On Monday I went to the library with Eileen and they had Pride and Prejudice for me, which I had requested a while back. I was hoping for CDs, but instead I got this:

It works, but is a pain to use. I’ve wanted to read this book for years and am finally doing it. Monday night I fell asleep listening to it and “meditated” on four chapters that I had to re-listen to today. I wanted it on CD so I could put it on my iPod. However, maybe God knew my iPod would fail me on Tuesday. At least I had something to listen to today.

I kept trying to reset my iPod today and it just wasn’t working, so I did the only thing I know to do with electronic equipment when it doesn’t respond. Smack it on the table. Worked like a charm. Will it fail again soon? Probably. Maybe Amy is tired of her new iPod and wants to give me another hand me down? She’s the only one with money. An iPod is now more essential to me than my cell phone.

I actually helped make dinner last night and really enjoyed it. I cut up all the potatoes and carrots, which we cooked on the grill. Me wielding a knife may not be the best idea, but I love cutting up food and didn’t draw any blood. After that I made a huge batch of Rice Krispie Treats. Hey, I didn’t say I was going to be the next Top Chef

Today I finally did walk two consecutive days. It would be good if I could do it everyday, but I’m not always up for it. If it wasn’t so important for my health, OK, my life, I wouldn’t be near as consistent, but it is, so I am The weights I’ve been doing this past couple weeks will hopefully help me not kill myself when I golf this Saturday. We’ll see.

I got to have lunch today with my good friend Dan Ward. Dan and I worked together back at Caterpillar in 1997 when he was doing PKI (remember those days?) and I was building the Global Directory Service.

Dan went to Sun in 1998 and I joined in 2001. He’s still there and one of the hardest working people I know. Thanks for lunch, Dan!

My headaches have been a bit worse these past few days, though there are periods of relief, which make it easier to bear. The headaches concern me less than the sharp pains in my neck, which sometimes extend down my back. Today was my last day of taking decadron so if it continues to get worse over the next four to five days I’ll know I should probably go back on it. I can tell you now that I’ll have to be hurting pretty bad and pretty consistently because I hate that drug and it’s side effects.

Thanks for all the suggestions for addressing my being “full of crap” Cheryl recommended Colace, Sara recommended herbdoc and Laura actually brought me some miralax, which I took and have already seen some results. Thanks!

Eileen and I are trying to get time to read the bible together and when we do we both enjoy it. We’ve been reading Psalms and just use the date to determine which ones. Today is the 14th so we did 14, 44, 74, 104 and 134. I really liked this part of Psalm 44:

“We have heard with our ears, O God; our fathers have told us what you did in their days, in days long ago. With your hand you drove out the nations and planted our fathers; you crushed the peoples and made our fathers flourish. It was not by their sword that they won the land, nor did their arm bring them victory;it was your right hand, your arm, and the light of your face, for you loved them. You are my King and my God, who decrees victories for Jacob. Through you we push back our enemies; through your name we trample our foes. I do not trust in my bow, my sword does not bring me victory; but you give us victory over our enemies, you put our adversaries to shame. In God we make our boast all day long, and we will praise your name forever.” (Psalm 44:1-

It’s all Him and it’s never been clearer to me than in these past four months. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I need a miracle, God specializes in them, pray BIG!

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I finished my second round of chemo on Friday night and didn’t get nauseous the entire time. Is that amazing? No, that’s God. I did have one small issue on Thursday night where I didn’t drink enough water to get the temodar down, I think. I ended up burping temodar and that was quite unpleasant. I didn’t make that mistake Friday. Now I have 21 days before I have to take anything.

I was hoping to walk more than every other day, but it just hasn’t worked out. The gel pads are really helping my heel, but I can tell it is sore. I’m hoping to do my walking outside a bit more, but the weather hasn’t been cooperating.

I’m golfing this next Saturday for the first time since last year. It should be interesting. Clearly someone else will have to watch where my ball goes. Fortunately we’re playing a scramble. Maybe we’ll use one of my putts. I’m just hoping for a headache free day. I am definitely driving the cart. My friend Dan is usually the passenger, though he may have misgivings this year. I’ve almost killed him a few times when I had good vision so he’s used to it

I’ve had increased pain these past few days and it could be due to my cut back on decadron. I’m now down to .5mg twice a day and hope to stop altogether this Wednesday. If the pain goes up and stays there I’ll know I still need to take it. Pray that it doesn’t. I really want to get off that stuff.

