Friends & Family, 

We unfortunately received sad news yesterday. Dad's cancer is continuing to grow despite his chemo regimen..... There are limited options given where we are on the continuum of care and the options left most likely would highly affect his quality of life with slim chance of helping. I'm not going to sugar coat it; the news yesterday was heartbreaking to say the least. We all had a lot of anxiety around this MRI as I think we were all preparing for bad news, but it never truly prepares you for bad news. I am super thankful for his oncologist as he does truly trust her and she did her best to be truthful, but also kind. No one can predict timing, but she did tell us to go live life, have the conversations we want to have, and spend as much time together as we can. 

Right now, his symptoms mainly include aphasia (where he knows what he wants to say, but sometimes can't get it out) although we are pretty talented at this point in guessing what he is trying to say to us. His walking has also gotten worse over the past few weeks where he is very wobbly and has had a few falls, but luckily hasn't gotten hurt (bless my mom as she's usually the one that has to figure out how to get him up off the floor). He's more tired, but all in all still has a pretty high quality of life and really enjoys sitting outside at home with my mom, his favorite princess Coco and his family. Recently, his brother Sabah flew from Kuwait to spend some time with him which he enjoyed SO MUCH. I haven't seen him light up or laugh that hard in quite some time, us included hearing all of the stories from when they were younger. I am so thankful for their time together and truly watching how happy my dad was during the visit. It touched my heart in so many ways. 

I met someone just yesterday that shared with me his dad had glioblastoma and unfortunately passed away years ago. It instantly connected us because it's so hard to understand this journey unless you've done it yourself. He summarized it beautifully saying, "It's the hardest thing I've ever had to do in the sense of watching your parent go through this and knowing there isn't anything you can do to stop it. BUT it made our family so incredibly close and truly made me realize at a younger age, what's important in life." 

For now, we are going to continue living in the present and enjoying every minute we get to be together as a family. Dad has continued to defy all odds and I am praying it continues so we get as much time possible with our favorite guy.

Thanks in advance for your prayers and giving us all grace as we navigate this next part of the journey. 

"Therefore do not worry for tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble." Matthew 6:34

Love, The Shammas Family 

#SHAMMASSTRONG