Glory Days?


I am turning 45 in a couple of weeks and that has put me in a bit of a reflective mood I guess. It really did not help that one of my magazines had an article this month about starting the second half of your life at 45. Next while checking my Roth this week realized I am only 15 years away from 60! I know there is a midlife crises phenomenon that many people experience around this time as they seek to create new achievements or to return to old glory days.

Funny thing is that I happen to think I am living my glory days right now with more to come in the future. I have a great job, loving wife (beautiful too BTW), amazing teenage son, and a full plate of volunteer work with kids that help make life fun.

There are many great days behind me and I am sure there are even better days ahead. For sure there are big changes with our son soon off to college and a new stage in our married life as empty nesters.

I am excited about the future and genuinely thankful to wake up to a new day every morning even if I have pain in places that used to never hurt and hair in places that never used to be hairy. What’s up with the ear hair anyway?

So bring it on 45 and beyond. I am very happy to be here and excited for every new day!

Really I do not care if you are 45, 14 or 94. It should be a joy in the morning to know you have made it to a new day with a new chance to honor God and to make a difference in this world.

Get out there friends and don’t let this day pass you by!

Lucky 13!

12/24 is my 13th anniversary since completing my final cancer treatment. Those days seem so long ago and at the same time are completely etched into who I am. Every year at this time I think of the blessing that is my wonderful life. I am thankful for my continued good health, the joy of my family, the amazing Scouts, my job and most of all the love of my Lord. Once again I hope to honor this time by making the most of it every day.

I hope you too will pause at some point over the next few days imagine your life as it really is. It is life worth living with gusto and passion. It is a life that should be filled with laughter, love and adventure. Most of all, it is a life that should be dedicated to being a positive servant to those around you.

We only get one chance to impact this world and I hope your life however long makes a difference!

Merry Christmas!

Dear 16 year old me…..

An amazing and powerful video about melanoma. I was one of those with the less than 10% chance of survival and here I am living the thriving 13 years later. I count December 24th as my cancer free anniversary as that was the last day of my final radiation treatment. It is wonderful in many ways to have this important milestone on such an important day.

Those days seem so long ago and yet remain so very vivid in my mind and a part of who I am.

Please share the video with someone you love. Maybe it will help save a life!

Twelve years!

Twelve years would seem to be a long time. For me, it feels as if it were just yesterday in many ways. It was twelve years ago on the 24th that I completed my final radiation treatment after several months of battling cancer. My journey started with a lump and then moved on with surgeries, chemotherapy, radiation, prayer, tears, fear and hope. (not necessarily in that order) Being a cancer survivor is very much part of who I am as a person.

I will not rehash my story since I wrote extensively about it last year. I simply want to thank the Lord for continuing to bless me with this wonderful life. Quite honestly I still struggle at times to understand why I was chosen to be healed and to beat the statistics.

The life we have is an incredible gift and cancer survivor or not we should all live as if it could be taken away at any moment.

Would you live your life any differently if you knew you were terminal? Fact is we all are but just don’t know the date. Make the most of the gifts you have NOW and don’t live a life of regrets. Too many people wait until they know they are dying before they start living.

“Lord, remind me how brief my time on earth will be. Remind me that my days are numbered, and that my life is fleeing away. My life is no longer than the width of my hand. An entire lifetime is just a moment to you; human existence is but a breath.” Psalm 39: 4-5

Thoughts on 13

Conner turns 13 this week and this birthday is weighing heavily on my heart.

Last weekend on the Scout campout he was put in charge by the Scoutmaster as Senior Patrol Leader (SPL). As he organized and instructed 30 + adults and Scouts I was amazing and wondered “is this really my son” (Scouting is a youth run program and the boys plan and are in charge of everything) I so enjoyed standing afar just watching him as he interacted with everyone.

It is amazing to think that just 12 years ago at this time I was battling cancer with treatments and planning for the worse. At the time my only prayer was to live long enough that he would remember me. My father died when I was very young and I have no memories of him.

