball team huddled up around their coach.  The coach is breathing fire and trying to make a point and gain control of her newly acquired team.

She says, “… and we won’t have any more of that whoopty $h!t happening on this basketball court.”

Everyone, and Tammy for sure knew who she was talking to.  Tammy got the message loud and clear.  We are supposed to play fundamental basketball, period.

Now you have to understand.  Tammy was not a flashy player.  She didn’t showboat or make any kind of scene.  She was just unconventional.  Most of her life she always played against the boys in the basketball games at recess, gym class, or any pick-up game she could come across.  The boys didn’t take it easy on her, and every chance they got they would swat her ball across the court.  If you have ever played cards with Tammy you know this did not go over very well.  She was to competitive to lose.  So over time she learned to go over them, around them, under them, or if completely necessary, through them.  It wasn’t always fundamental, but after a lot of practice it was very effective.  Especially when she went to college and was playing against girls that could be much bigger than her.  The best example of this was in a game where she had the ball near the free throw line,  she had went down on one knee in the fray.  No one was open, she didn’t have a dribble left.  The conventional thing to do would be to call a timeout or something like that.  The unconventional thing to do is to shoot from your knee and swish it.  I’ll give you one guess as to what she did.

So as the story goes, the team had their first game and it was going terrible.  Tammy was not scoring, as a result the game was being lost.  The coach called a timeout and told her, “I don’t care what you have to do, or how you do it, just start scoring.”  Tammy heard her loud and clear.  She started playing her game and the term “whoopty $h!it” will be the basketball lore forever.

Last Sunday night Tammy could not get her pain under control.  Around eleven I convinced her that we needed to go to the ER so that they could help her get it under control.  The short version of the story is that three more areas were found with cancer in them.  Her right femur, her right shoulder, and a spot around her sternum.  The tumor on her adrenal gland is also acting up and causing problems for her kidney.  She stayed in the hospital until Wednesday morning, and then we flew the coop so that she could get to doctors appointments and ultimately her first round of radiation on her shoulder.  The news didn’t completely surprise us, but yes, it really sucks.  She is feeling better now, with new pain medicine and is getting back to normal.

So most of the week I have been putting this update off.  I had to make my peace with it, and this time it was just really hard to do.  I want to rip all of the cancer out of her, and ring all their necks, but I can’t.  I can’t take her pain away.  I can’t make it all better.  I can just watch, hoping for the best.

So in my contemplation last night “whoopty $h!t,” pops into my brain.  We all know that Tammy’s cancer journey has been unconventional.  Most of her side effects are opposite of what is normal.  She is out of statistics.  She is an outlier.  This year she has come back from tumors, surgeries, and anything else that has popped up.  She has found a way over it, around it, under it, or if necessary through it.  My brain says, “you need to be afraid.”  Because of her heart, my heart says, “everything is going to be ok.”  finally,  I found my peace.

Two-thousand one hundred and ninety-four days.  Six years, a milestone for sure.  Tammy is an outlier.  She is beating cancer.  There are no more statistics, No one on earth knows what will happen next.  So what does beating cancer look like.  All of us would love to share a post that Tammy is cancer free, but she is not.  Everyday Tammy makes a decision to beat cancer that day.  Some days she wins, someday’s it’s a tie, and someday no matter how hard she tries she looses.  For two-thousand one-hundred and ninety-four days she has won more than she has lost.  She is beating cancer because she refuses to let it win.  She lives life in spite of cancer.  She is my superhero, my best friend, and the love of my life.

I am dubbing year number six the year of change.  Lots of things have changed in 2017.  For Tammy it has been a tough year.  It all started in December of last year with a tumor on her brain.  Followed by her adrenal glands shutting down from the drugs that she was on for a clinical trial.  They still are not working, but she has a tumor on one of them also.  She developed a bump above her right eye.  She had surgery and removed it.  Win.  One of the tumors in her lungs is deteriorating a rib, which is painful.  If you keep up with her you know that she was having problems with sciatica since February.  After two surgeries almost all of that pain is gone. Win.  In the meantime they found cancer in her femur.  A large pin later and several rounds of radiation and she is up and moving. Win.  They are still radiating her rib, and it is feeling better. Win.  We found out two weeks ago that cancer had come back around her eye,  She is doing more radiation.  As you can see there are a lot of wins.  Has it been easy, no.  Has there been fear, pain, and sadness.  Yes, but she is winning.  It is hard, but nothing worthwhile in life is easy, and the alternative, well, is just unacceptable.

