Day after a couple of days that deserve day afters....

Well today is the day after and also depending on what perspective or day after you are referring.

For myself it is the day after I went down to The James Cancer Hospital at The OSU Medical Center. I had to give an extra blood work this month to check on my liver enzymes. So now I will wait to see what it shows. I had stopped using my Green Tea Extract tabs and also the Senna I have been using a couple years to see if that was causing the rise in enzymes.

Yesterday was also a long day, stayed up way to late last night feeding my inner wonk mode watch mid-term election results, went to bed about 2am.

I was waiting for Ted Strickland to finally concede so that I could watch the John Kasich acceptance speech. I new day for Ohio.

I new day for the country I would say too, at least in swinging the balance of power of checks and balances a bit.

I will post more later on the Kasich strategy as I was crunching numbers and thought the networks could have called it much earlier for Kasich that 12;30am or 1am, should have before 11pm News broadcast aired.

Seems to me that they keep there powder dry and hold back when a "R" is winning, but jump the gun a lot when a "D" or left leaning candidate is close?

More to follow....

On my steroid regimen this week and I still hate it....

Football Saturday

Rough football weekend for my beloved Buckeyes last weekend, but looking good this weekend against the Boilers of Purdue.....

Medical Update.... Saw my Oncoloist at The James this week for my monthly checkup. The orginal plan waas to statr me back on an oral chemo after over 17 months off of all chemo meds. That was the plan but since my liver enzymes were up a bit again Dr Benson decided to hold off, my prayer was answered again I could tell you so many of these stories when God had other plans. So we brainstormed to find out what drug was causing the problem. We decided to stop the Green Tea extract vitamans and drinking all Green Tea and retesting liver function bloodwork in 2 weeks.

During the week a friend was chatting with my wife who mentioned here Dr would not let her take Senna because of liver effects. After personel research and calling Dr Benson we decided to stop the Senna. You are only supposed to take Senna for 7 to 10 days at the most because of liver effects, I have been taking almost 2 years.....

So I believe this could be the culprit, we shall see though...

Felling really good though.

Missing being at Cloud 9 Retreat with everyone though at Michindoh this year, I will be back next year though for sure....

Really tired of campaign lies, er I mean ads....

Currently reading:

Pete Carroll's "Win Forever"
David Plouffe's "Audacity to Win"

Hummas and Pita

Just had my first Hummas and Pita in over a week and I realized I hadn't even had a chance to post since I went to New York. I did have wifi access but was only online long enough to check email and then back to what ever we where doing.

Lots of activities during the week on Long Island.

Hung out most of Sunday and Monday though we did hit up an outlet mall on Monday. we also took Calah out to a nice Italian Restaurant for her 21st Birthday.

Tuesday we hit up Robert Moses Beach and then went back home to hang at the pool. In the evening we met Uncle Red and Aunt Barbara at their favorite Italian Restaurant for a wonderful dinner.

Wednesday we rode the train into the city for the day. Ate lunch at the World Famous Stage Deli, shopped all over the city and the girls got to buy some stuff in Chinatown.

Thursday and Friday morning chillaxin and shopping at the outlet malls.

Saturday we traveled home after another great time in New York with family.

What has been happening....

Well a lot has been going on over the last few weeks:

First off I finished up 2 days of outpatient testing at The James at The Ohio State University in preparation for harvesting my stem cells. I had to go through a battery of test before I would be okayed to go through the process of donating the cells to myself.

Testing included: Lots of Blood work, a MUGA scan, A full body scan or Myeloma Survey (full body xray), pulminary testing with arterial blood draws, chest xray, testing of veins for harvesting and another bone marrow biopsy.

Just now feeling like I have gained my strength back!

I received the letter in the mail yesterday that I am all approved and set up for the harvesting in August.

This Saturday begins our no contact period for coaching our high school basketball team. We are not allowed any coaching contact until after labor day. We used our last official day of coaching for the summer last Monday. I really think your will see a huge improvement in our program this year, huge I think, we may make some noise this year....

The family and I are going to take a few days off for R & R and head to New York and the Island soon. I will try and update from there when possible.

Clear eyes, Pure heart, can't loose....

Future looks bright

Had a little extra time today and headed over to The Nest at Gahanna Christian to check out the new crop of 7th and 8th grade basketballers at Coach Paul Hartje's Middle School Basketball Camp. Looks like a good looking crop of Middle Schoolers. The were putting them through there paces today and emphasizing "defense" to get the camp rolling on Day One.

Good to see Seniors Thomas Rebovich and Gershom Tadesse helping out, alos former GCA baller Andrew Hartje helping out with the young ballers....

It has been a while hasn't it?

Well it really has been a while since I have done any thing on here. It has been about 2 years at least! Lots has been going on since then.

* A couple of daughters graduated from high school
* a couple of years older
* continuing to beat cancer
* took a gig Coaching high school basketball (and loving it)

Kind of stumbled onto this old blog while writing on another blog of a fellow multiple myeloma battlers blog.

So I think I will attempt, again, to be a little more consistent in writing on this thing and see how I do....

Time will tell.

Vineyard Camp 2008

Just returned from a week at Vineyard Middle School Camp. I was an amazing week of hanging out with some cool middle schoolers. Also got to meet some new to me Vineyard Youth Pastors.

