"Time to reap"

Well today we had a brother stop by today with his family. We started off by butchering the chickens and the duck. I didn't take to many, but here is a couple of pictures of the bounty from our Lord.

This is Bob taking the head off his first chicken. He had butchered plenty of deer so by the second chicken he was a pro.

This is his first born son Bobby holding the chicken while my dad teaches Bob the ropes on skinning a chicken.

And of course this is the finished product. The chicken still needed to be a little more cleaned up, which was done by our wives. Then after that we raked leaves and put them in the garden to create some organic matter for next years garden,"Lord willing". And bringing a wonderful day of fellowship to closure we all went inside for a lesson on parents and children and duties to the Lord. Praise the Lord, what a glorious day. The only thing that would have made it better is to have more brothers there. Goodnight,

JMHJ

Nearing the End

Well I talked to my doctor in the Gettysburg cancer center today and things have looked better at other times. It seems that the radiation isn't much of an option anymore and the only thing he can hope to do is try to get a little more time and control the pain. My numbers are back over 1200 and growing quickly. So Lord's will. The best thing about believing in the providence of an almighty God is that no matter what we conjure up, He will make sure we end up with what's best for us. For now,


JMHJ

On to Radiation

Trying to get caught up, last Tuesday I went to see another radiation specialist on getting rid of the tumors on my liver. It appears that I have quite a few lesions on the left plus the right side of my liver. So they sent me to a new doctor specializing in the liver, apparently their not to worried about the tumors in my chest or the abdomen.

Their solution that they came up with so far is, they cut a small incision in my artery in the groin area, slide a tube up the vein, and distribute these little glass balls to the area of each one of these lesions. Now the purpose of these balls is two-fold. One they go into the veins of the liver until they get lodged in the capillaries and cut off the blood supply to each lesion. The second use is that they are covered in radiation which of course kills the tumors, or that's the theory anyway.

Now their thinking is that the tumor in the lung no problem, the tumor in the abdomen 50/50, but the liver, even after that procedure their will be more trouble on it's way. And I have no idea as of yet what would be next. Once again, I have to tell you, I'm voting for the vitamin c.

My Oncologist has talked to the top doctor on this type of cancer, and he said their is no more chemo, I've had every drug they have and nothing worked. He also talked to the top doctors at Sloan Kettering to no avail. Their are some other thing that they are looking into, but nothing real decisive yet.

The reason that it took so long to get a post out is that the next day I went into the hospital due to pain and was not released until Friday at 2:00. Then of course we had to get ready for the sabbath which ended around 6:00 tonight. So I give all praise and glory to the Lord for another sabbath with my wife. Which we achieved some great study in Job and Luke.

Lord willing I should post soon,



JMHJ

Homestead Update

I figured I would give an update while I could. I'm feeling alot better now than I was earlier on in the week. So good news, I even have pictures.

If you look closely you can see the orchard that we have just planted. It consist of two pear trees, a fig tree, apple tree, almond tree and a banana tree. The first time that I bought trees I bought them young trying to save money. If you decide to plant an orchard, DO NOT do this. These trees are older and will start fruiting next year. You'll spend a lot more money but you'll also have fruit. The trees that I bought TWO YEARS ago still have another TWO TO THREE YEARS before we can expect fruit. The last addition I hope to get planted this year is an olive tree. But we'll see, their pretty expensive.

You can barely make out the grape arbor on the left. We hope to make wine from the grapes and the pears, Lord willing that He gives us the increase.

This is a picture of our Muscovy ducks that we had gotten when I was in for my last stem cell a month ago. She actually has five more ducklings that were inside the pen. I started off with the Peking duck but later learned that the Muscovy is a better duck for eating. Plus easier for breeding given that the Pekings need water for that. And since we do not have a pond as of yet, Muscovy's are more accommodating.

This is the chicken coop that I had started during last stem cell also. As you can see its mostly complete now just needs some final touches. That the next boxes in front, makes it a lot easier collecting eggs that way. Were up to about a dozen a day now, theirs nothing like range fed eggs.

