Thankyou all for your encouragement and prayers, having each of you on this journey is such a gift! What an awesome army of believers you all are!
Now, here's Dad
Each Precious Day
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Fri at 4:41pm
It’s been a very active week regarding my health.
I finished the radiation treatments on my brain yesterday. That is a welcome relief! They won’t run another MRI to confirm that they killed the spots for several weeks or possibly a couple of months; however, they were very confident that they eliminated them. As I explained earlier, they growths were really small so I am confident they are gone.
Also, I met with my oncologist and radiation physician and we discussed next steps for dealing with the growth in my chest. They presented three options: (1) radiation only and then chemotherapy only, (2) chemotherapy only and then radiation only, or (3) the combination of the two at the same time. My oncologist and I discussed all three and, at first, she said she was reluctant to do both at the same time because of the negative side effects. I explained to her that I wanted to be as aggressive as possible in treating the main growth and, if I can tolerate the combination, I would like to move forward with option 3. I believe that the sooner I start chemotherapy, the greater my chance of stopping or slowing the spread and by radiating the growth they may shrink it and make it possible for me to get off the steroids. My oncologist didn’t take much time to think about it and said that because of my good health she would approve option 3.
Yesterday, I went into the Mayo Clinic and completed the preliminaries to begin the radiation treatments. The radiation treatments on my chest will begin next Wednesday and run for about 5 weeks and I will start my chemotherapy treatments next Thursday. I have an appointment with my oncologist on Tuesday to go over the chemotherapy procedure and the treatment expectations.
Cancer is an insidious disease. It doesn’t discriminate against anyone – young or old. It attacks all races. It leaves children without parents and it takes children from their families long before they should go. It cripples, maims, and forces surgeries that should never happen. It is rampant throughout the world and the progress in finding a cure is very slow. I continue to see some promising research take place, but many of the trials are far from completion and even if they succeed, there is the business of taking the trials and making them into productive treatments
Many know that Lance Armstrong is a cancer survivor and formed LiveStrong, the Lance Armstrong Cancer Foundation. I came across one of his commercials the other day and I think it captures the feelings that most people have about this disease. I thought you might like to see it
This week has presented some new challenges for me emotionally.
Let me preface this by saying I haven’t given up – not be any stretch of the imagination. I still have a very positive attitude and I continue to make changes each day to fight this thing. The debilitating effects that this cancer may have on me are not imminent. I feel pretty good most days. I live one day at a time and sometimes one minute at a time.
Equally positive, I am about to begin the treatments that I’ve wanted for two months. Wednesday will be the first time the doctors have treated the main growth and they are going after it with two forces – radiation and chemotherapy. Add in all of the prayers that are taking place and I am very hopeful that they will succeed in producing some really positive results.
That said, every now and then, I get a little deeper understanding of the overall gravity of my situation and the thought slips in about how ominous this disease is. Most of the emotional weight comes from my own vulnerability. Up until two months ago, I rarely thought of being sick or of death and getting lung cancer was nowhere on my radar. Part of the reason I quit smoking so long ago and took such good care of myself was so that I wouldn’t have to deal with something like this. The best laid plans of mice and men…
I thought I’d die of old age or get run over by a truck or something. I always idolized my grandparents and they lived well into their eighties and my mother is still living and will be 88 this September. That’s what I foresaw in my future – an active old man with a lot of energy and a lust for life.
Now it isn’t as certain – and in actuality it never was. We all have but one day and it is today! Getting this disease has made me more aware of how precious each day is and I am very grateful to be a part of each and every one. I know that as I go through this I will cherish each day to the fullest! It’s too bad that it took something like this to make me more keenly aware of that fact, but it did.
Doug Woods
