Dear Friends,

It is with great sadness that I begrudgingly sit here writing this blog today. The emotions of the last few days have been overwhelming to say the least. The amount of thoughtful and concerned texts, emails, and prayers are flooding in so fast I cannot even begin to catch up to say thank you or to even respond to what is happening.

We found out on Monday that Carl’s cancer has returned. The doctors also discovered a very small spot on his liver that came up on the scan. This means in the cancer world that we are stage 4 metastasized to his liver. Surgical options are off the table for now. To be transparent the only surgical option is so radical that his quality of life would be compromised and the risk for return is so high that it would not make sense to do that to his body. Instead will we preserve his energy and strength to fight via chemo to reduce growth. Most importantly, it is not at this point recommended by our surgeon. We trust him deeply. Many of you will ask what the hell do we do now? How do we fight? How do we get our miracle? We are going to do the most aggressive form of clinical trial that we can find. We are going to go to MD Anderson to see if they offer anything other than our beautiful team here. The answer is we are going to fight like hell.

I am humbled by the love of thousands. When all seems dark in our world  I am lifted a hair by the overwhelming “why him” feeling with the sheer idea that for this many people to love my husband -what a powerful life he must be living. To have this many people to care for us in our darkest hours he is clearly living his life right. I am trying to stay hopeful, as should you. We are trying to get our finances lined up and make choices about our kids futures. The thought of this makes me sob so hard I can barely see or breathe. I am trying to not be sad about the things I will one day be so deeply saddened by. I am trying not to think of being so alone one day with the worst case scenarios. Trust me. I will need those meals, hugs, prayers, and people to watch my children that everyone is angelically offering second after second one day. For now, we live. How lucky are we that we have so much love and help? I know when we are ready our friends and family will do anything.

I am trying to be strong, because somehow I gained this reputation during our last battle. I feel like that is a costume  or a facade right now. I am looking at it with more anger than you want to ever feel. I want to rip that strong costume up and throw it away because this is not supposed to happen to my husband, to Carr and Cate. He has walked his whole life in honesty, loyalty beyond measure, true fun, passion, and joy. He has been the friend to everyone, the mentor to many, the daddy who sings frozen at the top of his lungs with the most joy even though he has heard it ten million times just to make my Cate happy. I am looking at that strong costume knowing that I have not been able to shower for days, that I cant see or talk to my loved ones because it hurts so bad right now. I have decided that I am going to put that costume on soon. I need everyone to know that it may come off a million times over because the fear of how I will survive is consuming me. How will we give our children the life that we dreamed about? The planning for the unplannable is difficult. I try to not get ahead of myself.  Our dreams right now have be modified.

Carl does not want people to feel sorry for him, he wants to live his life to the fullest. He is cooking like crazy and eating every meal he loves right now in preps for chemo. For those of you who want to help please PRAY!!!!!!!!!

My dad sent me an amazingly helpful commencement speech given at Berkley by Cheryl Sandberg. In that speech she said, “option A is no longer available, so let’s go kick the shit out of option B.” That is what we intend to do here.  I am going to put my strong costume on, for Carl, for his family, for our children and WE ARE GOING TO KICK THE SHIT OUT OF OPTION B.