The leaders were amazing, the students were great. At a new camp so we did have to work through a few bugs. But the Lord showed up and that is the bottom line.

Summer Reading Club

Thinking about joining Mark Lee's Summer Reading Club.

Last 2 books that I have read are:

Herioc Conservatism by Michael Gerson
The Great Awakening by Jim Wallis

Friday Stuff

Finishing tweaking the writing I refered to yesterday. I did finish and am now in the process of editing it before submitting.

Ohterwise enjoying the beautiful day and weather and listening to The Dennis Miller Show.

Idea's

I have a couple of writing idea projects I have been putting off for awhile. Thinking that this would be a great time to dive into them.

WOW a long time

Wow it has been a long time since I have posted. July of last year to be exact. Things are well.

I am in remission and doing well I am actually not on any treatment as of right now and it looks like I may be off treatment for at least another month. I feel good and things are going well.

I won't promise but I will try to be more regular.

Chuggin Along

Well treatment #3 was this week and all seems to be going well. No side effects yet and I even ate some Chipotle so that has to go into the positive side.

I am working a few hours a week but am not being allowed by doctors and work to attend our annual middle school camp next week. That is a bit of a bummer but I understand why, with my recent stay in the hospital again for pneumonia I can't take any chance. They are letting me help out in some of the planning and checking over things. And they are using my brain seeing how most of the stuff I do is just up there and I just do it from habit and routine over the years.

Keep praying for the treatments and that I will not have anymore bouts with pneumonia or any viruses.

Blessings to all have have sent me encouragement through email, mail and phone calls.

Good Bean Time Yesterday

Had a good time out with one of our longtime key leaders, Roger Edwards yesterday at a cool Italian Buffet. We had a great time of chatting about personal stuff and our season of mission trips we are in right now.

I saw my team ( I was not allowed to go this year due to current medical issues) off from the airport Sunday and have kept in touch by phone with the leaders during the trip. The high schoolers leave this week and a Costa Rica Team next week.

It was good to hand and talk youth ministry with Roger for the afternoon.

Finally an Update

Just a quick update for the blog just to let you know where things are with me with all that has bee going on this has a times fallen by the wayside.

As a wrote in a previous post I thought I had gotten bit by a spider which turned out to be something else so I will start back so we can see how I got to the alleged spider bite.

As many of you know I spent I week in the hospital (most of it in ICU) with pneumonia, after recovering at home for a month or so and returning to work with the middle school ministry at Vineyard Church of Columbus were I work. I can down with a painful sore which I though was a spider bite. I turned out to be a very bad staph infection that you can only get in the hospital (that is encouraging.)

After returning to the hospital and getting that all cleared up. I again returned to work after a time off to recover.

In March I was re-admitted to the hospital with pneumonia again for another week. This time an infectious disease doctors were brought in because I was running a very high fever that they could not get down with standard anti-biotic's. They also wanted to see why I was contracting pneumonia so often.

Through the course of the test and stuff the put me through they discovered a spot on my sixth rib which they biopsy and it tested positive. On the CAT SCAN in November this spot was not there.

This meant more testing and a bone marrow test which revealed that I am battling multiply myloma a plasma cancer.

I am currently under going chemo treatments and doing well. The Lord has been good to me and has blessed me even in this difficult time. He has placed people in my path to encourage and lift me up, survivors and prayer warriors. He has also giving me opportunity to share His blessings and good grass to those who don’t know him yet.

I am spending a lot of time at home now reading, listening to the Lord, doing devotions and spending time with the girls while they are out of school for the summer.

Also I have been blessed with a lot of friends who come and take me to lunch or coffee on occasion too.

You can contact me if you wish by email davemcpeek@gmail.com

Blessings and I will update better I hope and pray.

Updates soon

I will update this blog soon. Much too tell.

More Snow....

More snow today on top of the foot last week about 3 inches today, boy I am already tired of the snow.

Not feeeling well today, I think I got bit by a spide rin the last week or so. Tried to see a doctor today bit the doctor who was doing the Saturday hours today din't think he could help me so I did not go to see him.

The problem is the bite area is very very sore and hurts and mkes it hard to sitdown. I also don't feel well and it all seems to point to me to a spider bit, but what do I know I am not a doctor...

The Day After

After the Blizzard okay snow and ice storm yesterday we had no Middle School or High School events. Actually I didn't even venture out today. I was feeeling a bit under the weather and just took the whole day off.

Next week we are going to go to the Young Adult ministries (Joshua House) Ash Wednesday service should be sweet.

Revamp

Revamped the blog will add the blogroll later....

National Youth Ministry Conference

Just returned from the National Youth Ministry Conference in Indianapolis put on by SImply Youth Ministry and Group Magazine. It is possible the best Youth Ministry Conference I have attended in my 20 plus years of youth ministry.

Doug Fields, Josh Griffin and Group magazine really put on an outstanding event. The conversational and relational aspect of the event was very welcoming. Being able to walk up to the "biggies" in the field, people how have writtn numerous books and the how to's of youth ministry was quite refreshing.

I am really looking forward to the next one.

Stop by Josh Griffin's Blog to see more highlights and video's of the event.

Happy Thanksgiving

A Happy Thanksgiving to all today. May you be blessed with much turkey and good vittles to eat and plenty of football to watch!