Day 381 Lighting A Candle Instead of Cursing The Darkness and More "Lost" Before Pictures

Day 381

Lighting A Candle Instead of Cursing The Darkness and More “Lost” Before Pictures

After starting the day with a 200 calorie cheese omelet, Irene and I was off to pick up JoEllen and head for her urgent doctors appointment in Oklahoma City. I took a personal day today for the trip. Irene could have made the trip without me, but since she had worked a twelve hour shift right before and was without any sleep at all, I wanted to make sure they arrived safe and on time.

JoEllen was in incredible spirits considering she’s just been diagnosed with thyroid and brain cancer. To make a bad situation worse, she’s also developed blindness in both eyes over the last several days. And still, she was finding humor in her situation. She was smiling. It was wonderful to see her brave spirit. I don’t think I would have been as chipper under the same circumstances. We had moments when she would bring up the topic of death and we quickly insisted on a subject change. And she occasionally showed a mixture of fear and frustration over the blindness. She’s a strong woman.

The medical team working with JoEllen will start chemotherapy in a couple of weeks. They did say that the brain tumor seemed stable. Hopefully the chemotherapy will kill it completely. In the meantime, the doctors number one concern is saving her vision. The pressure from the tumor is severely hurting her optical nerves and that has caused this sudden blindness. They must perform an emergency surgery in the morning to relieve the pressure on her optical nerves before she becomes permanently blind. JoEllen is resting tonight at our house. Irene is getting off at 4:30am, she’ll get a few hours rest, then she’ll take Jo to the surgery center in Oklahoma City for the procedure that hopefully will bring her out of the darkness.

Thank you for all of the wonderful comments of prayer for JoEllen. Irene didn’t want to leave JoEllen’s side, but at a certain point, I had to insist that she try to sleep in the car while I stayed with Jo in the doctors office. While we were waiting for them to schedule the surgery, I shared your comments with her. She was amazed that so many people from all over the world were thinking of her. It really lifted her spirits, so again, thank you!

I have to say that I’m really learning something from watching JoEllen handle this horrible situation. Something life threatening like this can quickly put things in perspective. Most of us are very lucky, and sure, I can come up with a long list of things I’m not happy about or frustrated over on this journey, but what’s really important? What matters? Not giving up matters. Family love matters. And finding reasons to smile even in our darkest hour---that really matters. I did good today considering it was the first time I’ve ever led someone around who couldn’t see. I only ran her into one chair and one wall, not too bad really.

You know what today was? Weigh day!!!! Can you believe I missed a weigh day? I did. As we were headed into town late this afternoon, I declared that weigh day was postponed until Thursday. I can weigh tomorrow. This isn’t the first time weigh day has been postponed by one day. But it is the second---I’m pretty sure! I’ll be cool with whatever the scales show me tomorrow.

Play rehearsal was awesome tonight. It’s really coming together. I wish you could come and see this show. I’m blessed to have such a wonderful role for my stage debut.

I’m including some “Lost” before pictures in tonight’s blog, I hope you enjoy them! Thank you for reading. Goodnight and…

Good Choices,
Sean


Nearly 17 years ago. I was doing two morning shows at the same time. One Classic Country and one Soft AC, I just alternated. Crazy kid!!


At a station sponsored event. About a decade old, this one.


My mom and little brother Shane on one of Shane’s prom nights! He attended several!! We lost Shane in June of 2001. He was 24.


Irene and the girls several years ago. A really bright picture—but just adorable anyway!!! I love these young ladies!

A full body before picture with Ryan Diamond of KPNC. We were at the OAB Awards Banquet. Ryan won for radio personality of the year on that night. He was over 200 pounds in this picture and I still make him look tiny! I have a history of making people look little in pictures.