Matthew Gifford

The last two weeks have been a whirlwind of appointments, tests, work, celebrations, and stress. It’s impossible to sum it all up in a reasonable amount of time, so I’ll just keep it short.

No tumors were detectable in the CT scan. The tumor marker in my blood, while rising, is still at a relatively low level. The outlook is still very good.

I’m currently in the waiting room for the infusion area, preparing for my first dose of chemotherapy. I’ll spare you the details. Let’s just say that the next nine weeks are going to be very challenging.

Please keep my family and medical team in your prayers.

My doctor called this morning with the results from my most recent blood tests: There is still some cancer in my body. Based on what I’ve read, I expected this to happen. Still, the news left me almost speechless. I was hoping to be able to celebrate victory over cancer and my birthday at the same time. The victory part will have to be delayed for a few weeks. But it will happen.

I’ll be meeting with an oncologist soon to find out when the chemo will begin.

Don’t spend time worrying about me. The odds are very, very much in my favor. Continued prayers and support for my family would be appreciated, though. I can’t imagine how tough this must be on them.

Tonight, I have a date with the radiologist. Barium sulfate shakes are the only thing on the menu. Yum.

I got off the phone with my doctor a few minutes ago. The tissue he removed did contain cancer.

The good news is that there were no masses detected in my chest x-ray. The cough that’s taking forever to go away does seem to be due to the bronchitis I had a couple months ago.

Unfortunately, that’s all we know right now. The tests I will have in two to three weeks will tell us a lot more.

Thank you for all the kind thoughts, prayers, and support you have given my family over the last two weeks.

I never expected that this would be the topic I write about when I start blogging again. But people are starting to ask, so I should talk about it.

At about 1 PM today, I’m going to have surgery on what is very likely testicular cancer. There is no reason to believe yet that it has spread. But we won’t know the results of the tests for about a week.

Please keep my family and medical team in your prayers.

To the men reading this: If you ever feel any discomfort down there, have it checked out immediately. Be sure to have an ultrasound and blood work done.

Thank you for the delicious beer.

This is August’s first time on the beach (while awake).

Still running.

August is interacting with his environment more each day. Yesterday, he sat up in his bath to play with the rubber duckies.

It was a beautiful sunset. I’m bummed that I didn’t have the DSLR with me.

August hasn’t been sleeping well the last few days. It took a very long walk to get him to fall asleep this afternoon.