Month: July 2016

Today is treatment number 4 of 4 for the first round of chemo.  This past week has been pretty good with her sleeping ok and feeling ok.  Val then has a three week break before starting the next round.

Today she was asked to be part of a clinical trial for the next round that is only 46 patients from across the country.  The trial is testing a new cold therapy while the chemo is given to help mitigate a side effect in the hands and feet.  She has a few days to think about if she wants to participate but she is leaning that way.

Many of you may not know, but I (Marc) have and continue to resist the urge to open up a Facebook account.  Since my wife trusts me with her password I get to troll her account every now and then.  Ok probably more now than then!  It has resulted in a few challenges like figuring out my Father’s Day gift early because she was FB messaging the family that made it for me.  Oh well….

So this past week I was trolling and found that Val had posted a response to someone else’s post about “The lie that God won’t give us more than we can handle”.  My wife is a fairly quiet person and doesn’t share what’s on her mind very often.  So when I was reading her post, it deeply moved me with thoughts I didn’t know she had worked through.  I thought you might find these words encouraging as well.

“Confronting the lie: God won’t give you more than you can handle” – Nate Pyle

Valerie Hoard Gordon I love this. As someone who has gone and currently is going through a situation that I can’t see my way out of on my own strength, God DOES give us more than we can handle. It is times like these that make us (at least in my experience) determine what we truly believe about God and our faith. It is times like these that we have to let go, because we can’t do it on our own strength, and must fully cling to and rely on God. It is times like these that others (hopefully) see the power and love and truth of God. When people say that God doesn’t give us more than we can handle, even though they mean well, it is theologically dangerous. Realistically if God doesn’t give us more than we can handle, why would we even need him? If someone wants to give me encouragement, it means so much more to get a hug from them and have them tell me that they are praying for me.

It has been two weeks since our last update and that has been a blessing since it has been a fairly boring two weeks.  We like boring….  No unexpected hospital visits, surgery, etc.

Today is a normal chemo day and we are now on dose 3 of 4 for the first phase of treatment.  We will finish up this phase on July 15th and then start the phase 2 regiment on August 5th.  Phase 2 is a different drug sequence that will be given every week for 3 months.

The “normal” chemo challenges such as nausea and generally feeling crummy has not been a big problem for Val.  What has really been a pain has been the side effect of anxiety.

Val gets a steroid as part of the chemo to help keep her system running and make the drugs more effective.  Unfortunately it has had a nasty side effect which keeps her “motor running” and she has not been sleeping and generally feeling anxious.  At times it is bad enough to almost be debilitating.  This side effect has been especially hard since she has dealt with this challenge in the past and is more easily triggered by her treatment.

We have been blessed by the verse 2 Timothy 1:7… “For God did not give us a spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.”

Would you join us in praying 2 Timothy 1:7 over Val?  We are really wanting this side effect to go away.

We did receive some good news today. We have not mentioned this to very many people, but through all of Val’s testing the doctors found something questionable with her thyroid. A biopsy showed atypical cells, which made our medical folks wonder about an additional cancer in her thyroid, and the samples were sent out for a second opinion. We finally got the results today and…….NO THYROID CANCER!!

Thank you so much for your love and support for our family!

Marc