Definitely Cancer

Dear blogger friends,

Its been a while since I wrote in here - I guess every blogger goes through that. Mike had his surgery last week. They removed the left side of his thyroid and the surrounding lymph nodes. It was a long surgery - the 4 hours he was under the knife were grueling to wait through. We're very blessed that so many family members were able to be there to keep me company. The results of the surgery were that the left side definitely did have papillary cancer and 2 out of the 13 lymph nodes they removed had microscopic cancer as well. The plan is that Mike will take daily synthetic thyroid hormone that will suppress the right side so that it doesn't encourage cancer growth. He will have a followup ultrasound in six months to make sure there is no more cancer growth. We are continuing our new dietary lifestyle to do all that we can to keep encouraging the health. The good news is that the actual measured tumor size was smaller than the initial measurement.

We appreciate all of your prayers. They have been felt over the past year. All we can say right now is that we're tired of going through health difficulties, as anyone who has had health problems will tell you if you ask. Who knows if we ever will have normal health. What is normal? All we can do is continue to get healthier with our diet and exercise - those things we can control. All the rest is up to God.

Surgery

Surgery is scheduled for December 29 - this was the only appointment they had available for the rest of 2009. Mike is going to be getting the left side of his thyroid taken out since the right side has looked clear on all of the tests. Because they are leaving the right side in, there is only a 15% chance that he will have to take thyroid meds the rest of his life - so we're praying that the right will be fully functioning.

I honestly don't know what to say

I honestly don't know what to say. In some ways we're numb and in others the emotion is just pouring out. In some ways we're incredibly disappointed and yet in others, answered prayer is coming to light. We went to see Mike's oncologist on Wednesday to hear the test results. In short, it confirmed that it looks like he does have cancer. The only way to know for sure is to have surgery to take out part or all of his thyroid. The good news is that his bloodwork came back normal. The scan, however, showed that the mass was "cold", which does indicate cancer. The next step is to talk to the surgeon about surgery, which will most likely be taking place in the next month or two.

Its amazing how down you feel when you expect results that just aren't there. We've had thousands of people around the world praying for the simple result of Mike being cured from cancer without the doctors doing anything. God's answer to that was it isn't the way its going to happen. We're not blaming God in any way, we're just trying to stand back and understand exactly what He is trying to do. This is just about the hardest thing in the world to do - wait on God. We both really want to be on the other side of this and be able to see exactly what His work was through all of this. Mike's not playing the victim card in any way, we're just ready for things to stop happening.

On a positive note, Mike had a second body scan with one of our chiropractors and his overall health is improving, which means that the new lifestyle we've taken on is helping. The scan did show extra activity in his thyroid, which means that his body is trying to fight this cancer - we just need to keep feeding it the fuel it craves so much. So no matter what we do medically, we are going to keep up with this lifestyle of healthy eating and healthy living.

In short, thank you all for your prayers. Please continue them as our life journey continues.

Nothing New

A lot of people have been asking for updates after all of the testing. We don't have any updates, but we do have a followup appointment with the oncologist this Wednesday. We will update the blog afterward. Thanks for your prayers, please keep praying.

Keep Praying

Dear Blog Followers,

Now is the time to pray like you've never prayed for Mike. He had a followup body scan this past Saturday with one of our chiropractors and the results came back that his overall health is improving. Praise God that all of our lifestyle changes with prayer, diet, etc. has been showing results. He went in today for the first part of the thyroid scan. The radiology tech gave Mike some I-123 (as in Iodine-123) pills to take for his uptake scan tomorrow. This scan will show one of three things: 1) That his thyroid is "cold" (thyroid is underactive); 2) That his thyroid is "hot" (thyroid is overactive); 3) That his thyroid is normal. Please pray that this scan would come back normal and it would come back as not "hot" or "cold".

More to come in the next week.

Update

This post isn't going to be anything profound, just an update for what is going on.

We are exploring all of the options for treating this cancer. We have been encouraged by all sides to do it this way so that we can make an informed decision. So far our options are from a traditional medical route, a holistic homeopathic route, or a combination of the two. We have met with Mike's general practitioner and an ear, nose, and throat surgeon and we didn't like either of them or their delivery on treatment options (their opinion was to remove the thyroid without further testing, as soon as possible despite the fact that thyroid cancer is so slow moving), so we have gotten a second opinion. We went to my (Sara's) general practitioner and we felt more comfortable hearing what he had to say. He sent us to an oncologist, whom we met with this past Wednesday. The oncologist had fairly good news for us - we should be worried only if he is worried; he wasn't worried about the situation. He told us not to classify this as cancer - the original lab test came back "suspicious". According to the oncologist, this means that there were only a few abnormal cells that they found - we cannot classify this as cancer, but it does warrant further testing. In October Mike will be going through blood tests and a radioactive thyroid scan, and based on these results, it may or may not be recommended that his thyroid gets removed.

