outweighing the bad with the good (for patty, jo, sharon, chase)

"as you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands,

one for your helping yourself, the other for helping others."

(audrey hepburn)

apparently, melanoma didn't appreciate my list of fun things that i am planning on for october. i had the worst nightmares last night. one of them was so jarring that i woke up with some small screams while trashing in bed, which rarely happens. usually i just wake up from them, but i don't wake up being so startled. i was rattled all day, could not shake the images from the nightmare. i kind of don't want to go to bed tonight, i am a little worried about what is to come. maybe i will pull an all nighter like my old college days.

so we need to combat all of that negative energy from my nightmares with some really good energy. are you in? i knew you would be.

tomorrow patty goes in for her next round of scans and results. so please send her and her family your good vibes, mojo, and prayers that the tumor has not grown. in fact, the tumor completely shrinking would be awesome so let's make that our goal. sound good? yep, sounds good to me too.

we also need to keep sending all of your good energy to sharon as she is still waiting on her blood results with her tumor markers, which we all know will be super low and basically on the negative side of zero.

my mom-in-law jo had a mole scraped today at her dermatologist, so we need send her good energy that the results are totally boring and not interesting at all. you know, the blah blah blah kind. we love those kind of results. 

chase is going in for surgery on thursday, so kick up the vibes for our little fighter, here is the latest:          

"One of the many things that our entire family has learned through this experience is how caring and generous people really are. It never ceases to amaze me the random acts of kindness that continue to come our way- and believe me, we are very humbled and thankful for all of them- especially one we received on Tuesday. The day before Lisa was going to take Chase down to Mayo to meet another surgeon, she received a call from the an assistant of the surgeon we had been corresponding with, and had the appointment on the 29th with. She had called another family, explained the situation, and asked them if they would consider switching dates with Chase so he could be operated on earlier....they said they would! Lisa wasn't give any details of the conversation that took place, but was given a new date of Thursday Oct 3rd - with the surgeon that we had met with and feel so good about! I do not know who they are, or what procedure they pushed back, but what an incredibly generous and thoughtful thing to do! So Chase will be going down either Wed night or early Thursday morning. The surgery will be a couple of hours. The plan is to have the nissen procedure done (wrap part of the stomach around his esophagus, so that the vomiting will become much more infrequent, or possibly cease all together), move his G-tube down lower on his stomach, and repair his herniated belly button. It will all be done with a scope down his throat with the only exterior incision being that of the new G-Tube placement. We are hoping for a quick recovery of one or two nights in the hospital postop.
Chaser is doing good. He continues to vomit often and unpredictably, but it doesn't seem to cause him much visible discomfort. His therapy is going good. On Tuesday, Lisa called me on her way home from his session at Burnsville with excitement in her voice. He was following commands, did a food less run with the Vital stem treatment- and had some very good swallows. But that isn't what she was excited about, it was his eyes.... In the last week, he seems to be very aware at times of what is going on. He moves his eyes around the room more, and when he does lock those brown marbles on you, you can really feel him looking at you. Yesterday as he was looking at me, you could almost see him trying to process what I was saying. We continue to use the stander every day, and get him out for his mile long trike around the neighborhood- which he seems to enjoy. We have increased his vest treatments from one to two or three a day- followed by a deep suction, to help break up the buildup in his lungs-
Tanner and Ava are doing great. They seem to have accepted this process of Chasers healing, and have been helping out a ton. Ava loves to play nurse and digs in when ever we will let her- The kids and I kicked mom out of the house on Thursday. We sent her down to AZ for the weekend with a couple of girl friends for a long overdue break! I have talked to her a few times, and she is loving it. Gramma "Judes"- as Ava calls her, came down to help out and hang out with her favorite son-in-law (even though I'm her only- she has admitted I'm her favorite :) ). We are looking forward to getting through this surgery next week- I know it is going to be a game changer! I hope you all enjoy whats left of the weekend. Thank you all for your continued support, thoughts and prayers. We really appreciate it!

God is Good!"
happy wednesday everyone, hump day is here. we are almost half way there, i can almost see friday.