Excitement

• So another good day today. Ric is still getting stronger every day. My parents were here today so I went out to do some grocery shopping. When I got back Ric was downstairs watching a movie. He went down on his own. He has not watched a movie for at least a month so I know he was feeling much better.
• Ric got a really special phone call this evening. Jim Lambert (former UW Football Coach) called Ric. Both Jim and his wife are cancer survivors. Jim happens to be a co-worker's father-in-law and found out about Ric's battle with cancer. Ric was so stoked about getting a call from him. They had a great talk about UW football and what this years team looks like since Jim has been to some of the practices. Jim encouraged Ric to stay tough, keep fighting and that he would be praying for him. He said he'd be checking back with him. It was so awesome and really made Ric's day.
• We also talked to Ric's doctor in New York. He will be continuing to do both treatments so that he can get the best of both to fight this. He's scheduled to do his next Avastin/5FU treatment on Friday Sept 9th.
• We are just taking one day at a time right now but are really encouraged about where Ric is right now in comparison to where he was a week ago. Really appreciate your prayers - they are working so please continue to pray for Ric's healing! Thanks & love you all!

We are Home!

Just a quick little update to let everyone know that we are finally home. Ric walked from the car to the house without the use of the walker - said he did not need it. He is such a strong person and just amazes me every day. He is bound and determined to fight this thing with everything he has. So please continue to pray for Ric's healing.

Going Home Tomorrow

So Ric will get to go home from the hospital tomorrow! He is doing even better today. Got up walked down the hall (with the walker) twice as far as yesterday with the Physical Therapist and even did 4 stairs. His walking was more straight & solid - yesterday he had a bit of a limp due to the weakness in his left side but it's gone today. Still has a really good appetite. We are both looking forward to getting back to eating healthy food again - hospitals don't give you many healthy options and you quickly feel yucky when you are not eating what is good for you. We really want to say thank you all again for your prayers, love & support. We have once again been overwhelmed by the love that we have been shown during this latest loop in the rollercoaster.

Saturday

• Sitting here doing one of my most favorite things to do with my husband - watch football. Ric is doing good today - tired but we expect that as it's been a crazy week. We got moved from Swedish Cherry Hill Neurology to Swedish First Hill Oncology yesterday afternoon. Had his first treatment late last night - Avastin with 5 FU (fluorouracil) and leucovorin. Leucovorin tags the cancer cells so that the 5FU chemo can kill the cells. The Avastin is not a chemotherapy drug but reduces the growth and spread of cancer cells by inhibiting the growth of new blood vessels, making it harder for the tumor to grow.
• Ric is also on steroids to keep the swelling in the brain down and anti-seizure medication. Thanks to the steroids, his appetite has increased. Pretty much eating everything we put in front of him. Unfortunately you can't get very good food in a hospital. They don't take diet seriously for some reason especially with cancer patients. You just try to make choices that are the healthiest of what's available.
• He is also very alert and doesn't let anything get by him - witty as before. They did give him a small doseage of pain med last night because of his lower back pain but that makes him also a little loopy. He woke up early this morning trying to get out of bed and he said he needed to wash his shirt, something about Nicaragua and doing laundry. They changed his bed to one that has a bed alarm so now he knows he can't try to get up on his own.
• Physical Therapist came by and had him walk a bit down the hall and do a few exercises to help him start building some strength back especially in his left side which is a bit weaker than his right side.
• We have felt even more love and support than before which is amazing as we thought that was alot. The things that we need prayer for now is that Ric will not experience any of the potential side effects of these drugs, that the cancer cells are being killed, that Ric will get the rest he needs and that we continue to have the peace that we do.