From the holistic, homeopathic side (which is the side that is the most controversial), we have met with two chiropractors, each giving Mike thorough body scans which tested which organs were functioning correctly. Even though we have changed our diet to be refined-sugar-free, processed-foods-free, and organic (and we are feeling so good from eating this way - we have both lost 20-25 pounds since we started cutting out the normal American diet), it has been recommended that Mike go with a more drastic approach and take meat and dairy out of his diet and focus on many raw vegetables for a while. The reasoning behind this is that meat and dairy cause your body to go into an acidic state, which is one that cancer thrives in. As soon as we get a juicer, Mike is going to give this diet a try, as it has helped so many people recover from cancer (and even be cured).

So this is where we are today, September 4, 2009. Please know that one side or another may sound crazy, but we are seriously looking for God's leading and guidance on which treatment Mike should go with. Both sides have proof of people being cured so we are weighing both extremely carefully. Before deciding that either route is wrong or right, please ask yourself, "what would I do if I or someone I loved was diagnosed with cancer."

What can God do for you?

"What can brown do for you?" The UPS slogan got me thinking. It really is a genius slogan. Looking back over the last two weeks, that really has been the theme of it all, only insert "God" in for "brown". Alright let's rewind just a little bit.

What can God do for you? After getting the cancer diagnosis, we began to question where we were at in life. What did we do wrong to cause Mike to get cancer? What was it about our lives that needed changing? That fateful Wednesday night was the turning point for us. After stepping back and looking at things as much as we possibly could after the blow, we figured that we have been trying to do life on our own. The miscarriage was something in life that caused us to cut God out of the picture - how could He, a loving, caring, merciful God, possibly do that to us - take away a baby that would have been so loved? We both had separation from God from that point on. Whether it was conscious or not, we didn't have the desire to have a full and complete relationship with Him. Yes, we still went to church, we still did the obligatory prayer before the meal, but He was pretty much cut out of our lives. But, the thing about God is that He doesn't go away. There were little hints along the way that He still loved and cared for us, but we didn't pick up on it until that Wednesday.

What can God do for you? Mike waited until after dinner to tell me what his doctor told him. He has cancer. After many tears, we decided to take a new approach. We prayed about it. We prayed that God would take this disease away. We prayed that we would have a long life together. We prayed that God would be a part of our lives again. We decided then and there that we wouldn't tell anyone for a while - we wanted to get more information before telling people. Do you know how bad of an idea that is? To go through something like this alone would be the hardest thing in the world. God provided the support system of His church for a reason. We had my sister Megan down for dinner that night and felt compelled to tell her. It was Megan that urged us to tell our parents - that night. Wow! A wildfire was started after that. We told his parents - one of the hardest things to do - tell your mom that her little boy had cancer. We called my vacationing parents. They said they would put it on the prayer chain at church. Our parents called and emailed our families. They put it on their prayer chains at church. But the wildfire didn't stop there. People at church told their family and friends and those people put it on their prayer chains. Thinking back over it, we probably have thousands of people praying for us - people around the world. On the Sunday after the diagnosis our youth pastor decided to do something a little different for prayer time. He had people around us lay hands on us to pray and the rest of the body get on their knees and pray for us - for healing, for God's will, for peace, for wisdom in making a decision. It was like we were experiencing the first century church all over again and it was humbling and awesome all at the same time.

What can God do for you? That Sunday night, we decided to have our own prayer time. We both got on our knees and prayed for wisdom and healing. Wisdom in which treatment option to choose. We asked God to show us if a route or doctor was the right way to go, or if we should look in a different direction. On Monday, we met with our God-fearing, Bible-believing chiropractor and he gave us so much wisdom and scripture on how God wants to heal us and that He can heal us. We came away with the ultimate peace that passes all understanding. Its amazing to know exactly what Philippians 4:7 was talking about - to be able to live it and experience it on this earth. Nightly we prayed that same prayer - show us if this is the way to go. Give us that same peace if it is and unrest if it is not. We met with a surgeon on Wednesday, a week after the diagnosis. He gave Mike a thorough checkup. He started feeling Mike's neck to get a feel for the extent of the cancer. The lab report came back that the cancer mass was 2.5cm x 1.5 cm x 3.5 cm - not a small mass. It took the surgeon 10 minutes to find the cancer spot, and in uncertainty, he asked Mike to point out exactly where the mass was. Knowing that the massage therapist and his doctor were able to find the mass without problem caused us to wonder what was going on. We asked if it was possible that the tumor was shrinking. The doctor said that it was impossible, that it was just embedded in the thyroid. Maybe we're just naive, but we both looked at each other with the same thought in both of our minds, "is God shrinking this tumor?". We walked away from the visit with a great unrest and a sick feeling. The peace that we asked God to provide us with if this surgeon was the way to go was not there. God answered our prayers in that 45 minute time period that we were there. We believe that He showed us that He is doing the "impossible" and is shrinking that tumor - that the prayers of thousands of people around the world are being actively answered. God is providing us wisdom and direction.

What can God do for you?