Another Update

Dear Friends,
Well, it has been since May 15 that I have blogged on here. In the meantime, I have learned a lot about myself and my condition. Not all necessarily good, but not bad either.

First off, I am cancer free at the moment. I do have a bunch of dead brain cells in my head and they can't tell how much is cancer free and what isn't, but it seems good so far. The oncologist at OHSU, Dr. Neuwelt, said that it looks good enough that I do not need to go back to him until the end of September or first of  October of  this year. That sounds good to me. I am feeling good and that is a good thing for now.

So, what have I been doing? Concerning sugar, I don't eat much sugar at all. I will occasionally have a little spot of sugar and that will take care of things for me for awhile. I typically will have about two beers a week, so I'm not sure how good that is. It is Bud Light and it tastes good. The rest of what I have is all in regular food together with the supplements that I eat.

I have been reading a lot. I started to read some of Chris Hedges books, but decided after reading some of them that I need to read other things too. So, I am beginning to branch out with his writings.

Not too much else to say at the moment, but I'll get back here sooner this next time.

God bless and take care.

Wade


Psalm 45:16-17
 Instead of thy fathers shall be thy children, whom thou mayest make princes in all the earth.
 I will make thy name to be remembered in all generations: therefore shall the people praise thee for ever and ever.

The Saga Continues

Since arriving home I have neglected to do any serious blogging. I had a severe reaction to my medication in Texas and decided to forgo the treatment. It took a good four weeks for me to get over the medication and only now am I feeling my strength return and my diet get back to normal.

Lately I can feel a little more energy and I can feel that I am beginning to get my feet back under me. Who knows how long it will last. I go back in a week for an MRI and then later in the week follow that up with a visit with my radiologist. We will see how all of that goes.

I just got back from the local office here where I live and decided that it was time to write some more in my blog, so that is what I am doing.

First, I have a class reunion coming up in July and I am looking forward to attending it. There should be a good number of people there that I know and will relate to. It should be a lot of fun. It is on Saturday, July 30th. I am looking forward to meeting with lots of "old" friends with whom I can catch up on things. In order to get there we will leave our church convention in Pennsylvania early and fly to LA where my son will pick us up and drive us up to Tehachapi for the reunion. There were about 80 in my graduating class and I think there are about 60 left. It will be interesting to see how many show up.

Prior to the reunion we will attend the General Convention of our church in Johnstown, PA. It has been at the branch of the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown for years now. They have an awesome climate and facility and it should go well for all of us. I could not do the Melodies of Praise this year and neither could Rick Sconyers. Therefore they decided to try a different venue for it with Len Griehs leading the meeting.

Prior to the General Convention we will do some other things that are fun. The weekend prior to our convention here in Portland we will all go to a Dodger game against the Mariners in Seattle. That should be a lot of fun. There should be about 10 of us there. The time for that event is coming up soon.

I have another adventure going on at the moment too. It is with TiVo and it is causing me a mess of problems. I probably just need to go with the flow and buy a "box" that will fix everything.

Meanwhile, things continue as they continue and we are taking one day at a time.

Rom 12:3-8

3 For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you. 4 Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, 5 so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. 6 We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man's gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. 7 If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; 8 if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully. 

NIV

Time Flies - But we are still here!

Hello to all.

I don't know how time flies so much, but it sure does.

I have been in Texas for less than a week now. We arrived on Tuesday and saw the doctors on Wednesday. Since then we have seen the doctor every day, including today, and things are going well (I think!), except that the results of the MRI are confusing or misleading or somethings.

We took the MRI on Thursday and saw the results on Friday. They did not look good unless we are looking at the wrong thing. The mass was 2 cm larger than mid-November, so we do not know if it grew from mid-November to surgery time in mid-December OR if it grew during radiation in spite of the chemotherapy, which seems unlikely. So, I intend to ask the doctor when I see him this week.

I have started a new round of medication and there is more "getting used to" the new medications. Many are slowly building tolerances to the new dosages. One of the pills is PB (forget translating that one), and it calls for upping the dosage to 4 pills, 3 times a day. There is another pill that calls for doing the same thing, but it is for 2 pills/2 times a day.

Then there is a bunch of other pills that call for one here or there. I hope I haven't missed any of those times, but I think I probably have.

Meanwhile I discontinued a bunch of my other pills except for my Kepra and for my steroid (which is the same as my previous steroid).

