Cancerversary: Kyle weighs in.

A few words from Kyle

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Tomorrow is the one year mark since my cancer diagnosis. 

What a year it has been!

26 chemo treatments. 

10 or so PET scans. 

Stomach scope, port placement surgery, 

radiated beads in my liver, and a liver biopsy. 

It has had some low moments, but many more sweet 

tender happy moments with my wife, my kids, 

family and friends. 

I've found in a year of terminal cancer that 

people either run to you or run away from you. 

There doesn't seem to be a middle ground here.

I have made a deliberate decision to never 

be angry at the people that run. And I am SO 

grateful for the people that have run to me. 

The sweetness of those relationships is indescribable. 

A year ago they said I had 6 to 18 months to live. 

I am realistic to know I will not beat this cancer. 

It just doesn't happen. 

At Stage 4.  

Maybe someday, but it is not yet that day.

But today I am pretty strong and I feel good 

most hours of the day. 

I don't look great but I look decent. 

It's not like I started out looking that good

in the first place. 

I intend to be around a little more than a 

year from now to watch Josh graduate from college, 

and see Grace graduate from high school, and Eliza

graduate from Jr High and Olivia sail out of

elementary school. 

I hope for more time beyond that. 

Who knows? I do know I will fight every day and 

I will do my best to stay positive and keep smiling.

My brother Bud asked me a few weeks back 

if I had a "bucket list". I told him about a few 

things and I have since worked on the list below. 

At one point I had to finish all my house 

projects as a bucket list, but lately I have 

realized I really don't want that list to end. 

As long as my wife needs me to finish a few 

jobs then I need to keep hanging around to finish

jobs for her.  She keeps making lists for me.

I don't throw this list out to the world so people can 

make this list their problem. I just figured if 

a few people knew and you're headed to one of these 

places or have a connection then maybe you can help me 

cross something off my list. 

Here is my bucket list:

Backpack to grand gulch

One more trip through The Subway in Zion 

Backpack to the Unitas 

A day on the lake in a boat

Early spring trip to Moab 

I love NYC. It's never old for me. 

I could go once a month. 

I hope I get to go there again. 

Many more annual beach trips

Glacier national park

Trip through paria canyon

Tag along on a good lake Powell trip. 

Sit on the river and watch a good fly fisherman catch fish. 

Get to The Grand Canyon. Crazy but I've never been there.

One Jazz game with really good tickets. 

See Antelope Canyon in Arizona 

A few more concerts....

Mumford and sons, Avett Brothers, U2, 

Willie Nelson, Prince, Rage Against the Machine, 

Vampire Weekend. 

(Just to name a few that would be cool to see.) 

A few more nights by a fire and sleeping in a tent. 

One NFL game. 

Is it still too late to learn to ski? (Yes-this is his wife)

Places I would still like to see- San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Chicago, somewhere in the south. 

Sky dive

Eat a really good steak in good steak restaurant

Listen a terminal guy can always have goals right?

And dream.

And that's what Kyle has for today.

Tomorrow Dorien shares a few thoughts on the

past year.  We like to celebrate big around here.

And figure it's worthy of two blog posts anyway.  

Finishing the last bag.

March 3, 2014

Chemo Drip, Huntsman Cancer Institute.

(Where angels disguise themselves as nurses and humans)