It may have been true before, but it is definitely true now. I am officially full of crap. This comes as no surprise to many of you, but I think I have good excuses. The decadron and temodar are incredibly constipating. However, I’m sure many of my friends will pooh pooh that (get it? :-)) Yes, you can tell me “I told you so” the next time you see me, though I’m hoping to remedy the situation before then

One of the great things about staring your mortality in the face is being reminded about what is really important. You are also reminded about how potentially limited your time is to focus on those important things.

“Show me, O LORD, my life’s end and the number of my days; let me know how fleeting is my life. You have made my days a mere handbreadth; the span of my years is as nothing before you. Each man’s life is but a breath. Man is a mere phantom as he goes to and fro: He bustles about, but only in vain; he heaps up wealth, not knowing who will get it. But now, Lord, what do I look for? My hope is in you.” (Psalm 39:4-7)

Living for the important is hard, but not doing so is foolish. By the grace of God I’m becoming less foolish each day.

Saturday we went to visit our friends from college, the Martin’s, and had a great time. They introduced us to a new game and it was a lot of fun. It’s called telephone pictionary, I think. Here is how it works. We had nine people playing so each person has a stack of nine small sheets of paper. Think 3″ x 4″. Each person starts by writing down some random sentence on the top sheet. I wrote, “Eileen will not be getting diamonds for Mother’s Day.” Clever, huh? You then pass the stack to the next person. They read the top sheet, place it at the back and then draw a picture of what they just read. They have one minute!

The next person looks at the picture, places it at the back and writes a sentence to describe what they saw. And so on until it is back to the person who started it. You then take turns showing your “story”. It’s pretty funny. You hear things like, “Oh, that’s where the little egg came from” and someone else will say, “What egg?” ‘m thinking Wendy will like this because she won’t have to lose.

Sunday I walked before church and I’m glad I did because I haven’t felt that great most of the day. Unfortunately Eileen was really sick this morning and couldn’t even go with us. It didn’t end up being a great Mother’s Day for her so I will have to figure out how to make it up to her.

We had a guest speaker for Mother’s Day who was pretty funny. Julie Barnhill is a speaker and author on Motherhood and had a great message. She used one of her book titles, “Motherhood: The guilt that keeps on giving”. I know my sister Anita loved what she had to say and I could see it affected many of the women.

One of my friends, Beth, from high school is a good friend of Julie’s, so we had that in common. I also talked with her about writing a book. Until I started blogging I hated writing, but I have had many of you encouraging me to turn this into a book. I’m still very skeptical, but am pursuing input from people who know. We’ll see.

While walking this morning I listened to Andy Stanley from NorthPoint Church in Atlanta share his first message in a series on Faith, Hope and Luck called Better Odds. He talks about the fact that all of us have our faith ladder resting against something. Is it something that changes over time or something that will stand the test of time? How about stage four brain cancer? I highly recommend it and hope many of my friends will take the time to listen. It’s only 40 minutes. I can’t wait to listen to the other two messages in the series, Betting On Hope and Beating The Odds, which he’s already delivered. You can subscribe to their iTunes feed here.

I need a miracle, God specializes in them, pray BIG!

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It’s been FOUR months since my surgery! I have really been blessed during these months and can’t thank all of you enough for your love, support and prayers. I know many of you read up on what I had when you first learned and though I purposely never have, I know it didn’t sound good. But God isn’t limited by the prognosis of the medical profession. He is a God of the impossible and it is NOTHING for Him to heal - completely. Keep praying and believing with me that that is exactly what He has done for me.

Monday I started taking my second cycle of temodar, which came by Fed-Ex. Impressively, they called to confirm I got them within the hour. Maybe this mail order thing won’t be so bad after all.

This new anti-nausea I’m taking, kytril, is so much better. So far I haven’t been sick at all and have a good appetite. I’m actually eating too much and probably need to cut back. Unfortunately the constipation from the kytril and the temodar is amazing. Past funny to painful. I would hate to look at the inside of my “pipes” after all the drugs and stuff I’ve been taking.

Well, I still haven’t driven and won’t until my vision is consistently clear. I have three big reasons not to drive. 1) I don’t need killing someone on my conscience 2) I can’t afford to replace or even fix a vehicle 3) I don’t need anything else to recover from.