Year number six has brought a lot of change to our family as well.  Tammy has not worked since last December.  Let me rephrase that.  She hasn’t worked at a job.  Between surgeries, chemo, radiation and doctors appointments she stays busy.  Too busy probably, she is exhausted at the end of the day.  For those of you that don’t know, I shut down my excavation business January ninth and started working for a great company as a project manager.  I decided that I was wore out.  I had been trying to fight to many battles at one time.  It has been good for me.  It is different, but it has been good for me to be able to focus on one less thing.  We decided that we needed to downsize and so next month we will be moving.  It is a smaller house with out as much to take care of.  I think we are all looking forward to a change, but like most times of change there will be a part of us that will miss this house with all of its memories.

Like usual I have been putting this particular update off.  Cancer anniversaries are somewhat bittersweet.  I always try to look back at the last year and find the good.  This last year has been tough.  I don’t think I could look you in the eyes and lie to you that it has been anything different.  Like usual though there have been a whole lot of good things too.  There have been four thoughts that have been on my mind throughout 2017.  They have been things that I personally have been working on.  2017 has changed me for sure, hopefully for the better.  I decided to write about them because for me they are profound for me personally.  As I am going through life I am trying to find out who I am and who I want to be.  So far they are the bedrock for my personal life playbook.

Ego

“Woke up today and decided to lose my ego, It never done me no good no how.”  Stugill Simson

I don’t know what the technical definition of ego is.  I define it as our inner selfishness that drives us to do certain things or think a certain way.  I have been trying to lose my ego.  It’s hard.  I have been working on the opposite of selfishness.  Selflessness.  What does that even mean?  I can only explain it through my thoughts over the last year.  I have learned a lot about love in the last year.  Our ego says that I am loving you in a certain way and you are not meeting my expectation, so you don’t love me enough.  Selfishness says that you are not loving me the way I want to be loved, I need more.  Selflessness says you are loving me the best you can right now.  Whether I want to believe it or not you are giving me all you have and that is good enough.  This revelation came to me because I was feeling that I wasn’t being loved enough.  So I had to dig deep within myself.  At the time Tammy was in immense pain all of the time.  I wanted for her to love me more.  My ego said that I do all these things for you and love you so much, why are you not reciprocating?  My selfish ego was driving me away.  I had to dig really deep and find my selflessness.  It told me that she is giving you all that she has.  To be more honest, she was giving me more than she could afford to give me.  I had to realize that her love for me is so true and deep that she is willing to do anything and everything to fight cancer.  She loved me enough that she was willing to be in pain 24 hours a day, not for herself, but to spend more time with me.  She was loving me so much,  but I refused to see it because of my ego.  That day I learned how to be loved.  Before I thought loving was the hard part,  now I realize that being loved can be just as hard.

Adding Value

When we talk about value we tend to think about money or things in general.  My car is valuable, etc.  This year I started to think about value in a different way.  Basically I looked at all of the people around us who have helped in some way.  Lots of people have helped us in lots of different ways.  I had to think about what they actually did for us.  They could have given us money, or done our laundry, or brought us a meal.  We tend to look at things in a very literal sense.   Chicken noodles is just chicken noodles right.  If I think about it literally it is just a meal.  In reality the “Value” is so much more.  When someone brings us a meal it is nourishment for our family, but it is also and hour that I get to spend with the ones I love.  The value is not necessarily in the meal itself.  The value is what is added because I did not have to fix it.

We have thousands of people who add value to our lives on a daily basis.  So my quest is to figure out how I can add value to everyone I meet.  How do I add value to people and not things.  Things have a cost.  People have value.  My goal is to add some kind of value to every person I meet.  It’s hard.  For me to add value I have to put my selfishness aside and listen.  How can I know what is valuable to someone else if all I am thinking about is myself.  I have to be self-less to add value.

Gratitude

We are grateful for what we have.  That is a pretty easy statement to say, right.  We think it, say it, I think most of the time believe it.  I have to tell you though,  when you are so overwhelmed with kindness you start to ask yourself, am I grateful enough?  When I say that any words I can think up don’t do justice to how thankful we are for all of you. I mean it.  We are blown away by the kindness of others.  I finally had to look at gratitude a little harder and ask myself, if I was going to go deeper into gratitude, how would I do it.  The only thing I came up with is to be thankful for what someone else has.  Sounds crazy right.  How is that deeper than being grateful for what I have?  Ego.  Selfishly I am thankful for what I have.  Selflessly I am thankful for what you have.  My ego says that I need and should have that nice car, or a weeks vacation to a beach somewhere.  When I lose my ego I say I am so thankful that you can spend that time on the beach with your family.  Envy can only exist in ego.  Deep gratitude can only exist in selflessness.

