Another Treat: A post from Jonathan

I am writing this at 4am from the hospital, finished chemo about 8 hours ago so I apologize for grammar issues #chemobrain.  I am finishing round 2 of 3 for February!  So far easy goes.  Next week will be short week just 2 days in the hospital.  After February I will have completed around 30 rounds of chemo and over 80 days in the hospital!  I have around 10 days left in March and that completes the cycle!  Then we are looking forward to Hawaii with some family and friends!  A much deserved vacation for everyone who has been taking care of me!

Once March is down possibly the scariest part begins…  Don’t get me wrong learning you have cancer is scary but you learn to deal.   You start thinking about what to learn from this, what we can do with this, how we can beat this.  Once you’re down with the treatments you are supposed to go back to normal.  But with my cancer I have a 50% chance of recurrence in the next 5 years!  A rescan every 6 months hoping and praying this beast doesn’t come back.  Always looking over your shoulder.  It is really scary to know you have that lurking.  I guess you just try to live as normal as possible.  I know I will appreciate everyday a lot more.

What is cancer to you…

Becky and I were doing the KHQ interview last week and Stephanie Vigil asked us the question, “What is cancer to you”…  Whoa, that one threw us.  My answer to her was it is just an “awful disease”, that was literally all my mouth and brain could come up with.  Hey nice work brain!  The good news is my mouth just repeated it again and again.  I don’t know what Becky said because I was trying to restart my brain and stop my mouth from repeating that again.  I am sure Becky’s answer was better but she didn’t think so.  It kept us both up at night trying to think about this.  Which may be why I am writing this at 4am.  Hopefully my brain helps me out a little more this time!

Cancer is a journey.  It is a shock, a gut wrenching “why is this happening” when you learn the news.  It becomes your every thought and concern.  Your waking thought, your going to sleep thought.  You try not to neglect everything else around you but can’t help it.  The doctors, the pain, the scans are all this reminder daily that you have cancer.  Then it becomes a mission.  You start doing anything and everything to beat it.  In your mind you know it can kill you but I started to have to put faith in God that he can beat it.  He gave us the medicines and doctors to help us beat it.  Then its days and days of hospitals…  which can be long and boring and depressing at times.  I have tried to make them fun at times.  Like skateboarding down the halls (highly frowned upon!).  I may even try some fake blood pranks this week on the newbie’s. 

But I think I look back and can say cancer was a blessing…  as the boys would say, “Wait What” (thanks for that Frozen!).  I think we have developed stronger relationships, friendships and a marriage from this.  There have been countless blessings from so many people, some were close friends before, some complete strangers who are now friends.  I can’t even begin to say how surprised I am by the support we have gotten.  I need to throw out a quick shout out to some of those.  Becky you are my rock daily, you have been here almost all 8o days that I have been as well as the days at home that are worse than the hospital days.  And keep me upright and on course when the course looks too hard.  Scott & Heidi Rudy you have been here more than anyone except Becky.  Thank you for catering to my weird food cravings of teriyaki chicken and sweet potato fries.  Danny Pecka for letting me beat him every time at Tiger Woods!  And calling to check on me all the time, along with Stu Smith.  My dad, my mom, Becky’s parents who take the kids on a moments notice.  Carrie Everman and Ryan Pettibone.  Our neighbors.  The Spokane Club Family, what a great group of people Becky has met! And all the people who have brought dinners, or stayed weeks with our kids while we are here, several have driven or flown 6+ hours from Oregon or the west side to be here.  I am sorry if I forgot anyone these are the people on my mind and heart, and again I have Chemo Brain. 

I wish it didn’t have to be such a terrible way to get such a much needed lesson in life.  Cancer may be terrible but I will forever cherish friendships more.  I used to be so driven by success and still am.  I guess my overall definition has changed.  The savings account doesn’t need to be so full all the time.  An extra vacation with the kids wouldn’t be such a bad idea.  My success revolves a lot more around my faith, family and relationship.  The work success will follow.    

So what is cancer, one of the scariest rollers coasters you will ever ride.  And it keeps going thru the ups and downs.  The downs get better and easier but they are always going to be there.  The ups are higher than you can imagine.  The turns are jarring but you learn to brace for them and can handle them easier.  I will forever be on this ride but it has made me a stronger man, and hopefully a better husband, father and friend.  (ps. I hate roller coasters.  Won’t catch me on one at silverwood any time soon!)

I am going to sign off here.  Best to let you know so when the grammar and quality improve you won’t be surprised!  Becky will add an update on Cancer Can’t.

I love it when Jonathan gets a wild hair, or can’t sleep.  Lots of things get done!  I also really enjoy reading stuff he writes.  Sorry I haven’t written a blog update in a while.  Things just have begun to seem so normal and I feel like I have a lack of interesting things to write about.  The last few weeks have started to become rather busy though.  After announcing that Jonathan had decided to start a nonprofit we got busy moving full speed ahead.  We’ve begun working with Providence planning and budgeting.   We had to form a board of directors, file our 501c3 paperwork.  We are diligently working to contact businesses to ask for sponsorships and auction donations.  Then, Stephanie Vigil from KHQ got word of what Jonathan was working on and then all of the sudden we are going on the news!  Really, we are very excited that this seems to be getting wings of its own.  We really hope we can make a difference and this project is successful.  If we can help just a few people, it’s all worth it!  Honestly, focusing on something so positive has really been good for the both of us.  We are taking far less time feeling bad for ourselves and using that time to focus on doing something good.  It is working out well. 

We have made some changes to our website.  You can now donate through PayPal on the website.  So if you feel inclined to support this project, please go to www.cancercant.info.  If you also know a business that would be interested in sponsoring this event we would LOVE that!  The KHQ story will be airing tonight, so tune into that as well!  We hope to see you in Spokane at the golf tournament, or if you aren’t a golfer, just come for dinner!  It will be an amazing night!

I also want to take a moment to give a shout out to my cousin Tanner.  He is a fire fighter over in Oregon.  Over the last 2 years he has done the Firefighter Stair Climb in support of Leukemia and Lymphoma.  Typically each fighter does their climb in honor of someone battling cancer.  Jonathan is so honored that this year, Tanner is climbing in honor of Jonathan.  I don’t know if many of you have climbed a significant amount of stairs recently, but I did the stair climber at the gym last week just to see.  This is a serious thing, which possibly would kill me!  This guy is going to climb 69 flights of stairs as fast as he can.  Oh and that isn’t it… He will be in all of his fire equipment.  I’m guessing that adds at least 30-40 pounds because that includes his oxygen tank.  I would certainly run out of oxygen.  So I also want to direct you to his website and ask if you are inclined to throw a little support his way.  What these fireman do is an amazing thing and I have the utmost respect for them for even attempting to do that!  Check out his website: 
http://www.llswa.org/site/TR/Events/FirefighterStairclimb?px=1688892&pg=personal&fr_id=1453

Thank you all so much for all your support of our family and all our little or maybe not so little projects.  We really feel truly blessed to be surrounded by such wonderful people.  We know Jonathan is really getting close to hopefully being done with his chemo treatment and we are beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel.  We are looking forward to getting back to life as we knew it, but are grateful that we have been forever changed.  I wanted to include this picture, it is my favorite of Jonathan and the boys being outside doing the normal things we used to love doing.  I can see this again in our near future.