Joyce Joyce

  First, an enormous   thank you   to those who have been praying for our family and specifically for my headaches. After nearly a week, I am happy to report that I have experienced   zero  headaches. And this has occurred without any medication changes or dose adjustments to the selpercatinib. Side note: I had a huge chuckle when a dear neighbor informed me that with the difficulty the spelling, she calls it “Super Cat Nip.” As a cat lady, I love that! David and I have thought a lot about miracles lately.    We’ve talked about whether some code to crack exists so we can “get” our miracle to cure my cancer. I’ve prayed for miracles for myself and for others from time to time. Sometimes the request is granted, a lot of the time it isn’t.    The more I learn about what God has to say about miracles, the more I appreciate that there isn’t anything we can do, say or pray to reliably be granted a miracle. God did not spare Stephen nor James from m...

  Last week was a good week. We were given the unanimous recommendation of an oral medication that targets the rare RET gene fusion mutation, which is responsible for driving the replication my cancer’s cells, called selpercatinib. We were given two separate and personal accounts of people around my age who were living full lives 5+ years out of their diagnosis of similar stage 4 cancer who were being treated with this same strategy. The first 48 hours of selpercatinib were well-tolerated, without side effects. I still have all my hair despite the rounds of preceding chemotherapy received.     I could appreciate the large lymph nodes in my neck shrinking in size (they are barely palpable now) and so could both of my curious kids! Results of my PET/CT, done only 3 weeks after starting the prior chemotherapy showed considerably less activity in the entire chest, including the right lung and lymph nodes of the chest and neck. I was feeling more energy and barely any bone pai...

 I can only answer this question from my own personal experience. In the summer of 2018 I was introduced to research conducted by behavioral scientist Nicholas Epley at the University of Chicago, where I was about to embark on an Executive MBA. Subjects who took the commuter train into Chicago were enrolled in the study and randomized into two groups. The control group was instructed to just go about their business as usual and answer some questions to a survey once they arrived at their destination. The experimental group was given a simple task: sit down next to a stranger and engage them in conversation. The results of this experiment were extraordinary. Half of the subjects in the experimental group expected the encounter to be a negative experience and expressed anxiety about the awkwardness of the assignment. There were also misgivings about the potential loss in productivity that would occur as a result of wasting 30 minutes in needless conversation. What they found instead ...

 The “War on Cancer” was first launched by Richard Nixon in 1971, less than two decades after the discovery of the DNA double helix by Watson and Crick. Like many of America’s wars, we were initially unprepared for the formidable challenges imposed by an enemy we didn’t fully understand. When you consider the state of science and technology in that era, it was almost like we were using bayonets to attack the Death Star. If anything, the fear and dread of a cancer diagnosis has only become more terrifying in the decades that followed. Ever since the first revelation of: “That’s no pneumonia…it’s an adenocarcinoma,” we have struggled to find the courage to face this disease. There now seems to be a consensus among oncologists from three of the best cancer centers in the galaxy that what we are dealing with is an unusual type of lung cancer. The estrogen receptor staining was just a trap to lure us down the wrong treatment pathway. The Death Star is fully operational with planet kil...

  Daryl Morey was the general manager for the Houston Rockets from 2007-2020. His approach to hiring NBA talent leaned heavily on the application of advanced statistical analysis, a skill he developed working in a consulting firm after studying computer science at Northwestern. I’ll let Michael Lewis take it from here: “From his stent as a consultant he learned something valuable, however. It seemed to him that a big part of a consultant’s job was to feign total certainty about uncertain things. In a job interview with McKinsey, they told him that he was not certain enough in his opinions. ‘And I said it was because I wasn’t certain. And they said, we’re billing clients five hundred grand a year, so you have to be sure of what you’re saying.’    The consulting firm that eventually hired him was forever asking him to exhibit confidence when, in his view, confidence was a sign of fraudulence…A lot of what people did and said when they ‘predicted’ things, Morey now realized,...

  Today I have the gift of 2.5 hours on an airplane to reflect and to write. After experiencing the most comprehensive, compassionate and speedy care I have ever received, my mother and I are traveling to Houston for a couple of days to have one more set of eyes on my diagnosis and treatment plan before returning home to Idaho to continue the course. Today also marks the 1-month anniversary of having received the cancer diagnosis. The heart-wrenching gut-punch, the tears, the grief, the mourning, the uncertainty – they are all still there.    These feelings co-exist with the joyful moments I have had with those I love in person, over prayer, over meals. And I appreciate all the additional small moments of joy experience through the continued outpouring of love and support in your posts, messages, emails, phone calls, face times, photos, meal/visit sign ups and gifts. Thank you to all who have and continue to reach out to our family.    Your support continues to ...

