Life with Helen

WOW. We are so grateful for all of the calls, texts, messages, food, gifts, hugs - I especially like hugs :) - as well as the comments, shares, and likes on our previous post, but we are mostly thankful for all the prayers!  I know it doesn't seem like much, but when you pass us in Wal-mart and simply say "Hey, we're praying!" it means the world! I'm most often asked how Matt is feeling, and the answer is MUCH better.  It has been many, many months since he's felt normal after eating, and he had a NG tube down his throat for days after surgery (the tube sucked everything out of his stomach so nothing would pass through his intestine as it was trying to heal).  Since they removed the tumor that was obstructing his intestine, and he is almost healed from surgery, the boy is eating us out of house and home!  He is finally regaining his strength, has some color in his face, and his personality is back! ...

When Matt and I got married a mere 16 months ago we promised to love each other through the good times and the bad. Well, we're officially into the bad, but hopefully not for long! As many of you know from my Facebook post last week, Matt has been feeling sick for quite a few months. He had surgery to remove his gallbladder in May, but the symptoms never really subsided. We dismissed it as his body adjusting to his lack of gallbladder, but his health continued to decline. We reached the breaking point last week when he couldn’t even hold down a Gatorade. He had lost more than 50 pounds since April, and we knew he couldn’t keep living that way. He was admitted to the hospital the next morning for some scans and tests, and a CT revealed there was a blockage in his small intestine. That blockage was a mass. That mass was a tumor. And that tumor was cancer. Adenocarcinoma to be exact. The mass was removed, but he will still need to undergo cancer treatments to make sure ...