Now as he enters the teen years he is becoming more and more his own person and I can see glimpses of the man he will be very soon.

Sitting here today, I am so thankful the Lord chose to give me this time. I want to treasure every moment and be the best father that I am capable of being. I fail so often with this goal and to be honest I wonder why the God chose to heal me when there are so many more worthy people out there that were not so blessed.

Thank you Lord. Thank you for this time, your love for me, my wonderful wife, terrific son and this life.

I hope as you are reading this you will take some time today to reflect on the blessings in your own life. Most of us only get one chance. I happen to be on my second. Take it from me and do not waste a moment of it.

Skipping to end

As you may have guessed things worked out for me and my life indeed is a miracle. The final radiation treatment was Christmas Eve 11 years ago today. It is wonderfully symbolic to think I completed my medical salvation on the day before celebrating the birth of the savior of my soul, heart and mind.

I would like to say I am now fully cancer free but the reality is that I do not think I will ever really be free.

Years ago when I going though all the treatments I would often I fall to my knees and ask God “why me?” Now years later I find myself asking the same question but in a different way.

Instead I pray;

“Why me Lord? Why was I healed when there are so many others out there hurting? What lesson(s) do you have for me? What am I to do with this gift?”

The reality if life is that we all should be asking ourselves these questions everyday. Any life we have is a gift and it should be treasured and shared in a positive way with others. The Bible says, “life is no longer than the width of my hand…at best each of us is but a breath” Psalm 39;4-5

My prayer for you is that you will take a moment today to realize the fact of our temporary lives as we wait to move on to our eternal one. Don’t wait for a lump to start living. Your gifts and your impact are way too important to be wasted on any activity that does not bring glory to God and service to others.

I know I am taking my anniversary today as an opportunity to ask the important questions again and as reminder of my overwhelming responsibility to do something with the extra time I have been given.

Merry Christmas

Note: On 12/24 it will be 11 years since I completed my final cancer treatment. This week I am writing reflectively a bit about my experience.

My chemo treatments were an all day affair at the doctor’s office in his treatment room. Hopefully you have never had to visit one of these rooms. Mine was filled with large recliners set side by side and I was typically by many years the youngest person receiving a treatment. The type of chemo I received was different from the other folks in that I got it all in one long day and I did not lose my hair. The in office treatment was followed by immunotherapy through self administered shots in the evening. I will spare the details only to say the reaction to the interferon was far worse than the chemotherapy.

The miracle here was that the therapy began to shrink the tumors faster and to a smaller size than the Dr’s had believed were possible. Suddenly the prospect of having the tumors surgically removed became an unexpected reality. In this second surgery they would remove the remaining tumors and at the same time all the lymph nodes under my right arm and near the right side of my neck.

Hope was on my radar.

The second surgery—

I will never forget the day we met with the Dr. for the results. The poor guy could not even look me in the eye as he told me the news. Yes they successfully removed the four remaining tumors. Unfortunately, almost all of the nodes removed showed clear signs of cancer.

All I could think was, “this can’t be happening to me” “I have too much left to do” “Why Lord would you have my son grow up having never known his father just as I had? Why! Why! Why!”

I decided right then to no longer ask why or fear my fate. Instead I wrote this credo in my journal:

Dave’s Credo

What I know:
Through the power of Christ, I will be healed;
I have read all the statistics and understand the challenge before me;
This is a battle that cannot be fought alone;
There are people out there who are beating this thing;
I have a wonderful medical team working to help me be well again;
Cancer is a word and not a sentence;
What I plan to do:
Since I have already read the statistics, I will no longer worry about them;
I will work every day to get closer to God so that I may understand this plan for my life;
I will put my health and treatments before work;
I will remember that what is important is to love my family and strive to support them (its really not about me);
I will continue to believe that I will be healed;
I will seek out support from friends and family;
I will work to reduce stress in my life;

This credo indeed was a bit of a turning point for me from an internal attitude point of view. I had decided to move on and live life no matter how long that life may turn out to be.

