April 4, 2008

Hey everyone!  Thought it would be nice to let everyone know why this feature has been added to the class website.  I know a lot of people aren't aware of what it going on.  Like Aaron Hurt made reference on the message forum, yes, I have been dealing with some serious health issues.

Last August, when Christy was 4 months pregnant, she, our boys, and I were on a missions trip/family vacation in Cuarnavaca, Mexico, visiting some close friends and their church.  One evening I came down with flu symptoms and the next morning I was really sick.  Because I was in a foreign country I decided to see one of the doctors in the church.  He found that my spleen seemed enlarged and ordered an ultrasound.  The ultrasound revealed a large tumor behind my spleen.  The flu-like symptoms proved to be unrelated to the tumor--it was God's goodness to me to let it be found.

Once we returned to the States, miraculously, we were able to get an appointment at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN.  A week later I was wheeled into surgery.  After the 6 hour surgery they had removed a 10 pound tumor, part of my colon, all of my adrenal gland and left kidney, and part of my pancreas.  I spent 10 days in the hosptial and then was re-admitted at home 2 weeks later with infection. 

Subsequent appointments here at Mayo have revealed that I have a very rare form of cancer called a paraganglioma.  Typically this type tumor is considered benign; however, I am in the rare 5% that turned out to be malignant.  It has metasasized to several places in my bones which is even more rare.  They also found a small spot on my liver. 

I have just this week had surgery again to repair a hernia in the first surgery site and to remove the spot on the liver.  That went well, and although I've had a lot of pain I'm doing o.k.

It has been a long road of recovery for me, but God has been incredibly good to our family.

I have spent hours on the internet researching and have found that there is no known cure for this type of cancer, nor has anyone ever gone into remission. The good news is that these tumors grow very very slowly and so they can be managed by treatments and/or surgery.  I've found people on the internet that have lived as long as 30+ years with this disease.  The doctors here at Mayo are viewing it as a chronic cancer.  So, it is something that I will have to live with the rest of my life, but it looks optimistic that I can live at least long enough to rear my children.  Praise the Lord!  God has shown Himself in supernatural ways in the past 6 months and I know He is going to use it for His glory.

We have a carepage established on the internet that Christy updates regularly.  If you're interested log onto www.carepages.com.  They will ask for an e-mail address and a password for security purposes.  The name of my page is DanHubbard.  It is very user friendly.

I will try to periodically update this page as well as to my progress.  I'm hoping that once I recover from this surgery that there won't be any more treatments necessary in the near future.

Thanks for everyone's friendship.  We're really excited about the reunion coming up.

--Dan

P.S.  The following updates are copies from our carepage that Beth had posted for us.  Thanks!

We had a good trip home. As we were crossing the Mississippi River into Wisconsin we saw a beautiful bald headed eagle soaring above us. We felt it was an extra special reminder of God´s love to us.

We met with the surgeon just before we headed home and set the date for Dan´s next surgery. It will be on Monday, March 31st. They are expecting him to be in the hospital up to a week. We don´t know yet how successful the radiation treatment was. They said it will be a few weeks until they will know that. He is having some pain in the spot they radiated. I guess we will find out when we go back.

We are rejoicing that we don´t have to turn around and make the 6 hour drive again tomorrow night. We will enjoy being home for a few weeks.

Thank you to each and everyone who cares and prays. We love you and are so grateful for you.

--Christy