Dougler the Outlier

Friday was a hard day. Life seemed to come crashing down with a diagnosis of cancer. The day only got worse when I started to Google exactly what was going on in my Dad's head. I was consumed by the statistics and felt like we were fighting a helpless battle. But late that evening, my husband, Derek, and I had a conversation with my parents about outliers. Over the past year, Derek has had a passion for figuring out what makes extraordinary people so different: he wants to know about their eating habits, their sleeping habits, their exercise habits. Derek told my Dad that he wants him to focus on being an outlier, to be different than the average, to fight a cancer with an extremely high rate of recurrence. My Dad has always been an outlier and there's no reason for him to stop now.

So with that, we are choosing to focus on the positives as we move forward. More specifically, we are thinking about the things that set my Dad up to be an outlier, as well as the things that can help him continue to be an outlier.

Dr. O'Kelly was very happy with how the surgery went. He said they were able to get so much of the tumour that they were left with healthy brain tissue, which is awesome. We feel so blessed that my Dad's tumour was operable and that the doctors could remove so much of it, leaving my Dad with the best chance at fighting this cancer. My Dad has also been healing unbelievably well. He has been home for almost two weeks, his swelling and bruising is a thing of the past, and he hasn't taken pain meds since he first got home. Other than the scar (which is healing beautifully), you would never know he is recovering from brain surgery. We feel very hopeful that the radiation and chemotherapy will destroy the cancer cells that are left. Many people that are diagnosed with brain cancer don't have a surgery that went as well as my Dad's, so we feel like he has a good chance at beating this tumour. He is all set up to be an outlier!

As I mentioned earlier, the cancer has a high rate of recurrence, so we have been spending a lot of time researching ways to prevent the cancer from coming back. We are planning on discussing a lot of these alternative treatments with the doctors at the Cross Cancer Institute on Thursday morning. Although we think all of the treatments will be okay, we want to be sure that there aren't any contraindications that we aren't aware of. We will post an update in the future about some of the alternative things that my Dad ends up doing. The hope is that some of these changes will allow him to continue his streak as an outlier!

Between the excellent surgical results, the speedy healing, and the alternative treatments we are considering, we are all feeling fairly positive and hopeful. And although I'm quite sure I say this in every post, your prayers for our family have been absolutely amazing. Throughout this all, we still feel like God is holding our family in the palm of His hand. We know He is with us, that He is in control. So let's all continue to "rejoice in hope; be patient in affliction; be persistent in prayer" (Romans 12:12).

- Tara