Another Cancer Update

Nevertheless I am continually with You; You hold me by my right hand. You will guide me with Your counsel, And afterward receive me to glory (Psalm 73:23–24).

Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, The days fashioned for me, When as yet there were none of them. How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they would be more in number than the sand; When I awake, I am still with You (Psalm 139:16–18).

“You don’t have a need to know.“ That was a phrase I heard a lot in the Navy. And then I became a Christian. And realized that God has a serious plan for my life and yours, and we don’t have a need to know what’s coming. All we need to know is God is wonderful and glorious and he has a plan.

The other day someone asked me how things are going. I said it depends. It depends on whether my goal is to get to glory. If that’s the case, then things are going really really great. If my goal is to stay here and hang out with you all and hopefully minister to you all, then things are not going all that well.

There’s a lot going on right now with my cancer. But I thought I would give you a short update. So that you can update your praying for me. And I can never tell you how grateful I am for all of that.

Let’s start with a PSA number. When I wrote my last update, it had risen from three in August to 158 on November 17. Then it was checked again last week, and it has risen to 326.

After my last post, I noticed that there was a bit of a lump on my stomach, just below the ribs on my left side. Last week, when they did the check and found the 326 PSA, they performed a CT scan and found that my liver is more than double the normal size. The reason appears to be that the cancer has engulfed my liver and is causing all kinds of trouble. It’s also pushing against all the other organs in my stomach making it difficult to eat and all the other things that go on inside your stomach.

Last Friday I had a PSMA scan that revealed that all of their guessing was correct. The cancer has spread to all my lymph nodes, bones, organs, and mostly my liver right now. So the plan right now is to start chemotherapy. They’re hoping that the chemotherapy will affect the cancer that’s on my liver, and give me some relief from all of that. None of this is to cure the cancer, it’s simply to extend my life and make the rest of it a little bit more comfortable.

I have an appointment with the doctor here in Moscow for Thursday morning at 11:30. To talk about a plan.

So, to recap, the cancer didn’t go away, instead it’s gone around the hormone therapy and my PSA numbers are skyrocketing, it’s affecting my liver most of all, which is affecting my current quality of life.

Speaking of quality of life, I’m finding it very difficult to sleep partly due to the fact that my stomach is distended. I’m finding it difficult to eat. If I eat more than four bites or so, I have to run to the bathroom. I am exhausted quickly when I try to move or go anywhere. So I have to plan everything I do so that I have somewhere to sit down and catch my breath. I’m tired all the time. And for some reason can’t take a nap. It’s becoming very difficult to be comfortable when I’m sitting around. There are some other things but…

But otherwise everything‘s going great. Lots of you have been calling me, and texting me, and sending me stuff, and offering to help. And that’s really great to see.

As I mentioned in the beginning, God is good. He’s just revealing his plan a whole lot more slowly than I always want to see.

Photo by Dawid Zawiła on Unsplash