Friday, September 11, 2009 3:27 PM, CDT

Hello from Tijuana. Not too much has changed over the past couple days. Things have gone pretty normally. I usually have to take a nap in the afternoons becuase the radiation wears me out a little. Early next week they are going to do a scan of my pelvis to see hopefully that the tumor is completely gone or has shrunk substantially. I am really not in any pain I just get a little nauseous once in a while from the treatments.

Wednesday afternoon I felt good and was even able to get in the pool and swim a few laps. It felt good to get some exercise. Katelyn and I usually go for a walk at night, so that is something we look forward to.

There are some amazing stories of things that take place down here. Yesterday a man left that 19 years ago had been down here with stage 4 cancer. He was healed and now his wife is down here getting treated for cancer. A lady named Karen left the other day who after two weeks was told that her cancer was in remission. A man is down here now that was healed of leukemia. Another lady down here has cancer in her mouth and had so many infections that she had be on a feeding tube. Now she is looking great and each day eats more and more through her mouth. What an awesome God we serve.

Those are just a few stories. It gives us so much hope seeing these survivors come back and hearing their stories. Thanks for all the prayers. Through the power of prayer and the Holy Spirit we trust that we too will be long time survivors.

This weekend my cousin Joanne is coming down and we are going to hang out in San Diego. I get done about noon tomorrow and then we will be able to get out of here. The weekends are so refreshing just to get out and hang out with friends and family. Pray that my energy level reamains high and that I can thoroughly enjoy the weekend.

Continue to pray for my sweet little wife. She has been nothing short of amazing. She has taken such good care of me and I feel so blessed to be married to her. She has a huge heart and loves me more than anyone else ever has. Pray that God would sustain her, bless her thoughts, give her hope, and use her in any way He sees fit down here. Thanks to all and God bless you. I love you, babe!

09-09-09

We had an amazing past weekend with Mark and Laura (Leman) Duggar! They blessed us in an incredible way by opening their home up to us. We were so refreshed and got some much needed good relaxation and delightful fellowship. This is all of us on Coronado beach.

But onto the update about Jordan. Aunt Marge says "Write!" and I say "Yes, ma'am."

Jordan began IPT therapy last Monday, the day we got here. IPT is low-dose chemo drugs given through an IV along with glucose. The cancer cells are attracted to the sugar and open up, allowing the chemo to be more effective in its demolition. He also started low-dose, localized radiation on Tuesday. The week of chemo and radiation was full of ups and downs and he had several normal- albeit unpleasant- reactions to it. Fatigue, chills, sweats, and slight nausea. The doctor hopes for the first week of chemo that he did to be his last.

This past Monday he started what they call his "vaccine." It literally is a customized vaccine where they inject back into his body his own blood. These disease-fighting blood cells have been isolated and introduced to the de-camoflouged cancer cells so they recognize it. They told him he will start to feel achy because the 'trained' cells that are re-entering his body are going into his bone marrow to get billions and billions of copies made so they can attack the cancer en masse. But that's a good sign- it means his bone marrow is busy.

A normal day for Jordan:

--Before breakfast- get hooked up with chelation. It's basically enzymes and electrolytes designed to flush out the bad stuff while building up his immune system.
--Breakfast.
--After Breakfast- de-tox, rife therapy, magnets, twice a week- foot bath.
--Sometime in the morning- radiation. They get in a van and go somewhere for this - I've never been along. It's called "Radio Terapia de Baja California" and all of the patients receiving radiation take turns getting radiated. It's basically a party.
--More stuff in his IV, and a nap.
--Lunch
--Cabbage- this is placed on his radiation site and is a natural radiation de-toxer. It is boiled and hot and very smelly. It takes 30 minutes.
--Ginger and spice soak. They give us premeasured bags of this spice mixture that we put in the tub and he soaks in it. This also takes 30 minutes.
--Shower.
--Nap, computer, reading, etc.
--Dinner.
--Social time with other patients.
--Vaccine.
--Bed.

It really is a full day for him. Morning 'til evening. He has not reacted adversely to his vaccines yet and loves not being hooked up to something during the night. He sleeps much better that way.

And now for the huge praise: Jordan had lung x-rays taken yesterday and the report shows that the cancer has stopped spreading and the spots are becoming more translucent and smaller. We and the doctors are full of hope! Thank you Jesus! Thank you prayer warriors! We are giving God all the glory.

I will extol thee, my God, O king; and I will bless thy name for ever and ever. Ps. 145:1

Saturday, September 5, 2009 12:33 PM, CDT

This is one of the last pictures of our family all together, taken when we dropped Jaycee off at my parent's home. Somehow, a straggler got in there.