I am feeling about the same as when I did when we began our journey. I actually got up feeling very good today. I took a nap this afternoon and now we are working down the afternoon and evening.

The rest of the trip went very well. We had a nice week in Southern California from Saturday to Thursday (after staying Wednesday thru Friday nights with my Dad in Tehachapi. Monday, (after staying the weekend with Stephen), we went to spend Tuesday night with Nannette, and then on Tuesday we drove to Cerritos for lunch with my old jogging buddy, Gary McHatton, and then a nice meeting with my old staff at Hawaiian. The entire "old staff" was still there with the exception of Nina Berk who had arranged to be away for her anniversary. She left a nice letter for me. I don't think there were any other new folk, except one was missing - ?? my brain is not working well so I can't remember her name.

Then on Thursday afternoon we went for a meeting at Wittmann after school. There were very few people there. About 7 in all. So, we made good plans. We checked out of the hotel in the morning and that left us 4 hours to drive to Indio on our way to Phoenix. I helped Kent to set up for the convention on Friday evening and then Saturday morning. The convention went great and I guess we missed a great day on Sunday. Then we drove here to Austin and spent a nice evening with my cousin Sherry on Monday.

That is all there is to report, except that I know you will all find something else I should have said.

by grace,
Wade

Update on my progress

Dearest Friends,
I am sorry it has take so long to get back to my posts here to keep those of you that are interested in my progress up to date.

First, Lois and I took a trip to Southern California (we left on Valentine's Day) and we returned Monday of this week. It was a long and well deserved trip except for the return portion because I suffered from side affects of the medication that was prescribed for me.

On the way south we stopped in Tehachapi for two nights to visit my father and then we traveled on to Studio City to visit with Stephen. On Monday we traveled to Nannette's home to visit with her and then from there to Cerritos to visit with the old staff. On the way the first thing we did was to go to lunch with Gary McHatton, but first we had a conversation at his home with George Dominguez. The Hawaiian Staff is almost entirely in contact with each other and there were about 1/3 of the Wittmann staff there on Thursday. The timing turned out great for all reunions.
From Cerritos we traveled to Indio for a one night stay and then on to Phoenix for the convention there. After Phoenix we traveled to TX, stopping once along the way and then on to Austin to visit a cousin before driving the next day down to Houston to spend some time with Sr. Elinore Nichols. She was so kind to us and allowed us to spend two weeks there while visiting the Burzynski Clinic. While there we took one weekend and traveled to Gulf Port to attend the convention there.

Upon returning we learned that we could finish on Wednesday with treatments and then return home to Oregon, which we did. We drove to Dallas to spend an evening with John Slavich and then to Albuquerque to visit the Thomassens and the Wesols. The new baby was a darling to behold. From there we drove all day to Tehachapi to spend some time with my Dad and to visit with Stephen. We left on Sunday morning and arrived back here in Portland on Monday afternoon.

That is the quick "gist" of the trip. After arriving back in Portland I became aware that there is not much likelihood of finding an oncologist not affiliated with the Knight Institute of Cancer at OHSU. Besides, I'm not sure I want to at this point. I am still suffering from the side affects of the medication and I do not want to go through any of that again.

I will continue treatment with OHSU (the "standard" of care kind) and take what I can take from the experience. I have brain cancer. I have nothing else wrong with me. Hopefully I will live for two more years. Perhaps even longer!
I looked on Facebook today and saw that Steve Thompson died. He won't be at the reunion. God bless you Steve. Don't know who else will be there, but we will see. I think I'll make special efforts to fly to Los Angeles from LAX-Newark-LAX and see what happens.

Friends, I am in pretty bad shape right now. I should get much better soon - once the rash wears away from my face. Until then, I am too embarrassed to show myself in public. Perhaps in a couple of weeks.

That is all for now.
God bless and good luck to you all.
by grace,
Wade

Ps 1:1-3 NIV
Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked
or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers.
But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.
He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers.

Where Has Time Gone

It is the end of the month and here I am again. I completed my treatment last Friday. At the end it was more of an endurance thing since I was getting very tired during the day, and the tiredness still lingers even today, though things are slowly getting better.

We are scheduled to be in Seattle and to serve the class there on Saturday, February 11th. We plan to stay the night and visit the class the following morning (hopefully with Bev Christiansen in tow with us). Then we'll drive back the the BSRC and probably depart for Southern California on Tuesday.