This is a picture of our make shift corn crib. We'll build a more permanent one for next year, but for this year it was sufficient. Now anyone that knows know that we only live on an acre and a half. So you may be wondering how it is that we have full ears of corn. Here is my advise to you. Their are plenty of corporate farmers around all of us. Get it while it's good, we go out and pick up the fields behind the farmer, free food for you livestock, or in my case, poultry. You can't beat it. Now we took him some fresh eggs to be nice, and he loved it and told us their would be more next year. Now if you have children, that free labor, you could really clean the fields up and hardly have to buy any feed.


Now if you look closely, on the right hand side of the picture you can see thanksgiving dinner. The other ones will be dinner at a later date but Lord willing we'll have the duck for thanksgiving. Hopefully were going to have a little butcher party get together. Theirs about five chickens plus the duck that needs to be butchered.

This is just an overall picture of how things are located. You can now see the grape arbor and the coop all the way in the left rear of the picture. Now once again you can see on the right of the picture what appears to be sticks sticking up, that the orchard. And our garden is directly behind it. Lord willing He will give me my health for this spring and summer so we can have an increase at His discretion. To the left and behind is our house, that we pray to fill with believers, that are truly searching to live according to ways of the Lord.
Were going to get ready for the sabbath so I guess that's all for now, that and I'm out of pictures. So until the Lord allows that I post again, Adios.



JMHJ

Radiation

I wanted to post earlier on the new events going on around the homestead, but the pain has prevented me from doing so. Lord willing I'll be straightened out in the next day or so and will be able to get that part updated.

Well I had a PET/CT scan done last Thursday to see the results of these last two stem cell transplants. It appears that I now have metastasis in my liver area, chest and back area. Sound good to you, yeah, I didn't think so either.

So now they want to do radiation. To which I was to be doing today, but I had to get admitted to the hospital last night due to pain, so that got rescheduled for next Tuesday. And I guess while their talking to me about the radiation, they'll talk to me about clinical trials. So we'll see how things progress but I'm checking into intravenous vitamin c and voting for that. Talk soon,



JMHJ

New Doctor at UMMC

Well I had another appointment at the UMMC only this time with a specialist for my particular cancer. He has been following my situation but this is the first time I had actually met him. His suggestion was to do a PET scan to see if their are any tumors left. And if their are, he suggested that I go to Sloan Kettering in Manhattan to have them surgically removed. That is of course if the surgeons in Baltimore do not feel comfortable removing them. So right now the plan of course is to go to the UMMC on Thursday and have the PET scan done. And pray between now and then that their is no tumors but only according to the Lord's will.

I did ask him what his professional opinion was that this is the first time that the numbers had gone down by themselves without chemo. His answer to me was, he crossed his fingers and said,"let's hope." All I could do is laugh.

Is this what the world calls wisdom? Because I have to tell you, for all of you who actually depend on these doctors and think that they make a difference, my deepest sympathy goes out to you, and I pray if the Lord wills He gives you increase in your vision and hearing.

One of the major learning lessons that I have learned in this travail is that the unrighteousness of man abounds the righteousness of God and how truly perfect He is.



JMHJ

Are you as confused as I am?

I went to the cancer center today to have my blood checked. The numbers on my blood are looking good. White blood cells are normal at 4.2, hemoglobin, hemocretin and red blood cells are all a little low but look good considering what i have been through. Platelets are at 114 which is great since it was around 50 last week. So all in all as far as the blood goes, it is slowly starting to recover on it's own.

Now on to the confusing part. If you remember, after the first stem cell treatment, I felt great. My marker numbers came down to 7 and I had felt the best I felt in two years. But after 3 weeks when I went in to receive my second stem cell treatment, my bHCG had jumped up to 550 and the AFP was around 60.

Now when I received my first marker after my second stem cell treatment (stay with me, kind of confusing) the bHCG was 141 and the AFP was at a lower number but can't remember what. Now the bHCG is at 31, a little high and the AFP is at 5.3, normal. That's the good part. The bad part is that I'm in very uncomfortable pain and I have no idea why. I pray it's my body recovering, but at this point, who knows.

I have an appointment on Monday to see a doctor at UMMC just as a kind of preliminary in case I need to take a next step. Which I pray not, until next time,



JMHJ