Thursday

I feel like I am in this time warp and expecting to wake up at anytime and everything will either be shattered in my world or everything is going to be ok. Emotions don't know where to go. Too many things happening in a short period of time. I just have to rely on God to point us in the right direction. No surgery which actually makes me relieved as it's such a scary dangerous thing to be done to your brain as their is so much that could go wrong. But the reason is that the tumor is a fast growing one that they believe may not take much time to cause major issues including death. They were basically going to just move him into palliative care which means hospice and waiting to die. We said we wanted to talk to the oncologist and see the MRI to see exactly what they were seeing. Also to ask if there was anything at all that may help. Oncologist said there is a drug that they have had good success with in fighting metastatic brain tumors (Avastin) and combined with 5FU. This would go against what we had been doing but when you are in a position of choosing to do nothing but what you have been doing in hopes that will maintain or using something they tell you may prolong your life, what do you do? It's a crap shoot either way and only God knows when it will be Ric's time to leave this earth. Since we caught it in "time" by realizing that something wasn't quite right and getting him here was that God pointing us in that right direction? And not just taking what some doctors said we needed to do and continuing to question them to make sure there weren't other options, was that God pointing us in the right direction? So we have till morning to let them know do we want Ric to go the Avastin/5FU route or not? They say we need to start it soon as there isn't much time. It's hard to think about it when Ric is 100 times better today than he was yesterday when we came in. So don't have a real update other than something will be happening tomorrow. He said he wants to live so we will do what it takes to allow him to do that until God calls him home.

Here we go again!

So the last few days Ric has been acting out of sorts. Not taking his supplements, hardly eating, not doing his detox routines. Saying he wants to do stuff but unable to get himself going. I took it as he was giving up his fight. Today he was really struggling and could hardly walk and some other things that just weren't adding up. He also has complained of a headache the last couple days but I figured it was due to him not eating. So we took Ric to Swedish First Hill ER and they did a Cat Scan on his head which revealed that he has a metastatic brain tumor on his right side. They said it had been there for awhile and apparently just recently "took" off. This totally explains his behavior and his lethargy these past few days. The tumor is fairly large & is pushing up against his brainstem which is causing his weakness and fatigue. Tomorrow sometime he will be having surgery to remove the tumor. This is a big deal as they need to be able to detach it from the brain without damage to those areas where it is attached. This can also mean potential for stroke. He is currently sleeping finally - he has been very restless the last four nights and has not slept much which means neither have I as I am a very light sleeper. So because I need to get some sleep too as tomorrow will be a really long day I am going to wrap it up. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE KEEP RIC IN YOUR PRAYERS ALL DAY TOMORROW ASKING GOD FOR WISDOM AND GUIDANCE TO THE DOCTORS IN DOING THIS SURGERY.

