The End! For now.
He’s done! WE’RE done! He rang the bell on his way out, even though it was a little anticlimactic to be alone. I imagined him ringing the bell (Does everyone know this is a thing? There’s a little bell in radiation waiting rooms that people get to ring after they’ve completed treatment). Anyways, I imagined him ringing the bell with me by his side and a waiting room full of joyful, fellow radiation pals cheering for him, but that's ok. God is still good, and he’s still- DONE! To say we’re excited would be a bit of an understatement. Although, again, a little anticlimactic to come home and eat dinner versus going out and celebrating with our peeps. I told Josh this week it felt like there were three stages to this -- denial going into it “are we really about to start chemo and radiation? Like this is actually our life?”. The halfway through ‘depression’- “we’re so tired and this feels like it will never end”. And the end, “wow that went by so fast, can’t believe we’re already done!”. It felt like a twilight zone really, and we’re so, so, SO grateful to be on the other side of it. And as much as the kids love their new found favorite pine tree and chasing the local turkeys at our little hang out spot, I’m sure they would say the same. I am SO proud of this guy. The Lord was really, truly, so gracious and faithful to see us through that piece of this journey. Josh has been mulling over some post treatment thoughts, wondering if he’ll feel back to normal, or maybe better than before? Will his energy come back? His right side acts up sometimes, gets stiff, or sore, or twitchy, so it’ll be interesting to see how he feels once his brain recovers from this. You could pray for peace in our hearts no matter the end result of how he feels or how his tumor responded to treatment. Peace, no matter how this story ends.
So what’s next? A month of nothing, we’ll take it! We definitely prefer the quiet over excitement these days. Josh will work on recovering and getting his stamina back. He did an amazing job of keeping his energy as good as it could be by walking over 60 miles over the course of 6 weeks. We’ll both head back to our jobs in the next few weeks to a month depending on how he’s doing.
Then, an MRI, to see how his tumor responded to the treatment, as well as starting a stronger dose of the oral chemo. He’ll have 5 cycles of taking chemo for a week, and then have 3 weeks off. From there we’ll continue on with what we’ve done for the last five years, quarterly MRI’s to keep an eye on any recurrence. As they keep telling us with his type of tumor, it's slow growing, but incurable. So we can anticipate regrowth, we can anticipate doing this all over again down the road, and we can anticipate running out of options at some point. We hold this loosely, because no one will ever give us any sort of timeline as to when these things could happen. As his oncologist told us earlier this year, “there are a very limited amount of tools in the toolbox” to treat this thing, meaning, one can only have so much radiation/surgery/chemo, before your body just can’t handle any more. And yes, we’ve looked into alternative treatments (I know there’s at least a few of you wondering 😅). Illness has a way of turning any Type A desperate wife into a professional researcher 😂. I’d be lying if I told you I haven’t spent countless hours looking into all sorts of options and holistic therapies. There are endless (and I mean endless), amounts of “promising” alternative treatments out there, that range anywhere from “here’s a few cancer fighting foods you can incorporate into your diet”, to, “here spend $40,000 and fly to Mexico to get all sorts of infusions”. It gets a little (or a lot) overwhelming to be honest, to know which ones would be worth investing time and money into. But, that being said, we believe in miracles, and we’ll continue to pray and ask for healing. More than any modern medicine or best alternative treatment out there, we trust the heart of the one who loves Josh more than I, or anyone else ever could. And we trust in his very good plan for our life.
-- My hope is built on nothing less, than Jesus blood, and righteousness. --
Thank you for loving us. Thank you to all those who have, and continue to stick by us through this messy life of ours. Thank you for filling our fridge and bellies full of wonderful food so I didn’t have to think about it. Thank you for opening your hearts and giving so generously so we didn’t have to stress about finances. Thank you for the calls, texts, care and concern. Thank you for really, truly, lightening our load in every possible way, so we could focus on our sweet babies and getting Josh through the last 6 weeks. Thank you for loving us so well. We are overwhelmed with gratitude and will continue to be eternally grateful for each and every one of you.
We’ll probably post one more update after his MRI, and then maybe intermittently if things arise. For now, stay well, stay safe, take heart, and hope to see you all soon, preferably in person. :)
