LIFE

            Welcome, Jackson Charles Wrasse, born at 9:01 on 9/03/10 weighing in at 9 pounds, 10 ounces, and measuring 22 inches from dark haired head to sweet little toes.

            When a baby is born, all the crap of life is put on pause. A birth kicks the devil in the butt. If one has the wonderful opportunity to witness a birth up close and personal, one can experience first hand energy from the one true God and an acknowledgment that our hope is so justified. Metaphors of the birth experience abound, all pointing to goodness overcoming, beauty conquering and purity victorious. The father heart of God prevails over all adversity, pain and fear. It’s all there on the sweat drenched face of a laboring mom to be, in the travail that turns instantly to beaming joy, and in the first squeals from a babe thrust into a new world just knowing that these squeals will be met with love and care and abundant joy. 

            For a few days, the big ugly cancer fight is paused. Yet, perhaps not. Take that, devil. You have been giving us your worst, and still innocence prevails, praises rise heavenward and peace descends. Life triumphs! New life always trumps the devil’s evil works.

This past week has been huge in the cancer fight venue. Robert underwent gamma knife surgery on Thursday morning. He started the day by having a six pound steel "halo" screwed right into his skull in four places with 1/4 inch screws. I have not yet received permission to share pictures of this, but Robert looked like a cross between Anthony Hopkins in Hannibal and Darth Vader. The surgery took over 2 hours rather than the 20 minutes we expected since there were ten and not four tumors as we had been told. The technology is astounding. It is like a game of battleship that the computer always wins once it has the coordinates. Robert was on an MRI like narrow bed that moved into the machine, also somewhat like an MRI contraption. Then the bed with Robert’s perfectly immobile, haloed head firmly attached to the bed frame, so to speak, moved this way and that according to the ten coordinates. When the procedure was finished, he was able to walk away from the machine. His right hand, almost useless in the past several weeks due to one of the tumors in his brain, has already regained some strength. All ten tumors were zapped. There is just a little swelling around Robert's eyebrows to indicate the gamma knife counter attack inside his brain. This procedure can be repeated if new tumors invade or show up. The doctors are also planning to radiate the tumor in Robert's hip/butt at some point.

I felt bad for the next guy in line for the gamma knife procedure, who in his heavy "halo" thought he was waiting for just 20 minutes for his procedure, but ended up waiting for well over two hours. I tried not to look at his unhappy face behind the steel bars. His wife may have been aiming some sour looks my way as well. At any rate, once Robert’s gamma knife procedure was completed, we were soon heading back to our home away from home, Starbucks mocha lattes in hand. We are now waiting to hear from the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance regarding the start of the ipilimumab treatments, which will probably happen sometime this week, possibly Wednesday.

Justin also waits to hear the results of his second bone biopsy, which he had at the same time as Robert’s gamma knife procedure. This painful biopsy procedure has added to the Hodgkin’s lymphoma pain and was necessary since the first bone biopsy was inconclusive. This week, he will have a port put into his chest for future chemotherapy treatments.

Yikes, yet, we are praying, and we are trusting that our prayers together as a family, according to the will and word of God, are striking blows to the enemy and putting us in a position “to take the land.” Nightly, we heave five smooth stones at the Goliath called cancer, the stones being like swords of the spirit, which are the word of God. We can’t see it, but we believe the army of God has risen up, and the enemy is being scattered.

            What we can see is a perfect baby boy at peace in the arms of his mommy. His cousin looks on in wonder and babbles happily. Life abounds! In fact, another life is on its way! Little Robert is going to have a brother or sister in May, 2011.  How about that!