I need to write a new talk for our memorial season and I have been thinking a lot about the book "The Cross and the Lynching Tree". There has got to be lots of good stuff in the topic for me to draw on, but I'm just getting started, so not much to share on that for now. It does remind me of a talk given by G. R. Pollock years ago called "The Wood of Life". I need to try to find it and see if it is suitable for a redo.

I also need to look up some of the books that are now available at the library through Kindle. It will be interesting to see if any of the titles that I have in mind are available.

That's all I have for now. Slowly getting better and looking forward to the Southern California trip and the succeeding trip through Texas to Mississippi and back.

by grace,
Wade

Ps 23:4 (NIV)
4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil, for you are with me;
your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

A New Topic

This last weekend I had the opportunity to listen to a CSPAN2 BookTV interview with a man by the name of Chris Hedges. That name will be entirely new to most of you, it was to me, and yet, he may be an icon to many of you. Certainly he has a wealth of experiences and the resulting perspicacity to account for an in depth three hour interview in which I hardly ever heard him repeat himself. The interview was referred to me by my youngest son, Stephen, who, though not consecrated, has an uncanny insight into the scriptures and their meaning in our lives.

Mr. Hedges comes from a religious family. I don't remember the denomination, but his father was (is) a minister and his early life was affected by his upbringing. When he decided to enter into journalism as a career, his perspective on the world and the control of the world began to change. Thus, now he believes we are largely influenced by powers bigger and stronger than us, and, almost, to the point of being out of control. His list of books is as follow:

The World As It Is: Dispatches on the Myth of Human Progress
Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle
Death of the Liberal Class
War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning
American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America
What Every Person Should Know About War
When Atheism Becomes Religion: America's New Fundamentalists
Losing Moses on the Freeway: The 10 Commandments in America
Collateral Damage: America's War Against Iraqi Civilians
I Don't Believe in Atheists
American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America
Iraq: A War

There are several other books that I will read in the near future that touch upon the subject of our being influenced by society at large to ignore the import of the "cross" in our lives. One of the books is called "The Cross and the Lynching Tree" by James H. Cone. It touches upon the proclivity of the white church in the south to ignore lynchings. Another is "Been In The Storm So Long: The Aftermath of Slavery" by Leon F. Litwack. Both books are now available in the library and I will pick them up tomorrow. Other books, based upon the reading habits of Chris Hedges include:

In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust
The Collected Essays of George Orwell
The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt
The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin

I can hardly wait to get started on these books and this topic.

"Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." - John 15:13

Checking Back In

Saturday, January 7, 2012

Hard to believe it is 2012, but that is what the date says!

Things have been going along pretty good, so there has been no incentive to really write anything much. I finished half way through the radiation therapy yesterday (and chemo too), so, I begin part two next Monday. I have had no side affects except for getting tired from not enough sleep. The steroid pill causes me to be wide awake at 4:00 a.m. after about 6 1/2 hours of sleep, so I get up. Then after breakfast, about 8:00 a.m. I often feel the need for a short nap before heading off for treatment.

My diet has been pretty good. We try to keep it as alkaline as possible, with fruits and vegetables and turkey, chicken and fish for the protein. I also am getting used to tofu - it tastes great in stir fry, etc. I drink lots of green tea and water and that helps too. I usually spread breakfast food over the morning from the time I get up to about 7:00 a.m. and then we have a substantial lunch. Lately we have been making a "green drink" for dinner - about a cup of veggie and apple/pear freshly ground in our new juicer.

One of the side affects of "something" is that I am still constipated. Can't figure it out, but it sure is frustrating. Seems like something ought to work. I have decided yesterday to OD on magnesium until I have diarrhea and then to back off. We'll see if that works at all. Constipation has been a life long problem, so it is nothing new, but now it worries me a lot.

When we finish the radiation treatments this month we plan on driving to Southern California and then to Gulf Port for the convention there. On the way we plan on stopping and seeing Dr. Bryzinski in Houston for his medical clinic. I have decided to give him a try. We should return home by the last weekend in March.

That's about it for now. I probably raised a lot of questions in people's minds, so send me some emails and ask!

For now, thank you all for your prayers and good thoughts.

Rom 13:9-14
Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
10 Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.
11 And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.
12 The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light.
13 Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying.
14 But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.