More to the story with my next and final post on this topic….

Note: On 12/24 it will be 11 years since I completed my final cancer treatment. This week I am writing reflectively a bit about my experience.

(continued from yesterday)

The early tests and conversations with the medical team were not encouraging. I had five tumors all in my lymph nodes with three under my arm and two near my neck. It is bad to have tumors in two places and so far from the original mole as this meant the cancer had metastasized. Quickly the doctors set out a plan for me that first included surgery to be followed chemotherapy, immunotherapy, surgery again if possible and finally radiation.

My cancer was declared Stage IV. This is not good news for any cancer and especially with Melanoma. The best five year survival rate I could find on the Internet for a stage IV patient was 19% with most sites showing an even smaller % chance to live. For hours I would just stare at my computer screen and read over and over statements like this one:

“Modest progress has been made in the treatment of metastatic melanoma over the past decade. With the advent of high dose interleukin-2 (IL-2), it may be possible for a small number of people to be cured of their disease. Despite this, the average survival in people treated for metastatic disease may be as short as nine months”

CRAP!

Darn you Internet and your vast amounts of information.

There was not only talk of treatments but there was talk of pain management, DNRs, quality of life and planning for the worst case scenario. The Dr. to his credit did not want to give me a worse case date but when forced by me said it could be months.

More to the story with my next post….

My Journey through cancer..


Note: 12/24 is the 11th anniversary of my final cancer treatment.

I will never forget that morning. I woke up just like any other day and started my normal routine. Little did I know that my life was about to change forever. I was in the shower enjoying a steamy start to another exciting day. Life was good. New job, new house, wonderful wife and a beautiful nine month old son peacefully sleeping in his room. At 31 years old, the world of possibilities was finally opening a door for me.

Then as I washed under my arm I felt it—I pressed hard to confirm it was there and when doing so found a second one. I immediately and without a shadow of doubt in my mind knew what I had discovered–Cancer

I was no stranger to the possibility. It was five years earlier when a mole had been removed from my back and declared melanoma. However, after such a long length of time I had become confident I would not have to deal with this again. Suddenly, and without any forewarning that confidence was gone.

I went on to work without saying anything to my wife and immediately contacted the Dr. for a same day appointment. The look on his face as he felt the lump was all the confirmation I needed. Next he said, “feels like you have three lumps here.” “What about the ones on your neck?” What! Turns out I had three tumors under my arm and two smaller but obvious ones on my neck.

I held it together pretty good until leaving the dr. office. Next stop was the little prayer chapel at church. Here alone and on my knees I asked the obvious why questions. Through the death of my mother just a couple of years earlier I had seen firsthand the slow dying process for those with cancer. Also, through the death of my dad when I was a young child I knew what it was like to grow up without a father. I cared very little for myself even in these first moments. I mostly worried that my son would now have to live the childhood I had lived. It was a childhood with no memories of an earthly father and filled with anger, pain and blame as a result.

More to the story with my next post….

Live Strong!

Today is Livestrong day. www.livestrong.org

Lance Armstrong and the Livestrong foundation are using this day as an opportunity to increase cancer awareness and to celebrate the lives of those suffering from this disease. This morning I quickly jotted down five things I learned through my cancer experience and have tweeted them as the day went by. These are not in any particular order and are just the tip of what I have learned.

1. Relationships matter most. Relationship with my Lord, my family and others
2. Life is not about me. It is about serving and loving others
3. Pain in life is unavoidable but suffering is optional
4. The greatest joys in life are found in the smallest of moments.
5. Cancer changes you forever—even if you are “free” of the disease it never really leaves you

Are you a cancer survivor or have you been impacted in some way by cancer? If so, what have you learned from the experience?