Brothers,
As you might imagine, it's become rather difficult to predict how I am going to feeling from one hour to the next as this thing has progressed, and the overall "misery index" has served to really limit the time and tolerance I have for doing anything computer-related. It remains my intent to pop my head out of the foxhole as often as I can, and to stay engaged here for as long as possible, but the nature of this fight is such that it is reducing me fairly quickly. There has been some sense of stabilization over the past few days, and while that is a long way from actually feeling "good," your prayers for strength and resilience are being answered.
We started an emergency round of radiation this past Wednesday to at least show this thing that we intend to resist, and while that's meant three-plus hours of discomfort in the car every day, at least we've finally gotten the colors moving toward the smoke of the battle lines. My daughter came home from college on Thursday evening to give dad some extra love and pampering. My parents arrived earlier in the week, so we all made it out to my son's varsity football game last night (the school golf-carted me to/from the car). My older son and daughter-in-law are also expected to arrive within the next 90 minutes, so we can log a few precious hours of family time over the weekend before the aggressive radiation begins on Monday. I've already been blessed in more ways than I could ever hope to convey. God's goodness amazes me more every day.
Mrs. Army Chief and myself will be staying in the Chapel Hill area during these treatments next week (twice daily), and will travel home on the weekends. The treatment protocol is slated for seven weeks, but as I've got one of the rarest cancers in one of the least common locations that it is ever seen, the entire plan is highly theory-based, and we will really have to judge our progress from week to week. Best case, it may shrink things down a bit and buy us some time. Worst case, it will sap my last reserves and hasten the need to come home and begin hospice care. Either way, my prayer is that whatever work God is seeking to accomplish through this would be done -- decisively -- without me getting in the way, and that the lives of many others will be blessed along the way.
Here is the list of "small victories" that are currently being pursued to keep me motivated: =]
1. Survive until 6 November to cast my vote in the national election.
2. Celebrate my 47th birthday on 7 November at home.
3. Fight hard to give us a shot at spending Christmas 2012 together as a family.
4. File Form 4 paperwork next week to get an AAC SDN-6 transferred into the family trust sometime this spring.
AC
Originally Posted by Army Chief
Bookmarks