  It’s a question I should be asking myself every day, but at least the designation of November’s fourth Thursday for this purpose by FDR in 1941 has made it difficult to go through an entire calendar year without giving it some thought. As I struggle to reassemble the pieces of our lives that have been left in the wake of this tragedy, I’m discovering that it is no different than any other educational pursuit. This is a challenge that can be met, and there are some strategies that work better than others. Tim Keller’s book on Pain and Suffering has been an excellent playbook, and while he is very quick to point out that there is no magic formula to find “the secret to being content in every situation,” it is a skill that Paul claims to have “learned” (Philippians 4:12). Keller suggests that this curriculum involves three disciplines: Thinking, Thanking, and Loving. The truth is, even in this dark hour there is so much to be thankful for. In “A Grief Observed,” C.S. Lewis points ou...

  Joyce and I both knew that Juliet was full of crap by our third date. We were both starting to sense the long-term potential of the relationship, and it was time to address the elephant in the room. Although we eventually got around to the first name/surname issue, the “potential irreconcilable differences” conversation actually started with a discussion on NFL loyalties. Having grown up in Minnesota, it was unavoidable that I would become a fan of the Dallas Cowboys (see the Wikipedia page on “Herschel Walker trade” if this comment confuses you). Having spent much of her childhood in the D.C. area, Joyce had a preference for the archrival to America's Team, which coincidentally elected to change their name a couple of years ago. Looking back on it now, I realize that these differences pale in comparison to the many flaws that my patient and loving wife would endure on my behalf for our marriage to be successful. MIT Professor Patrick Henry Winston begins his entry level lecture ...

  Joyce and I have experienced such a wide range of emotions during this ordeal, that sometimes it’s difficult to even find a word in the English language that can convey our sentiments in a given situation. Right now, it’s kind of an upbeat optimism that seems completely delusional when you put it in the context of our actual circumstances. The best way I can explain it is to compare it to a scene in “The Princess Bride” when Wesley and Buttercup have just narrowly escaped the pursuit of Prince Humperdinck: Wesley : A few more steps and we’ll be safe in the fire swamp. Buttercup : We’ll never survive. Wesley : Nonsense. You’re only saying that because no one ever has. What are the three terrors of the fire swamp? One: the flame spurt. Nooooo problem. There’s a popping sound preceding each so we can avoid that. Two: the lightning sand, which you were clever enough to discover what that looks like, so in the future we can avoid that too. Buttercup : Wesley, what about the R.O.U.S’s?...

  This question is one that Joyce and I have tried to ask each other on a regular basis since attending a marriage retreat in the earlier part of this year. The idea is that successful marriages require good communication, and that one very important type of communication is the “Heart Talk.” The format for these types of conversations is outlined with the pneumonic “ICU,” and the goal is to (1) IDENTIFY your feelings and the feelings of your spouse, (2) CARE about those feelings, and (3) UNDERSTAND those feelings with the assistance of your mate. I’m very thankful that we were introduced to this concept at just the right time, and I wish we had been given a little more opportunity to practice before these became survival skills. It’s almost like we went out for a surfing lesson, popped up on the board once or twice, and then as a cruel prank someone entered us in the Mavericks Big Wave Invitational. This week we had the opportunity to speak with a psychologist. She asked us to ide...

  “You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade…The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you...Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well equipped, and battle-hardened. He will fight savagely…But this is the year 1944! The tide has turned! The free men of the world are marching together to Victory! I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty and skill in battle. We will accept nothing less than full Victory! Good Luck! And let us all beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.” --General Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Order of the Day It may seem like hyperbole to compare the initiation of chemotherapy on 11/22/24 to the events of 6/6/44, but I think there are more similarities than differences. Certainly, the domain expertise and strategic approach with which our treatment regimen was crafted eclipse anything that existed in the Pentagon during the lead u...

  This is by far the most common question I’ve gotten in the past couple weeks, and the answer might surprise you so I’m going to spend a little time explaining my thought process on this before answering it directly. Prior to 10:23 AM CST on November 4, 2024, anyone who posed this sort of question to me would have gotten a very prideful answer about how “I’ve got this” followed by a reminder of how self-sufficient I am. In that moment, I somehow knew immediately that the only way my family was going to make it to the other side of this journey would be for every day to be “Yes day” moving forward. Now that I’ve had a little more time to process the validity of that intuition, there are some very logical reasons why accepting help that is offered is such a wise strategy. The most basic reason has to do with the concept of “crowd wisdom.” In 1906, Francis Galton described a competition at the Plymouth County fair in which over 800 people were asked to guess the weight of an ox. When...