Week 1: Radiation/Chemo Report!

Mussy reporting today!

Nathan, Elizabeth, and Jack came up to Knoxville last weekend, since he was feeling so much better. Hannah wanted to have a photo shoot before Tron starts having some spotty hair loss from the radiation. The Radiologist office called bumping up the start of treatment to this past Tuesday. He and Liz had been previously told it would take a week to ten days to get the mask made but apparently because Tron was in the house, things happened quickly. Tuesday morning, they set the early morning alarm to take the chemo pill, anti-nausea pill, (spaced out just so), and then make their way down the mountain to Erlanger.

Day one was uneventful, with little to report. His only complaint was feeling a little foggy. Day two, he went to work afterwards. I was really glad he did because we all know that Tron loves his job!! Day three, he had a strange bout of losing his train of thought however, day four, it seemed to go away. Oh yeah, how could I forget, he ran two miles one of those days!! He's a freaking beast!! Then yesterday, he decided to leave off the nausea pill because he wasn't sure it was necessary. The Oncologist said sometimes folks don't need it. Welp, on the way down the mountain, his breakfast ended up in Yeti's leftover dog food bag. The experiment of leaving it out is over and never, ever will he not partake!.......Lesson learned! Speaking from the mom camp, Nathan was my throw-up kid. He was notorious for over-indulging and without warning, letting it rip wherever he was, with or without a trash can. I'm just glad they were quick enough to grab sweet Yeti's bag or the Subaru Forester would have been marked for life, just like the carpet was beside Nathan's twin bed.

After he took his pill, things settled down. He came home, crashing for a much needed nap. Yesterday afternoon, he called me and I was thrilled. He sounded amazing. I know all this stuff is not just physically hard, there's the mental anguish also. Overall, he's done fantastic this week. I'm not sure if we can officially say one week is down because he didn't go on Monday, but he has the weekend off from the Radiation. The chemo continues every day for five more weeks. We will try to at least give a weekly report.

I'm so very proud of him. I know that probably goes without saying. If you don't know Nate very well,  you probably don't know what a rock star he is. You probably don't know how he started his own golf ball selling business in Gettysvue when he was just a tot. He always was looking for a way to make money.  (One year for Halloween, he dressed up as a millionaire. Hilarious! He had fake money coming out of all his pockets and wore a suit!!) That's my boy. Ha! All of that drive and determination is in full swing right now. It's just being funneled in a different direction. But it's defiantly there, determined to do everything in his power to beat this thing.

What a privilege it is to see how God is showing up too!! He's EVERYWHERE!! Day after day we are honored to run into folks telling us they are praying, or how this has impacted their lives. Who would ever want such a horrendous thing to enter into their world? We sure haven't. But here we are. Day after day, our family wakes up thinking about all the many facets of this. We are family, we are community. Because of that, we are ALL impacted daily. The interconnection will hopefully bring us all strength, as well as closer to each other and to the One who is calling the shots.

In my own life,  I have struggled and questioned God. What I have come away with after many tears through the years, is that God is more loving than I have ever been able to grasp. His ways are different than ours. Way different. The question I have to always ask myself is, do I trust Him? Do I trust Him when I can't see the next step? The truth is, what do I truly know about the next step anyhow? When faced with something as insurmountable as a grade 4 brain tumor, the reality is, we are at His mercy. No amount of determination can force His hand. Na Na's response has been to leaning in. I see it, as do others.  He's stepping into the dark abyss. He's laying down his worry. He's realizing to not take life for granted. His priorities have shifted. This life and how he lives it will never, ever be the same. What am I most proud of? Nathan is pointing others in the way to walk, just like Paul did. With each post he's saying.......go......go this way. It's the way to life.  [Romans 8:18 I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.] In this verse, Paul is pointing us to the future. He is telling us God uses our sufferings to produce a future glory. We are going to be more like Jesus. He wants us to endure, engage and bless. That's what I see in my boy.........He's a child of the King! In this beautiful, horrible mess i see Jesus. I see Jesus manifested in my son. For this, I praise God!

Romans 8:24,25 For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.