It’s funny, depending on the day or the hour you catch me my answer as to how I’m doing or how things are going will be vastly different. The last month has been a whirlwind–at some points a whirlwind of nothingness and at other points a whirlwind of excessive catch up. Let me start off with the tough stuff and end with the goodies…

• Back pain is a pretty normal thing for me (duh). It usually comes and goes, gets bad for a short period of time and then goes away. But the back pain that flared up about a month ago did seem to want to go away. Instead it slowly grew worse causing sharp pains in my back and abdomen. It got so bad that anything that created pressure (coughing, sneezing, laughing, etc.) would cause such intense pain it would occasionally bring me to tears. Needless to say it sucked. We tried Oxycodone, Vicodin, alcohol (just kidding) but nothing worked. The only thing that brought reprieve was laying down in bed.
• Right as the back pain got to its worst it was time for a new round of chemo. I started that round on a Tuesday night and by Thursday I started feeling the effects.
• Lastly I’ve been fighting a gnarly little infection in one of my toes. Simultaneously as I started chemo the infection took a turn for the worst and the doctors saw fit to give me some iv antibiotics and two other pill form antibiotics. What was most miserable about these antibiotics was that they made my stomach incredibly sick. So between taking two different antibiotics four times daily and taking chemo pills once daily I was pretty much constantly taking a medicine that was making my stomach sick. No fun.
• As I’m fighting all this crap and sleeping eighteen hours a day Christmas was barreling down upon us and I was no help! Jess was frantically trying to take care of me, take care of the kids, work, AND get ready for the holidays. It was an intense time and we weren’t making much headway.

So that’s all the tough stuff. Let me now share with you some of the good stuff!

• After being into the ER twice I was finally able to meet with both my oncologist and my naturopath on Wednesday afternoon a few days before Christmas. Between those two visits and the stuff they did to/gave me by Thursday morning I was a new person. The back pain was completely gone (turns out it wasn’t back pain but actual nerve pain from my tumor pressing on my spinal cord) and I was up and moving again…just in time to get ready for Christmas!
• We were able to spend a whole day with my dad’s side of the family out in beautiful Yamhill County. It was amazing. We hung out, cut down a tree, sang carols, and drank tea. Many of the family skimped on gifts for themselves in order to show more generosity to my family. They showered us with notes and letters and written down scriptures of hope. Like I said, it was amazing.
• Christmas this year was going to be at our house…but if you didn’t already put two and two together our house wasn’t all that clean at the time. One of the greatest Christmas presents we received this year was my mother-in-law and sister-in-law coming to our house and cleaning it top to bottom. This gift allowed us to focus our pre-Christmas time on being together as a family, making snowflakes together, Christmas shopping, etc. It was a wonderful gift that truly allowed us to enjoy the Christmas season.

Man, I could go on and on concerning the generosity we’ve experienced in the last month. People have flooded us with meals, thoughtful notes, and more. Our Christmas Eve and Christmas morning times were calm and fun and memorable. Since that Thursday (when I started feeling better) I still have not left the house much because it’s been a time for our family to be together. I’ve missed seeing many of you but am glad to miss out on seeing y’all if it means that I get to be with my wife and kids more.

I know this update was a bit scattered but it’s been an intense month (an intense year!!) of changes, of really really good times and of really really rough times…that’s life though I guess!