Gratitude....

Gratitude, tonight I attended a Heated Vinyasa class at Muskegon Yoga taught by Fred Meston with my friend Stephanie. I am a yoga beginner so Heated Vinyasa was a little much, but it felt great, and definitely gave me some yoga goals!  At the end of the class, as we slowed the mind and relaxed the body, Fred told us to think about gratitude. Well, instantly my first thought was how am I to find gratitude in my life right now?  What brought me here? I am not thankful for stage 4 cancer. Then I took a deep breathe, calmed myself and really thought about life and what it means.

By all means, the cancer part totally sucks. Any type of cancer sucks, but stage 4 cancer really sucks. Reading my medical summaries sucks. It is like a bad dream, only really it is reality and reality sucks.

In the midst of reality, I still have so much to be thankful for. I have a loving family that cares so deeply for me.  I have amazing friends. We live in an amazing community where strangers have reached out to our family. I have a loving church family that prays with me and for me. I am surrounded by other area church families that are also praying for me. I have a great job, with awesome co-workers. I feel great, I wake up each day and feel great!  I am so grateful for the last 39 years I have had here on earth and I pray I get 39 more. That is all good stuff to be grateful for.

Last week I met with Dr. Alguire at the Johnson Family Cancer Center.  We put together the rest of the treatment plan. I started some hormone based chemotherapy to shut down my ovaries.  Since my cancer likes estrogen, we need to shut down all the estrogen in my body.  So far I am tolerating that well. Tomorrow I will start my oral chemo treatment.  The treatment is a newer drug and has a great response in patients so far. I will take that drug for 21 days, and then take 7 days off. Then we will repeat the cycle.  Continuing to repeat while monitoring my cancer.  As long as the cancer doesn't grow, we stay on that drug cycle.  The treatment comes with side effects, but hopefully nothing that doesn't allow us to enjoy each day. This treatment also comes with a heavy price tag, one pill is $495 dollars.  Today I was blessed to find out that my insurance agreed to pay for it, and I was awarded a $25,000 grant bringing my monthly copay for the drug down to $10.00 a month.  New chemotherapy treatments, health insurance and grants have been added to my list of things I am grateful for...

So while the reality of my families new normal totally sucks, and we have no idea how long I will continue to feel well.  We are grateful for the days we have and are hopeful we will have many, many more.

 Peace and Hope,
Chris