Greetings my dear friends and family.

As the clock continues to tick away towards the big day, tomorrow, I continue to receive texts, emails, phone calls, and even a few cards wishing me the best for tomorrow’s surgery. It is such a special blessing that I never take for granted. And what’s more, there have been so many of you who have encouraged me with the most hopeful of words, words spoken with the confidence of one who truly believes, words that touch my heart where my greatest hope resides but which I protect there lest I allow my mind to dwell too long on them, giving them the power to devastate should any words of reality contradict them. You should know these hopeful words about which I speak; they’re the ones that would have me run through a pair of very large fountains on the MD Anderson campus wearing no more than my skivvies, or perhaps even less. I hesitate to write them. If I could write in a whisper, I would.  “Cancer Free.”

Job 3:1 reads, “After this Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth.” It is days like today that I want to curse the day I started this blog.

I could write thousands of words, but I’ve run out of time to update all you loving folks with details from my days of testing and appointments last week at MD Anderson. Though I had a set surgery date (Aug 22), I had a full schedule at the cancer capital of the world to confirm my candidacy for the surgery and to ensure that each member of the surgical team had time to explain their roles. It was a long and exhausting week for Kim and me. And sadly, at least as it seems at the moment, it was determined that my disease has progressed such that surgery is too risky and thus was cancelled.

Again, I can’t thank you enough for your warm wishes and your prayers. Unfortunately, at this point we don’t know what the best next steps are, so we continue to covet your thoughtful expressions.

As you might imagine, I’m recovering emotionally and spiritually. And though there won’t be a need for physical recovery, the primary tumor is causing me problems, to say the least. We must find an effective treatment soon that can shrink or eliminate these damn tumors and nodes.

So, as we told our children the other night, unless something miraculous occurs, I won’t be running though the fountains any time soon. But what I have to remember and remind myself whenever I start feeling down, as my “local surgeon” once told me, the miracle is that I’m still alive at all.

Many, many blessings friends. One day at a time.

–Brent

** The featured image comes from the road leading to the Johnston Ridge Observatory at Mount St. Helens. Kim really liked the almost dizzying look of all the fir trees growing so tightly together as part of reforestation. I thought it fit the current situation .