Hell Week

• This blog was intended to be a place where we could share what's going on so guess that's what I should do. I think of myself as an extremely strong person. I've been through alot in my life but this one has really kicked my butt. I thought that losing a child was the most painful thing that I could have experienced but this is even tougher.
• For those who don't know Ric & I had a daughter Michelle born 2-1/2 months premature who lived for 3-1/2 months. We were able to take her home for a few weeks but she ended up back in the hospital having surgery, going into a coma and then before we had to make a decision as to whether to take her off life support, God took her to heaven. She was born on my Mother's birthday 10-9-78 and died on my Great Grandmother's birthday 1-28-79. This all happened when we were just barely 19 & 20 yrs old.
• During childbirth a disk in my lower back slipped and I was in the hospital for a couple weeks. The doctors wanted me on bedrest. That only made my back worse and I got to the point that I could not walk. I would lay in bed all day at home while Ric was going to school at UW unable to get up for anything including to go to the bathroom. He would leave me food & drink on the bedside table. Once he would return from class he would help get me up to do what I needed to do. I was in a wheelchair for awhile and then started walking with a walker - having to relearn how to walk. All during this time our daughter was in the hospital fighting for her life. So that's just a small bit of what I've gone through during a very dark time in my life.
• As I previously said this situation with Ric is even harder because I cannot do everything for him. It's really hard when you know that someone needs to follow a regimen that is very difficult but yet they mentally check out and don't follow it like they should. You cannot trade places with them even though you really wish that you could. And I really mean that. I am not afraid to die. I know without a doubt that I will be going to heaven when I die. But I know that I would be doing everything possible to stay alive and enjoy my life as best I can until God takes me. It is hard to understand when someone is in a deep dark hole and has let it envelope them.
• I was really hoping that after Ric went to the Chiropractor on Friday - he has had alot of lower back pain - maybe this would help him feel better (which it did) and encourage him to focus on his treatment to follow it to the tee. His back is really messed up from all the stuff he's done over the years and the 30 lbs he lost in 11 days - but there is hope to get it back to where it needs to be to alleviate the back pain.
• I now hope that by Ric starting counseling on Tuesday that will help him to get the demons out of his head that are keeping him from getting the sleep that he desperately needs. One of the demons that has been haunting him was put there a few weeks ago by a childhood friend who had heard that Ric was doing really poorly, that the cancer was eating him alive and that he would probably be dead in a few months. This information was supposedly said by one of his immediate family members. Ric hearing this was absolutely devastated and crying to me as to how could one of his family members say that and not believe that he was going to beat this cancer. It does not matter whether it was actually said or not by his family member but the fact that Ric was told this is what has caused alot of his mental downfall in the last month. He is fulfilling that persons statement. He has not been following his treatment as he is supposed to and is suffering some pretty bad depression. He tries to put up a good face at times but most of the time looks like a shell of himself and that his mind is very distant.
• This has also turned me into a raving bitch. I feel like I have to constantly be on him about his schedule of taking his supplements/enzymes on time and doing his detox routines on time. He mostly just lays there and says he's tired, his back hurts etc. I am desperate for him to do his treatment as the other option is not good. Desperation makes people go crazy and that is what at times I feel I have become. Because his schedule is so tight when he is on it, an hour here/an hour there adds up pretty quickly and causes everything to be thrown off. This causes him to skip supplements, skip his detox routines, skip meals or eat very little and it totally ruins the little sleep that he would normally get anyway. So how do you get better if you are not doing what you need to do in order to get better?
• I guess the biggest lesson here is to NEVER say anything negative to a person fighting for their life. They need only positive optimistic encouraging conversations. They already know that their chances are slim and they need everyone to be behind them praying, encouraging, optimistic, hopeful. None of us know how long Ric will be alive - only God knows. No doctor knows either!
• So at this point we just have to give it all up to God and request prayers from all of you so that we can get the sleep, peace and joy that we so desperately need at this time.

Good News

Sorry it's been so long since I've updated the blog but life has been very busy. Can't believe it's already August! Doctor called Ric today and let him know that the results of his recent hair analysis (3 months on the treatment) show that his numbers are moving in the right direction - yay Praise the Lord! He has been nervous these last few days about what he was going to be told. Hopefully now he will be able to sleep better as he's been pretty restless at nights lately. Still going to work every day for around 6 hours. Makes for a long day when we are up between 5am to 5:30am and hitting bed around 10 or so. It's crazy how long his treatment/detox routine plus breakfast takes every morning. We have been so blessed by friends recently with the meals that they have made for us. It has given me some very needed breaks. Thank you so much. You have no idea how much we appreciate it. Sunday was quite an emotional day as they had Ric stand and people gathered around us and our whole church prayed for him and us during a portion of the service. It was a real blessing as we know that even more people will be keeping him in their prayers now. We feel like we are finally getting into more of a routine and definitely don't feel as overwhelmed as we did early on. We know that it's also all of you praying for us. We still have moments of stress but not near as much as before. Ric still has a lot of fear which is totally understandable but he's needing to let go of that so that he can really start enjoying life again. I'm hoping that hearing good news from the Doctor will help. Please pray for him to be able to let go of that fear. Thanks to Ric's coworkers too for the daily walks up & down the big hill at work. Those of you who know the hill will realize what a feat that is for him to walk all the way up it every day! Exercise is really important for cancer patients so it is encouraging that he is doing it every day. We have a hill on our driveway at home but it is nothing like the one at work. We are both looking forward to some upcoming trips we will have over the next few months - one per month starting this month through November. What is amazing is that every one of them falls during Ric's "off supplements" days so that we can actually enjoy them without being on the rigid schedule. Another blessing! Again thank you thank you thank you for your love, support, visits, meals, prayers, cards, calls, etc!