Hi to all of our friends and family reading this. I, Angie, am Brian's wife and am writing this on his behalf. We know a lot of you are curious about how he is doing and don't often feel like you can ask for updates, so we wanted to provide an easy way for you to keep in the know about how he is doing. 

First and foremost, I am going to bring you all up to speed.

Summer of 2023: Brian had had some concerning symptoms for a few months. Symptoms included frequent blood in the stool, and stools that were becoming thinner and more "ribbon" like.  He had dismissed the blood for a long time, assuming it might be hemorrhoids related to weightlifting. Our doctor sent him an at-home FIT test (Fecal immunochemical test) that tests for hidden blood in the stool, a symptom of colorectal cancer. The test came back positive. The next step was to get a colonoscopy which took months.

January 24th, 2024: Brian’s colonoscopy. Immediately upon waking up from his colonoscopy, and once I could join his side, the doctor told Brian that he'd found a "large tumor" in his rectum and that it was cancerous. We asked if he was sure (our thoughts were, how can he know without testing?) and he very firmly said "yes".  The doctor was very grim faced, and it was a sobering and solemn moment for us. As I'm sure any parent can understand, our first thoughts were for our kids. 

February - March 2024: These months were spent in appointments and going from specialist to specialist being poked, prodded, and scanned. An MRI determined that it was stage 3 rectal cancer and noted a "nodule" in the right, upper lobe of his lung. Initially, there was thought that the nodule wasn't related to the cancer and that they would just keep their eyes on it, but the tumor board (a large group of cancer specialists who meet to discuss cases) determined it needed to be looked at further before beginning radiation/chemo.

March 29th, 2024: Brian went in for lung surgery, to have the nodule removed. The surgeon performed a Robotic Assisted Wedge Lymphadenectomy. What this means is that the surgery was completed using robots and very tiny incisions, removing a "wedge" of his lung. He also removed about a half dozen lymph nodes. Thankfully the surgery was right before Spring Break, and after he spent a night in the hospital, he spent the rest of spring break recovering at home. Thankfully, recovery was easy considering the surgery, and while he was really tired and low on energy, he was able to return to work after spring break.  Unfortunately, we soon learned that the nodule was cancerous as well, "consistent with metastatic adenocarcinoma of the colorectal primary". Meaning, that the rectal cancer had spread to his lung, thus moving him to Stage 4.

We are so thankful that the doctors chose not to just watch the lung nodule, but rather to act on it. So much of the frustration in this process has been over the lack of progress and inaction. There's so much waiting in all of this. Unfortunately, all of this also held up starting chemo and radiation, as he had to wait to heal from the surgery before beginning that treatment.

April 25th, 2024: Brian's first day of radiation. Radiation targets the tumor directly and uses beams to kill cancer cells. We are expecting it to shrink the tumor significantly. He is taking a pill form of lower dose chemotherapy along with the radiation; evidently the chemotherapy helps to sensitize the cancer cells to the radiation. He goes in for radiation 5 days a week for 5 weeks and takes chemotherapy only on his radiation days. While he's only been on chemo for a few days, fatigue has been a constant struggle for him, and it's worse on chemo days. Even before beginning radiation/chemo he was struggling with fatigue. He is also struggling with stomach pain and lack of appetite. Looking ahead, once he is finished with radiation, he will get a port implanted, and begin higher dose chemo infusions, for about 6 months.

As I've said in my Facebook posts, we are beyond grateful for your prayers, as we know and have faith in our Lord to heal Brian. We ask for prayers specifically for him to get better sleep at night, to be more comfortable and free from pain, for him to have more of an appetite and to tolerate food well, for the radiation to drastically shrink the tumor, and for side effects to be minimal. Of course we also pray for complete healing. Please pray for him to have the energy to do the things that he wants to do. He wants to go to the kids' games! He wants to coach, to teach, to do yardwork on the weekend. Please pray that he can continue to do these things! On another note, he recently sold his 2019 truck and is looking for a reliable, older, used truck that he can pay cash for. Please pray that God provides him with the perfect truck!

As I said in my Facebook post, Brian is STUBBORN. He is strong and stubborn as a mule. I know he is going to beat this, but we are going to need you and your prayers in the meantime. It's going to be the battle of his life and we can't do it alone. 

Thank you for loving on our family and especially our kids. This is hard and scary for them. It's hard and scary for us too. Thank you for the meals, the gift cards, the phone calls, messages, and texts. We feel loved.