Forgiveness

For some reason, I forgive you, are the three hardest words in language to say.  It doesn’t matter what language it is, we have a hard time saying them.  Why?  Hate to bring this up again, ego.  I have been wronged, it is not my fault, you are stupid, you’re ignorant, you just don’t understand.  All these words are words that say I am important and I matter.  Unfortunately they also say I am selfish.  If we truly want to heal our world, our country or even our relationship with our children we have to start tackling our problems selflessly instead of selfishly.  We can start by saying have been wronged, but I FORGIVE YOU.  We do not agree, but I FORGIVE YOU.  We have to send a message that I am important, BUT, you are important too.  A cut can not heal if we keep tearing the stitches out.  Healing begins when we forgive.  Healing ends when we understand why we were forgiven in the first place and accept it.  Then we move forward.

I have no Idea what is going to happen tomorrow or the next day.  It might be a win or it might be a loss.  So every morning I wake up with the tune from Sturgill Simpson in my head.  I am trying to lose my ego.  If I see you tomorrow I will try to find a way to add value to you life.  I am thankful for what I have in life, but just as important I am thankful for you and what you have done with yours.  I forgive you, I forgive you because you are important to me, and you matter.  If you will forgive me I will accept your forgiveness because I know that I am a work in progress.  I am perfectly imperfect and because I recognize that I am willing to change.

Thank you all for once again indulging me by letting me share our story and my ramblings as an armchair philosopher.  We are truly blessed in this life and I believe that our blessings are not in the things that we have or the house that we live in.  Our blessing are counted by the number of people that we consider friends.  We are humbled by the light that you shine on us, and you will forever and always be in our hearts and minds.

“Hold fast my young maiden, for I shall tell our life  story.  It is foretold that when God Breaths fire into the sky and we are held breathless.  We will find the blessings we seek.  I, my lady will be at you side,  and you…you shall be my Warrior Queen.”

Good evening everyone.  I wanted to shoot out a little something about Tammy’s appointment today.  In several other posts I had mentioned that she was supposed to have a CT of her chest.  Today we met with her oncologist and got the results.  As it turned out it was a mixed bag.  She has some growth on some of them, some have stayed the same, and some appear to have lost a little.  The doctor felt that from a systemic standpoint we were not getting the results that he wanted.  If Stivarga was working how we wanted we would have more of a uniform result and we definitely would not have it moving.  His recommendation at this point is to start the Fol-furi treatment again since she has not been on it in three years.  This treatment would include irrenotecan as the primary drug and a pill that is in the same family as 5-FU.  We know that with irrenotecan Tammy will lose her hair.  For me I am okay with that.  For me it is a chance to see her true beauty that is not masked by a hair style.  For her I’m sure it is not all that great.  Before she starts her chemo they are going to hit her femur with radiation and also hit the tumor in her lungs that has weakened and cracked her rib.  As it turns out that is one of the tumors that has grown and Tammy is starting to feel some discomfort in her rib.  As usual she is raring to get going as she wants to beat all those little burgers into the ground.  She has been up and walking with a walker and says that her pain is tolerable after surgery.  Hopefully the radiation will give her more relief by shrinking the tumor in her femur.

Last week over a couple of evenings I wrote down Tammy’s cancer history.  I did this for several reasons.  The first being that I have been carrying it around in my head for almost six years because at every new place we go they need a history.  Second I wanted to know what I could learn from the story it told.  It might surprise you that I might make the next statement, but I was really surprised at how short the list was.  Six years,  that is a long time, I thought if cancer is our story then it is a relatively short story.  So I delved into it deeper and came to the realization that if you add up the time in six years and subtract the days that are totally about cancer, there are a lot more days without than with.  So I had to ask myself what is our story really about.  One-hundred years from now when our grandkids are sitting around the campfire telling stories about Grandma and Grandpa Thaxton,  what is the story going to be about?  What story have I been telling?

Through the years I became our story-teller.  If I break it down, have I been telling a story about cancer, or have I been telling something else? If I sat down and went through our updates would cancer be the story I remember or would it be everything else.  I came to the conclusion that somewhere down the line we decided that we have control over what are story is going to be about.  Every day we write our own story and store it in the depths or our brains, and every once in a while we pull it back out and either tell it to ourselves or tell it to someone else.  What memories do I want to remember in ten years, or maybe just tomorrow?  Do I want to remember that cancer happened today or do I want to remember that living happened today?  I get to choose, I tell my own story.

