I Got a STAR on AR, and Didn't Write A Word???

Actually, the STAR started in December, but it has taken me this long to figure out how to say thanks. So one day I was talking on the phone with my friend Elizabeth Nieves, about the cancer affecting our families. Although, it is not a secret in my Keller Williams office in Renton, or community in Ashburn or at Renton Christian Center, I don’t throw it out into public too much. My clients all know up front that we are in a battle and have been tremendous. Well here goes to my AR Friends and Family....

My wife, Jessie-Joy, and I have been fighting cancer for over 6 years. What started out with my obligatory husbandly checks resulted in me finding a large lump in her breast. Off to the doctor we go and we get the news, breast cancer. Holy Crap, this sucks, what do we do now. So first we pray, then we cry, then we get educated, then Jessie decides it is time to kick cancer’s rear-end. This was over 6 years ago. Chemo, lumpectomy and radiation and a year and a half later we thought we were clear. Our family was great, church was amazing and the agents in my Keller Williams office were outstanding. One issue was that the cancer had infiltrated her lymph nodes, so you know there is a chance it will float around and come up somewhere else.

Year and a half later, Jessie is at a work retreat across the State and has major seizures. As my friend Ray said, “She was fine giving a presentation, then started talking in tongues, not making sense and then fell down and had the seizures.” I am in the process of showing houses to one of the Seahawks and his fiancé and I get a call from one of Jessie’s coworkers. So the clients are handed off (dumped actually) and I head for eastern Washington at a rather high rate of speed. By the time I get there, the MRI has found TEN brain tumors. Now we know where the remaining breast cancer has landed. This is where it gets a little tougher……

We get back to our great oncologists at Virginia Mason Hospital in Seattle and come up with a plan. Thank God we are at the center of the world’s best cancer research here in Seattle. I make the doctor tell us the stats on brain cancer and after much prodding (actually I threatened him) he told us that the averages were 6 months to live and that it was considered terminal. Jessie’s reaction was “heck with that, I’m not dying, I’ve got kids and grandkids to see and we haven’t been married long enough”. Our Doctor also said that research was going so fast that the life expectancy was getting longer and longer and he had people that had made it 5 years. Great to hear that, we're shooting for that plus.

Well we called our kids and our folks and our friends at church and work (of course a bunch showed up at the hospital and took care of yours truly who was quite the basket case.) Great prayers, great support and God’s touch on my wife and we persevere. We have had two sessions of whole brain radiation, several treatments of stereotactic laser radiation (they can pinpoint and shoot lasers into your brain and do surgery from the outside in, truly amazing), multiple treatments of liquid infused chemo and now pill form chemotherapy. Plus we had major surgery and a golf ball sized tumor was removed from her left frontal lobe.

At this point in brain tumors it has been over 3 years and we are down to 3 tumors total and still fighting. Two of the tumors are inconsequential (amazing that we would come to think that way), but one tumor is in the very middle of her brain. No way to shoot lasers or do surgery, mostly this tumor is untouchable. We are counting on research to find a new type of chemo that will infiltrate that tumor and kill it off. As the doctor said the other day, “we are racing the research and we need all the help we can get.” God provides great science, great medicine and great doctors so we are hopeful.

Jessie has great days, good days and some ok days. She never complains, but does get frustrated, because some of the damage is in her verbal skills. At times, she can see the word she wants to say, but sometimes it doesn’t come out. The other day she was trying to tell me something was on the kitchen table and couldn’t get that, finally described it as “where we eat down there by where the chairs are at”. Her biggest fear is that she will lose more of her verbal skills and will not be able to share her faith and her testimony about God sending huge warrior angels to protect her right before surgery. Yes, she saw them, can describe them and there is no doubt that as she prayed God sent them.

So back to the AR STAR, one morning at about 7:00 am last December, I am checking facebook and make the comment that we are off to the doctor for chemo. Next thing I know there is a wonderful post on Active Rain by our friend and blogger extraordinaire asking for prayers for an active rain brother and his wife who are fighting cancer. You are NOT alone! (PLEASE take a moment to sign this ‘CARD’ for an ActiveRain brother) Well I am that Brother and Jessie is the wife.

Thank you all who wrote wonderful bits of encouragement for us and lifted us in prayer. Please read her post again. It is a great reminder that we are always touched by our friends, all their prayers and that there is tremendous strength in God. And then I ask you to say a prayer for whoever God puts on your heart. Yes the post and the song and your comments made us cry, more than once, I might add. (Kind of teary eyed again now) And Thank You for all That, tears of prayer and celebration and faith and blessing are wonderful.

It was Jessie that got me to the right church at a tough time in my life. It was through her leading me to the Lord that I received the greatest gift of forgiveness and Praise God I got saved. She is my best blessing. When I first started my real estate business, I put my favorite scripture on my website: Proverbs 3:5-6 Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not upon your own understanding. In every way acknowledge him and he will direct your path.

I didn't know how fortunate I was to have gone into business with a company whose values are "God, Family, then Business." I have a sign in my office that I found about a week after we first found the cancer six years ago that says, “Do not worry about tomorrow, God is already there.”

We continue to trust in the Lord’s blessing and healing. Neither Jessie nor I can adequately express how much we appreciate our family, friends and clients who pray for us and support us so well. We are truly loved. We firmly believe that together we all are going to kick cancer’s butt. Our strength lies in the fact that if she doesn’t live as long as she or I would like, we know exactly where she is headed. Remember lift others in prayer, have a servant’s heart and Trust. God hears and answers every prayer. And thanks Elizabeth for the love and tears.