Wednesday, December 06, 2006… p.m.
Family and Friends…
I’ve been putting off this email until we had more specifics. But now it’s time to fill you in on the little twist our journey is taking these days… and ask for your prayers.
The Short Story…
A couple of weeks ago I had a suspicious lump removed from my right armpit. But the last thing we or the docs expected was a diagnosis of metastatic malignant Melanoma. So… today Beth and I traveled to Ann Arbor for an appointment at the University of Michigan Melanoma Clinic where we are in the process of determining the best course of action. Obviously your prayers for me and our family would be greatly appreciated as we hang on to the reality that G*D is the only constant in a universe of change.
For those who want a bit (okay… a lot) more detail…
If you’ve tracked our family over the last years, you’ll remember this as the same cancer that Emma was diagnosed with almost 5 years ago. (She’s 13 and doing wonderfully… we are thankful to say.)
I had noticed a lump in my right armpit… and even though the doc thought it was nothing, he said it should come out just to be sure. The lump turned out to be a clump of lymph nodes and the pathology report indicated that it was Melanoma. We told Jenn, Ian & Emma, of course… and they’ve been great through it all. We decided against telling many others until it was staged and we had more details.
Since we have personal experience with Stage III Melanoma… we anticipated that in the least I would be given the same Interferon Therapy that Emma received. But we decided to wait to communicate anything until we had more concrete info.
My doc immediately lined me up with the University of Michigan Melanoma Clinic for staging and to establish the protocol for treatment. The clinic there is “multidisciplinary,” which means that a variety of doctors group together to quickly and thoroughly chart out a course for treatment. So… after our initial consultation, we expected to walk away with answers. That’s a great thing when you’re wondering what the next weeks and months hold.
I had hoped to be officially “staged” today at the UofM, but we’ll have to wait a bit on that... …hopefully not as long as UofM might have to wait to be champs!
They did a pretty intense exam when I arrived. I’ve never quite experienced the sensation of 4 doctors examining me all at the same time! But welcome to life at a teaching hospital!!! I’m not really complaining because their thoroughness resulted in finding a few other nodes that require testing and possible removal. At least 2 more nodes will definitely be taken from my right armpit. But they also want to test a lump in my left armpit. If that lump turns out to be cancerous, that lump would be removed at the same time they remove the right arm nodes. But it would also shift me to Stage IV.
So… prayer request #1 is that the left lump isn’t cancerous. Being Stage III is serious enough. But Stage IV is a completely different ballgame.
I’ll hear next week when I’ll be scheduled for a needle biopsy of the left lump… and the lymph node dissection(s) will happen after that. Then I’ll see an oncologist after that… probably in about a month after they have the final results.
Beth and the kids have been great through this whole thing… but understandably nervous and trying not to think about it. Of course, they and Beth are my primary concern. So… that’s really prayer request #1 in my book.
Otherwise… things were already going to be busy for us… especially next week. Beth just started a new job and will be away all next week for some training. I will be in Florida with my 4 brothers for a getaway that we’ve had scheduled for months. Jenn will be writing exams next week at MSU and Ian & Emma will be staying with friends.
So… you probably won’t hear much from us until after I get the results from the biopsy… maybe a couple of weeks or so.
But be assured that G*D is already saturating our hearts and minds with peace. The sad and yet wonderful benefit of living many years is that we have experienced first hand the wonder of sensing G*D carrying us through hard times. We know there is no guarantee that life will be easy, and we also know the blessings that only come from difficulty and pain.
So in good times and in challenging times… we choose to thank G*D for every breath.
Thanks for your love and prayers.
Randy and all
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