Give Thanks

Hi all! I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and you are all recovering from your turkey comas! We had such an incredible Thanksgiving and it was so nice to be able to spend it together. We had, and continue to have, so much to be thankful for this year and I could list everything but it would be a novel. Three things I am especially thankful for are 1. Dad's health through this cancer and his amazing ability to continually stay so positive and bring humor to a scary situation. He inspires me everyday! 2. The amazing support we have from God, our family, friends, and staff at TGen. None of where we are today would be possible without them. 3. The ability to spend time together. Our family has always loved being together, going to dinners, movies, and all of that fun stuff but the last year has been really nice taking that extra time to be with each other!

We went to church in the morning and then I hosted dinner at my apartment... and I will just tell you all now, I have extreme appreciation for those who host dinner parties for large amounts of people/families! The timing of the oven items alone is truly an art, so cheers to all you kitchen masters! Poor Dad had to get a root canal the night before and had a hard time eating, but he still managed of course!

Dad feasting

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Things at TGen have been going great. The chemo days have been getting shorter and shorter and next week he will be done by lunch! Dad has made friends with I am pretty sure everyone who works there now and they all love him. When we were there yesterday for an exam I heard one of the nurses says "OJ is here!" to another nurse which just made me smile and reminded me of how great of an impact Dad has on peoples' lives. We will scan again on the 14th of December and will get the results that following Monday so until then we are just taking it day by day!

Dad, Kristen, and I have been able to see a few movies lately (honestly I have seen more movies with them in the last 4 months than I have seen combined in the last 3 years) and one that you all MUST see is Life of Pi! What an incredible movie, I think it was one of Dad and I's all time favorites! I could babble about it forever, so instead I will just recommend that you go see it. This is one of my favorite quotes from the movie which seemed to be so fitting to our lives:

“I must say a word about fear. It is life's only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I know. It has no decency, respects no law or convention, shows no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unnerving ease. It begins in your mind, always ... so you must fight hard to express it. You must fight hard to shine the light of words upon it. Because if you don't, if your fear becomes a wordless darkness that you avoid, perhaps even manage to forget, you open yourself to further attacks of fear because you never truly fought the opponent who defeated you.”

Most of the time when I write the blog, it is like a giant puzzle. Writing papers were never my forte in school so figuring out the flow of the post sometimes takes me longer than necessary. I can tell it is the end of the semester because all I want to do at this point is put everything else in a miscellaneous section instead of finishing it off smoothly...and that is what I am going to do :) Love you all!

Before going to see Lincoln a few weeks ago

 Dad got to go to Kathy Schieb's party last week and had a ton of fun catching up with friends from work!

Dad and Bev

Dad and Kathy

Beating the Odds

hello hello! Well Dad has been doing GREAT since the first chemo! It's like he hasn't had chemo at all it's amazing! Last week Dad had an appointment with Dr. Weiss on Monday. No one was going to be able to go but sneaky me went and surprised him. We talked movies with the nursing staff while getting his blood work done and then we met with Dr. Weiss. It was a short appointment but Dr. Weiss was very pleased with how Dad was doing. He reiterated that we continue on the path that we are on until December 13th (I think...) when we rescan and then we will go from there. Obviously good results showing no growth will allow him to continue with the DKK drug and if there is growth then we will get a biopsy and send the tissue to the lab for another chemo option.

Last week Dad went on the annual golf trip he goes on with Uncle John and his friends. They were there Wednesday-Saturday and had so much fun. Since I love tooting Dad's horn, he played AWESOME. He shot in the 60's the whole week and one day was 5 under par! (Insert the song "Can't Touch This")

Uncle John & Dad

The group

Today was Dad's second chemo. It went really well and they even gave Dad offsite privileges! Around 1030 they came in and told us we could come and go as we please until 430 when Dad had to be back for blood work. We were all a little surprised and I honestly forgot to ask why they didn't need to do blood work every two hours this time but we weren't complaining! Before we left for lunch, Joy the poodle came by and paid us a visit. She was very nice and I hope she comes back next time :)

Other than that I really don't have much to report. Dad and I had breakfast on Sunday and we were talking about how it has already been 11 months since he was diagnosed. We smiled and said "beatin the odds" while we "pounded it". We really have been so blessed by God to have Dad in such wonderful health. I know with all my heart God is guiding our path for good and is creating miracles in our life everyday. Thank you for supporting us while we continue to fight and see the good in this situation. Love you all, now go get your vote on!!

LASTLY- My sister Kristen was accepted into Teach for America last week!!!!!!!!! I cannot even explain how incredibly proud we are of Kristen!!!!!!! She will be based in South Carolina for two years starting next fall. Being accepted is such an honor, only 7-11% of applicants get accepted! We cannot wait to see the opportunities this brings her, we know she is going to change so many lives! Congrats Kristen!