My Rambling Thoughts

In 2013 the American Cancer Society did not grant any Hero of Hope awards because they were restructuring the process.  Heroes of Hope are survivors who show an outstanding commitment to the fight against cancer and represent Relay For Life and the American Cancer Society publicly for a period of at least one year. They are selected for their ability to inspire hope and their courage and determination to fight back against cancer. Had they not been doing restructure Joe would have received his Hero of Hope that year. In 2015 Joe was named a Hero of Hope .  " He worked behind the scenes in that quiet, unassuming way of his.  Relay was in his heart while he fought cancer 4 times. His attendance at the Chandler Relay for Life kickoff in 2012, just a few days after lung surgery, was an inspiration to all of us. It showed us his commitment to relay. That commitment was instrumental in the Chandler Relay for Life achieving mega status in each of the past 3 years....

In 2007 I met someone who introduced our family to something that would change our lives forever.  She invited us to our first Relay for Life.  Lori Fries is another cancer survivor who I met through Jr. High band.  Lori and I met on a field trip and like almost every conversation the subject of cancer came up.  I told her about Joe's recent experiences and she insisted he join her on something called a " Survivor Lap ".  It turned out Kaitlin was in a play the same night as the Chandler Relay for Life so Joe went solo and he was hooked.  He came home and shared how emotional it was to walk around this homemade track with many other cancer survivors and people giving high fives and clapping and holding signs honoring the survivors and their caregivers with their fight against cancer. The next year Kaitlin, Julie and I went along to see what all the excitement was about.  That year I got to walk with him in the Survivor/Caregiver Lap and again peo...

We have the diagnosis .  We know the treatment.  We know what to do but this time it's different.  This time we will require surgery - major surgery.  Dr. S. wants to begin chemotherapy right away in an attempt to slow the progress down until surgery can be done.  We are given a recommendation of a surgeon at St. Joe's hospital who is one of the nation's top thoracic surgeons - the problem - we can't get an appointment to see him until October.  2 months.  An eternity.   BUT we can see his assistant who is also a top ranked thoracic surgeon - we say yes.  She thinks that she can remove all of the cancer with the removal of part of the lung - no promise but she thinks she can do it.  First tho, we need an entire body CTScan to make sure there are no cancer cells anywhere else.  He would also have to start chemo in an attempt to shrink what was there to make surgery more successful. After Joe takes some time to breathe and thin...

My Rambling Thoughts: Another Cancer? Must be August. : February 2007 was a major turning point in our lives.  We no longer took things for granted.  We no longer failed to thank God every morni...

February 2007 was a major turning point in our lives.  We no longer took things for granted.  We no longer failed to thank God every morning for giving us another day of life.  We enjoyed our lives. Life quickly returned to normal. Joe went back to work in July of 2007, flying here and there every week.  We  put cancer behind us, well at least we tried.  Every cough, every sore throat, every funny twinge brought the fear very much to the forefront of our minds.  Every 6 month check up was pure torture.  Fear of what they were going to say.  What they were going to find.  One year came and went.  Two years, three, four, five.  Five years that's the biggie - that's CANCER FREE .  How wonderful it felt to reach that mark and begin our now cancer free walk into the sixth year.  It became a little easier to say I HAD cancer.  We were living the life........until August 2012   Julie caught a horrible cold....

I'm sure after the most recent blogs our lives sound horrible and painful.  While going through Joe's first experience with cancer was definitely not a day in the park - there were several episodes that would have ended up on American's funniest videos.  Let me share a couple. Joe had to have a feeding tube inserted so that he would be able to get nourishment when his throat became too burnt to swallow.  And it did.  He fought it for a few days until he lost so much weight between doctor visits that a threat from Dr. W. of being put in the hospital convinced him he needed to embrace the tube.  I would prepare this concoction (about 3,000 calories 3 X a day) of Carnation instant breakfast, ensure, muscle builder, powdered milk, morphine (great shake addition) and ground up other pills and medications.  It would make a liquid a little thinner than pancake batter and I would use a large syringe and push it into the feeding tube.  This first tube actua...

The holidays are over.   The doctors want to do a second round of chemo only this time they are adding a new drug - Fluorouracil ( 5FU ).   This is an old chemo and has been very successful in the treatment for non-small cell cancers.   The doctors were so very pleased with Joe’s condition and his continued improvement from the chemo and radiation in the fall.   They felt they had gotten it all with the very aggressive treatment but this was maintenance.   Like I said, make sure none of those little cells had escaped. The one thing different this time was Joe had an extreme allergic reaction to the drugs.   I am going to share in this blog parts (parts that are not included have no impact on the “story”) of the emails sent the end of January thru February.   I will let them tell the story.   Please note – this is very long because it covers 21 days of sharing   information.   Twenty-one days in which Joe traveled the complete c...