Cancer Picked the Wrong Butt

Our dear friends, Kjersta and Byron, have the most amazing children. Their second oldest, Kat, gave a talk in church today, just after our own Natalie's amazing talk on faith. In the talk, Kat shared times when she felt the heavens were closed to her, including trying to sort through her husband's bonkers immigration issues and his father's terminal illness. While she spoke, I kept thinking about times I have felt the heavens were closed to me, like my whole "Where are our blessings?!" thing.  And then, as though struck by a rod of lightning, it hit me: Throughout Bear's diagnosis and treatment, I have consistently felt the heavens wide open and pouring blessings out upon us. I almost burst into tears right there in our pew as I realized what an incredibly miraculous journey this has all been, full of love and light and soooo much faith.  In 2015, Elder James Hamula gave a devotional at BYU-Idaho called "The Heavens are Opened," in which he shared do...

After complaining to our friend, Jackie, at 12:45 p.m. about feeling like we were being put off regarding Bear's IV chemo port placement, we are now set for launch in less than a week! THAT IS CRAZY!!! With the holidays, they had said it would be "several weeks" after finishing oral chemo, which was frustrating. Oral chemo ends December 5 and having to wait till January felt scary. We are ECSTATIC it has been moved up!  The downside is that Mallory and Elisabeth will be arriving in the wee hours of the morning the port goes in. I feel guilty because we miss them sooooo much, their time here is so short, and this will take time away from them. But it just doesn't make sense to put it off literally more than a month. Bear says he is a trooper and will bounce right back to hang with us. Fingers crossed he's right!!! Anxiety has already kicked in about all that needs to be done before then. The house is a mess, the yard is a wreck, everyone is coming into town next we...

I feel like half of my journal entry titles are along the lines of: "Time flies!" "Haven't written in a while!" "Where does the time go?!"  But truly! I think of journaling probably every day, but am always so busy and distracted. Then, when I come here to post and see the last entry was October 25th... That's almost three weeks ago!!! What in the WHAT?!  I am having a heavy cancer day today. I'm not sure I can adequately articulate why or if I even actually KNOW why... We are SO fortunate Bear has not yet experienced any side effects AT ALL! Last week, the doctors were literally SHOCKED he was still working. Dr. Lin even faked kind of falling/jumping out of his chair towards us, so you can imagine the reaction a week later! We know chemo and radiation can both take some time to build up, but to be on day 13 of treatment without even the slightest twinge of pain or nausea or irritation is nothing short of a miracle, especially with his DPD diag...

Berek's radiation team is Team Redwood, except with Dr. Lin overseeing them. Natalie, Ric, Cheri, and Christen have been so very good to him! We love Dr. Lin SO MUCH and are grateful for his guidance and care, as well as his nurse, Cindel. Can't believe we lucked into such great medical teams!!!  

 

Veteran's Day meant the littles got to come with us for day radiation and oral chemo number 10 on the 10th day of the month at 10 a.m.!  We loved this rock we found in the healing garden. There are so many things to be afraid of on this journey, but we are trying to not let that fear guide our decisions in treatment or in life. We've chosen to go against the standard "watch and wait" protocol and what the majority of people in Bear's shoes decide to do as treatment, in an effort to make choices based in science instead of out of fear for "what-if" scenarios, so this rock was especially appreciated today. 😍