A Day That Will Live in Infamy
On December 8, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt stood before Congress and asked them to declare war on Japan. The day before, December 7, the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. Roosevelt's speech that morning coined the phrase: a day which will live in infamy.
Three days shy of the 82nd anniversary of that day, I had my own personal day which would live in infamy.
On December 5, 2023, I was diagnosed with brain cancer.
What follows was originally written and posted on my personal Instagram account as a five-part series in 2024.
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Rachel (my wife) reminded me recently that I have never gone back and shared the full story of my cancer journey to date. I have taken some time to record all of the details over a 5 Part Series. Grab some popcorn!
On December 5, 2023, I had a typical morning at home. I had just finished a workout in our living room and was walking through the kitchen. The next thing I knew, I was being wrestled into a chair in our living room by strange men, and the dog was in full-on protector mode. I had experienced a Grand Mal seizure (It's often called a generalized seizure, but I prefer Grand Mal because it sounds like a Star Wars reference) and was just regaining consciousness as paramedics were moving me into a chair.
After my initial seizure, I took an ambulance ride to the hospital, and they began to run tests. One of our dear friends is an ER doctor, and though he was not on call that morning, he was gracious enough to come into the hospital to be with us. They quickly did a CT scan, and God, in his providence, allowed our friend to be the one to interpret the CT scan results and tell us that I had a large tumor in the front right lobe of my brain.
I spent the rest of the day having several more tests and scans done. The doctors wanted to rule out, which they did, that this tumor and cancer existed in any other part of my body. The tumor was isolated in my brain, which, in this case, was a good thing. We ended up spending the night because we were waiting to hear from the neurosurgeon whether or not he wanted to perform surgery as quickly as possible.
Eventually, I met with my neurosurgeon, who explained that he would be the one to perform brain surgery on me to remove as much of the tumor as he safely could. He did not feel there was any benefit to immediate surgery, so after spending only one night in the hospital, I was released to go home and await my surgery date of December 14, 2023.
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We spent the week leading up to the surgery preparing for the unknown. We celebrated Christmas early with the girls, had family portraits done, and spent time preparing things around the house for being in the hospital. We wanted our girls to be as comfortable as possible while Mama and Daddy were away in the hospital for a few days.
Two nights before my surgery date, our pastor and other leaders from our church came to our house to pray for us. Many prayers were prayed that night; it was one of my life's most incredible and meaningful events. I've genuinely never in my life heard such powerful and bold prayers. One specific prayer that stuck out to me was a prayer that the neurosurgeon performing the surgery would be amazed at the outcome of my surgery and be so incredulous at the results that they wouldn't be tempted to take any credit for it.
The morning of December 14 rolled around, and I arrived at the hospital ready for surgery. Our morning was filled with family and friends who had all come to be with and support Rachel while I was in surgery. As I recount this story, a theme you will see unfold is how truly blessed our family is. We are loved so well by so many people that it is overwhelming (In the best way!)
The surgery took about 3 hours, and in the recovery room, our neurosurgeon came by to give Rachel the report that the surgery was extremely successful. He removed as much of the tumor as he safely could have without significant risk to my cognitive or mobility functions. And then he said, get this, it was nothing short of a miracle the surgery went so well. Please remember that this comes from a man who does this for his full-time profession. Rachel and I were blown away. God is clearly still in control, loves us, and only wants what is best for his children.
I spent one day in the ICU recovery room and two days in the general hospital and was then released to go home with light restrictions: no lifting, exercise, or any strenuous activity until Jan 29th. I had a gnarly scar, a partially shaved head, a mostly removed brain tumor, and a heart filled with gratitude as we left the hospital to come home.
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Sometime after the surgery, we received confirmation from all of the various tests that the tumor I had was an Oligodendroglioma Grade 2. It is a big word, but it basically means a slow-growing but aggressive brain tumor that should respond well to conventional cancer treatment methods. Our next step was meeting with our two Oncology doctors - one for radiation and one for chemotherapy. I'll never forget the comment made by one of my Oncologists - about my tumor and the treatment of - "If you're going to have a brain tumor, this is the one you want. This is bread and butter oncology". Even in the midst of our suffering, good news was still pouring in.
