Dave update

Dave is doing FABULOUS.  He has been walking everyday.  Today we went to the park and walked and walked.  I was surprised how well he did.  Most of the edema is gone.  He still has some fluid in his feet, but his weight is almost back to normal.  Radiation is going well. So far he has had two treatments.  23 to go!!   We are excited about coming home.  I am having to fight the urge to pack all of our stuff up. We will be home a month from tomorrow.  Dave is looking forward to getting back to work.  We are almost done with school......so close, but still have a week or more left.   So things are going well with us. The girls both have birthdays coming up, so that's all we're hearing about these days....what they want for their birthdays :)  No exciting news from us this week.....but I have come to find that no exciting news is GOOD news!!

radiation...thursday

Dave will begin radiation on Thursday afternoon.  He will have 25 treatments.  His last one will be June 23rd.  That is when we will move home.  From all that they tell us it seems as if though this should be  breeze in comparison to chemotherapy.  Dave is all tattooed up ready to begin.  I got a good laugh when Dave was done today and described his experience while they were getting him ready.   Sorry....I can tell the story on here.  But if you know Dave you know it was funny.  Anyway, we are ready to do this and move on to surgery.  When we come home next month we will have been here for 8 months.  I am tempted to start packing......well, maybe I should wait a couple of weeks.  We are gonna try to make the most of our last few weeks as residents of Houston.  Today after Dave's appointment, we went on a boat tour in the Port of Houston.  Dave is moving a lot better now.  He even went for a walk last night.

our meeting with the surgeon

This morning we saw Dr. Pollock, Dave's surgeon.  We were so impressed with him.  He is the head of surgery at MD Anderson.  He told Dave if he had to have a tumor in the pelvic area, this is the one to have.  More good news today.  We are scheduled to see the radiation therapy team in the morning.  We will know more about this tomorrow, but Dr. Pollock thinks Dave will have 5 weeks of radiation.  We will then move home.  He will need about 5 weeks to recover from  radiation and then he will have surgery.  We will come back to Houston for surgery which will be sometime mid July.  So that is where we are today.  We are happy, thankful, relieved, and so many other emotions!!  Radiation will be 5 days a week for 5 weeks.  Dave is feeling so much better.  His edema is better, the neuropothy is better.  Yesterday we went to the Astro's vs Mets game at Minute Maid Park and he walked the whole time.  This is a major improvement from just a couple of weeks ago. 

Please pray for our friends Brad and Stacey Booth.  Brad has Desmoplastic Small Round Cell Tumor (a rare  sarcoma).  They are here in Houston for Brads surgery.

Psalm 113:2

Blessed be the name of the Lord from this time forth and forevermore!

 

Blessed Be Your Name

In the land that is plentiful

Where Your streams of abundance flow

Blessed be Your name

Blessed Be Your name

When I'm found in the desert place

Though I walk through the wilderness

Blessed Be Your name

Every blessing You pour out

I'll turn back to praise

When the darkness closes in, Lord

Still I will say

Blessed be the name of the Lord

Blessed be Your name

Blessed be the name of the Lord

Blessed be Your glorious name

Blessed be Your name

When the sun's shining down on me

When the world's 'all as it should be'

Blessed be Your name

Blessed be Your name

On the road marked with suffering

Though there's pain in the offering

Blessed be Your name

Every blessing You pour out

I'll turn back to praise

When the darkness closes in, Lord

Still I will say

Blessed be the name of the Lord

Blessed be Your name

Blessed be the name of the Lord

Blessed be Your glorious name

Blessed be the name of the Lord

Blessed be Your name

Blessed be the name of the Lord

Blessed be Your glorious name

You give and take away

You give and take away

My heart will choose to say

Lord, blessed be Your name

We sang this song at church this morning and I wanted to share it.  We have sang this for years, but it means so much right now.

Look What We're Growing



The two yellow pots are sunflowers and the red pot is tomatoes.  Aren't the little pots cute?




The 3 pots in front are strawberries.





We transplanted the plants into bigger pots today. We hope to have some strawberries, tomatoes, and sunflowers soon. 



This is Erin's insect lore.  She has 3 butterflies. They all 3 came out of their cocoons in the van on our trip back to Houston. 