When I had my eyes checked last week they found a lesion on my retina and referred me to a specialist. I really didn’t want to go. Partly to avoid spending money, but also because, as I just said, I don’t need something else to recover from. Anyway, I went. I HATE to have my eyes dilated. That was the worst part.

Good news is that my right eye is 20/20 and the left eye is 20/30. Letters are blurry, but I can make them out. The doctor said there is nothing wrong with my eyes and that they are in excellent condition. He also said we will know in the next 6-8 months whether the brain will correct itself so I can see. I should have told him that God doesn’t need that long, but I didn’t

After the eye exam I got to have lunch with Randy, an old friend I met during the strike at Caterpillar back in 1994. What an experience that was and we became fast friends. Randy is an incredible engineer and we improved productivity on the machine we operated for 12 hours a day by over 500%.

We were making 1.1L fuel tips (they looked like Barbie flashlights) and keeping micron tolerances by hand. It was insane. One day I ran the machine by myself and flooded the entire area in over an inch of oil. I missed the office that day. My friends brought in a shirt the next with “Exxon Don” on the back. It wasn’t funny for quite a while. Thanks for lunch, Randy! Let’s do it again soon.

Mike and Wendy came by last night and we got to play some cards for the first time since we went to Duke together. Way too long. Mike and I destroyed them in a game of euchre. Mike had a loner and we set them twice. Then we played Tick, but didn’t finish, so it doesn’t matter who was winning at the end, Wendy.

I hear rumors of people coming over to play cards and “school” me, but it doesn’t seem to materialize. Talk is cheap, guys

Today we got a very pleasant surprise visit from good friends Ken and Joanne, who are missionaries with Project Amazon in Brazil.

Joanne is a 13 year breast cancer survivor and they are prayer warriors for us. Their ministry is fascinating and the passion and commitment by the locals is inspiring. One man rides a bike 6-8 hours one way just to meet with people at least once a week and the roads are so bad he often has to push the bike.

Pain has been very good this entire week, which makes such a huge difference. Eileen bought me some Scholls gel inserts so I’m going to be ‘gellin’ tomorrow when I walk. They are really nice.

Yesterday this passage caught my eye:

“O LORD, the king rejoices in your strength. How great is his joy in the victories you give! You have granted him the desire of his heart and have not withheld the request of his lips. You welcomed him with rich blessings and placed a crown of pure gold on his head. He asked you for life, and you gave it to him - length of days, for ever and ever.” (Psalm 21: 1-4)

Keep asking Him with me for life. I’m confident He is granting it to me and I plan to make sure He gets all the credit and glory.

I need a miracle, God specializes in them, pray BIG!

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Our big news from yesterday was that Amy was crowned Dunlap High School 2008 Prom Queen. Eileen and I went for the coronation since we knew Amy was one of the five candidates.

We were really happy for her. You can click on the picture below to see the entire set of prom pictures.

Amy and two of her friends came home late and slept in our basement. She’s lucky I didn’t take a picture of them to post

I forgot to mention yesterday that after eating so healthy at Hanssen’s on Friday night I ate terribly. I even succumbed to eating a Krispy Kreme donut. Man was that good!

Hair update. You may remember near the end of my radiation treatment I thought maybe my hair was growing back. It isn’t, but I don’t care. I just have to keep doing my De Niro maintenance so I don’t look like a deranged taxi driver, though you’d think I would have gotten over looking funny a long time ago. Did I mention my pride issue?

My overall shakiness bothered me enough last night that I decided for the first time since my surgery in January to go without taking any kind of sleep aid. I slept in hour to hour and a half intervals and had some of the worst dreams, but I survived. I wasn’t any less shaky this morning, but this evening I’m doing a bit better. Maybe I’ll even start backing off the decadron this week.

It’s hard for me to believe, but before today it has been about five months since I’ve been to a movie. We went to see Iron Man and I worried that it wouldn’t be as good as advertised, but it was. We met our friends Todd and Diane Houseman at the concession stand and got to sit with them. After the movie we invited them back to our house for a quick picture to commemorate the occasion. What are we seeing next, guys?

I know Eileen said I was never normal, but I actually felt as normal as I have in a while when we were sitting in that movie theater. I can tell you this, we will be back to a movie in the very near future.  Possibly for Raiders. Thanks for the tickets, Tamara.