Let the redeemed of the Lord say so... Ps. 107:2

"How are you doing?"

"Okay."

"How are you really doing?"

Well, since you asked... you now get the long version.

I am blessed. This is a statment that is always true regardless of circumstances. A good one to fall back on when you don't want to be dishonest and the desire to elaborate has long since left you.

I am often in disbelief, or a fog, or a haze of some sort when at times I cannot believe that medical records/reports/bills/statistics/information and the necessity of keeping them straight is now suddenly a large part of my life.

I am sometimes overwhelmed. I am sometimes an emotional train wreck. I am sometimes in denial.

I was on the verge of wallowing in self pity. No, I was wallowing in self pity; I was on the verge of doing it all the time. Until our Father stepped in with his miraculous blessing of joy. And hope. Praise Jesus!

I am not talking about a "I'm plastering a smile on my face because I'm a Christian and Christians are supposed to always be happy" joy. I'm talking about a real joy. Imparted from my Father. It is nothing I'm sustaining, or conjuring up on my own. It's a gift.

A week after the meeting with the doctor, the one that left us with the devastating "terminal" stamp, we had another meeting. A prayer meeting. Prayer meetings are miraculous in and of themselves- For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. One of our friends who is a pastor at Northwoods Community Church gathered some believers together to pray for us, over us, and with us. It was a Spirit-filled evening. Spirit-filled Christians coming together to the Throne in one accord. We were so blessed. As the time went on, and the believing prayers went up, I began to be excited. I was filled with hope and joy. I caught a vision of how God loves to flip Satan's plans over on him. I realized how, at the time of Satan's greatest triumph, it really was his point of defeat. He worked so hard to see the Son of Man hang on that cross and with Jesus's final breath, he sealed his doom. It was actually God's plan all along to thwart the devils conniving schemes and make his point of 'victory' his undoing by redeeming mankind through the blood of The Lamb. AWESOME! It just makes me want to exalt the LORD, in His own strength: to sing and praise His power. Ps. 21:13. I left rejoicing in the Salvation of the Lord, in the might of His power, in the unsearchable depths of His love. I believe God is using these terrible circumstances to springboard us into the breakthrough and outpouring for which we have been asking Him. I left filled with miraculous joy and hope. I do not use the term 'miraculous' lightly. It sounds cliche, but I mean it sincerely. This is one of the most precious blessings God has provided us with since this all started. No longer does Jordan have the burden of a disease, a fight to fight, a Godly perspective to maintain, Glory to seek, prayers to pray, and a wife to try to make smile. God took care of the last one for us in a supernatural, sustaining, abudant way.

Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen. Eph. 3:20

And that's how I'm doing...since you asked.

Thanks again for all of the prayers. The further we go we see God perfectly planning and answering them. When we arrived down here we felt a mighty rushing of God's peace that He had sent us down here. That first meeting with Dr. Rubio was so refreshing. Each appointment in the states the reports would get worse with little talk of hope and long life. Dr. Rubio said we would form a team with me, Katelyn, the medical staff, and God. He and his staff has encouraged us to pray often down here. Finally, a doctor realizing where the real healing power comes from.

I thought of the story of the twelve spies. God had told them that the land was already theirs. There were just supposed to go and check it out see what was there. 10 of them got back and said that we are not ably to go up against the people for they are much stronger. I feel like the doctors we have met with in the states have had this same attitude. They feel like there is not much hope. The staff down here seems like they have the Joshua and Caleb spirit. Let us go up at once for we are well able to overtake it.

The staff down here does not diminish the fact that I have a very aggressive cancer. They feel that God has given them wisdom to develop these alternative methods of treatments. Each time we have met with Dr. Rubio and his son they continue to stress the power of prayer and forgetting what the American doctors have told us. They have been really encouraging.

The treatment plan is diet, low dose chemo, radiation, detox, and vaccines. The food here is pretty good and most of it organic. The chemo is low dose so that they can control the side effects. I had some yesterday and I am hooked up right now as I type. For detox they do foot baths and they hook me up to a rife machine that sends out electronic pulses. They also use other methods for cleaning me out that I won't go into detail about. Yesterday they drew blood to test my levels and start prepaing my vaccines. They said all of blood levels looked really well, especially after having that big dose of American chemo. My vaccines will be ready the first part of next week.

I have been feeling pretty well. Yesterday I didn't have much of an appetite. Today it is much better and I feel like my energy level is already increasing. I can sense the prayers and can feel the treatments are already healing. The pain in my back is down to just a sensation once in a while. What an amazing God we serve!