Our busy week

I have lots of good new to post!!  I will start with the visit to the urologist today.  He said there is a less than 10% chance Dave will lose anything other than the tumor in surgery.  This was the best news we have heard in a long while!  We know there is always a chance something may look different when they actually get in there, but they are pretty confident they can get it without taking the bladder.  We will see the surgeon Monday and hopefully get a surgery date scheduled.  We will know Tuesday if he will have to have radiation.  So we are thankful for this great news and there will be more good news to come next week.  We are winding this thing down, setting our eyes on the finish line!


We left home on Monday heading back to Houston.  We spent the night outside of New Orleans Monday night.  We have found that breaking the 12 hour trip into 2 days is much better for us.  We had lunch at The Gumbo Shop and rode by the seminary for a few minutes.  We finished our last 5 hours of the trip and got back to Houston around 7 Tuesday night.  Jamey Johnson was in town for a concert on Wednesday, so we met him for dinner Tuesday night.  That was fun.  The kids had never met him so they were excited.  Samuel told the girls he knew two celebrities now......his daddy and Jamey.  I loved this.  I hope Samo will always look at Dave that way.  So Wednesday we were supposed to see the surgeon but they did not want to see Dave until after the MRI which wasn't scheduled until later that day.  oh well.....we will see him Monday.  So we went and had lunch with Jamey and his sweet assistant Rachel.  We went to his show that night which was really fun.  The kids thought his bus was awesome.  They were so sweet to us.  Dave can't stand for long periods of time due to the soreness in his feet, so they put a sofa on the side of the stage for us.  Pretty nice!!  Jamey has that sound like Merle Haggard....old country.  We got to meet his band members...very nice and talented bunch of people.  So Thursday he was going to be playing in Austin and wanted us to come have lunch with him and yes girls......Matthew McConaughey.....how cool is that?  He was very nice.  We had some yummy BBQ and Dave was able to tell him all about leiomyosarcoma.  It was a short lunch and then we went back to the hotel with Jamey for a bit.   We did not stay for the show in Austin because we were exhausted!!  It was a fun few days.  I must tell you though......of all the things I just told you about.....the most exciting thing that happened this week was when the urologist told us that good news today!!  We are soooo thankful that God is so sweet to us.  We are grateful to every person who has helped us through this long journey.  Alrighty then......that's all for now.  Hope to tell you a surgery date next week.

Catching up

We have been home for 3 weeks. Sadly, we have to pack up and head back tomorrow. I know we will be fine once we are there, but it's always sad to have to leave. The next two weeks will be be busy with appointments. We hope to have a plan after all the appointments.

Easter 2011

We have had a very full few weeks at home. We were able to be home for Easter, Relay for Life, and Mother's Day. I had a very nice and relaxing mother's day with my mama and my sisters...and the rest of the family too :) We sat outside all afternoon, talked, and watched the kids play. They played basketball, rode the dirt bike, and played on the dirt mound in mama and daddys back yard. (the one that my daddy swears he's gonna get rid of). They just added a carport and had to do some digging.  He kept having to tell the kids to get off the dirt mound.  How can you have a great dirt mound and expect kids not to play on it? Red dirt and kids go together like peanut butter and jelly...right? oh well.  The kids made me some great cards and Dave gave me a beautiful bracelet. We also got to worship at Grace Fellowship. Oh how we miss them when we're gone.  Dave even led worship this morning.  That was good for all of us.

Relay for life was a special event for us. Dave is still in the fight, but he is a survivor!!He survived chemotherapy!! I was amazed that he was able to walk the lap.....but I was so excited that he did. He got to walk with our friend Aaron who is also a cancer survivor and has been such an encouragement to Dave through the past few months. Our church had a team this year for the first time and raised over $6300. WOW!! What an awesome group of people!!! It was a good night for us and a great encouragement to see so many people from the community who have been praying for us. I'll update as we hear from the different doctors we will see this week.  Here are some pictures from Relay.

This was in memory of my grandmother who died from pancreatic cancer the year I was born.

I love this!!!



Dad's BBQ....thank you for donating your yummy bbq and time and  raising over $1000 to fight cancer!!



some of my favorite people