Darren LeBlanc

I was writing a post about Olivia when Misty has a seizure.

Then I was writing a post about how I was too tired to write a real post, so I was going to bed. That magically disappeared (and for once I forgot to do my trick of control-A to select all the text, then Control-C to copy it. This way, when this happens, the whole text is on your clipboard).

Anyway, Misty has 15mg of liquid valium in her so she is out. It has been 2 weeks since her last seizure and that was 2 weeks from the previous…so I shouldn’t complain, right? (you don’t need to answer) This one wasn’t really big, but lasted for a solid 20 minutes.

Anyway, the antibiotics aren’t doing anything except making her mouth infection come back, so I’m going to stop them. Her symptoms are: extreme fatigue, cold sweats, anxiety, and mood swings. These are all symptoms of coming down off a dependence to decadron (steroids). 

We weren’t up for church today, but Olivia went with Misty’s family.

I’m tired. It’s 2am, I’m going to turn in a little early.

Well…to the battlefield at least. Monmouth Battlefield State Park, to be precise. I had never been to this place before, but it was quite nice. Picturesque. Misty wanted to stay back in the car with her mom. Today was really up and down. We woke up and she was in good spirits. Awake and kinda ready for the day. But, she got very tired and was a fairly groggy most of the day. Today is day 2 of the z-pack and I’m hoping this little sickness is something that will get knocked out by that. Although, if it doesn’t, it’s likely a side effect of reducing the steroids (yes, sickness and fatigue is a common side effect). We are down to 2/3 of the steroids dose as well….so that would make sense…you really just don’t know. Either way…I’m hoping its over soon. She isn’t really have the best days of her life this week.

Also, I’m intrigued by the recent republican VP announcement: Sarah Palin. I know very little about her, other than the fact that she is the Governor of Alaska and grew up in an Assemblies of God church. I”ll be learning more in the coming weeks and probably have some opinions.

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Misty has been feeling sick for a few days. It’s not anything big…just general sick feeling - no cough or fever. It makes sense because Olivia is sick and Misty’s mom is sick as well. I finally called the dr and told him I wanted to start misty on an antibiotic. He concurred. Its tough, because antibiotics kill all your good bacteria, but at the same time, if there is any infection, you want to get it as soon as possible when you have a compromised immune system.

Hopefully, she will be feeling much better in a couple days.  

PS…having a tough time working with the logo artist we hired for Anthem of Hope. If there is any professional graphic designers that want to donate some time to collaborate on a logo…email me.

A couple weeks ago I stopped praying for Misty to be healed of brain cancer. This hardly means I’ve stopped praying for my wife…just that my prayers have changed a bit. Here’s why.

Two months ago we had an MRI that showed Misty’s tumor has taken over her brain. You could see it pushing the left side of the brain into space that belonged to the right side. We went home from the hospital and began believing in God, even more. Glioblastoma (Stage IV Brain Cancer) is a terrible disease. It has been characterized as being able to double every 10 days. When left untreated, it destroys quickly.

Well…it’s been nearly two months without treatment and Misty has not experienced a single new symptom. There is nothing telling us the tumor is growing. She has had a handful of seizures, but they are getting less frequent.  She is still not able to use the right side of her body, or talk – but there is nothing new. I believe that God has healed her of the cancer.

So now I’m praying that God restores the parts of the brain that were stolen by the cancer. I’m praying that she begins to walk and to talk. I’m praying that God protects her body this week and in the weeks to come as I continue to wean her off Decadron (steroids).  But cancer…no, I’m not too worried about that right now.

PS…I was asked for the peanut butter recipe. If you have something strong enough to make it (like the champion juicer i use) you just use the homogenize setting, and run dry salted peanuts through. Add canola oil as you go as if it were a salad dressing on the nuts or something.  Otherwise, it’s too dry. That’s it!

• I could do this bullet thing everyday. It’s so easy…it doesn’t take any creativity on my part. Which is good today, because my brain is ready to sleep. Also, since there is no general theme I want to convey, I feel free to write completely stupid titles.
• Today a couple angels (Brenda and Erin) dropped off a fabulous dinner. Chicken Enchiladas, Salsa (that was much better than mine) and an unusually delicious Bean/Corn dip.
• Misty slept a lot, but felt pretty good. She was playing with Olivia a bit at dinner.
• My cat is obsessed with being pet. She is jumping on Misty right now looking for some love (misty is sleeping, so its not likely she is gonna find what she’s looking for _ that reminds me of a U2 song).
• I have a new use for my juicer – I made blueberry applesauce for misty this morning. She takes her pills with applesauce and we ran out. That reminds me…I ran out of peanut butter too. I have to make some tomorrow.
• There is a half way interesting article HERE from MSN on hospitals. I particularly like the note about the anesthesiologist not being on your plan, when the hospital is. We have had this problem. in hindsight, I might ask about that if it wasn’t an emergency procedure.
• I was thinking today about how much of an honor it is to be able to tell you all Misty’s story. I’m kinda overwhelmed by how many of you read and pray each day. It’s encouraging and humbling. Thanks for the emails, card, comments and prayers.
• I think everyone should read Psalm 121:

