The Journey

November 8th. The date is set.  The mental games have been played.  I have won.  There is nothing left to do now, but wait another week and a couple days.  This actually works out quite well for me.  To begin with, I thought I was going to be in the hospital for Halloween.  Now I get to hand out candy.  I also was under the assumption I would be recovering during the Servite / Mater Dei game.  Now I get to attend it.  I am going into this surgery with the highest hopes, but I will be expecting the worst.  Whatever the outcome is, I have no control over it, so as my high school football coach Larry Toner once told me, "Mr. Coffelt, is there anyway you can control this certain situation, can you manipulate the outcome to your liking?"  Me, "No."  Coach, "Then why are you worrying about it?"  There really is no point in worrying about things that you have absolutely no control over.  Sure there are things which one m...

Amazing  Weekend. It seems the universe always has a way to put you in your place.  To be honest, I have been staying extremely optimistic since the beginning.  I have never once asked "why me?" or even allowed myself to shed a tear.  The hardest part about all of this was breaking the news to my sisters and family.  It seemed like when they found out they were heart broken and wanted nothing more then to save me.  Even in times when we are suffering, we often forget that there are people MUCH worse off than we are.  This morning, I happened to find out a fellow Friar, Sonny Kaesbauer '04 was paralyzed in a swimming accident in August.  It has been two months now and Sonny has not been able to take a single step.  I knew Sonny quite well through football and he is an amazing and strong person.  He will walk again, for that there is no question in my mind.  It is simply a matter of when and how much hard work, and determi...

"Cautiously Optimistic" I met Dr. Stea today and as I knew already, I will have to have my tumor removed.  Brain surgery is never an easy thing, but I feel like I am in good hands with Dr. Stea.  Dr. Stea said based on what he sees in the initial MRI along with my age and where it is in my brain, he is cautiously optimistic that it is benign.  There is absolutely no way to know what kind of tumor it is until it is looked at under the microscope.  This is somewhat of a relief seeing as how 3 days ago I was being told there is a 99% chance that it IS cancer.  Little did I know, the Dr. I spoke to in the ER was a RESIDENT!  I am sure she was just trying to be helpful as much as she could, but in a way I think I owe her a thanks.  I began preparing myself with the thought that I am going to be in a battle with cancer.  In this battle I would have to dramatically re-arrange my life.  Everything from my diet to my way of life would...

THANK YOU!  And you and you and you and you!  I can not thank you all enough for the support.  I truly feel like I can take on the world and not even flinch.  Tonight was an amazing night filled with friends, family, laughs and love.  Bowling for brains is what I shall dub the night.  Friends from work met friends from high school.  Friends from my girlfriends past met friends from my past.  People coming together all just to hang out and throw some balls at some pins.  It was amazingly therapeutic and relaxing.  If it wasn't for the lame headache I could have gone all night! My friends truly are cooler than yours. Tonight will be the last night I have before my future is laid out for me.  I will go in tomorrow and find out what my doctor thinks is wrong with me.  Good or bad, I will accept what he has to say and stay strong because regardless of what he tells me, I know I can and will beat it.  I HAVE to bea...

So, I guess those generic sleeping pills from target are well worth it.  Had an amazing night of sleep last night after nearly nil the previous 2.  Waking up refreshed instead of full of anxiety and nervousness is a much appreciated feeling.  It really is amazing how much your mindset changes when you are faced with an overwhelming situation.  I watched my mother battle cancer and through her struggles I learned to appreciate things that I probably took for granted.  Over time I began to forget how to be thankful for what I have rather than worrying about what I don't.  Now that I am experiencing this first hand, it is at a whole new level.  I am truly SOOOOOO thankful and gracious for the HUGE ARMY of friends and family that I never even knew I had.  My Servite Family has come back in droves and people I didn't even go to school with are coming out and standing with me.  Like the tattoo on my shoulder says which I got in honor of my mother, ...

IMS?  More like I-MAZING! --- Today is day 2, or technically I guess you could say day three since I found out the awesome news on Monday.  Yesterday was a crazy and non-stop thrill ride filled with an astonishing amount of love and support I honestly was not expecting in the least.  This blog I started just as ways to express my story and tell my family and friends what was happening with me on a day to day basis has turned into something a little bit bigger.  It was viewed over 3500 times in less than 24 hours... I am pretty sure I dont know half that many people.  I got e-mails from people I have never even met saying that I am inspiring them and I need to keep doing it.  So - I shall.  I shall not only continue on this journey with my updates and awesome puns, but I will try my hardest to keep you all in on every bit of this battle that I can (including the not so fun stuff, so be prepared.) Today I had a choice, I could either sit at home, watc...

Day one. For the last few days now I have been trying to figure out the best way to let all of my friends and family in on what is happening with me.  Well, I decided a blog would be the easiest and most efficient way to keep everyone in the loop.  I figure anyone who wants to know what is happening in my battle (which I am now referring to it by-since I know I can win battles) can just check out this blog.  And this will save me from telling the story 60000 times. :)  I am gonna update it with pictures, stories and all kinds of fun goodies to let you in on how much fun brain cancer is! :) So here is the back story, for the last year+ I have had these random headaches and small bouts of confusion (basically for a minute or two I would have trouble concentrating or making sense of my thoughts.  I chalked it up to stress and not being where I want to be in my life at this time.  Well, once I got my new job and finally got insurance again, I decided t...