Thanksgiving greetings dear Caring Bridge readers.

 It has been 13 months since I last posted, and I continue to be aware of the prayers and goodness so many share with me. Thanks for your prayers and calls and reading my posts.

 This year has involved incremental changes in the ALK Positive stage 4 lung cancer (diagnosed 3/18) moving about my being. Thankfully, the lung and neighboring major organs continue to escape any notable changes.

 In January, the innumerable brain lesions seen in October 2022 began to increase in count and size.  In consultation with two Mayo oncologists, we decided to change treatment – leaving the targeted therapy that worked miracles in the first years of this disease – to try another one. The goal this time isn’t a miracle that will wipe away all these little tumors, but rather to put a hold on further progression in the brain.

 In the MRI last week, the scan showed a lesion in the middle of the brain that has grown somewhat, but no new ones. I continue to be asymptomatic except for headaches and they may be caused by other factors.

 With any treatment change come side effects and the latest blessing in this journey has been the addition of a new physician who is quarterbacking everything side-effect related and other “non-cancer” changes that come with age. She’s outstanding and I’m grateful for her and my growing medical team.

For now, judicious patience is the motto, and in a few months the next MRI and PET scan will provide new insights and reason for conversation. Until then, there’s uncountable aspects of life from which to find joy and gratitude. I have joined Immerman Angels to be a mentor. IA is a non-profit that provides free, one-on-one cancer support and personalized mentoring for all cancer fighters, survivors, previvors and caregivers. Then, with two cancer club friends, we established a group that meets twice a month for stage 4 survivors who have lived beyond life expectancy and find benefit in sharing conversation, empathetic ears and lots of healthy laughter.

 Finally, through one of my cancer club friends, I was introduced to Kate Bowler who is inspiration for patients, survivors, caregivers and all you non-cancer folk. Read about her at the end, but for now, enjoy her piece “a blessing for the life you have” which seems particularly appropriate for this day.

 I wish you and yours a simple and joyful Thanksgiving and holiday season.

a blessing for the life you have

Blessed are you who hold hope with an open hand.
You who try not to fix your gaze on time’s far horizon
or get drunk on what might yet be.

 And blessed are you
who avoid walking too far down memory lane,
getting stuck wondering if that was as good as it gets,
if you’ve peaked, 
or feeling resentful about
all that has disappointed before.

 Blessed are you who
know that sometimes
you need to stay right here. 
At least for a minute.

 Blessed are you who
look wide-eyed,
maybe timidly at the present moment, 
gazing at those things
that are gently,
actually within the reach of your fingertips.

 Blessed are you
amid the ordinary details
that define what life is for you, right now. 

And as you see them, 
greet them—each one— as you smile
and call them by name. 

Everyday joys. Small pleasures. 
Birds chirping. Cat cuddles. 
A cold glass of water. 
A little child calling your name. 
The breeze on your cheeks. 
The ocean rhythm. 
The perfect pillow.  
The kindness of a friend. 

Loves that are and were and ever will be. 
May they seem even lovelier, 
even more delicious because they
become gifts offered anew. 

May gratitude fill you, 
reaching all of the spaces within you
that disappointment left behind
and fear has gripped.

 May something rise in your heart 
that feels like a strange 
new kind of contentment.

 Because this isn’t what 
you had planned,
but it surprises you that even here 
it can be good.

Satisfying. 
In a way that you know
you can come back to. 

A place that can sustain you
through whatever may come.

Blessed are you, 
finding that life is good 
because it is enough.   (well, maybe not the “cat cuddles”   ~KJ)

Kate Bowler, Ph.D. is a New York Times bestselling author, award-winning podcast host, and professor at Duke University. She studies the cultural stories we tell ourselves about success, suffering, and whether (or not) we’re capable of change.

She wrote the first and only history of the American prosperity gospel—the belief that God wants to give you health, wealth, and happiness—before being unexpectedly diagnosed with stage IV cancer at age 35.

 While she was in treatment and not expected to survive, she wrote two New York Times bestselling memoirs, "Everything Happens for a Reason (and Other Lies I’ve Loved)" and "No Cure For Being Human (and Other Truths I Need to Hear)."

 After years of being told she was incurable, she was declared cancer-free. But she was forever changed by what she discovered: life is so beautiful and life is so hard. For everyone.