For His Glory!

July was a difficult month. The ebb and flow of emotions was constant. The eight-day hospital stay, the doctor visits, hopes raised then dashed, and the waiting, waiting, waiting! Waiting in doctor's offices, on tests, on reports, and doing the cycle over again. Our new normal of the last year was good. But here we are again - that 'new normal' has been disrupted and disruption is hard and painful.

Mr D has a cancerous tumor, located outside the colon in the chest cavity. The doctors tell us it probably seeded through the colon wall fifteen months ago. It's big and is touching the kidney and spleen. The results of the P.E.T. scan show it's contained - we hope it is. Because it's too big to operate on, it needs to be shrunk by chemo. He will have three chemo treatments, two weeks apart, when another scan will be done to see if the tumor is small enough to do surgery. Pray with us for this to happen.

This is a genetic cancer, not curable but can be controlled to a degree. We knew it was genetic, but did not know it was genetic in the way our doctor explained it to us. There was no follow-up in his first episode, as there should have been. We were simply told the cancer was contained and he was released from any medical care. The decisions we made then was based on that information and we chose a nutritionist and changed our diet. Had we known then what we know now, we would have made different choices.

In May of this year, he had a follow-up colonoscopy. At that time he had an occasional pain on the same side and mentioned it to that doctor. His response? 'Oh, it's probably adehesions' and Mr D took him at his word. It's difficult not to go down that 'if only' road. That report came back clear 'with no need to come back for three years.'

Looking back, we had a few 'wondering' symptoms. He was losing unexplained weight and a noticeable energy drop but assumed it was still from the first episode or a busy summer schedule. Right now, there's little pain but diminished energy. In the next six weeks we want to live life as full as we are able. He is at work everyday and spends most of that time in the office. Our grandsons help out as much as is feasible and we appreciate that a lot!

This has made life clearer and sharper for us again. We brush our hands when we pass each other. I run my hand over his shoulders as I pass behind him sitting in his chair. We smile often at each other and give a 'I love you' with a hug frequently. We're putting family first and want to spend time with the grands. We have amazing support from our children as listening posts, concerned for us both and will do anything for us! We extended family, friends, our church and others we don't even know that give us care!

I've adopted a phrase for this journey. GOD IS GOOD - ALL THE TIME! God is bigger than all of this and our hope and trust is in Him. We grieve but in our grief we are comforted - comforted in an unshakable
truth that HE IS GOOD! We are surrounded by prayer warriors and the care of others who lift us up to the Throne of Grace. We want to do this journey well and this experience to bring HIM glory!

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The intent of this blog is to share our home, projects and my hobbies. I want it to be a happy place! I've decided not to do much blogging of our journey here but I will be posting frequently on my Fleur Cottage face book page which can be reached through this connection. Follow the connection and click on 'like' to follow.

                                http://www.facebook.com/pages/Fleur-Cottage/428160283895835