Friday, April 5, 2013

1st Post-op Dr Visit

Good Morning Everyone,
I want to thank everyone for all the prayers, calls and cards you have sent to us during this repeat visit down this trail.  We truly appreciate all the support and love you send and we will continue to glorify God through your prayers.

The second surgery was indeed a little more difficult and recovery is a bit more challenging but luckily we are young and strong and fighting this curve in our life path is not anymore difficult than many of the challenges in all our lives.

Yesterday, Dana and I had our first post-op oncology visit at MD Anderson with Dr Penas-Prada. Dr Prada had some unfortunate news that the histo-pathology results revealed the tumor was a Grade 4 Glioblastoma Multiforme.  Basically, the next grade up.  We talked about our treatment options and she wants to change the chemo regimen from 5 days to 21days but at 1/3 the dosage.  Luckily, I have very few side-effects from the Temodar (chemo) and so that is not as big a challenge as it could be. 

We were disappointed to hear that the tumor have changed but not daunted by the task ahead.  Through your support and prayers and my love of God and Family, I/we are up for the challenge.  We have been down this road before and recognize the challenges before us.  I am very blessed to have such a supportive wife, family and friends that we can all rise up to the challenge and fight this together.  I thank you all for your never-ending support through this journey and all your wonderful prayers.

With all our love
David and Dana
Audrey and Parker

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Path and Treatment Plan


We hope all is well with everyone! These are a couple pictures taken during Easter! We enjoyed going to our neighbor and friends for a nice Easter brunch and more chocolate and Easter egg hunting. Today will be two weeks from David's surgery. As you can see he looks great! We are sorry for the delay in posting. It has been nice being home and surrounded by all of your calls, visits and cards. We still have not had any word on pathology. We also have not called to ask:) We had our appointment scheduled with our oncologist at MD Anderson on April 19th. We were concerned at the date and how far away it was. God was a few steps ahead of us when we received an out of the blue phone call from our Oncologists nurse asking us if we could come in this week...as they want to get started on a treatment plan asap. I asked her if she knew the path results?  Why there was such a rush? She said she did not, but that usually treatment begins 2 weeks after surgery. So, we will pack up and head down to Houston on Thursday and start the plan of action based on pathology results. Once again we ask for bold prayers on what treatment is moving forward. We are very positive and have an optimistic outlook on everything. Just know this is part of the path we are to take.


David has been doing good the past two weeks. The surgery this time is definitely harder on him, but he is still doing better then I know I would:) He has been getting bits of energy in the day to hang with friends or family and then gets worn out pretty easily and is home resting shortly after. Today was the first day he was able to drive again...and I put him right to work with Carpool for kids:) The kids were beyond excited! We are worried about the kids friends that come over. As every time, Audrey and Parker want to show off Daddy's incision. Yesterday, I heard Audrey tell her friend... " now we have to let my daddy rest so he can get better. Did you know a doctor took a big knife to his head and took out his boo boo and then sewed it all up so that is why he has the incision?" wow ! A lot to take for a 5 year old! And their poor friends just sit with wide eyes. But, we have consulted with many counselors who say being open is best and good for Audrey and Parker to communicate! Sometimes I don't think we give children enough credit on what they can actually handle:)


We want to be able to update everyone and are so gracious for all checking in on us! THANK YOU over and over again! We would ask that you sign up to follow the blog and if forwarding ask others too. The more prayers we can have the better. And I can honestly say I believe your prayers really have given us SUCH comfort and times that I didn't think it was possible. We have thought about switching to a caring bridge blog, but we have so much history with this page and don't want to loose that. It takes a few minutes to follow the blog, but would be so helpful in spreading the updates. You can sign up to follow by email or join the site! If you are receiving this on your phone, you will just have to go to the full web version page or on your computer. But, easy to do on your phone, just have to navigate to the page. I will still try to send via email with the attachment ( helpful for my father). But, just know that we appreciate you spreading our story. It helps us to communicate through the blog because it becomes so hard to update all of you special people individually! Know that we do read every email and card and try to respond to all!

Be praying for us Thursday! And we thank God for his presence through each of you!

The Hurst Family!