Well, I start my second chemo cycle tomorrow. The temodar should arrive sometime in the morning, but I don’t actually take it until around 9pm. I’m also going to be trying a different anti-nausea medicine called kytril, which hopefully lasts all day. Please pray that it does and that I experience no nausea during this round. God can protect me from side effects.

“The LORD watches over you — the LORD is your shade at your right hand; the sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon by night. The LORD will keep you from all harm — he will watch over your life; the LORD will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore.” (Psalm 121:5-

I need a miracle, God specializes in them, pray BIG!

I got my official MRI results back on Thursday and it is “stable”. There was further shrinkage of the area where the tumor was, so I’m very encouraged.

Thursday night we went to see Amy and Kelly in “Seussical” at Dunlap High School. It was good, but I was slow in figuring out that there were two worlds being described - the one with Horton and the Who world on the clover. Don’t ask. You’d have to see it.

Friday, after over three days of much lower pain, it came back and was pretty intense in the afternoon and evening. Not sure what it is, but we know it isn’t a tumor!

Hanssen’s invited us out to their beautiful home for a SaladMaster demo/meal, which was just excellent, not to mention healthy. Click on the picture (as always) to see the whole set. We may have a demo at our house soon. None of us bought a set, but the one with no income wanted to. We did come home and throw out some teflon pans. I mean, once you’ve consumed most of the teflon its time to get new ones, right?

Walking through their house is like a mini-African safari. The animal heads are very cool, but I loved the ostrich eggs. When you listen to their stories of growing up in Africa and then all the businesses they have run here since coming to Peoria in 1976, you can feel like a lazy bum. I heard that!

I had asked you to pray I could start my second cycle of temodar on Friday. It almost happened. At the last minute on Thursday I got a call from Duke and all tests had been faxed to them and they had actually faxed the temodar order to the mail order drug company. Unfortunately the mail order place didn’t call me until Friday, so I’ll start Monday. Once again God knew better and I’m actually glad to be holding off.

My blood work looked good and only my platelets are low, but not enough to delay this next cycle. I met with Dr. Geoffroy and he thought I was doing great. I finally asked him about flying and he said it should be no problem. No need for a space helmet. I can’t wait to fly to Austin to see all my friends, but I’m not sure I can do it before June, so my first flight will be to Duke on 5/31.

I’ve had shakiness in my right arm/hand for a while, but I’ve been a bit more shaky all over since walking late yesterday. For the first time I can’t put my socks on without sitting or leaning. Even Amy was alarmed when she noticed how much my hand shakes simply holding something. I’m not so sure it isn’t the trazadone, which I’m taking for “sleep” (and I use that term quite loosely) and am not yet sold on.

Speaking of walking, I’d like to walk more than every other day, but I need the rest to recover. My left heel is my biggest problem, but I just don’t want to see a doctor about it. I’m thinking a stationary bike may be in my future. Got one gathering dust you want to sell? I can supposedly drive now, but riding a bike outside scares me even more. We’ll see. When will it be warm enough? It was 54 degrees today and it’s MAY!

Had a great visit today from one of my best childhood friends Victor, who was in the area to see his Dad, and another high school friend Terry. Victor’s family and mine are like family and he and I go way back. I’m glad he has kept my secrets safe all these years. It was great to get time with both of them. I had not seen Terry (”Slick”) since high school. Vic, next time we reminisce more about things like the all night wrestling match, the golf course flag raid and “Vic, it!”. Thanks for driving over guys!

Quick funny. While walking through the hospital the other day with Eileen I said out loud for the first time, “I wish I was normal again.” It was actually backed by some real internal emotion that surprised me. Without missing a beat Eileen said, “You were never normal.” Well, then. Back to reality. That’s my wife and one of the things I absolutely love about her.

I’ve been reminding myself the past day, even during my bouts with pain (and a few other struggles), just how blessed I really am. Eating breakfast down at South Side Mission this morning and then showing my friends our beautiful home today was an even bigger reminder. I live an enchanted life and it is not a right or an entitlement, it is a gift from God.

“I am still confident of this: I will see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.” (Psalm 27:13)

All I have to do is look closely and I can see it right now.

I need a miracle, God specializes in them, pray BIG!