So if our story is not cancer then what is it about?  Love comes to mind.  Love for each other, for our kids, our parents, friends near and far, even people that we have met once, some we have never met at all.  Love speaks to everyone.  Kindness, with all of the turmoil in the world, kindness to us and from us is our story.  Kindness speaks to everyone.  Courage, what can I say about courage.  As long as there is hope there is courage and when we think that there is no more hope we use our remaining courage to find more hope.  Strength, our strength is multiplied by thousands,  If we have a small amount left, that is enough when you have thousands helping you up.  Most of all our story is about gratitude.  We are simply beyond grateful for who and what we have in our lives.  Its interesting, we very rarely use the word cancer in our house.  I have come to the conclusion that cancer is not our story.  Our story is about everything else.

Back to the campfire:  “Grandma, She was the full of Strength, courage, gratitude, and Grace.  She was the definition of a Warrior Queen.  Grandpa, he just simply loved her with all of his heart.”

Tonight as you lay your head down on your pillow, think about what you are going to put in your story about today.  Your story today will have a direct influence on how your story goes tomorrow.  Bad things happen in life, that is a given.  Just because something bad happens doesn’t mean that your story is bad.  Write your story with what is good in life.  It is your story, make it a good one.

October 11, 2011- Colonoscopy found mass took biospy
October 13, 2011 - Met with Dr. Johnson and told Tammy
     has colon cancer
October 15, 2011- colectomy for removal of tumor
November 10, 2011- Installed port in chest for chemo
November 16, 2011- First round of Fol-fox chemo
November 30, 2011- Second round of Fol-fox chemo
December 14, 2011- Third round of Fol-fox chemo
December 28, 2011- Fourth round of Fol-fox chemo
January 11, 2011- Fifth round of Fol-fox chemo
January, 25, 2011- sixth round of Fol-fox chemo

