Derek has an amazing young family and just this year has been diagnosed with a very rare form of brain cancer. Through these trials he is living life each day to the fullest, praising God, working hard, and teaching his kids absolutely everything he possibly can to potentially prepare them for life here on earth without him. This man is as rock solid of a man that you will ever meet!
Here are the pictures from our awesome evening together. We caught several big channel catfish and big bluegills on crankbaits! Also had a couple muskie brake offs near the boat, a handful of small smallmouth, bunches of medium largemouth, and the stripers were absolutely on fire!!
Here is an excerpt from his blog Walk of Faith from Monday night:
"Today I went at 7:30 for blood draws, and all that tested fine. Then we met with Dr Gomez's Nurse Practioner. She said that the MRIs show no change in the tumor since the 1st of May. This was really suprising to me since I had felt like symptom wise it was probably growing. Her feeling about the pain I had a week ago is that it was an initial reaction or agitation of the tumor by the Avastin that caused this. She doesn't expect it to happen this week. I got my second treatment without any problems, just worked on my laptop while the IV ran in. Less drama this time from the other patients in the room.
Then tonight we had a surprise (for me) family outing. A Tremont family took our family to the Herman lake for an evening of grilled tuna, fishing, and water slides. The kids had an absolutely awesome evening, and we all had the best fishing we've ever had in Illinois. I don't normally like surprises, but it was even kind of fun to know I had to leave work early for some surprise.
What I'm Learning from Cancer #2
Take One Day at a Time. We all seem to say this often. But now I really know that this is true. For the first few weeks after I found out the cancer was back, every time I found myself discouraged or afraid, I realized that I was thinking about the end of treatment, what my long term abilities would be, etc. I finally had to realize I couldn’t let myself dwell on things down the road. As I just focused on the decisions or treatment of that day, it got much easier and didn’t seem so hard after all. I think this is what Jesus meant in Matthew 6:34 when he said “Take no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” Not that my situation is evil, but just that when the future days get here, we will know what we need to worry about. There is no point in worrying about them sooner as they might not come or might be different than we think anyway. A month or so ago I was worried when I thought about the decision as to whether we should do chemo. And I really suspected that when we got to the decision, it would be easier, so I tried just not to think about it too much. And when we got to the decision, sure enough it seemed easy to make. I think this is something I really never understood much at all before. But God just really wants us to trust Him and only worry about the challenges of today, not tomorrow or next week
As for prayer requests - please thank God for the good report and that I'm feeling better, and then just pray that I can keep a good attitude if things don't go so well. We really have felt your prayers and support the last couple weeks and appreciate it so much.
Love,
Derek & Leann"
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