Lots of Singing
Chris and Dan Peterson shared a quote on their blog today - "Think of crying as singing". Sure have been doing a lot of singing lately; this hurt is so unbelievable - absolutely will tear you into little pieces, pick you up just for a little while and then slam you back down. We are meeting with Hospice this afternoon; that was another one of those extremely hard decisions to make but I need some help. We did request a good friend of ours for Sam's nurse (there are some advantages to living in a small town; everybody knows everybody).

Sam is having a lot of company during the day. I got an e-mail this morning from a young man that we know that really said a lot about Sam. "Sam has been responsible for giving so many people a chance to prove themselves and then rewarded them for their efforts. I am one of those people and for that I am truly grateful". We still need your prayers for God to intervene and give us a miracle. Got to run - I am about to drown my keyboard. God bless all of you.

Me and Sam
I posted this picture yesterday but it didn't look right on the blog so I took it off and will retry again today. I had to do a little cutting and pasting but here is a picture of me and Sam. Sam is always taking the pictures so we seem to never be in a picture together.

They adjusted Sam's pain medication yesterday and it has helped some. He is sleeping more during the day but at least he has gotten some relief. The only drawback is that we have to set the alarm clock at 12 PM to give him a pill - that's not much fun. My mind starts running wild and then I can't go back to sleep.

I try hard to remember a paragraph that is in the little book God Is In Control. It is Look to the Future with Confidence. The future may look a little foggy, it may look a little troublesome. You might say, "God, I can't see anything good coming". After God has promised something, it doesn't make any difference what you feel or see because God promised to make "all things work together for good" (Romans 8:28). I trust with my life that He will do what He said.

Pappy, Johnson and My Doll
The girls and Cindy call him Pappy, the guys at work call him Johnson and I call him "My Doll".
He probably wouldn't be too happy that I told that to the whole world. I finally got around to scanning some pictures. They were taken before he lost so much weight. Even though he has had so many chemo treatments, he still has that beautiful salt and pepper grey hair; he has had that since he was 26.

Sam is still in a lot of pain. If the radiation did any good at all, it helped him to be able to sleep on his side some instead of sitting up all the time. These last few days have been very difficult. I had to clean out his office last Friday and I believe aside from all of the cancer emotions that daily rip you apart, that was the most difficult thing that I have had to do. You just wouldn't believe all of the memories that I found for the last 40 years. He even had a list of Christmas presents that he was considering getting me for Christmas one year (the people that know Sam know very well that he isn't too good about buying gifts; it has gotten to be a joke around the office. He always says that I buy everything before he gets a chance (poor excuse).

I pray day and night for Sam's pain to go away. Please continue to include that in your prayers for him. I guess that's the part of this whole thing that I don't understand. In spite of everything, we still have so many blessings to be thankful for and I still know that God's plan is the best for everyone. One day we will understand it all. Until then.

Radiation Treatment
We went to Birmingham yesterday afternoon for Sam's one and only radiation treatment to the chest area. If it is going to do any good relieving the pain, he should start noticing some results today. He felt really bad this morning and started the day off being nauseated. At least that happened before he ate his breakfast and took his pain pills.

Please pray specifically for Sam's pain to get better so that he will be able to have some quality of life. It's funny - I never knew or never thought of until now what the term "quality of life" really meant. Sam and I have always been so healthy. We never took our health for granted because we both have been exercise fanatics for the past 25 yrs. We would even run when it was raining and once or twice when it was snowing. You have to wonder was all the time devoted to running, working out with weights everyday and not eating the junk food that you really wanted worth it? I asked Sam yesterday where did the last 20 years go? We didn't really have a good answer but one thing for sure - I'm glad we had the last 34 years together. They have been fantastic.

A special prayer this week for Kelly. I bet she will be back on her blog as optimistic as ever.
She has had a few bumps in the road lately but I'm positive she will recover. Hang in there.

Another ride on the roller coaster - never know what to expect
Where do I begin with the events of yesterday? Sam and I talked on the way to Birmingham that this would be the first time in almost two years that we were not just sooooo anxious about the CT results because we both already knew that it wouldn't be good. He has just been in too much pain, feels miserable and continues to be unable to eat. He had already made up his mind about future chemo treatments and when Sam sets his mind to do something, he will not change it. The only thing that had us puzzled was the pain in his chest radiating to his arm that continued to be unaffected by pain medication. Well now we know why.

He had the CT about 9:30 a.m. and they called us back to Dr. Posey's office in about an hour. The one thing that is really nice about UAB is that you get the results of your CT that day. We were sitting in the room waiting for the doctor and I noticed that Sam's left arm was extremely reddish/purple in color and was beginning to swell. I immediately called the nurse; they removed his shirt and his neck was also swelling and the area around the chemo port was extremely red with dark veins protruding. Apparently when they put the blood pressure cuff on his arm, it triggered what was silently lying underneath. They sent us back up to the 3rd floor for an ultra-sound of that area and it revealed numerous blood clots in the arm, sub-clavian area and jugular vein - possibly resulting from the chemo port. Anyway, they gave him a shot in the stomach and I will give him blood thinner shots for the next 14 days to try to get these clots resolved. Hopefully the pain will get better.

Now back to the results of the CT. Without going into detail, it was not good. Sam only had one treatment of the Erbitux and irinotecan but everything had grown. He even had new activity in the liver which has been stable for over a year. Dr. Posey agreed with Sam that it wasn't going to do any good to keep making him miserable with chemo. We will do some radiation next week to the large tumors in the chest - particulary the one in the sternum and mediastinum. This is just a pallative treatment to help with the pain but was very successful when we did it a few months ago.

We even had a laugh on the way home. Our mill here in Demopolis is very process focused. I told him that he sounded like this whole thing was a CPI project (continuous process improvment). He said that is exactly what it is like - the ending and completion of a process here in this life and moving forward to the next.

Now for the best part of the day. We went to bed early because we were tired. The doorbell rang about 9:00 and I wondered who in the world would be coming to our door with all the lights out. I opened the door and there stood Cindy, our daughter. She had caught a plane in Tampa and flew into Birmingham. Her best friend from Tuscaloosa picked her up and brought her home. She will be here until Monday. You should see the smile on Sam's face - he's happy and is O.K.
with everything. As I have said before, he is a very unusual and very strong person.

As always, all of you are in my thoughts and prayers daily. Send some prayers my way for some strength to handle this. I'll try to get Cindy to make a picture while she is here.

Past Two Weeks
Since Sam's treatment two weeks ago, he has gotten weaker each day. He has only been able to work 1/2 day in those two weeks and that was too much for him. It looks as if his 40 yr. career
here at Rock-Tenn will be ending. Up until a year ago, we were known as Gulf States Paper Corporation but were sold to Rock-Tenn last June. This is so sad for him and me also. We have worked together at the same place for these 40 years, ride to work together every day and eat lunch together everyday. It is going to be so difficult and different to come to work without him.
He started out as a Civil Engineer and has worked his way to Vice President and General Manager - it has been his life - so dedicated to the people that work here.

We have an appointment at UAB with our oncologist on Thursday, June 8th but I believe he will agree that Sam is not able to take anymore treatments. He has to be able to eat and build some strength for us to even consider anything else.

My all day and all night prayers are for all of you.