February 6, 2012- Radiation of abdomen
February 7, 2012- Radiation of abdomen
February 8, 2012- Radiation of abdomen
February 9, 2012- Radiation of abdomen
February 10, 2012- Radiation of abdomen
February 12, 2012- Radiation of Abdomen
February 13, 2012- Radiation of Abdomen
February 14, 2012- Radiation of Abdomen
February 15, 2012- Radiation of Abdomen
February 16, 2012- Radiation of Abdomen
February 19, 2012- Radiation of Abdomen
February 20, 2012- Radiation of Abdomen
February 21, 2012- Radiation of Abdomen
February 22, 2012- Radiation of Abdomen
February 23, 2012- Radiation of Abdomen
February 26, 2012- Radiation of Abdomen
February 27, 2012- Radiation of Abdomen
February 28, 2012- Radiation of Abdomen
February 29, 2012- Radiation of Abdomen
March 1, 2012- Radiation of Abdomen
March 19, 2012- Sixth Fol-fox Chemo
April 2, 2012- Seventh Fol-fox chemo
April 16, 2012- Eighth Fol-fox Chemo
April 30, 2012- Ninth Fol-fox Chemo
May 14, 2012-Tenth Fol-fox chemo
June 4, 2012- Eleventh Fol-fox chemo
June 18,2012- Last Fol-fox treatment
June 30, 2012- Re-proposed to Tammy
July 4, 2012- Renewed Vows
February 2013- CT scan showed minuscule spot on lungs
     Had to wait four months to see if they grow.
June 12,2013- Re-diagnosed with metastasis in lungs.
     Nine spots found.
June 17, 2013- First appt. at MD Anderson in Houston
June 20, 2013- Re-install port for Chemo in Salina
June 24, 2013- Second appt. at MD Anderson in Houston
July 3,2013- First Fol-furi chemo plus Avastin
July 10, 2013- Starts losing hair
July 17, 2013- Second Fol-furi chemo
July 24, 2013- All hair gone
August 7, 2013- Third Fol-furi chemo
August 14, 2013- Nupegen shot for low white 
     blood count
August 21, 2013- Fourth Fol-furi chemo
August 28, 2013- Nupegen shot for low white
     blood count
September 4, 2013- Fifth Fol-furi chemo
September 11, 2013- Nupegen shot for low white
     blood count
September 16, Third trip to MD Anderson.  Spots 
     were shrinking
September 18, 2013- Sixth Fol-furi chemo
September 25, 2013- Nupegen shot for low white
     blood count
October 2, 2013- Seventh Fol-furi chemo
October 9, 2013- Nupegen shot for low white
     blood count
October 16, 2013- eighth Fol-furi chemo
October 23, 2013- Nupegen shot
October 30, 2013- Ninth Fol-furi chemo
November 6, 2013- Nupegen shot
November 13, 2013- Tenth Fol-furi chemo
November 20, 2013- Nupegen shot
November 27, 2013- Eleventh Fol-furi chemo
December 4, 2013- Nupegen shot
December 11, 2013- 12th Fol-furi chemo
January 3, 2014- Fourth trip to MD Anderson in Houston
January 8, 2014- Start Maintenance Chemo
     Fol-furi minus Irrenotecan, plus Avastin
January 22, 2014- Maintenance Chemo
February 5, 2014- Maintenance chemo
February 19, 2014- Maintenance chemo
March 5, 2014- Maintenance chemo
March 19, 2014- Maintenance chemo
March 22, 2014- Fifth trip to MD Anderson
April 2, 2014- Maintenance Chemo
April 16, 2014- Maintenance chemo
April 30, 2014- Maintenance chemo
May 14, 2014- Maintenance chemo
May 28, 2014- Maintenance chemo
June 11, 2014- Maintenance chemo
June 16, 2014- Sixth trip to MD Anderson
June 25, 2014- Maintenance chemo
July 9, 2014- Maintenance chemo
July 23, 2014- Maintenance chemo
August 6, 2014- Maintenance chemo
August 20, 2014- Maintenance chemo
September 3, 2014- Maintenance chemo
September 15, 2014- seventh trip to MD Anderson
September 17,2014- full Fol-furi with Avastin
October 1, 2014- full Fol-furi chemo
October 8, 2014- start to lose hair again
October 15, 2014- Fol-furi chemo
October 22, 2014- Hair completely gone
October 29, 2014- Nupegen shot
November 5, 2014- Fol-furi chemo
November 12, 2014- Nupegen shot
November 19, 2014- Fol-furi chemo
November 26, 2014- Nupegen shot
December 3, 2014- Fol-furi chemo
December 10, 2014- Nupegen shot
December 15, 2014- eighth trip to MD Anderson
December 22, 2014- Fol-furi chemo
December 29, 2014- Nupegen shot
January 5, 2015- Fol-furi chemo
February 16, 2015- Colostomy surgery
March 23, 2015- Ninth trip to MD Anderson
March 30, 2015- Fol-furi chemo
April 6, 2015-Nupegen shot
April 13, 2015- Fol-furi chemo
April 20, 2015-Nupegen shot
April 27, 2015- Fol-furi chemo
May 4, 2015- Nupegen shot
May 11, 2015- Fol-furi chemo
May 28, 2015- Tenth trip to MD Anderson
June 1, 2015- changed to fol-fox chemo
June 7, 2015- Went to Chicago to see about trial
June 15, 2015- Fol-fox chemo
June 15, 2015- Reaction to fox fox, never take again
August 7, 2015- Eleventh trip to MD Anderson