Psalm 121

 1 I lift up my eyes to the hills—
       where does my help come from?

 2 My help comes from the LORD,
       the Maker of heaven and earth.

 3 He will not let your foot slip—
       he who watches over you will not slumber;

 4 indeed, he who watches over Israel
       will neither slumber nor sleep.

 5 The LORD watches over you—
       the LORD is your shade at your right hand;

 6 the sun will not harm you by day,
       nor the moon by night.

 7 The LORD will keep you from all harm—
       he will watch over your life;

 8 the LORD will watch over your coming and going
       both now and forevermore.

• Misty is feeling ok, her mouth infection has cleared up significantly. Still a bit foggy, but I dare say better than yesterday.  
• I found an old digital voice recorder that I had lost. It has recordings from about 30 songs I was working on a few years back. I never would be able to remember them. I was pretty happy.
• We went out and picked up take-out from a local Mexican place today for lunch (junaitos, red bank). We ate in the car overlooking the water in Marine Park (Red Bank NJ).  My mom and grandma cleaned the house while we were out.
• The repair guys showed up this morning to fix my fridge. Now I have an ice maker!
• I spoke with an old friend, Matt Linardo, today who happens to be a physical therapist. He gave me a wonderful overview on what I should be doing physical therapy-wise. So we started a 2x daily PT regimen today ( we need to strengthen her left side and keep the right side loose for when it does come back). We had a PT coming to the house, but she disappeared…and didn’t really do much hands-on stuff with misty when she came.
• The logo artist sent me 3 samples of the new Anthem of Hope logo. We liked one, but it needs tweaking.
• Olivia is feeling a bit better…probably coming home tomorrow :)
• Pastor Timm and Megan stopped by…it was nice to see them.
• Misty’s mom is feeling a bit better as well…its been a while since I haven’t seen her for 2 consecutive days.
• Misty hit 700ml on the spirometer (the thing you breathe into to strengthen and strech your lungs). Thats not anything to write home about, but we just started using it. Misty isn’t breathing very deeply and that supports gettng pneumonia (can’t have that again).
• Misty has been coughing lately while drinking. The doctor said that her body doesnt get water down the right tube, so she coughs to keep it out of her lungs. Well, today was pretty good with that. There wasn’t any coughing today….so that was nice. I worry about getting fluid in her lungs.
• Misty is over her addiction to fuji apples with homemade peanut butter (we’ve been doing this every night). I wonder what’s next.

I live with three girls. Misty, Olivia and the other girl in my life.

Introduce Marmalade.

Back in summer of 2006, a scrawny little cat with a beautiful orange coat started hanging around Misty’s parents’ house. Misty was over there often and found herself feeding it – she is a sucker for animals. Needless to say, she fell in love with this thing. I was never a cat person. I had this impression that all cats smelled like pee. Well, we just happened to be moving that fall – from out little apartment to a small house in Long Branch, NJ. Since Misty started feeding her we got pinned with the responsibility of taking her. The first few weeks were rough. It seemed that whenever I tried to pet her, or put a collar on her or God forbid, take her to the vet, she absolutely freaked out. She didn’t know me or trust me at all.

A couple years later, this has changed quite a bit. Miss Marmalade jumps up on my lap looking to be pet, and trusts me with most anything. She ripped her ear open the other day and let me clean the cut out (she now has her ear flap split right down the middle – ouch). She got a tick a few months back and sat there quietly while I pulled it out. She even sat on my lap when I pulled nearly 50 burrs out of her fur last summer.

The point is…now, she has lived with me, gotten to know me and after I have proven myself a few times, she begins to trust me.  I thought about this today as I was considering my current thoughts toward the creator of the world.

Today was kinda rough. Misty has been in a fog for days. She isn’t very expressive and has been sleeping a lot. We saw the new doctor and he pointed out how her muscles are totally shot in her legs. Even the left leg where she used to have function, is barely usable because of the muscle atrophy.  Misty has been on a high dose of steroids for too long…its taking its toll. Her oral candida infection (thrush) is back and she feels kinda sick. . .

