On July 21st we were given the very shocking and devastating news that Larry had stage IV pancreatic cancer that had metastasized to the liver and that he only had three months to live. That three month time-frame is quickly approaching as October 21st is only two days away.
Since that time we have been through a whole range of emotions and have learned about alternative cancer treatments through a firehose since we were only given a 2% chance that he would make it even a year with chemotherapy. Not only were those horrible odds, we didn't want Larry to spend his remaining days suffering from the effects of chemotherapy.
As part of our alternative cancer approach, Larry spent three weeks at Hope4Cancer in Tijuana, MX. This was the best decision that we could have made. Not only were we surrounded by professionals who understood and practiced alternative medicine, we were able to immediately be immersed into this lifestyle so that we could learn it for ourselves. We were also surrounded by other incredible people who were on a similar journey to ours.
Returning home and implementing the diet and cancer therapies has been hard! There are so many days that I just want to throw my hands up in the air and just go back to our old ways. My son, Spencer, keeps reminding me that we have not come this far to only come this far and so I keep pressing forward with learning and practicing new ways knowing that in the end these new healthier ways will be not only a blessing to Larry, but to our whole family.
Some of the therapies that we continue to practice at home are juicing, eating five small nutrient packed meals a day, enemas, ozone therapy, light therapy, sona (sound) therapy, hyperthermia, oxygen therapy, sona vera (immune boosting) shots, and mistletoe shots. He also has a gazillion pills that he is supposed to be taking at different times of the day, but due to his digestion struggles we have had to be very selective about which ones to take.
Overall Larry is still doing quite well and is able to engage in most family, church, and limited work activities. I am especially grateful that he still has his mental alertness and is able to help out with things like Bekah's government report for school or fixing things around the house that only he is capable of doing. We were even able to attend the Pocatello, ID temple open house as a family last night! The highlight of Larry's week has been watching BYU play football! Our sweet boys have arranged for our whole family to go to the game in Provo against Virginia on the 30th.
In about a year's time Larry has lost about 50 pounds, largely from his inability to eat. A few weeks ago we made the very difficult decision to have the NJ tube (feeding tube that goes through the nose) reinserted in an effort to get him some more calories throughout the day without causing more irritation to his pancreas. The plan was to start with the NJ tube and make sure that he was tolerating the foods ok and then have surgery to have a feeding tube placed in his stomach a week or so later. As part of this process, Dr. Ott ordered a CT scan just to make sure that we were not dealing with any surprises. We were devastated to learn that the tumor on his liver had grown from 3.3 x 3.1 cm to 6.3 x 5.7 cm from his last scan that was done mid July. He was also showing a small growth (1.2 x 1 cm) on his interior left lung. I am not sure why there were no updated measurements given on the pancreas tumor.
I was especially discouraged because we had worked so hard in our fight against the cancer. My good friend reminded me that when Larry had been first diagnosed with cancer that we really only had three options--do nothing, do the almost pointless chemo, or try something like Hope4Cancer. She also reminded me that Larry has had an excellent quality of life considering his diagnosis. After speaking with the doctor from Hope4Cancer, he suggested that the increase in size could be do to the inflammation as we fight against the cancer. Despite these findings, we are going to continue to move forward with the treatments that we are doing as they are giving him a quality of life that we would not have otherwise.
Unfortunately, due to these findings, Dr. Ott thought it best not to put Larry's body through the rigors of a surgery. We were waiting to do family pictures until he had the tube removed, but we decided to go ahead and move forward with them that following Sunday (Oct. 9th) as we know the severity of Larry's situation. We were so fortunate to have a beautiful sunny day to have our pictures taken and we are anxiously waiting to get them back.
As hard as it is to have an NJ tube in place it is making a difference. Larry had gotten down to 120 pounds and he is now back up to 126! He is able to use the tube to get an extra 1,000 calories in a day in addition to what he is able to tolerate by mouth.
On the flip side, our finding with Dr. West in Pocatello are very encouraging. As part of his treatment protocol he shows you your magnified blood on the big screen. When Larry was first diagnosed his cells were sticky and clingy together which is indicitive of cancer. When he redid the blood cell magnification last week his cells looked round and healthy as healthy cells should.
We don't know how all of this will play out, but we do know that we have a loving Heavenly Father who loves us and has guided us through this whole process. If it is God's will we have complete faith that as we diligently do our part we will see complete healing of Larry's body, but if it is not his will for Larry to continue on this mortal journey at this time, we find great peace in knowing that we have been sealed together as a family and that He will help us cope without having Larry here with us.
We know that we need to keep moving forward in faith and we recognize that everyday going forward is a gift.
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