Lindsay's Ramblings

Matt started his next phase of treatment last week, which is a fairly new device for glioblastomas called Optune .  Optune works by creating low-intensity electric fields, called Tumor Treating Fields, or TTFields, which help slow or stop glioblastoma cancer cells from dividing and may also cause some of them to die. He has to wear these transducer arrays on his head, which are connected to a battery pack. It has to be worn at least 18 hours a day. It was a bit of a hassle at first having to carry the pack around constantly and all the cords and everything, but now that it's been over a week he's getting used to it. The arrays have to be changed out every 2-3 days, and his head has to be shaved bald so that the arrays will stay on. Even though it took a few days to get used to, he's still able to go about his daily activities and live life without it being too much of a hassle. So far in this first week we went cruising in the Jeep... Out to dinne...

(Note: I wrote this in bed at 11:30 pm on my phone's note app...and purposely didn't do much editing.)  God is good.  We always hear people say that. But do you really BELIEVE it?  It's easy to say that when things are going great.  It's easy to be thankful and joyful when life is good.  But can you still say that when you're living your worst nightmare?  You know why I can still thank and praise God even during the hardest time of my life?  Because I know Who God is , and I know that He doesn't change. Regardless of my circumstances. Regardless of my feelings and emotions. God is God. And He is always good. Always. You know what else doesn't change? The fact that he saved me by sending His Son to die a brutal death on a cross to give ME life.  If that were all God ever did for us.. .it would be enough. That alone would be worthy of lifelong praise and worship and devotion to our Savior for saving us when we did nothing to deser...

My workouts lately have been going great! And the crazy thing is I haven't been stressing about them or even really planning them out. I'm still doing my 2 days at home in the garage, and those days I call my "fun" days, because it's just lighter weight workouts that I change up frequently and make up on the fly. Even though really my heavy days are more fun to me.  For my gym days, I didn't really write out a workout plan, but I have been doing the same workout each time I go in, just trying to improve in some way each week based on how I feel. There's something to be said for being consistent and focusing on progression with the basics. You don't gotta get all fancy with set and rep schemes, and you don't gotta be changing up your exercises allll the time. I think sometimes we overcomplicate it.  I'm gonna stick with this routine I've been doing until I stop making progress, and that hasn't happened yet. I've been abl...

"The truth is: Doubt is not a “sin.”  It’s great to have a vibrant, robust, thriving sort of faith, and God wants that for you. But our deepest roots are born out of the winter nights when we’ve had to dig into the shallow dirt of our infant beliefs and reach into the soil of our most core foundations. True faith, the kind that perseveres through pain and trials and urgency, takes a surgical navigation through all the very difficult questions of life. Only doubts will ever get you to ask them. When pain hits home and you’re walking through that cancer or car accident or earthquake, you want the kind of faith that can face death. In the end,   I want a faith that doesn’t just tickle my inspiration or gives me cute slogans, but a faith that can get beat up by suffering and scholars and satanic evil, and will keep on standing. There are too many Christians who don’t really dig to the bottom of what they believe, so that when tragedy comes, they wonder how their c...

It's been one week since Matt began his chemotherapy treatment. We made the decision to forego radiation at this point, as it seems it would just be too risky. He is taking Temodar, which is an oral chemotherapy medication and the same one he used 10 years ago. He will start with 6 weeks straight of daily chemo, and then it will go to a monthly cycle of 5 days on, 23 days off. He has been doing well so far this first week. Along with chemo, we've also started him on a low carb, high fat diet, cutting out most carbohydrates with the exception of leafy vegetables and some berries and carrots on workout days. So far, he has done well on the diet and is actually enjoying it. He loves meat, eggs, nuts, peanut butter, and vegetables, so at least he's not miserable! I have been making him "treats" every now and then to give him something to look forward to, like these peanut butter "fat bombs": I'm looking for a couple of weekend "treat...

Fitness has been a part of my life since I was 13 years old when I picked up my first set of dumbbells. I fell in love with the weights, but nutrition wasn't something that I started working on until I was about 18. I took some nutrition classes in college, and that was when I began to focus on eating healthier(no more McDonald's and Skittles every day!). I ate pretty healthy from then on for the most part, but I didn't restrict or watch calories or care about how many carbs I was eating. I didn't know what the heck a macro even was! I was in a really good place with my food and my body image. I freely ate what I wanted to as long as it was healthy with absolutely no restrictions. I definitely just ate intuitively at that point, but I was becoming more conscious of trying to eat more protein and vegetables. I enjoyed working out and building muscle, but I felt good about my body and didn't obsess over my abs(or lack thereof). I didn't diet or restrict any food...

So since everything that has been going on, my training in the gym obviously took a back seat, but even when things were crazy, I was still able to get in some workouts in my garage.It was needed. It was my therapy.  Lately though I have been able to get to the gym a couple of times a week, so I've been going heavy on my gym days and then just doing lighter workouts in my garage a couple of times a week. Still doing an upper lower split. It feels really good getting back to heavy lifting! I've slowly been increasing weight and/or reps each week with squats and deads, and they've been feeling good. This past week I did 185 for 2x5 on squats and worked up to 230 on deadlifts for 2 reps.    My back has not been bothering me anymore, so that makes me really happy! My heavy lower days have been looking like this:  Squats-working up to heavy sets of 4-5, then back off sets of 5-6 Deadlifts-working up to heavy sets of 2-3, then back off sets of 3-5 ...

It's been a very long and emotionally draining past two days. Because we've gotten so much conflicting information, we decided to go to one more place to in the hopes that it would help us to better make our decision for Matt's treatment plan going forward. We were actually able to get in to meet with a doctor at MD Anderson in Texas Tuesday morning, so we flew in late Monday night and got a flight back for the next day. The reason we wanted to go to MD Anderson was because we know it's one of the best in the country for brain tumors, and since we were getting so much conflicting advice, we were hoping to get some clear cut answers and some confirmation that would be in line with what other doctors have told us. The main thing we were hoping to get was some clarification on whether or not to do radiation, since that is what the doctors don't seem to be in agreement with right now. We first met with the neuro-oncologist in the morning, and his suggestion was t...