     recommend a two month break
October 2, 2015- trip to Chicago for Testing
October 11, 2015- Did not qualify for Chicago trial
October 22, 2015- 12th Trip to MD Anderson
October 28, 2015- 13th trip to Md stay two weeks
     clinical trial
November 14, 2015- Get back from MD Anderson 
     clinical trial
November 23, 2015, MD Anderson clinical trial
December 2, 2015, Md Anderson clinical trial
December 9, 2015, MD Anderson clinical trial
December 19, 2015, MD Anderson clinical trial
January 5, 2016, MD Anderson Clinical trial
January 19, 2016, MD Anderson Clinical trial
February 2, 2016- MD Anderson Clinical trial
February 16, 2016- MD Anderson Clinical Trial
March 7, 2016- Md Anderson testing
     Removed from trial for to much growth
March 14, 2016- Start Lonsurf chemo
March 15, 2016- Lonsurf chemo
March 16, 2016- Lonsurf chemo
March 17, 2016- Lonsurf chemo
March 18, 2016- Lonsurf chemo
March 21, 2016- Lonsurf chemo
March 22, 2016- Lonsurf chemo
March 23, 2016- Lonsurf chemo
March 24, 2016- Lonsurf chemo
March 25, 2016- Lonsurf chemo
March 28, 2016- Lonsurf chemo
March 29, 2016- Lonsurf chemo
March 30, 2016- Lonsurf chemo
March 31, 2016- Lonsurf chemo
April 1, 2016- Lonsurf chemo
April 11, 2016- Lonsurf chemo
April 12, 2016- Lonsurf chemo
April 13, 2016- Lonsurf chemo
April 14, 2016- Lonsurf chemo
April 15, 2016- Lonsurf chemo
April 18, 2016- Lonsurf chemo
April 19, 2016- Lonsurf chemo
April 20, 2016- Lonsurf chemo
April 21, 2016- Lonsurf chemo
April 22, 2016- Lonsurf chemo
April 23, 2016- Lonsurf chemo
April 24, 2016- Lonsurf chemo
April 25, 2016- Lonsurf chemo
April 26, 2016- Lonsurf chemo
April 27, 2016- Lonsurf chemo
May 5, 2016- Lonsurf chemo
May 6, 2016- Lonsurf chemo
May 7, 2016- Lonsurf chemo
May 8, 2016- Lonsurf chemo
May 9, 2016- Lonsurf chemo
May 12, 2016- Lonsurf chemo
May 13, 2016- Lonsurf chemo
May 14, 2016- Lonsurf chemo
May 15, 2016- Lonsurf chemo
May 16, 2016- Lonsurf chemo
May 18, 2016-MD Anderson
May 22, 2016- Lonsurf chemo
May 23, 2016- Lonsurf chemo
May 24, 2016- Lonsurf chemo
May 25, 2016- Lonsurf chemo
May 26, 2016- Lonsurf chemo
May 29, 2016- Lonsurf chemo
May 30, 2016- Lonsurf chemo
May 31, 2016- Lonsurf chemo
June 1, 2016-Lonsurf chemo
June 6, 2016- Lonsurf chemo
June 7, 2016- Lonsurf chemo
June 8, 2016- Lonsurf chemo
June 9, 2016- Lonsurf chemo
June 10, 2016- Lonsurf chemo
June 20, 2016- Lonsurf chemo
June 21, 2016- Lonsurf chemo
June 22, 2016- Lonsurf chemo
June 23, 2016- Lonsurf chemo
June 24, 2016- Lonsurf chemo
June 27, 2016- Lonsurf chemo
June 28, 2016- Lonsurf chemo
June 29, 2016- Lonsurf chemo
June 30, 2016- Lonsurf chemo
July 1, 2016-Lonsurf chemo
July 4, 2016-Lonsurf chemo
July 5, 2016-Lonsurf chemo
July 6, 2016-Lonsurf chemo
July 7, 2016-Lonsurf chemo
July 8, 2016-Lonsurf chemo
July 18, 2016- Lonsurf chemo
July 19, 2016- Lonsurf chemo
July 20, 2016- Lonsurf chemo
July 21, 2016- Lonsurf chemo
July 22, 2016- Lonsurf chemo
July 25, 2016- Lonsurf chemo
July 26, 2016- Lonsurf chemo
July 27, 2016- Lonsurf chemo
July 28, 2016- Lonsurf chemo
July 29, 2016- Lonsurf chemo
August 2, 2016- MD Anderson
     Lonsurf not working
September 19, 2016- St Louis Trial
October 3, 2016- St. Louis first infusion
October 11, 2016- 5 years 12%
October 10, 2016- St. Louis
October 17, 2016- St. Louis
October 24, 2016- St. Louis
October 31, 2016- St. Louis
November 7, 2016- St. Louis
November 14, 2016- St. Louis- Testing
November 28, 2016- St. Louis
December 1, 2016- Salina Regional Health Center
     Found brain tumor
December 2, 2016- Salina Regional
December 3, 2016- Brain surgery, Salina Regional
December 4, 2016- Salina Regional
December 5, 2016- Salina Regional
December 26, 2016- Radiation on brain, Salina
December 27, 2016- Ct scan- St Louis
     Found rib fracture
December 30, 2016- Radiation on brain, salina
January 3, 2017- MD Anderson
January 4, 2017- Radiation on Brain, Salina
January 9, 2017- St. Louis
January 11, 2017- Radiation on Brain, Salina
January 12, 2017- Adrenal Failure, Start steriods
January 13, 2017-found Lump above right eye
January 21, 2017- St. Louis- Removed from trial
February 6, 2017- Stivarga Chemo
February 7, 2017- Stivarga Chemo
February 8, 2017- Stivarga Chemo
February 9, 2017- Stivarga Chemo
February 10, 2017- Stivarga Chemo
February 11 2017- Stivarga Chemo
February 12, 2017- Stivarga Chemo, start Sciatica
February 13, 2017- Stivarga Chemo
February 14, 2017- Stivarga Chemo
February 15, 2017- Stivarga Chemo
