Cancer

Cancer...

The word we all know but never want to hear.

But here I am.

Here we are...

In July, I was in the best shape of my life. Our family went to Colorado and I was on the struggle bus.

I struggled to breathe and wrote it off as my body not adapting well to the altitude change.

When we got home, I noticed I was still short of breath from time to time. Namely when going up and down our stairs or doing any sort of cardio.

In August I started to develop a non productive cough which I thought was strange, but tossed it up to allergies and wearing a mask for 12+ hours at work.

Before the twins birthday, I wanted to get checked out so I went to my doctor who ran some tests that were less than stellar.

From there I was treated for an elevated ASO titer.

After a round of antibiotics, there was no improvement in my symptoms. I was then sent for a chest X-ray where it was noted I had pneumonia and a pleural effusion (I was never symptomatic). This led to a CT scan and a bronchoscopy.

During the bronchoscopy, my lung collapsed (a pneumothorax). I was hospitalized and during that time I received multiple tests, lab work and scans.

The pulmonologist was trying his hardest to conclude that the massive amount of cloudy spots on all of the imaging was some form of interstitial lung disease or simply an infection. I’ll never forget the morning he came in and told us that the fluid analysis from my chest tube had some very concerning cells. He said the oncologist would come by shortly to speak with us.

The Oncologist confirmed the cells they found were conclusive evidence of metastatic disease. It also meant the spots they saw on my spine, pelvis and femur were likely to be a result of advanced spread of the cancer that has invaded my lungs. While they knew I had metastatic cancer, they weren’t sure of the primary source. For that answer, I would have to wait until my pathology reports came back from the Cleveland Clinic.

I was discharged from the hospital and the next four days lasted an eternity. Thursday finally arrived and I was told I have advanced metastatic lung cancer (Non-Small Cell Adenocarcinoma to be exact).

With a little help from a close family we were able to get into MD Anderson in Houston extremely quickly and will have the best doctors in the world looking into my “unbelievably bizarre” (doctors exact words) cancer diagnosis. We also have an army of family and friends praying every day for a healing miracle.

Sunday we drove into Houston for my covid test (it’s NEGATIVE!) and tomorrow we meet with my treatment team at MDA.

I am ready for a game plan so I can start kicking this cancer. Tomorrow will be a full day as we learn how to start this battle.

And I am here for it.

We have an amazing army of prayer warriors surrounding us. And our family is loved beyond my wildest dreams.

If you’re the praying type, we appreciate all prayers.

And to our amazing family and friends, we love you more than you’ll ever know. Thank you for your love and support, and for taking care of our sweet babies.