Katelyn said she would post some pictures of my bald head so I will tell you the whole story. The early part of last week I was on my way to work and I ran my fingers through my hair, and more hairs than normal came out. Then I grabbed a clump of about 10 hairs and they came out with ease. I brought my mom's clippers home and had Katelyn give me a buzz. Then I scuffed my head putting my girls into the van and realized that it left about a quarter-sized bald spot. Then I put a hat on and took it off and took several hairs with it. So on Saturday afternoon we finally decided to just shave it all off. It was kind of sad at first but we ended up having a lot of fun with it. We did not know if I would have a good head for it but we found out that its not too bad. She used the clippers with no attachment and then shaved the rest a few times with a razor. It's starting to get tan down in the 85 degree weather and I think it will end up looking pretty good.

Once again, thanks for all the prayers. Pray that each treatment will work the way it is intended and that my body will fight the disease the way it was intended to. We love each one of you and are daily overwhelmed by love and blessings from friends and family.

Hola from Mexico!

We made it. Arawen was a trooper, and is finally getting to sleep for a period longer than 30 minutes. We've had a consultation, a tour, supper, and his first medications are dripping into his mediport already.

Thanks for praying for safe travels. We're one bag short, but it's being delivered -hopefully. :) Hope seems to be the theme around here and we are trusting in our "God of hope." (Rom. 15:13)

Love to all of our fellow hopefuls- Jordan, Katelyn, and Arawen

P.S. More to follow- including pictures of Jordan's new 'do.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009 2:51 AM, CDT

We had a wonderful, time in the Ozarks. We were blessed to be Mom and Dad Schroeder's timeshare guest, blessed to be with Jay and Jackie, and blessed to have Kent and Jan's boat to enjoy. Thank you Jesus for vacation! The weather was nice. The place was excellent. The girls were good. The food was amazing. The company was exceptional. It was a blast.

Again, we cannot say thank you enough for all of the prayers you all have prayed, do pray, and will pray for us. It's an eternal gift and a blessing bigger than we realize. So, thanks for lifting us up while we were gone and continuing to be who you are- the Body of Christ.

We are so thankful for all of the prayers, notes of encouragement, material blessings, and hugs (cyberspace and in-real-life) we've received from our brothers and sisters in Christ.To all who prayed for direction and guidance in regards to treatment options- God answered in amazing ways (does He ever do it differently?)

We knew we needed the week to be away, but we also had a lot of praying to do and decisions to make. It took until about Thursday before we stopped pretending nothing was wrong and really buckled down; making phone calls, following different leads we had gotten and calling numbers people had given. On the trip home we spent a lot of time on the phone and God opened a lot of doors, confirmed, and allowed a lot of things to just fall into place. It was like dominoes.

Jordan called me when I was running errands a while back; I think it was the 3rd day after his first gut-wrenching chemo treatment. He told me he was done with chemo. He wasn't bitter, he was just matter-of-fact. I supported.

It's going to take a miracle of God for Jordan to live past 24 months. Does he really want to spend that time throwing up, losing weight, losing hair, and feeling incredibly ill? But are we really okay with not using any of the God-given resources available and not fighting this? I should say I hesitantly supported when he told me he wasn't doing any more chemo. I am not okay with doing nothing. But we aren't doing nothing. We're praying our hearts out; and prayer is huge.

Long story short, and many prayers later- we are traveling to Mexico next Monday for alternative cancer treatment. We're still learning the scientific technicalities but, basically this treatment regimen uses the pre-programmed disease-fighting cells in your blood to create a customized 'cancer vaccine'. They'll change his diet drasticallly, boost his immune system in every way possible, and create a climate in his body best suited for fighting cancer. And he'll still do chemo. But on a much lesser, body-destroying scale. He'll be getting it in doses that are about 10% of what his treatment would be here.

For those of you interested in more information, click here for the website. For those of you who like to look at pictures, click here for pictures of where we will be staying for the next 4 weeks. For those of you who pray, please continue!

That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God. Eph 3:16-19

We're on vacation! Praise God!

I've been thinking of this prayer in Ephesians that Paul prays for his brothers and sisters in Christ.

We went to the cancer center on Friday to have Jordan's blood drawn to see what his levels looked like and if the medical personnel would give him the go ahead for being gone. The concern was that he would be away during the period of time that cancer patient's blood levels usually dip dangerously. All of the counts were fantastic and his white blood cells were up from last time! His pain level has gone down and his appetite is back. With thankfulness, we're giving God all the glory and thanking our "Aarons" and faithful prayer warriors for lifting us up.

But that doesn't mean you can stop. We need prayers for wisdom and discernment as we seek God about what treatment to pursue and how best to help Jordan's body fight this disease.

We're in the Ozarks so if we don't update for awhile it's because we're relaxing, boating, swimming, having a blast, and thinking about how much our Father loves us.