A few last things...

Andy C. and others reminded me that I have not updated the blog in a few weeks, my bad.

I have started, God willing, the final part of treatments. Small cell cancer is a nefarious disease. I wants to go everywhere. The only part of me that remains untreated is my brain. The chemo drugs do not pass the blood-brain barrier. The docs have to assume that the disease is there, or will be there in the future. They have developed a treatment protocol where they irradiate the brain as a preventative treatment, and several large studies done over the past 20 years indicate that this is a very beneficial treatment. High reward/risk ratio for the patient.

This will go on for the next two weeks. The side effects should not be as bad as they were the last few months. I'll lose my hair - no big deal since I don't have any anyway! The fatigue will come back, and I am already starting to feel that after four sessions. Loss of appetite comes with the fatigue. I managed to gain back about 10 pounds or so after the last round of chemo, so I should be able to handle that.

What I will not have is the nausea this time, thank God!

My family has all adopted Facebook as our means of staying in touch day to day. It is much easier to keep my status updated on Facebook than it is maintaining a blog, so this may be my last entry here. Please think about joining Facebook and adding me as one of your friends! It is a fantastic way to keep up to date with many people, easily.

A few things I would ask of all of you. First, thank you for your words of encouragement and prayers, for the cards, the emails, the text messages, and the visits these last few months. Faith, family, and friends has kept me strong, and will continue to do so. Please continue to pray for the many people afflicted by cancer, and the other life altering diseases many fight daily.

Second, pray for our next generation of leaders who are just now finishing their educations and headed out to find their way in the world. If my daughter Jessica is an example of the quality of our young people, we are all in excellent hands!

Third, pray for our service men and women serving our country around the world. They protect our freedoms and liberties at tremendous sacrifice to themselves and their families, sometimes even if it means their lives. Not a soul who is reading this would be doing o had it not been for our soldiers and sailors, our firefighters and police officers, our EMTs and paramedics. Thank you Lord for the men and women who serve our country. Help us to always humbly honor and remember their sacrifices, great and small, to protect and defend our freedom and liberty, and to remain ever grateful of their willingness to serve. Please keep them under Your watchful eye, protect them from harm, lift their spirits, and watch over them until they may all return safely home.

Lastly, feel free to email me at mark dot bryant1 @ mchsi dot com anytime you want. I answer each and every email!

Your prayers are power, and for that I am humbled and grateful. Thank you, and God bless you all.

In His love,

M

Done...

Well, I have finally reached then end of all the treatments. Chemo was finished last Thursday, and thanks to the good people at DMH I was able to get thru the first few post-chemo days sickness that is ever present.

Now it is truly up to the Good Lord. I will have my first x-ray tomorrow morning and then see Dr. Chang, my radiation oncologist. Next Tuesday I go back to Lutheran for a new PET scan, then see Dr. Zimmerman the following Tuesday to get the results. I wish I could say I feel terrific, but I can say I have survived the treatments, and for that I am grateful. One thing I do know is that my lungs are clear and I can breath normally, and that is a miracle!

Lance Armstrong's book "It's Not About The Bike" (highly recommended reading!) does a superb job of describing the effects of chemo on the human body. I read this several weeks ago and quite frankly it scared me pretty bad. Plus, I was also undergoing twice a day radiation treatments, which made things so much worse. Sitting here today, I'm glad that someone took the time to provide people like me with a realistic view of what is going to happen, and acknowledge that through faith, family, and friends that you can and will survive it. Thank you Mr. Armstrong for your courage and for sharing.

Thank you for your support, thoughts, and prayers. I'll keep you posted. God bless each and every one of you!

Mark