Patrick’s Story

Site created on January 23, 2019

Welcome to our CaringBridge website. We are using it to keep family and friends updated in one place. We appreciate your support, esp.  words of hope and encouragement. Thank you for visiting.


The first journal starts Patrick's cancer journey.  The first posting will be my 1/22/2019 notes from visiting the ENT doctor after receiving the bad news that the lump biopsy revealed a cancer diagnosis.  Pardon the length and misspellings; just want to give one place where people can read the details.  It's been amazing that Patrick's been sharing as much as he knows, as normally he tends to keep things close.

Newest Update

Journal entry by Deb McKelveyCallahan

It's about  1 1/2 years out from completion of Patrick's treatments March 29, 2019.  His last 3 PET scans and his recent CAT scan showed his throat clear with no active cancer cells.  Thank God for answered prayer.  He's got some physical issues the doctors are monitoring, but in the meantime we're counting blessings. 

The title is in celebration of the absolutely major life change Patrick has made - he's DOUBLED the number of times he eats in a day!  Seriously, he never ate more than 1 meal a day but nowadays he eats at least 2 (breakfast and dinner), even occasionally an afternoon BLT - yup, it's that wonderful Pat Callahan tomato time of year ;-)  He's managed to regain 2-3 pounds of the ~80 he lost, and is continuing to work on building back his muscles with hauling around bags of mulch or resetting patio tiles.

And he's switched his model railroad building from the downstairs layout to upstairs models and is having a ball.  The detail work of building cranes, whitewashing brick siding, even newstands has been keeping him so busy, he hasn't missed all the social activities that COVID19 curtailed.  He's taken over the poker and pool tables and even the kitchen island - is nowhere in our house safe from this old dog learning new construction tricks?  Stay tuned or come visit (with your mask for tours, please).

Stay well, be peaceful in the midst of chaos.  Thanks for all the encouragement and support, it's meant the world to Patrick, me and da kids!  
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