Today is World Cancer Day. If you don't know, in March of last year, my then 42 year old brother was diagnosed with stage 4 esophageal cancer. It has been a difficult year to say the least. It has been a year of treatment every two to three weeks, plus CAT scans, MUGA scans and PET scans.

Doug is married to a great girl, Melissa. She has been an amazing care giver, sorting out all the doctor's appointments, taking notes of what was said, sorting his meds and making sure he takes them when is supposed to and the list can go on! She is a beautiful girl...inside and out and does it all out of love and devotion...for better, for worse and in sickness and in health.

I was able to spend Christmas week with them along with my parents. Bernie stayed home with our geriatric German Shepherd, Osa. The week before we went to Virginia, Doug had chemo and was so sick. After 4-5 days of being sick, he started throwing up blood and had to be rushed by ambulance to the ER. He was admitted and spent the next four days in the hospital. The endoscopy showed a tear near the tumor and they repaired it. He never bounced back to "normal." The way he feels now is the new "normal." He had one more chemo treatment before he just said his body could not take anymore. They decided after consulting the oncologist that they needed to make a change because the chemo isn't working. Now he is in hospice care. Hard decisions to make and definitely hard to hear but we have to believe this is the right decision for him and that God is still in control.

Everything that we are experiencing really puts life and the love that you share for your family in perspective.

Back to today...World Cancer Day...my heart hurts for Doug, Melissa and our family! My friends wanted to be with me today just to show support. We went out for breakfast this morning and we were all wearing purple. I am grateful for the support we have from our friends and our family! I am so blessed to have these ladies in my life.

Doug, I love you and we won't stop praying for a miracle and we will NOT give up hope!

But for me, I will always have HOPE. Psalm71:14