But, it’s ok. God has proven himself in the past…and I know he is working on things. We aren’t worried about the physical state right now, because we know the end result is Misty, walking and talking again. Misty went to sleep happy tonight – no depression, just trust. We are doing ok, I promise. Just kinda waiting patiently for God finish pulling the rest of the burrs out.

PS – Olivia has an ear infection, so the quarantine from misty continues for another 48hrs. Oh well.

The summer sun was still blazing and had dried out a bit of the morning humidity. I was with my best friend, Scott and we got to the softball field a good hour before the 6pm game. We always took the church softball league pretty seriously (we did end up winning the championship that year!), so upon exiting Scott’s mom’s minivan, we were ready to play. My attention was quickly grabbed by a lovely young lady milling around on one of the swings…just kicking dust and shooting the breeze with her best friend Ann. Being a typical 15 yr old, no matter how much I was charged for a good competition, I was immediately and unequivocally distracted by this young blond, green eyed princess…just sitting on the swing.

Without reservation, I made my way over:

“Hey, I’m Darren.”
“Hi. I’m Misty”
“That’s a nice name”
“Thanks.”

At fourteen a girl still wants to hear that they look older. Knowing that, I appropriately responded to her beauty with a subtle pickup line:

“How old are you?”
“14″
“Oh, you look older”
“Thanks”

I was pretty confident that I made a good impression as we moved toward the field to warm up. Little did I know that I was in store for a big impression of my own.

I was playing outfield that game, and short stop was covered by Joe Costello. Joe, was 17 and significantly bigger than I was. In the top of the 6th, a short pop fly had me sprinting in from the outfield. I knew it would be close, so I was moving pretty fast. Then it happened, a full force, head-on collision. I didn’t even see Joe till I was regaining consciousness and being hoisted into the ambulance. I have a tendency to play sports with reckless abandon. Often this leaves me with broken bones. This time it was just a concussion, but I broke Joe’s nose, so I guess that counts.

Something extraordinary was birthed from that fabulous concussion. Misty, a shy 14 year old girl, stepped out of her comfort zone and contacted Scott’s mom to get my phone number. She found enough boldness to check in on me the next day. And that was it…we started talking regularly. Three months later, in October 1995, we went to the Red Bank Regional Homecoming dance…and it was official. It has been exclusive ever since.

Eight years later, in June 2003 – we wed. That’s another story. By the way, Scott and Ann got married too :)

–  –  –  –

I got an email today asking for the story of how we Misty and I met…so there it is.

We have a Dr appointment tomorrow morning (monday) with our new general practitioner. Livi is still sick, so she’s gonna visit the doctor as well. We miss having her at home. Today was ok…some ups and some downs. I taught Misty how to play checkers – that was an up. She had some trouble but caught on pretty well.  

Today was pretty ok. We are missing our little girl, who is still at Misty’s parents’ place since she’s still coughing. Things were ok here…not much to report. Got a couple nice visits today. I’m working on AoH stuff tonight, so not much of an update. I’ll think of something fun to write for tomorrow :)

Today was ok. Misty wasn’t so much depressed, but was still kinda in a foggy state. She’s been slower to respond to questions and has been sleeping more. I’m not worried, but if God didn’t already prove to me that he was in the middle of this mess, I might be. Please pray that she is back to her fun self soon (and of course, that she is restored to full health!). We see our new general practitioner on monday. I’m hoping that goes well also. Olivia is sick…so she is at Misty’s parents place. I won’t let anyone who has even seen a sick person near misty right now…even my daughter :)

My sister in-law, Genevieve, is part of the core team working on Anthem of Hope (there are about 7 of us who work on this at some level each day). Please read the note below from her. It is important.

While this project is under construction, it is pivotal to its success that is covered in abundant prayer. We are calling for people who will not only support this endeavor through prayer, but will truly share its vision. With that said, we are putting together a dynamic prayer team which will include a leader who will further delegate specific prayer needs while keeping the group accountable and updated. If you can dedicate time everyday to cover this project in prayer, please contact me at prayer@anthemofhope.com. Also, it is just as critical that those who want to be part of the prayer-team share the faith that Darren has expressed over the last few months- that God not only can heal but He will heal. You do not need to be perfect in the slightest, you just need to have that child like faith that Abraham had. This call for a prayer team is not to discourage others from praying, nor is it to suggest that others prayers aren’t important or valuable. We ask and encourage everyone reading to remember this project in their prayers. The team is simply an avenue to ensure that the project is consistently being covered in prayer.

One goal of the project is to encourage and equip those who are ill with the faith of Abraham. For further reading, this is how Paul explains it in the book of Romans, chapter 4: abrahamsfaith.pdf

Thank you in advance for you support.

-Genevieve LeBlanc