February 16, 2017- Stivarga Chemo
February 17, 2017- Stivarga Chemo
February 18, 2017- Stivarga Chemo
February 19, 2017- Stivarga Chemo
February 20, 2017- Stivarga Chemo
February 21, 2017- Stivarga Chemo
February 22, 2017- Stivarga Chemo
February 23, 2017- Stivarga Chemo
February 24, 2017- Stivarga Chemo
February 25, 2017- Stivarga Chemo
February 26, 2017- Stivarga Chemo
February 27, 2017- Stivarga Chemo
February 28, 2017- Stivarga Chemo
March 9, 2017-Salina Regional Health Center
     Adrenal Failure- Steroids and Antibiotics
March 10, 2017- Salina Regional
March 11, 2017- Salina Regional
March 12, 2017- Salina Regional
March 14, 2017-Kansas City
     Remove tumors from right orbital eye socket
March 20,2017- Stivarga chemo
March 21,2017- Stivarga chemo
March 22,2017- Stivarga chemo
March 23,2017- Stivarga chemo
March 24,2017- Stivarga chemo
March 25,2017- Stivarga chemo
March 26,2017- Stivarga chemo
March 27,2017- Stivarga chemo
March 28,2017- Stivarga chemo
March 29,2017- Stivarga chemo
March 30,2017- Stivarga chemo
March 31,2017- Stivarga chemo
April 1, 2017- Stivarga chemo
April 2, 2017- Stivarga chemo
April 3, 2017- Stivarga chemo
April 4, 2017- Stivarga chemo
April 5, 2017- Stivarga chemo
April 6, 2017- Stivarga chemo
April 7, 2017- Stivarga chemo
April 8, 2017- Stivarga chemo
April 9, 2017- Stivarga chemo
April 10, 2017- Stivarga chemo
April 11, 2017- Stivarga chemo
April 12, 2017- Stivarga chemo
April 13, 2017- Stivarga chemo
April 14, 2017- Stivarga chemo
April 15, 2017- Stivarga chemo
April 16, 2017- Stivarga chemo
April 17, 2017- Stivarga chemo
April 18, 2017- Stivarga chemo
     CT scan- Salina
April 19, 2017- Stivarga and Radiation on right eye
April 20, 2017- Stivarga chemo
April 21, 2017- Stivarga chemo and Radiation
April 22, 2017- Stivarga chemo
April 23, 2017- Stivarga chemo
April 24, 2017- Stivarga chemo and Radiation
April 25, 2017- Stivarga chemo
April 26, 2017- Stivarga chemo and Radiation
April 27, 2017- Stivarga chemo
April 28, 2017- Stivarga chemo and Radiation
April 29, 2017- Stivarga chemo
April 30, 2017- Stivarga chemo
May 1, 2017- Stivarga chemoand Radiation
May 2, 2017- Blisters From Chemo
May 3, 2017- Blisters From Chemo
May 4, 2017- Blisters From Chemo, Radiation
May 5, 2017- Blisters From Chemo
May 6, 2017- Blisters From Chemo, Radiation
May 7, 2017- Blisters From Chemo
May 8, 2017- Blisters From Chemo, Radiation
May 9, 2017- Blisters From Chemo
May 10, 2017-Blisters From Chemo
May 11, 2017-Blisters From Chemo, Radiation
May 12, 2017-Blisters From Chemo
May 13, 2017-Blisters From Chemo
May 14, 2017-Blisters From Chemo
May 15, 2017- Stivarga Chemo
May 16, 2017- Stivarga Chemo
May 17, 2017- Stivarga Chemo
May 18, 2017- Stivarga Chemo
May 19, 2017- Stivarga Chemo
May 20, 2017- Blisters from Chemo
May 21, 2017- Blisters from Chemo
May 22, 2017- Blisters from Chemo
May 23, 2017- Blisters from Chemo
May 24, 2017- Blisters from Chemo
May 25, 2017- Stivarga Chemo
May 26, 2017- Stivarga Chemo, Epidural shot in back
May 27, 2017- Stivarga Chemo
May 28, 2017- Stivarga Chemo
May 29, 2017- Stivarga Chemo
May 30, 2017- Stivarga Chemo
May 31, 2017- Stivarga Chemo
June 8, 2017- Stivarga Chemo
June 9, 2017- Stivarga Chemo
June 10, 2017- Stivarga Chemo
June 11, 2017- Stivarga Chemo
June 12, 2017- Stivarga Chemo
June 13, 2017- Stivarga Chemo
June 14, 2017- Stivarga Chemo
June 15, 2017- Second Epidural shot in Back
June 21, 2017- Stivarga chemo
June 22, 2017- Stivarga chemo
June 23, 2017- Stivarga chemo
June 24, 2017- Stivarga chemo
June 25, 2017- Stivarga chemo
June 26, 2017- Stivarga chemo
June 27, 2017- Stivarga chemo
June 28, 2017- Stivarga chemo, Third epidural shot
June 29, 2017- Stivarga chemo
June 30, 2017- Stivarga chemo
July 1, 2017- Stivarga Chemo
July 5, 2017- Salina- Back Surgery
July 10, 2017- Stivarga Chemo
July 11, 2017- Stivarga Chemo
July 12, 2017- Stivarga Chemo
July 13, 2017- Stivarga Chemo
July 14, 2017- Stivarga Chemo
July 15, 2017- Stivarga Chemo
July 16, 2017- Stivarga Chemo
July 17, 2017- Stivarga Chemo
July 18, 2017- Stivarga Chemo
July 19, 2017- Stivarga Chemo
July 20, 2017- Stivarga Chemo
August 2, 2017-Salina Regional 
     Second Back Surgery
August 3, 2017- Salina Regional
     Found tumor on left Femur
August 4, 2017-Salina Regional
August 5, 2017- Home
August 9, 2017- Salina Regional
     surgery- nailing Femur
August 10, 2017- Salina Regional
August 11, 2017- Salina Regional
august 16, 2017- Salina Dr. Deutsch
     growth in chest

