At first, it was the flu. Josh was laid out with fever, chills, and fatigue. After a week of no improvement, his doctor ordered a chest x-ray…pneumonia. When lots of water, lots of rest, and a powerful dose of antibiotics didn’t clear it up after a month, the doctor ordered a CT scan.
“The radiologist is saying ‘lung cancer’.”
The next few days were a whirlwind of new places and new terms: oncologist; radiation oncologist; interventional radiologist; thoracentesis; thorascopy; Stage IIIa vs Stage IV; small cell vs. non-small cell.
In the midst of this, we have hope. Josh was working 16 hour days with a collapsed lung for most of August. We think the doctors don’t believe us when we tell them this but it’s true. He’s a tough guy, that Joshua Calvin!
The interventional radiologist drained a total of six liters of fluid from Josh’s left lung over 3 days. The next week brought a brief stay at St. David’s in Georgetown while the pulmonologists took samples and repaired some of the damage. We’re living The DiscoveryHealth Channel in real life with his pleurX catheter!
We still have hope as his lung is healing well, his level of pain decreases every day, and he is regaining strength. The radiation oncologist explained how a high protein, high calorie diet helps shorten recovery time during treatment. Josh is challenging himself to eat at least 2400 calories a day with at least 60 grams of protein. And succeeding most days!
The final results of the biopsies: Stage IV, non-small cell cancer. We’re still waiting for stains to tell us what type of cancer. We’re also waiting for a PET scan to tell us how pervasive the cancer may be. And we’re also praying:
· First, for healing: this is not the final chapter.
· For covering for our family: the next few weeks/months may be the most difficult we’ve faced but we will be okay.
· To do God’s will: we want to be willing participants for His glory in our journey.
· For all of you: we ask God to bless you for all your prayers and support, which have come to mean so much to us.
Many of you have asked how you can help. Mostly we ask that you pray with us and for us as mentioned above. We will be adjusting to a number of new things over the next few months and at this point, we have no idea what it will all look like. We may ask for help with taking Josh to his treatments once or twice a week. We may also ask for a meal here and there.
We will do our best to keep this site updated as things progress. Please let us know you stopped by and offer Josh words of encouragement.
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