July 17, 2009

A Day in Denver

Thursday I went to Denver for scans and appointments. I am so happy that I asked my mother-in-law Gaye to come with me. We had a wonderful time talking about everything under the sun on our flight out. I’m not sure waiting for me during all the scans was that fun, but she didn’t complain.

Thursday night we had dinner with Bill & Karen Frey. Bill is the poster child for Melanoma. He’s been fighting it for 9 years and he has the most positive attitude of anyone I’ve ever met.

This morning Gaye and I took a driving tour of Denver. She said I made her love Denver (I did take her to the Spicy Pickle—and that’s something to love), but that was before our meeting with Dr. Gonzales. I don’t know if it was a holiday at the Melanoma Clinic, but there was nobody there but Dr. Gonzales. He kindly reviewed the scans with me and although I should be used to it, I hate seeing the growth.

I actually had a soft tissue tumor in my back reduce in size, and the lymph nodes around my heart have remained stable, but the big stupid tumor in my lung grew 4 cm and it looks like it’s a huge mass connecting to my liver. Several spots in my liver are much bigger. So, I’m off the carbotaxill chemo and moving on. I think I wouldn’t be so grouchy about it if I hadn’t just lost all my hair for nothing. Ward says I didn’t lose it for nothing, maybe it slowed the growth—imagine how big it could’ve grown!

So, even though I qualify for the study at UCLA (unless they exclude me because of the thyroid cancer--we're still waiting on that), it has closed. They are opening it back up in three places, Denver, UCLA and Harvard. That’s great, but it won’t open for a couple of months. So I’m going to do another phase one study drug. Monday I will get more details and Wednesday I’ll be back in Denver.

I don’t know how somebody could deal with this without faith. I think that’s what keeps me going. I had three things happen this week (ironically all in restaurants!) that really made a difference to me.

While Gaye and I were at the Spicy Pickle a man about 40 approached me and said, “Good luck with your recovery.” I thanked him and he mentioned that his wife was in the rehab center because she had a sever brain abnormality. We talked for a couple of minutes, his softness and his care about me, a total stranger, showed me that there are plenty of people out there with things harder than I’m dealing with. I appreciated his courage to speak to me.

Second, Thursday night a lady approached me at Ruby Tuesdays. She said, “How are you doing with your treatment?” I told her I’d find out on Friday. She asked me my name and then said, “I will pray for you tonight.”

Today Ward and I had some important things to do in town (like get a new phone since I left mine in the rental car in Colorado and they don’t want to walk out and check the car). The girls were being so good, so we decided to take them to lunch. We chose Texas Roadhouse because my counts were up and I haven’t had bread in 8 weeks—I wanted one of their rolls. We ordered and ate and had a really good lunch. When the waitress approached to give us our bill she said, “An anonymous person has already paid for your meal. They said it’s their good deed for the day.” I was embarrassed because sometimes I feel like it’s so evident that we’re dealing with stuff, but so grateful that someone would think outside themselves and see another family trying to make things seem normal when they aren’t.

There are so many good things and good people in this world. There’s so much to be grateful for and so many opportunities to step outside ourselves to lift somebody else. I’m grateful for friends and strangers and a loving Father in Heaven who has let me experience these acts of goodness. It makes everything okay . . . and worth it.