Week 5 — One to go

The countdown is on. Kerry has 3 more days of radiation this week and Friday his chemo pump is off until after surgery. To say we are anxious for Friday is an understatement. Kerry has been experiencing some increasing side effects from the radiation the last couple of weeks. He had some pretty severe intestinal cramping. The radiation oncologist gave him some anti-spasm medication that seems to help if he stays on top of it. Unfortunately, it makes him a little dizzy if he stands up too fast.

Kerry is still working 4 days a week. He doesn’t work Monday because of the time it takes to draw lab and put the pump on and then radiation in the afternoon. The rest of the week he’s at work by 0600 and works until 1pm, then comes home to get Gabe and they go together to radiation. Gabe is getting lots of good practice driving and Kerry gets a little nap. He needs to rest most days and has definitely been feeling lots of fatigue over this last week.

We had an appointment with the medical oncologist this week. He has scheduled a CT scan in May and then we will meet with the surgeon to decide when surgery will be.

We have some things to celebrate this week with Gideon. On Tuesday he graduated from speech therapy! This is a huge accomplishment for him. A year ago only about 10-15% of his speech was understood by strangers and he wasn’t putting words together well. He was diagnosed at that time with Apraxia of speech that is likely related to his Noonan Syndrome/Neurofibromatosis. His speech therapist was wonderful and he made massive strides in his ability to express himself. We are so thankful! We will go back for a re-evaluation in a year to make sure he is still on track. On Thursday he had his yearly cardiology appointment for his heart murmur (also related to Noonan syndrome). His heart murmur is completely gone (a HUGE answer to prayer) and we now only have to follow up every couple of years to monitor his heart size as he grows. We are so thankful for the answered prayers we’ve had this week.

One other big praise for us was that the plumbing in the basement is done. Just before Christmas our sewer backed up (YUCK!) and we had to tear out the bedrooms, bathrooms, storage room and part of the walls. While we had the flooring up, we decided to replace the cast iron pipe in the old part of the house…all buried under the concrete floor of course. Then Kerry got cancer and everything got put on hold for a time. This week we had someone jackhammer the concrete out (super noisy) and the plumber came out to replace the pipe. Now we need to get some sand and poor concrete to patch the floor. Then we’ll be ready to start putting sheet rock up and flooring down. We are thankful for progress!

Overall, it was a good week. We are thankful for God’s provision for our family and meeting needs before we even know we have them. Even on hard days we have much to be thankful for.

Psalm 73:28: But as for me, the nearness of God is my good; I have made the Lord God my refuse, That I may tell of all Your works.


3 thoughts on “Week 5 — One to go”

  1. Let Kerry know once he loses the pump and radiation is over he will start to have more energy and feel better. Hang tough. You’re almost there.

  2. How humbling to hear your grateful hearts as you go through hard times. Yes, God is good all the time, full of grace and mercies. Tim particularly has been praying for Gideon since our last reunion. We hate what Kerry has to go through but we do pray and trust our great God

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