Nathan's Journey: December 2016

For those of you following Nathan's journey, here is a post that I made on Facebook about 2 weeks ago.

It just slipped my mind to post this to the blog! I'm so sorry!

Here is the latest from Nathan's scans this week.... (week of 12-13-16)

So, everything looked good with regard to the tumor. There isn't any regrowth and it looks the same - Praise the Lord!

However - there is an issue with fluid in his tumor cavity... Let me back up and explain:

After his surgery at Vanderbilt, the baseball-sized cavity in his brain filled with fluid over time. When you have some sort of surgery to remove something out of your body, your body will naturally "fill" that space (or cavity) with fluid. So, that is completely normal.

Now that Nathan is on this trial, the T cells that are being "jacked up" from his infusion are hopefully going to the brain and killing the cancer cells. When these T cells kill the cancer cells, they kind of turn into sludge-y fluid (for lack of a better term!) when they eventually die off. This sludge doesn't have anywhere to go, because it's in his brain (due to the blood/brain barrier). For example, if he were to have cancer in his liver and the T cells went to kill the cancer cells there, they would, again, turn into sludge but go into his bloodstream and die off and break down. This can't happen in the brain. They're stuck there, therefore, creating more fluid in his brain over time.

As the fluid gradually grows in size over time, it's acting like a tumor - creating pressure on his brain - which is causing the partial seizures, fatigue, terrible headaches, and weakness on the right side of his body.

SO - what he's going to have to do is get the fluid drained. They said when he does this, he'll feel a lot better - sort of like when the tumor was removed. We don't know about the specifics of the procedure yet. What we DO know is that they want to take a biopsy from the tumor tissue (while they're draining this fluid) to see if the T cells are really doing their job and that they're in the tumor *hopefully* breaking it down. They said the procedure is not too invasive. He'll likely spend one or possibly two nights in the hospital.

The doctors also said that this is not an emergency. We can wait until after the holidays to go through with it.

Just to be clear, this is what the Doctors are thinking - so it's theoretical. They do truly believe that the T cells are breaking down the cancer cells but won't know for sure until they get the pathology report back from the biopsy of the tumor tissue. Nathan is not exactly "excited" about the inevitable surgery but knows that he must do this to feel better. I am so proud of him for his continued positive attitude and strength through all of this.

Nathan's procedure is scheduled for Friday, January 6th.

We will go down to UAB on the 5th to have a meeting with his surgeon, Dr. Riley. After this meeting, we'll have more details about what to expect with recovery time, what the procedure will look like, etc...

Thank you all for your prayers. I will update you all when we have more information in the next week.

Much love and many thanks,

Elizabeth

It was end of November 2015 when I walked into the office for one of my half days and Adam Shearer was pitching the idea of getting a group of Bellhops employees to run in the Chattanooga Half Marathon. I said I was in! I had no idea I would be embarking on a journey that God would use to inspire so many people. He is always one step ahead of us. It is almost funny when I look back at my life and you can just see God’s fingerprints all over it. If I hadn’t walked in at that exact second, I may have not even started running.

About a year ago today (December 2, 2015), I posted my first Strava entry. For those who don’t know about Strava, it tracks all the data on your runs—elevation gain, time spent running, mileage, etc. (you can also use if for bikes, but I don’t bike). Here it was:

3 miles at an 8:39/mi pace and I’m sure my heart was about to explode. If I remember correctly, I think I even had to stop a couple times just to rest.

This past year, here are the numbers, Moneyball style:

Distance: 1,286 miles

Runs: 216

Elevation Gain: 141,325 feet (that is equivalent to running up and down about Mt. Everest 4.75 times)

Time Spent Running: 190h 21min

Races: 8k, 10k, 15k, 10.2 miler, 2 half marathons, 2 50ks, and an attempted 50 miler.

I wish I had some storybook ending to my first year of running. A run through the Marin Headlands and Muir Woods would have been the perfect ending to a great year of running. If it went MY way, I would have come back with a finisher’s medal and stories to tell about the ups and downs of my first 50 miler… but God had a different plan. I had two partial seizures at miles 13 and 18.

I felt great until I had the first partial seizure. Then I gave a runner (later identified as Erik Wilde) my RoadID (thanks Leigh!) because my head and eyes were twitching and I couldn't talk and pulled out my medicine bag and pointed to the two meds that I take when I have a seizure. He told me I didn't look so good and I should probably sit down. I pointed that I was going to keep running and made it another 6 miles before the cardiac aid station before it happened again. At this point, I was out of meds and decided I didn’t want to have a full on grand mal in the middle of the woods where it would have been a bad situation. So I decided the best thing for me to do was to drop.

Not finishing a race (DNFing) is a very humbling experience. Your pride is shot. I truly think things happen for a reason, and our pastor, Scott Bowen, in a sermon about a month ago, spoke about replacing one idol for another. I didn’t realize it, but I was replacing my workaholic mentality with running. Running was becoming who I was. I wasn’t running because I just enjoyed it anymore (well i still enjoy it). I was running because it defined who I was becoming. I was “the guy from Bellhops who was a ultra marathon runner”.

There is nothing wrong with doing your best and trying to improve upon a time, but I have to remember to keep my priorities in the correct order, and running was creeping up there. I need to get back to being grateful to be able to run and not forget God has given me a gift by allowing me to run.

I really want to thank Bellhops for allowing me to do what I love. The majority of these miles were logged when I should have been at work, but they have been so flexible with me. They have been so amazing to our family, I can’t even begin to explain. I know I always say that, but it is the truth. I also want to thank my incredible wife, Liz, because I know I made her nervous for every minute of those 190 hours and 21 minutes when I was running and for taking care of Jack when I am out on the trails.

Thank you to Erik for being a literal angel on the trail, and thank you for all who continue to pray for me and my family. Continue praying for us as we go in for an MRI on December 13th. Please pray that these partial seizures are a good thing, and are due to inflammation from the tumor breaking apart.

Here are some pics from the trip and one of me and my trail angel, Erik!