I last wrote about David in June, shortly before his surgery.
I won't go into a lengthy discussion about what a roller coaster ride this has been, but I do want to let you know that the surgery that he had in June, was a good news/bad news story. The Doctors removed 1/3 of his stomach, several centimeters of his esophagus and 18 lymph nodes (3 of which were malignant). There was another cluster of lymph nodes that had attached themselves to a major artery and could not be removed. The plan was to shrink them as much as possible and then keep a close watch on whether or not there was any spread of the cancer in the future. The recovery from the surgery was long and complicated. We prayed for good days but rejoiced over good hours. In September, David started on a second round of chemo. Twelve treatments over 6 months, every other week. Any additional rounds of chemo are a challenge as the body accumulates the drugs and it is, at times, a battle. As of this writing, David has 4 more treatments; two this month and two next month. He had an intestinal blockage at the end of September which landed him in the hospital and set his treatment back a bit.
When I reread the previous paragraphs, it all sounds pretty gloomy, but,
THERE IS HOPE...THERE IS ALWAYS HOPE!
Around Halloween, David kind of turned a corner. He started to have more good days than bad. When he was feeling OK, we were able to go out for a meal or do some short errands. We have been able to attend church pretty regularly, which is huge! Being able to do some "normal" things gives him some renewed energy. Not every day is great but we are seeing some light at the end of this long, long tunnel. A preliminary scan showed that the lymph node cluster is indeed shrinking and there was no new cancer detected.
So, onward we march! We are supported by the love and prayers of our family, our friends and legions of church prayer groups. We have leaned on that and on our loving God. We could never be doing this alone!
So, thank you if you've remembered us in prayer or had a positive thought directed our way. We appreciate every one!
We are both on Facebook (Joyce Muhly Gleason, David Gleason) and
I also started a journal on thecaringbridge.org under his name.
I said in my New Year's post that I wanted to be more consistent on this blog and I mean that. I did so little creatively in all of 2015 and I need to get back to that! It's therapeutic for me.
When I write next time, I will tell you about my
One Little Word for 2016!
Have a gentle week dear friends!
joyce
xoxo
