To Let You Hear From Mike
My son, Mike, was sent to an oncologist and began taking his chemo treatments 3 weeks ago. They did further testing and found that the cancer was also in his blood. Last week they also started extra medication to fight the cancer in his blood. He got a severe rash inside his mouth and down his throat which is really giving him fits. He took another chemo treatment Thursday but had to go back to Birmingham on Friday (yesterday) afternoon because his heart rate is flipping around and is irregular. He hadn't been eating but small amounts of food since the surgery and was weak and losing weight really fast.
A couple of days before the trouble with his mouth, I carried him a pecan smoked Boston butt roasts that was hot, right off the grill, and smelling great. He told his wife that he didn't want any because he wasn't hungry. She made herself a plate with some hot roast on it and went and sat beside him to eat. He sat there a few minutes and told her that he would like a bite of "Mom's roast" that it smelled so good. She gave him a big bite and a few minutes later he asked her to bring him a plate with some on it. She brought it to him along with a glass of tea and he ate every bite of food. A while later he ate more roast, and before going to bed, ate still more roast. He awoke the next morning feeling good, walked around in the yard, and later drove his pickup to town to visit his co-workers. Last Sunday morning he went to church for the first time since he became sick. I like to think that all those prayers along with that protein gave him the energy he needed to have a couple of good days.
I talked to him while he was enroute to Birmingham yesterday afternoon, about 3:30 pm, and he was lying on the back seat of the SUV. He said those trips to Birmingham (150 miles each way) were about to kill him, that he was so tired that he could barely breathe. His last words to me in the conversation were, "Mom, please don't stop praying for me, and ask your friends not to stop, if you do I'm done. I'm not nearly out of the woods yet." I told him we would not stop praying and then he told me that he loved me and said, "Bye."
Thank you, dear brothers, for all your prayers. They mean everything to us.
