A New Journey.

Kevin has been having some issues with his esophagus.  For the past month or so, food has been having a hard time going down.  He went to our family practice doctor, and they gave him some medicine as a first step.  The medicine was intended to  knock down any infection or inflammation that may be in there.  The medicine did not help, and the problem was just getting worse.  Kevin was unable to get food down.  We were not overly concerned as his mom has had problems with her esophagus.  She has to go in periodically to get it "stretched" which is a fairly common procedure.  When you live with someone everyday, it is often hard to see what is right in front of you.  However, Kevin has lost more than 30 pounds in the past four weeks largely due to the inability to take in food.

Last week, I was traveling for work.  The doctor scheduled Kevin for a scope of his esophagus.  The procedure required anesthesia, so Terrell agreed to take him and bring him home.  Again, no big deal.  The scope was scheduled for 9am.  At 10am, Terrell sent a message stating there were problems and they were sending him to the hospital to get a CT scan.  Shortly after that, Kevin received a call from the doctor that they wanted to see him first thing Friday morning.  We called and had it rescheduled so that I would be able to go to the appointment with him once my plane landed.

We went to the appointment on Friday.  Kevin has a very large mass in his esophagus that is essentially growing so large that it is closing in on the passageway.  Currently, only liquids are able to get through.  He also has masses in his lymph nodes and liver.  They took biopsies of the mass in the esophagus and those are probably back by now (Monday).  The doctor told us that Kevin has cancer.  He mentioned that the biopsies are a formality at this moment.  If for some reason they come back negative, it is because he did not take a good enough biopsy.

We have an appointment with two oncologists today to discuss the treatment options.  We took the weekend to try and digest this information.  Neither one of us are certain what this means, but we know life will find a new normal soon.  We have told the girls.  We shared that cancer is not like the cold or flu, others cannot "catch" it.  We told them that nothing anyone did caused it.  We told them daddy would get treatments, and he may not feel that well.  Their responses were priceless.  Sidney wanted to know if his hair would fall out like Mrs. Merz hair did, "If so, could we get him some wigs?"  Kendall said, "Oh, so he will come home from work and plop in front of the TV and fall asleep after two minutes?"  I replied, "Maybe."  She said, "Well that is just about the same as what he does now."  Hilarious!

Please pray for us.  We are scared and uncertain of what the near future will look like.  How will this affect our daily lives?  We will know more after today's appointments.