Kenny’s sister posted a message about Kenny’s “Cancerversary” on her personal blog and we wanted to share it here as well. We also wanted to share Kenny’s latest comment in regards to celebrating his 1 year mark of fighting cancer. Please see these updates below. Currently Kenny is doing well, all things considered. We continue to research new treatments in hopes of “throwing the kitchen sink at it” and do our best to help manage Kenny’s symptoms. He started a new chemo drug called Irinotecan which is administered via IV every 2 weeks . He continues Avastin treatment as well via IV every 2 weeks, and the Valcyte medication daily. Kenny has his next MRI scheduled for November 5th. Praying, hoping we have no growth! Thanks for continued thoughts and prayers. Means a lot to us.
A few weeks ago we celebrated the 1 year mark of my brother fighting cancer. As he likes to put it, he celebrated his “cancerversary”. It feels very strange to use the word ‘celebrate’, but if anybody deserves a celebration, it’s people fighting cancer. And to put it bluntly, if I had to categorize good cancer vs. bad cancer; Kenny is fighting the bad cancer. And so why not celebrate the fact that he’s overcome so many little battles within the big one. A year ago, a surgeon opened up his brain to remove as much of this ugly beast as possible. Today he has a warrior scar that to me symbolizes a “fighter”. A year ago Kenny had no feeling or movement in his left side after the surgery. Today he is walking, eating, and throwing pillows at my head with his left arm. A year ago he started some extremely aggressive treatments where he powered through nausea and exhaustion. And throughout the year we’ve had positive MRI’s and not so positive MRI’s. But today he is still fighting. Today he is still making us all laugh. Today he continues aggressive treatments; barreling his way through bouts of nausea, sleepy days, and a rigid schedule of meds. With that being said, he also has managed to carry on a pretty good quality of life. Daily walks to the bench, weekend trips to the mountains and San Diego with friends, visits and breakfasts (lots of breakfastsJ) with his buddies, dinners out with the family, and even a few Charger games. There will always be tears and smiles, knots in the stomach, heart-aches and much more… But I’m learning we all have different tools in our hearts to help get through these times. For me the tools involve praying; take one day at a time; appreciate EVERYthing; surround yourself with family and friends; be present; be tough and keep fighting. We love you Kenny! Thanks for keeping us all laughing through this journey! Kenny m October 27, 2013 at 10:37 AM (Edit) Thanks for the kind words meg! She is just one shining example of the kind of positive support group I’ve had this past year. I too would like to take this time and opportunity to thank EVERYONE for their thoughts and support. I’ve tried to thank everyone personally in real time. But to those of you who have called, sent cards/messages from a far because you don’t live close, and to those of you who I just haven’t gotten a chance to thank yet; on behalf of my whole family and support group, thank you for your support as well; sometimes those cards and texts from the middle of nowhere seem to find they’re way into my hands at just the right time! So thanks again to everyone for dropping by and showing your support. I know words can be cheap and kind of cheesy at times, but even a card Or a “check in” text really does mean a lot! I never really have anything profound to say, but a friend of mine told me something awhile back and I think I’m just now starting to understand what he was saying …and even though he said it specifically to me, I think it goes for all of us. He said,”when you get up in the morning, you should be proud and excited!” You may not know what it means yet and you may not figure out why you got up that morning all day, but you should be proud and excited because it means SOMETHING!!!” And he was right, we may NEVER figure out what it means to get up every day, but it’s important that we do it, because it may not be for us. It may be that you got up that day so that you could send someone a card letting them know that you cared. Anyway, before this gets out of hand, thanks again to EVERYONE for caring, showing your support and getting up everyday, here’s to getting up, breathing, and even though we might not know why yet, here’s to lasting another year! Keep calm and Keep breathing everybody! Sincerely, Kenny Melton