This Wednesday I will get my 6th round of chemo which will put me halfway thru this treatment. The hope was that if a tumor was the cause of the total bowel blockage, the chemo would shrink it, freeing the blockage and allow me to eat food again. Well, thanks be to God it worked. I know this because I started recording lower and lower output from my stomach G-tube and now has just about NO output. During the blockage everything went into the G-tube bag including all stomach vial. I thank the Lord, my bowels are open, and I have been enjoying soft foods for the first time in 2 months. The first bite of eggs lightly fried sunny side up was sooooo good. I’m not all the way out of the woods yet, I have extreme diarrhea which could be caused by the chemo.  Because of this I need to remain on IV nutrition and hydration for now. Our home looks like a pharmacy with shipments of boxes of TPN bags and Hydration bags delivered every Saturday.

I never thought I could ever fast for more than a few days, let alone 2 months. But I learned that I can with the Lord’s grace who allowed me to get through something that I was afraid would be torture. The surgeon at Christiana Care Hospital said it was possible I would not eat food for the rest of my life. When I heard that horrible news, I told Claudia and my Pastor that I would not want to live that way.  But fasting for 2 months was not as hard as I feared it would be and I never felt extreme hunger. That’s God giving me the grace to endure that part of this trial.

In case I needed more surgery we started looking for a surgeon closer than Pittsburg that specialized in appendiceal cancer which is hard to find because it is so rare. We were surprised to find a surgeon in one of our favorite areas near the beach in Lewes, Delaware at Beebe Medical Center. This surgeon is also friends with my Pittsburg surgeon, another plus. Lewes would be perfect because Claudia’s sister and brother in law live there and she could spend time with them rather than being alone in a Pittsburg hotel. I was very surprised to find out this surgeon’s name is Jesus Esquivel. I know he’s just a man, and his first name is not even pronounced the same way as our savior. But something inside me made me feel he was the right surgeon to meet with. My feeling was right, he was so very kind and caring and did not push surgery.  In fact, he said he would NOT want me to have a 3rd open HIPEC surgery. Instead, he recommended that I see an oncologist Dr. John Marshall at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington DC who also specializes in my cancer. That doctor will search other treatment options including trials for my tumor mutation, which is something I have been searching for myself. If this doctor wants me to have more chemo, he will send the information to my local cancer center and instruct them on administering it to me. He said he would never want me to drive back and forth to DC for treatment.

I am not ignoring the fact that I have a very aggressive cancer with poor life expectancy and no known cure. But I do know the Lord is good and will give me the grace to get thru this.

Thank you to all who have been praying for me.

Please pray for continued peace and that this new oncologist can find an effective treatment option to give me some more years.

Thank you,
Jed