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Hey family and friends like family, 

To say the last ~5 months have been tough is a huge understatement. Here is a recap...

We spent 22 days in the hospital vs the estimated 3-5 days and Mike and the girls didn't see each other until day 18. We could, however, say he was disease free. Our prayers were answered.

The transition home was really tough. Mike came home with a drain and an ileostomy bag. The first is now gone and the latter is temporary. When his body is ready they will reverse it. He gained tons of fluid weight in the hospital and then quickly lost it plus another 20 pounds once he could eat on his own. It took many weeks to get his stamina and strength back. It was mentally and physically tough, but Mike fought through it. We all fought through it. It was the hardest stage for me and the girls because we could actually see his pain for the first time.

October Mike got better, our family got better. Mr. social butterfly started leaving the house and preparing to go back to work. Then came Halloween - another holiday where we find out via a MyChart test result notification that his cancer is back in his liver. As you can imagine, we were absolutely devastated.  Our kids Halloween excitement got us through the day/night. 

So here we are...the next phase of this journey. A journey we're slowly learning you have to take day-by-day. Cancer requires patience and trial and error. It is not easy and I cry a lot, but we are trying to find joy as much as possible. Luckily our girls are pretty darn awesome and Mike and I make a pretty darn good team. 

His treatment is a targeted therapy that specifically attacks the HER-2 protein marker they identified in his cancer cells. We are lucky that he has a marker they can attack. Many people don't have a specific marker to attack. And this treatment was just approved for colorectal cancer this year! He takes a daily pill and gets an infusion once every three weeks. So far he is tolerating it well. Our hope and prayers are that his first scans will show stabilization or improvement. We don't have a set date, but they mentioned two months. 

We will keep you posted on the results. In the meantime, we can't thank you enough for your continued support, prayers, and good juju. 

We love you all so much,

The Peck family