Quality of Life

This was submitted as a letter to the editor of The Daily Herald. We'll see if it gets published and/or if it gets shortened. A similar letter was emailed to the general manager of Sundance.

Our mom and dad raised eight boys: eight eagle scouts, eight missionaries, eight fairly decent human beings. On December 19^th, our 70 year old dad was skiing with his friends of the Sundance Senior Ski Club, on a mountain he has enjoyed since the days of Timp Haven. He had a hard time walking to the lift that morning and a harder time making right turns on the hill. He went home early thinking maybe it was his bad back. Over the next week, he noticed increasing weakness and numbness in his right side and difficulty expressing words. On December 26^th, he discovered that he had a large tumor in his brain.

UVRMC doctors, nurses, techs, and therapists provided great care and he returned home less than 3 weeks after the tumor was found. On the first Saturday back home, exactly one month from the day that he noticed something wrong on the slopes, he returned to Sundance. He rode Rays and Arrowhead and got to breathe fresh air at Bearclaw Cabin surrounded by beautiful views, his boys and his ski buddy of 50 years. The weather was perfect. Ski patrollers Logan Rodriguez and Ashley Lewis were incredibly professional and kind in giving Dad one more run from top to bottom. He had a blast. We all did.

We want to thank Sundance for being so helpful and supportive and making it possible to return our father to his passion. Specific thanks to Mountain Ops Manager, Czar Johnson; Lift Ops and Bearclaw Cabin personnel; and Sundance Ski Patrol, especially Ashley and Logan. Thank you!

The Avery Boys learned to ski at Sundance. Now we are learning more about the fight with cancer. Dad has come out swinging and this small victory is felt deeply by him, by us, and we hope by any others who are fighting. Quality of life is his and will be to the end.

Family Council

Today we held probably the first Family Council we've ever had. We took the opportunity to meet with those who could be here to talk about Dad's condition. We included Wes through Facetime and David on the phone.

Dad shared with us about his prognosis and activities. He will start physical therapy more regularly at home and the radiation therapy starts a week from tomorrow at UVRMC. It will be rough and it will hurt, but "we're gonna do it anyway, we're gonna fight." He asked for us all to continue to be supportive and helpful to keep up his improvement. The chemotherapy will start at the same time as radiation with a short break, then monthly cycles of chemotherapy.

The oncologist shared that patients who don't go through these treatments may last 2-3 months. Those who do can live 2-3 years, maybe longer. So we have been counseled to get things all prepared so that doesn't weigh on our minds. We've also decided to start planning some monthly family outings, depending on dad's condition of course.

We started yesterday by taking a trip with seven brothers and dad to Sundance (see another post soon). 



More to come soon!