Surgery recovery lasted through Jan 29th, when I was released to light exercise and removed all lifting restrictions. I felt like myself again! This is the date I could start rucking again, and I began thinking about starting this IG channel. I will never forget one additional comment: As we were leaving the Neurosurgeon's office on Jan 29th, the Neurosurgeon commented that he would never forget me. Rachel and I were convinced that this was not just a platitude. This doctor was still so impressed by how dangerous my initial tumor had been, how well the surgery went, and how well my initial recovery had gone amongst all the cases he had seen over his lifetime. Of all of the surgeries he has performed, mine stood out. How humbling. How great our God is.
Many people have asked me if I could tell any signs of having a tumor leading up to my initial seizure. The short answer is no. I have never experienced any headaches, dizziness, blurred vision, or any other symptom you might typically associate with a head injury of some type. The only symptoms I had experienced were symptoms that my primary care physician and others had diagnosed as anxiety or panic attacks. I now know that these were called partial or focal seizures, which I had experienced for several months leading up to my Grand Mal seizure. When I mentioned these symptoms to my neurosurgeon, he confirmed that the symptoms sounded like panic attacks and that we were right to treat them as such without knowing more. Thankfully, I am now taking medication that controls these partial seizures completely.
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Once I had fully recovered from surgery, the next step was cancer treatment. The idea and goals behind the treatment are that the surgery was able to remove as much of the tumor as safely possible, and the radiation and chemo are intended to kill and/or stop the growth of any remaining pieces of my tumor. So, on Feb 12th, 2024, I began my first of 30 daily radiation treatments. Radiation honestly wasn't terrible. The worst part was the monotony of daily having to make a trip to the hospital for my treatment, but even that was made much easier by friends and family who were either able to take me to my treatment or watch our kiddos. My last radiation treatment was on March 22, 2024.
The final step in my cancer journey to date is chemotherapy, which brings us to the present day. As I alluded to in previous posts, I have chosen a chemo drug that comes in a pill format, so I thankfully will not need a port put in, nor will I have to go into the hospital for chemo infusions. However, my chemotherapy treatment will last for an entire year. The treatment is broken into 12, month-long cycles. I will take a chemo pill the first five days of each cycle, then recover for the remaining three weeks of the cycle - and then go again.
Cycle 1 started on April 22, 2024, and cycle 2 started on May 20, 2024. I should finish about 11 months from now, in April/May 2025.
Beyond chemotherapy - it sounds like it is simply a wait-and-see approach. I will have regular MRI scans to check the status of the tumor, but our hope and prayer is that the tumor will not start to re-grow for many, many years — hopefully never. If it were to start re-grow, all of these same treatment options would be back on the table.
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I want to make sure to mention how incredibly grateful we are for the support of our friends and family. Getting a life-altering medical diagnosis is not easy. There are moments when you wonder how you might get through the day, but knowing that God has placed so many incredible people in our lives to walk this road with us makes it much more manageable. The incredible support we have received over the last six months has felt like the very real and tangible hands and feet of God supporting us through this. You all have brought us meals, watched our children, finished yard projects around our house, prayed for us, walked with us, cried with us, talked with us, and just generally loved our entire family so well. If this is not a beautiful picture of the body of Christ at work, I don't know what is.
I wanted to start this channel to share my journey and connect with many of you I don't see regularly. I pray you will see God's faithfulness shine through my posts.
I am far from perfect in my daily walk with the Lord, and I struggle every day with this diagnosis and what life looks like living with it. Honestly, one of my struggles is being prideful and portraying this journey as being easier than it actually is. But God has also shown himself to be Good many times over the last six months, and even though I still struggle, the following truths have been tremendously helpful to me.
As hard as this journey is, I remain confident in Romans 8:28: "God is working all things for good for those that love him." I don't know what the good is in my cancer journey—and I may never know—but I have faith that God knows, so I will trust him.
My salvation and everlasting happiness don't depend on me beating cancer but on God's promise to love and save me. God has already fought and won the battle that actually matters for my salvation.
I know that I'm in the fight of my life, and only a sovereign God will get me through. Thankfully, I serve a God who will bring glory to himself through my cancer, work it for my good, and never abandon me. This assurance is carrying me through my cancer journey, and I pray that it will carry you through whatever suffering comes your way.
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Chemotherapy finished in January 2025. The MRI brain scans are clean. The rest is in God's hands.
I am still walking this story...