I hope you all had a good weekend.  This update seems to be a little a little sooner that I thought, but as it turned out, the powers that be thought I needed to dust off my pencil and get busy filling you all in.  Kylee is recouping well from her surgery.  She still has mild bouts of nausea, but they tell us that is normal because the body has to get used to not having a gall bladder.

Tammy’s overnight visit to the Salina Spa Center turned into a little more that we had planned on.  After surgery she was still having a lot of pain in her hip area.  Her surgeon came in and checked on her Wednesday evening and manipulated her leg around.  In certain positions Tammy would want to jump out of bed.  Doc scratched his head a little and said lets give it the night and see how things are in the morning.  Tammy settled down and had a decent night.  When Dr Whitlow returned in the morning he manipulated he leg again and just felt that there was something going on in her hip that was not right.  He ordered an MRI of her hip for Thursday and said that he would be back later that evening.  In the meantime Tammy had found some spunk and was talking any ones ear off that would happen to stop by.

Around five Thursday evening Dr.  came back with the results of the MRI.  She has two issues going on.  The first is that she had some arterial necrosis on the ball of her femur.  Most likely due to long-term steroid use.  This was not a surprise as he had mentioned that this could be the cause of her pain.  It’s basically the lack of blood flow to the ends of our long bones.  The second issue is that she has a cancerous lesion on her femur.  He told her that from here on out she was not to put any weight on that leg.  He ordered an x-ray that showed that she already has a crack in her femur and the biggest concern right now is that she could very easily completely break the bone because it is very week from the cancer.  Deep Breath………….

I don’t think that it was a big surprise to us that it was there.  Tammy is being Tammy and is going full speed ahead to take on this problem.  It was determined that the first thing that needs to be done is that she needs her femur nailed.  It you really want to know what that it just google it.  To be totally honest it was not what I really expected, but as long as it works Tammy says she game.  After she heals enough they will do radiation to the tumor to see if they can get it taken care of.  Surgery will be tomorrow, Tuesday the eighth, at one thirty, at the surgical center.  She is supposed to have a CT of her chest at some point, but that has been put on the back burner as we chase this fire.

I feel I need to share a story with you.  I finally went back in to work on Friday and was busy trying to get caught up and trying to figure out how this week was going to work out.  I was speaking with a co-worker and we were just about done with our talk and he said, “I pray for her everyday.”

I thanked him and as we sometimes do when we just don’t know what to say, he said, “I don’t know if it is working or not, it kind of sounds like it isn’t.”

I told him that I need to stop you right there.  Maybe it is just how I perceive things now, but I think they are working very well. ”  I told him, “If she would not have had this second surgery they might not have found the tumor on her femur.  She could have kept going on it and eventually broke it and had a more problems.  As far as I’m concerned your prayers are working just fine.  This was her and the doctors  second chance.  It was not what we were expecting but it was where she needed to be.”

After he thought about it for a minute he agreed and told me a story from his own life that was similar.

All of your prayers, thoughts, well wishes, or what ever you wish to call them matter.  There is power in them that we don’t understand.  I am not going to lie and say that we are happy about this.  Each time the cancer moves it is all of the emotion, fear, and anxiety all over again,  but we find our greatest strength in gratitude.  We are thankful for all of the little things that are going our way.  We are sustained by the little victories like not completely breaking a bone that in all likely hood could have been catastrophic has it not been found.  We are thankful for all of the doctors that literally drop what they are doing when they know Tammy is coming to see them,

We took a few more steps back in the last week.  That is okay.  We are still standing, and cancer, just so you know, we are coming for you, and we have the might of thousands behind us.