To review in bullet points with hyperlinks to previous posts: (1) blood in my urine led to a Sept. 10 CT scan. I made a video of the journey of discovery on Oct. 10 to give context to the journey to date. (2) As I called a break in my Sept. 14 Leadership Cohort class in Boise, my phone buzzed. It was Dr. Wachsmuth calling to tell me that the CT scan showed that the blood came from bladder cancer. But he went on to report a number of nodules distributed through both lungs. That almost certainly meant the melanoma which had been treated surgically in 2015 had now moved into my lungs. (3) As I pondered and prayed that night, God spoke: “this is not the end; keep on with what you are doing.” I have lived by that word through the whole process. (4) Quite wonderous that when we visited Dr. Burt’s clinic on Sept. 28, Sherry and I saw the beautiful, but cancerous bush in my bladder in living color. (5) second contrasting CT scan of my lungs on Oct. 28 confirmed “multiple bilateral lobular solid pulmonary nodules/masses of varying sizes in all lobes” You can see the CT images of my cancerous here. (6) a PET scan on Oct. 9 showed most of my body is “unremarkable” (my new favorite word!) and three “hot spots”: bladder, lungs and gall bladder; (7) an early morning needle biopsy of my lungs was taken Thursday, Oct. 21. Unfortunately when the Doctor pierced my lung, some air escaped and I developed a pneumothorax. He immediately began removing the air, but I had to spend the night in the hospital for continuing care. That led to the famous picture of my co-teaching Prayer and Providence with Todd Miles dressed in a hospital gown sitting on my hospital bed. (8) The bladder cancer was surgically removed Tuesday, Nov. 9. The biopsy showed it to be low grade and contained, so no chemo required. We will look inside my bladder every six months from now on. (9) A PET scan does not work on the brain since the whole brain is a metabolic hot spot, so on Nov. 11, I had an MRI of my brain which showed two nodules there. (10) My first immunotherapy infusion to make my immune system hate the melanoma in my body was on Dec. 4. I had a second infusion on Dec. 24. (11) the team in radiation oncology built my “green mask” to hold my head completely still for an extremely precise MRI on Dec. 7 to map out the targets for my “Double Brain Zap” on Dec. 15. I am glad to say that there has been minimal side effects from both the radiosurgery and the immunotherapy infusion.

When I had the Melanoma before, I laid out four principles to guide me: (1) When I go to the past look for lessons, not regrets. It is easy for me to shred myself for what I did/didn’t do; (2) in the present build plans based on what I actually know so I can act wisely and responsibly rather than feeling helpless; (3) the future is where the “what if’s” are. Satan dwells there. Don’t dwell with him; (4) Jesus is in the present, look for Him. Like the bush in Exodus 3, He is easy to miss.