We feel blessed!

The last few weeks have been a whirl wind.  We keep singing the Tim McGraw song Live like you are Dying.
It's funny how it makes sense.  Life stops when health issues start.

We spent 5 hours in doctors offices today and came home with a lot of info and drained at the same time.

Bryan is blessed in many ways and I hope that we can continue to feel that way.  The tumor he has is very large but it is confined to the rectum.  There is one more scan, PET scan, that they will do that will show for sure they haven't missed anything.  That will give them a pretty confident answer that they have found all the cancer.

He will start treatments on Monday October 24th.  He will have a combined treatment of chemo and radiation.  The chemo will be given by pill twice a day.  The radiation will be given 5 days a week, one treatment a day.  The treatments will last about 20 minutes.  That will be done for 5 weeks. That should be about Thanksgiving.  At the end of 5 weeks the hope is that the tumor will be fried, gone, out of site. Then they wait 3-6 weeks to do surgery. You are asking, if the tumor is gone, why the surgery.  The tumor might be gone, but 4 out of 5 people still have cancer in the tissue and muscle and they can't tell for sure if you are one of the lucky ones until it is taken out.  Without the surgery, you chances of cancer coming back are very high.  With the surgery, the chances of it coming back are very low.

Then you might say why wait so long for the surgery.  Studies have found that the body does better in surgery if it has a few weeks to heal from the large amounts of radiation. We are hoping for 3-4 weeks with surgery before the end of the year.

The goal is also to keep him living a very normal life.  He should be able to continue working and functioning normally in other ways.  The side effects will be fatigue, sores on his hands and feet, and some nausea.  But he shouldn't even lose his hair.  (He wanted to be bald like Gracie).

For 4-6 months after the surgery, he will continue to take the chemo as a precaution and get rid of any other cancer that might creep in.  Unlike other cancers, colon rectal cancer doesn't usually come back in the same places.  It shows up in other places like the liver or the kidneys, so they just want to make sure it is all gone.

It is amazing how many people have sent their love and support.  We feel so much support from all of you.  So many have asked how to help.  We want to do this with lots of humor.  The PA told us their are 3 things that will help get through this.  The first is exercise.  30 minutes of walking each day will make a great difference in how you feel.  The 2nd is service.  She said give service often if you want to feel better and the 3rd is humor.  She said cancer is sad enough.  We have to laugh at the stuff we can.  So help us laugh, cry with us, walk with us, and let us give you service.  That is the biggest help you can all be.

As my dad would of said, this is just a BIG bump in the road.  This is do-able and we will fight and win.

Mom brought us up some roses out of her garden today.  They reminded us of dad and his love for all of us.  We all miss him so much, but he is very busy taking care of all of us in Heaven.  I think of him often and how his lifted Savannah up and kissed her on the cheek the night he died.  Tonight I picture him giving Jack a kiss on the cheek and saying go down to earth and make your family smile.